00:00:00.00
Talal K
like I need to check your, wait, wait, wait. Check that you're on the right mic. Give your mic a tap for me, please. Nice. What about mine? Does this sound good?

00:00:09.73
alexei sayle
yeah

00:00:10.23
Talal K
Does that sound like it's the mic? Okay, good. All right then, whenever you're ready.

00:00:16.60
alexei sayle
hey everybody welcome to episode 122 of the alexis l podcast uh the week of it's thursday the 16th of april now and um

00:00:28.58
Talal K
16th of April.

00:00:33.24
alexei sayle
things are poor slightly in the Gulf, of the Gulf of the Gulf of Hummus, uh,

00:00:38.97
Talal K
all right yeah

00:00:42.26
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:00:42.88
alexei sayle
uh, which is, you know, where the world's and that's the, that's being held up. Obviously the Iranians are bombed, but the, well, the, the, um, so named because that is where all the world's supplies of hummus, uh, come from. And, um,

00:00:55.93
alexei sayle
So ah Turkish mezza restaurants are running very low for us and um substitutes are being served. Liver pate, porridge, gravel.

00:01:09.58
Talal K
They're going started at the Waitrose riots.

00:01:12.82
alexei sayle
Yes, people in waiters are... ah

00:01:17.96
Talal K
Freaking out.

00:01:18.35
alexei sayle
rioting because they can't they can't get the supplies of what going to do for their weekend dips, where their for their book groups and for their parties because the Straits of Hormuz are completely blocked by the Iranians.

00:01:32.52
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

00:01:35.26
alexei sayle
um All right.

00:01:35.70
Talal K
I did a shop at Morrison's the other day. How how often do you do a Morrison's shop?

00:01:40.68
alexei sayle
They used to have a very nice a branch up in Camden Town with a vast amount of parking.

00:01:47.67
Talal K
Ooh.

00:01:47.70
alexei sayle
But they closed it down, sold off all the land for housing, I think, and now there's a shitty one. Near just by the Roundhouse where we're doing our... Are we announcing that yet?

00:01:56.58
Talal K
Ooh.

00:01:57.67
alexei sayle
No.

00:01:58.14
Talal K
Oh, fuck it.

00:01:58.81
alexei sayle
ah keep forgetting.

00:01:58.95
Talal K
We're going to do the Roundhouse, 2nd of August, matinee. live show, we won't we won't go all the way and announce the guests just yet, but we got a very special guest.

00:02:03.99
alexei sayle
Live Live podcast. All right, all right, all right. Anyway, that would be where we'd go for our... If the if the the supplies of... Yeah, so anyway, you went...

00:02:15.20
alexei sayle
why What did you think about Morrisons?

00:02:16.72
Talal K
Morrison's, ah so surprise i I've been a few times and I'm always like pleasantly surprised. It's good, it's really nice. And, you know, it's not as expensive as your Sainsbury's or whatever, but or of but the hummus was very good.

00:02:30.07
alexei sayle
No. What would be your... what would be your The homeless are very good.

00:02:35.29
Talal K
The hummus was really nice.

00:02:35.51
alexei sayle
What would be your list of supermarkets?

00:02:42.20
alexei sayle
Because I have to say, well, mine would be probably be number one, Booth's, which is a northern chain, of course.

00:02:50.26
Talal K
Oh, yeah.

00:02:50.51
alexei sayle
and there's ah But, I mean, there's one near our relatives in Ormskirk, which I just think is fabulous. So that would give him...

00:02:59.95
Talal K
It's the Waitrose of the North, isn't it?

00:03:01.75
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:02.74
Talal K
Yeah, yeah. There's one in Knutsford that I've been to.

00:03:03.58
alexei sayle
And then my number two would be, I have to say Waitrose, really, because just because my local one. Number three, I'd say that Asda we like.

00:03:12.50
Talal K
Yeah, the Old Kent Road Asda.

00:03:13.85
alexei sayle
Yeah, okay, and Asda in general.

00:03:16.22
Talal K
We should get matching Old Kent Road Asda tattoos.

00:03:16.61
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:03:19.32
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. yeah

00:03:22.17
Talal K
You and me. Our cars. ah Both of our cars.

00:03:25.59
alexei sayle
yeah

00:03:26.58
Talal K
You're my Vauxhall. You're, what is it?

00:03:27.74
alexei sayle
ah Citroën.

00:03:30.38
Talal K
Citroën parked in the asde park petols pay as petrol station with these amazing with the diesel price and the petrol price.

00:03:33.18
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. yeah i'm still Yeah. I'm still running around. Yeah. I'm still running on the... Because I don't really go very far in my car.

00:03:44.74
alexei sayle
I'm still running around on diesel I bought before the tax on the Straits of Hummus.

00:03:47.76
Talal K
Yeah.

00:03:50.84
Talal K
This is how the war affects us.

00:03:52.25
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:03:52.74
Talal K
I filled up my car and haven't touched it. I've just left it there in case I'm waiting for Armageddon when I have to flee to the countryside.

00:03:55.48
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:03:59.64
alexei sayle
yeah it's not beyond the bounds of possibility so i'd say booth so that's a bit of an affectation because obviously i only shop there like once a year um waitrose then asda and the german ones i've got no i always get little and um aldi mixed up really so i'm not sure about them and then

00:04:22.69
Talal K
Lidl little has kind of gone up its own ass and is it's, I think it's a bit hoity-toity now.

00:04:32.63
alexei sayle
Is it? All right.

00:04:33.24
Talal K
Aldi is where it's at. That makes my top three.

00:04:36.20
alexei sayle
All right. Okay.

00:04:37.26
Talal K
Aldi,

00:04:37.48
alexei sayle
right.

00:04:38.04
Talal K
ah o see your list is quite bourgeois, which is upsetting.

00:04:43.32
alexei sayle
I know. Well, like i'm not trying but I'm not trying to hide that, you know. I can't. I'm not going to pretend, you know.

00:04:47.42
Talal K
you're Too tired.

00:04:49.56
alexei sayle
Yeah. I'm not going to pretend a cost cutter.

00:04:51.03
Talal K
you Bring your Aldi shopping bags to bring your Costco shopping bags to wait shows.

00:04:53.55
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:57.56
Talal K
um But ah my my bourgeois choice um is Sainsbury's is in my top three, just because it's my local.

00:05:05.98
alexei sayle
I don't like Sainsbury's. Yeah.

00:05:09.02
Talal K
But just because if you've got the, oh God, this turned into an advert, but if you've got the Nectar card, it's outrageous. And they, all the supermarkets obviously have their own members club or whatever the card is they have, which just kind of gains you access to prices that you're makes your shop so much better.

00:05:17.59
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:05:26.71
Talal K
better.

00:05:27.51
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:05:27.80
Talal K
ah The Sainsbury's, yeah, the nectar deals on Sainsbury's are what keeps bringing me back, to be honest.

00:05:30.15
alexei sayle
Really, Linda, Linda, obviously.

00:05:32.56
Talal K
But the fruit and veg, you'd expect it to be better, but it's not amazing.

00:05:32.68
alexei sayle
Really? Linda Handel's not

00:05:36.34
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:05:37.95
Talal K
Aldi has amazing fruit and veg. Morrison's is top notch, and their deli, their nice homemade, like, cheeses and hummuses and olives is is nice.

00:05:48.63
alexei sayle
And they they used to have, in in the one in Camden Town, which they had this thing where it blew a kind of mist.

00:05:49.37
Talal K
It's climbing the ranks.

00:05:57.46
Talal K
On the veggies, yeah.

00:05:57.75
alexei sayle
introduced over the veggies. I'd never seen that before. And they took it out pretty quickly. the Obviously, the clientele reacted badly to it, which I thought really he was a critique of the people at Camden Town.

00:06:07.53
Talal K
That's weird.

00:06:08.44
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:06:08.76
Talal K
Making their fingers pruney.

00:06:10.94
alexei sayle
Yeah, but I thought it was just such a nice...

00:06:11.65
Talal K
Come on.

00:06:14.26
Talal K
um

00:06:14.36
alexei sayle
a nice effect.

00:06:15.38
Talal K
Yeah. And the Morrisons, our local one in Camberwell, has its own butchers and fishmongers, which is just.

00:06:23.93
alexei sayle
right.

00:06:25.94
Talal K
It's so much better, isn't it? When you can. Well, anyway.

00:06:27.99
alexei sayle
Yeah, I'd go.

00:06:28.82
Talal K
um

00:06:29.12
alexei sayle
I mean, I see Sainsbury's would be my least favorite out of five. Yeah.

00:06:33.51
Talal K
It's the locality for me.

00:06:33.63
alexei sayle
Right. yeah

00:06:35.45
Talal K
And I used to go with my dad every weekend to Sainsbury's growing up. So there's a bit of nostalgia in it for me. But it's wearing off. The locality really does it for me. And and we and ah you mentioned, ah wait, and I was gonna, because I brought up my Vauxhall, something weird happened. I got something in the post. Have you ever had this?

00:06:57.73
Talal K
I've got a 2007 Vauxhall Astra.

00:07:00.47
alexei sayle
yeah

00:07:01.88
Talal K
And I got a letter from Vauxhall in the post.

00:07:05.78
alexei sayle
Product recall.

00:07:07.00
Talal K
Yeah. And they're going to change the airbags because they're deadly, apparently.

00:07:14.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:07:17.06
Talal K
I've never seen that.

00:07:19.11
alexei sayle
I've never had a product. You'd think with Citroen because they're pretty shunky that you would have a product. tree I've never had a product recall now. You're lucky, I guess.

00:07:28.22
Talal K
guess I'm lucky. But then they couldn't give me an appointment for like three months. i'm like, what? I'm so driving in this death trap.

00:07:32.60
alexei sayle
What happens if you have a crash? Yeah.

00:07:36.41
Talal K
I can't find a letter right now, but it's all letterheaded with the red Vauxhall logo.

00:07:40.50
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:07:40.98
Talal K
Really weird.

00:07:42.94
alexei sayle
No, well, you know, yeah, congratulations, you're special.

00:07:46.89
Talal K
Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:07:48.44
alexei sayle
I suppose well done to Vauxhall, now part of the Stellantis Combine for tracking you down, I guess.

00:07:59.82
Talal K
Stellantis.

00:08:00.92
alexei sayle
Yes, they're all part Stalant. It's Vauxhall, Opel, obviously, Fiat.

00:08:07.00
Talal K
Renault. No.

00:08:08.79
alexei sayle
No, Renault's not part of Stellantis, I don't think.

00:08:11.02
Talal K
Peugeot, Citroën.

00:08:12.47
alexei sayle
Oh, they yes, I suppose Citroen are part of Stellantis, yeah.

00:08:14.44
Talal K
Opel. Dodge. Oh my God, Chrysler?

00:08:17.66
alexei sayle
Yeah, don't. Greisler, yeah.

00:08:19.22
Talal K
Wait, Stellantis owns all of these brands?

00:08:21.43
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:08:23.03
Talal K
What the hell?

00:08:27.10
Talal K
it's There is just like four companies in the world, isn't there?

00:08:30.20
alexei sayle
Well, yeah, certainly motoring. there's There's a lot less than you think. they and they built I mean, the cars have different bodies, but they're all built on the same platforms now. So, yeah you know, your Vauxhall will be the same as a Bourjois or Citroën.

00:08:44.70
alexei sayle
It's the old motoring correspondent in me coming out.

00:08:44.93
Talal K
Alfa Romeo.

00:08:48.09
Talal K
Alfa Romeo Fiat.

00:08:50.36
alexei sayle
Did anybody hear me on BH on Sunday morning on...

00:08:54.29
Talal K
ah Lots of people did.

00:08:56.27
alexei sayle
Oh, right, because i did ah ah reheated some of the conversation we'd had on the podcast.

00:09:01.42
Talal K
What's BH?

00:09:02.96
alexei sayle
It's a programme that runs between 9 and 10 on Radio 4 on a Sunday morning. It's generally hosted by Paddy O'Connell, but it wasn't. He was having a week off or something.

00:09:11.67
Talal K
What does BH stand for?

00:09:13.54
alexei sayle
Broadcasting House.

00:09:15.10
Talal K
And that's also the name of the show.

00:09:17.02
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:09:18.68
Talal K
And, okay, how come you got invited? What was the, is it just a chat?

00:09:21.98
alexei sayle
I don't know. I used to do it regularly.

00:09:24.38
Talal K
Is it just like a casual talking thing?

00:09:26.29
alexei sayle
You review the papers in the last 15 minutes, you review the papers.

00:09:27.61
Talal K
Review Well, Helen messaged us on Instagram. Follow us at Alexis L pod.

00:09:32.18
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:09:33.85
Talal K
Hi, I just wanted to say that I was listening to Alexis yesterday on radio for, I think the world this weekend. Well, no, it was BH.

00:09:40.55
alexei sayle
that was BH.

00:09:41.42
Talal K
Okay.

00:09:41.85
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:09:43.22
Talal K
And it's the first time I've ever heard anyone air on air articulate my views on the space mission. It was very encouraging to hear this and feel that my views might be shared by other people. Thank you also for quoting YT on the moon.

00:09:56.15
Talal K
which I had not come across before. I find it baffling that more people don't share this point of view. It's good to have a counterpoint to the wall-to-wall space exploration obsession that the media has had over the latest mission.

00:10:06.60
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:10:09.37
Talal K
Thanks, Helen. Thanks, Helen. um

00:10:12.44
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, I think there is much more anti-astronautism than It's just one of those positions you're supposed to, it's a given within our kind of media that everybody loves space travel, right? And sort of views that contradict that of ah kind of, you know, kind of not not allowed really.

00:10:35.81
Talal K
And did you also talk on Palestine, Lebanon?

00:10:40.39
alexei sayle
I didn't really. I didn't get a chance to. I did have a story. I mean, you you actually get very little time. There's three of you. The other one was Peter Hitchens. um Actually, right-wing Daily Mail columnist, but somebody who I often agree with.

00:10:54.65
alexei sayle
And a much better person than his his dickhead brother, Christopher.

00:10:54.68
Talal K
o

00:10:59.48
alexei sayle
My brother. um And the other one was actually a daughter of a friend of mine, Anna Chesinski. Actually, i didn't realise until afterwards. Yeah.

00:11:10.62
alexei sayle
daughter of the late Andre Chosinski. um And so we didn't really have enough time. I did have an Israel, you know, about Israel obliterating villages.

00:11:23.47
alexei sayle
and I did have a story lined up, but we never got to it really. So...

00:11:30.39
Talal K
Okay. Well, people seem pleased that you were on there um and voicing, you know, the opinions of our side.

00:11:34.55
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:39.64
alexei sayle
she like I mean, I was just... Yeah, no, it was in interesting. The last time I did, it was years ago. i mean, it was before the genocide, really. and i thought I thought I was on some kind of blacklist, you know, because of Anna. But there was a nice researcher called Natasha who just... He'd emailed me a few times about what's happened a few times about whether I wanted to come on and...

00:12:02.26
alexei sayle
I hadn't been able to do it. And then, you know, finally I could do that date last Sunday. um And so maybe they'll maybe they'll have me back a few more times.

00:12:14.94
Talal K
Fingers crossed. Well done, comrade.

00:12:17.46
alexei sayle
ah Thank you.

00:12:19.38
Talal K
Bringing the fight to the front lines. Even our supreme leader isn't afraid to lead the charge into battle.

00:12:23.13
alexei sayle
Yes, Leggett.

00:12:26.90
alexei sayle
ah Legacy media. Yeah, it was nice. You know, it was nice.

00:12:33.24
Talal K
I was talking, ah yeah yes, our supermarket conversation reminded me of, I was talking to my landlord the other day. were talking about the war. And him and his wife have been like prepping.

00:12:49.51
alexei sayle
All right.

00:12:50.48
Talal K
They've lined their windows with bomb film stuff, the plastic film that stops your glass from shattering into your living room.

00:12:56.22
alexei sayle
Right.

00:12:59.50
Talal K
They've stocked up on all the cans and they have go bags in their cupboards. And I was shocked and I was sitting there. i ah I really wanted to like have fun with this premise and take the piss a little bit, but you know, it's my landlord and was in shock hearing this.

00:13:13.75
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:13:19.83
Talal K
Because it's such an alien concept. But then, are they... what i was going to get... What do you think, Alexia? Are they smart? What do you think? or are they being...

00:13:26.90
alexei sayle
I suppose, I mean, I think it's worth, I mean, not the not the the blast protection really, but the stocking up. I remember me and Linda had a conversation years ago and I hadn't really thought it through about what we'd stock up on.

00:13:44.16
alexei sayle
Linda? What? What was it I was going to stock up on?

00:13:52.12
alexei sayle
What? Remember we had that conversation about what we... Was... Dough. Dough, yeah. because That was all it was, was tin tuna or kidney bit... Dough. Dough.

00:14:07.10
alexei sayle
Yeah, I had a plan. I thought was going to stock up on...

00:14:08.86
Talal K
All right, Homer.

00:14:10.20
alexei sayle
I was going to stock up on dough. Yeah. I don't know. I hadn't thought it through, really, because, you you know, it's not... I thought dough being in there the sort of ground zero of bread, as it were, that somehow you could ye ye keep it forever and then bake bakeed loaves as and when you needed them.

00:14:18.58
Talal K
ah

00:14:24.47
Talal K
oh

00:14:33.35
Talal K
Stock up on fucking flour.

00:14:35.61
alexei sayle
Well, flour would, yeah, that would make more sense, I suppose.

00:14:35.83
Talal K
Not dough. It dough goes off quite quick, doesn't it?

00:14:39.86
alexei sayle
But i hadn't I hadn't thought it through. that's I think it was sit tin kidney... I don't know, kidney beans and dough, I think, it was what I was planning to stock up on.

00:14:53.72
alexei sayle
Which, you know, didn't really make...

00:14:55.77
Talal K
When was this?

00:14:57.37
alexei sayle
This was just a few years, quite a few years ago. We were just having a conversation about, you know... But we have... I mean, we have... I mean, we we have quite a lot we have quite we have quite a lot of stuff in the cupboards. I think I'll be living on, you know, stuff like hampers you get sent at Christmas and stuff. Well, I get sent anyway. You probably do.

00:15:18.49
alexei sayle
So I'll be living on like Faulkner and Mason's date and ginger chutney. You'll be down to that by about week two.

00:15:26.87
alexei sayle
I think I'll probably get all anxious and eat everything right away. But, yeah, I think it makes sense to... um You know, have a stock up on comestibles.

00:15:38.07
Talal K
I don't think it's and there's any harm to it, is there? um

00:15:41.21
alexei sayle
No.

00:15:42.01
Talal K
I just wish I had, like, I'm in a tiny one bed.

00:15:42.30
alexei sayle
If you've got the space.

00:15:44.49
Talal K
Yeah, i't I wish, if I had a larder, I'd have loads of tins in there, obviously, yeah.

00:15:44.89
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:15:48.34
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:15:49.27
Talal K
And a big sack of flour and all that. But ah it's also...

00:15:51.77
alexei sayle
mean, if if the balloon goes up, you should fill the bath and obviously have your receptacle with water before the water goes up.

00:15:59.58
Talal K
Oh.

00:16:01.14
alexei sayle
Would be a tip there.

00:16:04.18
Talal K
Yeah.

00:16:06.74
Talal K
Oh, yeah, they also told me they um

00:16:11.18
Talal K
they put hydrogen peroxide in their water before drinking it.

00:16:16.14
alexei sayle
That doesn't sound like a good idea, but...

00:16:18.92
Talal K
I said, isn't that bleach? And they said, no, it's not bleach. I said, okay. It doesn't sound, there's too many, if something has an X in it, I'm not putting it in water, basically.

00:16:27.32
alexei sayle
No.

00:16:28.41
Talal K
um But ah yeah, they had, there was apparently water issues in their area. um

00:16:34.33
alexei sayle
Okay.

00:16:34.33
Talal K
But yeah. ah

00:16:36.81
alexei sayle
I suppose other thing is a weapon, or any other element.

00:16:37.12
Talal K
Prepping.

00:16:39.77
Talal K
and wish I had the space. Yeah, if we're in America, you know, everyone gets and you don't live in a big city. And even here, if you're in the countryside, this land is a lot cheaper, isn't it?

00:16:51.46
Talal K
I'd love to have a fucking little house in the country and I have a shed full of guns and cans and go bags.

00:16:59.54
alexei sayle
but

00:17:02.14
Talal K
Yeah.

00:17:02.26
alexei sayle
Okay.

00:17:04.38
Talal K
Oh. yeahp ooh Yeah, maybe we should build a little bunker in your patio as well.

00:17:14.55
alexei sayle
Yeah. no i tin out I'm not letting you in.

00:17:20.31
Talal K
um Okay, that's that's that topic. Well done on BH.

00:17:25.50
alexei sayle
and

00:17:28.31
Talal K
ah Supermarkets, yeah.

00:17:28.34
alexei sayle
Thank you. supermarket, booths, and that's, well, that's all booths, that's an affected choice, but then it be would be Waitrose.

00:17:32.64
Talal K
Boots.

00:17:35.69
alexei sayle
I'm not going to lie to you people. I mean, I'm going to say Waitrose because, you know, because that is where I do most of my shopping. Waitrose, and then, um and this, we've got some good little, you know, i mean, they flourished during COVID, didn't they? The little corner stores, really.

00:17:53.35
alexei sayle
We've got some excellent ones on the grazing road.

00:17:56.92
Talal K
Yeah, good for your ah bits and bobs, of course.

00:17:57.08
alexei sayle
um So, yeah. So, yeah, number two, general South Asian-run convenience store.

00:18:08.21
alexei sayle
So, Waitrose, did I say Waitrose?

00:18:11.44
Talal K
You've said Waitrose a few times now.

00:18:12.83
alexei sayle
Asda, and then the Chainsbury's at the bottom of my list.

00:18:19.90
alexei sayle
We had quite a funny conversation. I've been trying to actually get it... it' this Yeah, there was a big, near my mum's on Park Road, there's a gigantic 24-hour um Tesco's.

00:18:35.35
alexei sayle
I was thinking about this the other night. there was My mother, towards the end of her life, obviously had incontinence issues. And remember being in Waitrose about 1 a.m. or something in Park Road, buying, like, plastic bags and disinfectant.

00:18:53.56
alexei sayle
they looked very It looked very yeah it looked very yeah suspicious, really.

00:18:56.82
Talal K
Mmm, sus.

00:18:59.84
Talal K
Mmm.

00:19:01.50
alexei sayle
But the other thing was, i had a conversation with my friend Harry, my late friend Harry, and he said um that Tesco's was actually built on the site of a big hospital Liverpool, which I didn't know in Liverpool, and he said,

00:19:17.40
alexei sayle
myos right my father died in the house My father died in that Tesco.

00:19:22.37
Talal K
Shit.

00:19:23.29
alexei sayle
mother Sort of interesting way to say it, really, you know.

00:19:28.73
Talal K
Jesus.

00:19:28.79
alexei sayle
And somebody else who was with us said, out am ah yes, I had a miscarriage in that Tesco. Um...

00:19:35.58
Talal K
Clean up on aisle three.

00:19:36.85
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah. well just i don't know this note I've never been able to make it work as a kind of idea, really, but there's something, you know, that the spirits of what used to be there it's still inhabit the tescoes in you know.

00:19:49.53
alexei sayle
I don't know. But, yeah.

00:19:53.74
Talal K
What's there?

00:19:53.91
alexei sayle
I can't remember.

00:19:55.90
Talal K
You ever seen a dead body?

00:19:58.39
alexei sayle
I have, yeah. yeah I saw my mother's dead body, but also I was on a number 30. Have I talked about this? stuff about someone I was on number 30 years ago with the old Rootmaster, and I sort of saw a man sitting...

00:20:12.62
alexei sayle
sittingtin in the reflection of the glass, I thought, I said to him, that man's dying. And he was having a heart attack and there was ah like a Jamaican nurse and she got him on the long seat, you know, at the back, four seats. I was thumping his chest.

00:20:27.78
alexei sayle
The bus stopped. But he was clearly dead. And everybody just legged it off the bus. Didn't hang your around. This poor poor man's wife was there.

00:20:40.65
Talal K
Oh God.

00:20:41.11
alexei sayle
So, yes, and then there also once we... i remember we were... think was still with my parents. We were sailing out of Boulogne or Calais, and they were pulling the dead body out of the parlor there. um So, yeah. Why did you... Yeah.

00:20:58.90
alexei sayle
So, yeah, I've seen a few dead bodies.

00:21:00.66
Talal K
Yeah.

00:21:03.22
alexei sayle
We watched them...

00:21:04.48
Talal K
Just thought of it. I know you mentioned the dead body. Yeah, I know. I thought of my first dead body. like six or seven. Vague memory at the Brentford Leisure Centre.

00:21:19.61
Talal K
Vague memory of this blue figure just floating in the pool. My dad pi picking me up and taking me to the changing rooms.

00:21:23.13
alexei sayle
Shit, really.

00:21:26.76
Talal K
But I was obviously being carried by him. So i was looking over his shoulder and just saw the staff like fishing him out with the net on the long pole, getting his body over to the edge.

00:21:29.72
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:21:36.98
alexei sayle
Somebody had a heart attack rather than drowned.

00:21:37.14
Talal K
That was, I guess, I don't know.

00:21:38.94
alexei sayle
Oh, I don't know.

00:21:39.97
Talal K
He was blue, but yeah.

00:21:41.30
alexei sayle
Right. Cyanotic, I think. Yeah,

00:21:44.75
Talal K
Yeah, always a...

00:21:47.48
Talal K
get You know, that's real life.

00:21:48.86
alexei sayle
it's always are Yeah, yeah.

00:21:49.51
Talal K
It's the real life that we're all numb to.

00:21:53.82
Talal K
Sorry for bringing that up. What were you going to say?

00:21:55.61
alexei sayle
Yeah, that's a real...

00:21:57.14
Talal K
okay

00:21:58.49
alexei sayle
That's going to be a real downer of a podcast, isn't it?

00:22:02.58
Talal K
No, no, we got that supermarket chat in there.

00:22:05.34
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:06.17
Talal K
It's pretty upbeat. Yeah.

00:22:09.21
alexei sayle
But does Peter Crouch still... I watched a fucking ad break the other week, where all the fucking adverts, in all of them featured Peter fucking Crouch.

00:22:20.18
Talal K
but

00:22:20.98
alexei sayle
And every single one, he advertised his fairy fucking... washing shit, and then he also advertises some car.

00:22:26.33
Talal K
popular guy.

00:22:28.28
alexei sayle
It was just all wall-to-wall Peter fucking Crouch.

00:22:31.77
Talal K
He retired from football quite young, didn't he? And and it's ah he's done well for himself.

00:22:34.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:22:36.74
alexei sayle
He's got a podcast, doesn't he? Is his podcast still popular with his microwave?

00:22:40.40
Talal K
I can only imagine so. I don't don't know. He's from my neighborhood. ah and In Ealing, yeah.

00:22:45.18
alexei sayle
Is

00:22:46.94
Talal K
My brother mugged him once.

00:22:49.16
alexei sayle
he? I don't know if you should be admitting that.

00:22:51.10
Talal K
When they were teenagers. Ah, fuck it, they were teens. They were playing football in the park. I think my brother like took his lunch money or something.

00:23:03.13
alexei sayle
and That's why he obsessively makes money now by polluting the ad breaks.

00:23:11.03
Talal K
His sister went to my school and he would pick her up in his um Ferrari or whatever.

00:23:16.25
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:23:16.86
Talal K
like this tiny car and you could see his knees through the window.

00:23:24.89
alexei sayle
Was she very tall as well?

00:23:26.20
Talal K
She was taller than average. Yeah.

00:23:28.22
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:23:28.89
Talal K
And she looked like him with blonde hair, but a nice, really nice girl.

00:23:31.51
alexei sayle
right.

00:23:34.15
Talal K
um And he does ah all the gambling ads as well. and there's lots of gambling ads that are infuriating and just seem to be,

00:23:39.16
alexei sayle
Yeah, evil.

00:23:44.73
Talal K
just wild with a band, you know, just everywhere ah more than ever.

00:23:47.38
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:23:48.94
Talal K
And is there a, there's a story there? I don't know, but I heard that it's something to do with a government payoff or something. They've lowered restrictions on them or something. is that Do you know anything about this?

00:23:58.19
alexei sayle
Probably. as I know, I know that Keir Starmer's election campaign... yeah the where he refused to reveal the donors until after he'd been elected to the Labour Party, that the second biggest contributor were pro-Israel fanatics, people like Sir Trevor Chimbrough.

00:24:18.81
alexei sayle
the The largest, I think this is true, the largest number of, the largest amounts were donated by gambling interests. So make of that what you will.

00:24:28.57
Talal K
There you go That's interesting. Let's try to see any. Well, yeah, but they the labor's seems like looking at the news, a Google search here, labor seems to be wringing their hands about it by not doing anything. They're saying there should be restrictions.

00:24:48.86
alexei sayle
Absolutely. it's and it's you know it's ah it's It's another tax on the poor, isn't it? you don't get fuckinging You don't get paddy power shops and in Virginia Water High Street. or

00:25:01.69
Talal K
No.

00:25:03.32
alexei sayle
We get them in vape shops and bookies in poor people's areas.

00:25:08.32
Talal K
It's true.

00:25:08.68
alexei sayle
It's a plague on the poor.

00:25:09.36
Talal K
it's ah It's a poisonous leech.

00:25:11.83
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:25:13.84
Talal K
All right, Richard in ah on Patreon asks,

00:25:14.03
alexei sayle
it's It's really wrong.

00:25:22.01
Talal K
ah Oh, support the show, please go to patreon.com forward slash Alexis Ale podcast.

00:25:25.66
alexei sayle
Thank you, Richard.

00:25:29.58
Talal K
That's patreon.com forward slash Alexis Ale podcast. Chuck us a couple of quid a month. You can join the chat groups there. You'll be I'll see your questions first and you get to watch the video episodes of this podcast and Alexi reacts every week, which we're going to record as soon as we're done here.

00:25:49.05
Talal K
ah where Alexi reacts to stuff he's done in the past. And they're really fun little video episodes. ah Richard asks in the chat, were radical posture an actual band?

00:26:04.79
alexei sayle
Not really. Well, sort of.

00:26:08.56
Talal K
What's that?

00:26:08.99
alexei sayle
They used to...

00:26:09.00
Talal K
What?

00:26:09.58
alexei sayle
Well, they were... It varied. It's the band... There was a couple of friends of mine, Ali Bogdanos and Jim Bamber, who supported... We were in a band called Studio Two, I think they were called, who supported me on tour.

00:26:24.50
alexei sayle
And then they would back me...

00:26:27.22
Talal K
for like Dr.

00:26:27.32
alexei sayle
i would pretend that they were a Marxist.

00:26:27.98
Talal K
Martin's boots.

00:26:28.96
alexei sayle
Yeah, and Dr. Martin's Boots on... on the young ones, jim and they're augmented by my dear late friend, David Stafford.

00:26:40.31
alexei sayle
but So I used to pretend they were like a Marxist funk band or something like that, but they only existed really, yeah in my imagination, as it were.

00:26:40.41
Talal K
Right.

00:26:50.03
alexei sayle
They never really existed outside stuff I did.

00:26:50.26
Talal K
And the they must have their own band or there was session musicians or something.

00:26:55.68
alexei sayle
Well, Jim and, yeah, Jim and Ari were a band for a while, yeah.

00:27:01.58
Talal K
What's the gag there, radical posture? What am I missing?

00:27:04.44
alexei sayle
It's a kind of... thats I don't know, really. It's just a radical posture. I don't know. That was it, really.

00:27:08.90
Talal K
Okay.

00:27:09.08
alexei sayle
That was the gag.

00:27:10.76
Talal K
All right, yeah.

00:27:11.00
alexei sayle
I Seemed funny in the 80s.

00:27:12.08
Talal K
Just posing, posing as radical.

00:27:14.30
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:27:15.16
Talal K
um He also asks, do you remember your split-second appearance in the video of the Fun Boy 3's The Telephone Always Rings? The Fun Boy 3?

00:27:27.32
alexei sayle
Yeah. I think... um

00:27:30.23
Talal K
The telephone always rings?

00:27:31.74
alexei sayle
i think um I think that was one where they... I think i i um I think I'd just got back from Australia and I terrible jet lag and they rang up and said, you want to be in this video?

00:27:44.70
alexei sayle
So I went, yeah, all right, and just sort of went round there and shot it.

00:27:44.75
Talal K
How did you know them? What do you mean?

00:27:49.05
alexei sayle
And then...

00:27:50.94
Talal K
They were your mates?

00:27:51.30
alexei sayle
I don't know whether I looked...

00:27:51.62
Talal K
How did they ring you up?

00:27:53.82
alexei sayle
Eh?

00:27:54.71
Talal K
They were your mates?

00:27:54.98
alexei sayle
can't remember who rang me up, but it was...

00:27:55.43
Talal K
they Okay.

00:27:56.98
alexei sayle
i remember it being... um

00:28:01.14
alexei sayle
I mean, I remember not talking. I mean, I just remember going in there and doing some stuff, but not really talking. I don't remember talking. I thought was Bananarama, actually, but that's how I'm in the Bananarama video as well.

00:28:13.33
Talal K
I was kind of like a...

00:28:13.85
alexei sayle
I just sort twatted about and then left. I didn't really get to chat to anyone. I mean, there was a big admirer of Terry Hall, obviously. I don't remember talking to anybody, really, or

00:28:29.87
Talal K
I'm scanning through the video, you've yet to show up. They're kind of like a ska reggae act.

00:28:35.67
alexei sayle
Yeah, they were great.

00:28:35.93
Talal K
Or this song is anyway.

00:28:38.55
alexei sayle
o

00:28:40.37
Talal K
Who's Terry Hall, did you say?

00:28:42.23
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:28:43.05
Talal K
Oh, there you are.

00:28:46.30
alexei sayle
What am I doing?

00:28:48.70
Talal K
So far, you've just waved at someone.

00:28:51.29
alexei sayle
ah

00:28:52.09
Talal K
They're doing like a party in their living room, singing and everyone's dancing to the song.

00:28:55.70
alexei sayle
That's right, yeah.

00:28:57.00
Talal K
Oh, there you are as well, you're dancing. You're doing your old head shaky dance.

00:29:02.29
alexei sayle
Christ.

00:29:03.58
Talal K
And the first thing you do is like you wave across the room like you've just arrived at the party.

00:29:06.38
alexei sayle
Right. Yeah.

00:29:08.38
Talal K
And I think we're approaching the end of the video now. That might be it. Just two shots.

00:29:14.55
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:16.36
Talal K
Are you in the wide? You must be in the wide shot here.

00:29:18.87
alexei sayle
ah guess.

00:29:19.92
Talal K
I can't spot you.

00:29:20.02
alexei sayle
It all seemed a bit pointless. um At the time, no, they were brilliant. um I'm trying to think of... Well, he was the lead singer of...

00:29:33.80
alexei sayle
he the...

00:29:36.76
alexei sayle
The Specials, yeah, he was, you know, this town coming like a ghost. And that was Terrier.

00:29:40.09
Talal K
No way.

00:29:41.69
alexei sayle
And then he formed the Fun Boy 3 with couple of the other guys at the Specials, I think. And they were just... ma I can't think of their hits now, but had some amazing

00:29:52.94
Talal K
There's one to look up then. New Wave Pop Band between 1981 and 83. Terry Hall, Neville Staple and Linville Golding after they left the specials.

00:30:04.51
alexei sayle
Yeah. Left the specials, right? Yeah.

00:30:08.81
Talal K
Ah, okay. That changes everything. They've got credentials.

00:30:12.63
alexei sayle
Yes, absolutely.

00:30:14.55
Talal K
Okay. And Richard also are, oh no, that was it. The third question we've covered on this podcast.

00:30:17.18
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:30:20.00
Talal K
Uh, ah James, there's been lots of Vic and Bob chat regarding your shocking statements on Vic and Bob last week.

00:30:31.19
Talal K
ah James asks, I wonder if Alexi and Talal have, thanks for including me, have seen Cateric. I feel like they tried something different and got slapped down for it.

00:30:41.23
Talal K
So you were kind of, to reiterate last week, you were like, ah we you were asked what do you think of Vic and Bob because they also have Dadaist kind of roots.

00:30:50.49
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:30:51.63
Talal K
You know, there was a connection there you brought up how...

00:30:51.90
alexei sayle
yeah

00:30:54.87
Talal K
They irked you at the time. it was a poisonous jealousy but because they were successful and your career was in decline.

00:30:59.56
alexei sayle
Yeah. I wasn't, I was going out fast. Yeah.

00:31:03.29
Talal K
And you also felt like they would do the same joke all the time, every time. But you did really like them when they first started out.

00:31:08.66
alexei sayle
Yeah. i yeah

00:31:12.22
Talal K
um However... I told you that was that was me growing up and loving them to bits. And you said, don't trust anything I say. I was probably just really jealous.

00:31:22.48
Talal K
But yes, so James says, you know they made us they did make a sitcom or kind of as like a drama comedy thing called Caterick,

00:31:28.38
alexei sayle
Yeah, I don't think I watched it again.

00:31:29.98
Talal K
um trying something different and got slapped down for it. i remember it having a much more serious tone. Again, I was like, teenager a young teen?

00:31:42.36
Talal K
A tween, a twink, I don't know what I was when it came out, but ah it had a much more serious tone. I think there was a ghost character. it was like a lead character and he had this ghost who was like on his shoulder all the time.

00:31:50.52
alexei sayle
all right.

00:31:55.36
Talal K
Like, how was it a detective or something?

00:31:58.64
alexei sayle
I don't know.

00:31:59.29
Talal K
You don't know, you don't remember this show.

00:32:01.37
alexei sayle
I remember it being on. I didn didn't watch or anything. I've got nothing interesting to say about it.

00:32:10.20
Talal K
But this idea though that they did try something else and no one really bit and just said, keep doing the thing we like you for.

00:32:10.46
alexei sayle
um

00:32:15.80
alexei sayle
Yeah. No, well, that's... Yeah. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, you know, i talked about how, you know, obviously Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer have got this fishing thing and that's very successful.

00:32:30.04
Talal K
Yeah.

00:32:30.55
alexei sayle
I hope when me and Nigel did de Celebrity Antiques Road Trip that we would, that would somehow lead to me and Nigel doing something together, you know, getting a bit that.

00:32:40.63
Talal K
Yeah.

00:32:41.99
alexei sayle
But see now fucking Adrian Edmondson has got a bird watching show with, can't remember who, so Adrian's,

00:32:48.82
Talal K
Come on.

00:32:52.01
alexei sayle
Adrian's

00:32:55.45
alexei sayle
scooped us. He's found a thing.

00:32:58.81
Talal K
Sam and Ade go birding.

00:33:00.57
alexei sayle
Yeah, with Sam West. It was, ah I think, a you know, Prunella Scales and Sun. I think it's been very good on Palestine, I think. Although I don't see him doing much lately, but I remember seeing him at things in Trafalgar Square um a while back.

00:33:20.95
alexei sayle
But yeah, he's got, so Adrian's got bird watching thing. So me and Nigel have got, I'd share no interest in, you know, with and have no chemistry on-screen chemistry no on-screen chemistry

00:33:33.06
Talal K
You've got to make one up. You have no chemistry. The Alexi, Nigel and Lisa watch the young ones, which there are two episodes of on our Patreon.

00:33:48.74
Talal K
You've got good chemistry there, you and Nigel.

00:33:50.33
alexei sayle
yeah yeah maybe yeah

00:33:52.38
Talal K
But maybe Lisa is the factor that brings it out of you guys. I know she had like the energy and she was like physically sat between you and

00:34:02.20
alexei sayle
Right.

00:34:02.81
Talal K
she had the bit She had all the memories and the the catalyst, the things that made you ah come out of your shells a bit.

00:34:09.53
alexei sayle
Right.

00:34:12.12
alexei sayle
Right.

00:34:12.28
Talal K
Maybe we need a threesome...

00:34:13.88
alexei sayle
Maybe we need to air as well. then when we have to Somebody could suggest, this is to the listeners, somebody could suggest something that me and Nigel and maybe Lisa could fake an interest in, like fishing or birdwatching.

00:34:33.30
Talal K
Send in your suggestions, email us at alexisailpodcast.gmail.com. Message us on Instagram, alexisailpod, or most ah favorably, please join the Patreon, patreon.com forward slash alexisailpodcast.

00:34:47.29
Talal K
And you can message us directly on there as well. um Okay, look, we're over halfway, so let's get into what everyone is chomping at the bit for.

00:34:54.83
alexei sayle
Badge of Evil. ah ne me mi me other don

00:34:57.88
Talal K
but the da da but the be Film Club. This week's Alexi Sales Film Club, your favourite weekly segment is 1958's Touch of Evil, written and directed by Orson Welles.

00:35:17.86
Talal K
It is an adaptation of the novel...

00:35:22.74
alexei sayle
cheviro

00:35:23.38
Talal K
Badge of evil, thank you very much. And also starring Charlton Heston, or Charlton Mexican, as I call him, and Orson Welles and Janet Leigh, the wonderful, beautiful, talented, a tragic role of Janet Leigh.

00:35:31.38
alexei sayle
ah

00:35:41.22
Talal K
Touch of evil, 1958. ninety to fifty eight It's ah okay. ah Can I give a quick summary of what it's about?

00:35:46.42
alexei sayle
Yeah,

00:35:47.32
Talal K
Okay, you've got the ah Mexican narcotics officer and his newlywed wife, the Vargas's, Mr. and Mrs. Vargas, are on their honeymoon crossing the border from Mexico to America when a car bomb goes off ah assassinating a... What was his... think his job was, this guy?

00:36:12.89
Talal K
The Lineker, Mr.

00:36:13.24
alexei sayle
I think was he a property developer or something?

00:36:13.96
Talal K
Lineker.

00:36:15.04
alexei sayle
I can't remember now.

00:36:15.99
Talal K
a rich man and his young sugar baby get blown up in a car.

00:36:17.66
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.

00:36:21.17
Talal K
ah And so Vargas gets embroiled and tied up into this ah case when ah he's on on the scene when it happens. And this ah famous Mexico City detective, Captain Hank Quinlan shows up on the scene played by Orson Welles. And he's got this instinct that everyone is just, he's famed for his gammy leg quivers whenever he has an instinct.

00:36:45.62
Talal K
um a hunch And he seems to always be right. And this leads them off onto a romp around the Mexico-US border, dealing with gangsters, drug dealers um and prostitutes.

00:37:03.86
Talal K
and there is its is there And there's themes of corruption in the police, racism, ah drug use, and in the end, ah well, that's it really.

00:37:18.75
Talal K
um I didn't have it written down, this synopsis, as as you can probably tell.

00:37:21.93
alexei sayle
I know that was a reasonable summation.

00:37:24.02
Talal K
Pretty good, huh?

00:37:24.76
alexei sayle
Yeah, so um I was prompted to suggest this by watching that. There's a second half which we haven't watched, an exhaustive, I think it's arena documentary on Orson Welles, which actually made me like him a lot more so i always thought he was a kind of difficult character, really.

00:37:41.77
alexei sayle
But he seems very self-deprecating.

00:37:42.14
Talal K
e

00:37:44.99
alexei sayle
He obviously had a... A kind of fascinating career in a way, in that he started off really, really a big star when he was quite young and obviously made Cisnes and Cain, which is considered one of the yeah five or ten greatest movies of all time by people who pronounce on these things.

00:38:06.20
alexei sayle
But then kind of either through self-sabotage whatever, really, kind of, um you know, his career then kind of stalled. He also, he had the Project Chimes at Midnight, which was a film which he kind of shot over like,

00:38:25.50
alexei sayle
20 years or stuff so all the actors like get older and the locations change and you know a scene might start off in a in a kind of hammam in a bath in Morocco and then end in a then might suddenly be in a kind catacomb in Turin and then be in a

00:38:28.66
Talal K
oh

00:38:41.49
Talal K
Tesco in Liverpool.

00:38:42.20
alexei sayle
Yeah, exactly, a bedsit in Cheshire. um so um So that, but ah so but he I think Charlton Heston, threw at a low point in his career anyway, Charlton Heston, I think, had this project and um insisted that Orson Welles both...

00:39:06.94
alexei sayle
direct and write it. And it is remarkable for several things. First of all, there is, which was then unheard of, there's a three minute tracking shot, a single shot in which you see the bomb being planted in the boot of this car. Then they get in it and then they drive, you know, across to the Mexican border and they're stopped. And it's also interwoven with a lot of crowd action and also with the the camera moves around ah lot, I guess on a crane.

00:39:37.14
Talal K
Yeah, it's on a crane.

00:39:37.68
alexei sayle
It's very smooth. And you see the bits of dialogue with um Charlton Heston and his new wife, but janely all in this single shot. And then the,

00:39:48.47
alexei sayle
the car pulls up at the border and there's conversation and then theyre go into it and then the car goes back into the United States and the car blows up in a separate shot. But it's ah it's the longest tracking shot in the history of film up until that point. and obviously you couldn't fake it. It had to be done. And I know there's a story, I think, that Wells tells that the the border guard kept getting his lines wrong. And if you look, it's actually dawn.

00:40:14.36
alexei sayle
You can see the sun coming up when they... they finally got a shot. He just said to him, say whatever you want, just make sure they go through. susan um because it So I think he took all night, but it's actually dawn when that shot is. But it's an extraordinary. And then there's some other extraordinary shots, just amazing. There's a scene where they're just driving an open-top car, and again, it's is's like a crane shot, but they're just kind of hurtling through these back alleys.

00:40:41.82
Talal K
Yeah, and the camera's shaking.

00:40:42.33
alexei sayle
And the... Yeah, but moving just ahead of them. And it's utterly unique. nothing like and not and obviously lots of kind of um ah kind of heavy, stark lighting that Wells is very proud of. and ah you used And kind of off-tilter, you know, sort of not the cameras kind of tilted.

00:41:03.88
alexei sayle
There's a lot of that stuff. And then the performance, I mean, he his performance is Hank Quinlan, the detective. It's very unflattering. He's fat and wheezy and a drunk. And um it's a very um compelling performance.

00:41:14.65
Talal K
Yeah.

00:41:20.18
alexei sayle
um you know, and yeah there is a, I mean, I think, I mean, the version that we get to see is not bad, but I think there probably is a more, there's a more interesting film, which the, because the studio butchered, I think, the cut that we get to see if we rent it from a streamer.

00:41:37.94
alexei sayle
But it's still a very complex, Hank Quinlan's a very complex character. And of course, there's my there's Marlene and Dietrich in a kind of cameo as a kind of brothel owner um who has the final line, you know.

00:41:50.97
alexei sayle
um And it's there's some kind of a man, yeah.

00:41:51.99
Talal K
He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?

00:41:58.14
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's just an extraordinary film. I think it was actually filmed in Dublin for Mexico. I think it is Venice Beach. in Los Angeles, I think, that kind of Italianate, weird Italianate architecture.

00:42:08.23
Talal K
Oh.

00:42:13.88
alexei sayle
And obviously the border then, I guess, they just sort of walk between. There's just a hut, really, with some military piece.

00:42:20.09
Talal K
Yeah, very casual border.

00:42:21.35
alexei sayle
They just walk between. There's also one of my favorite kind subplots. There's ah an actor called Dennis Weaver. and And Dennis Weaver was, he was at a TV series, I think called Gunsmoke, which he played Marshall Dillon, which was a big hit on TV in the 50s.

00:42:39.63
alexei sayle
But he also, star Dennis Weaver also stars in the first film that Steven Spielberg directed.

00:42:39.89
Talal K
I'm a Bonanza man myself.

00:42:48.28
alexei sayle
which is a movie called Jewel. In fact, we could also watch that. and I remember we saw, it was made as a telly movie, but it was um it was then, it was so remarkable. And Spielberg was, I don't know if he was even 20 when he directed it.

00:43:04.57
alexei sayle
It is based on a Richard Matheson science fiction short story about this man who is menaced for no reason by this kind of truck that just...

00:43:19.62
alexei sayle
Dennis Weaver plays the guy, the salesman, and it's ah it's a... it's I remember we didn't know who Spielberg was as anything or anything. or remember we saw it and what we'd heard about it or something went to see it in the cinema.

00:43:31.55
alexei sayle
It is a truly remarkable film for such a young...

00:43:34.78
Talal K
I've heard good things about this dual film, yeah.

00:43:36.91
alexei sayle
Duel, yeah, it's really interesting. um um So, a little knowing that...

00:43:42.58
Talal K
Looks cool. But this Dennis Weaver, man, this he was like the ham of the movie. his He was overacting.

00:43:48.28
alexei sayle
He's really... Linda said he's...

00:43:49.11
Talal K
He was such a weird character.

00:43:49.47
alexei sayle
that Yeah, that's what Linda said. He was... ah Yeah.

00:43:53.26
Talal K
He was the night manager of the motel in which Janet Leigh ends up getting um having her own little side adventure in.

00:43:55.03
alexei sayle
Yeah. I always think that...

00:44:00.15
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:00.76
Talal K
because she's stuck in this motel on her own and this in a honeymoon but this guy seemed clearly is like mentally disturbed or or something but has it's just so over egging

00:44:02.90
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:11.92
alexei sayle
That's what Linda said. I don't mind his performance, but it is very, very over the top.

00:44:14.65
Talal K
it it's comical but when he's doing scenes with Heston it's very very ah and and when he's doing scenes with Janet and they're side by side it's so evident like it it's like he's in a different film a different movie

00:44:24.92
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:44:27.99
alexei sayle
I guess he's been told to do that, but it stinks in hair. That's always, i still think I still think that to myself, but it stinks in hair.

00:44:37.88
Talal K
She stayed here. She stayed here. okay And over egging it too were the drug heads. This guy who'd like done a bit of weed or I guess they said mainlining, but I don't think he was on heroin.

00:44:46.42
alexei sayle
yeah

00:44:54.04
Talal K
in that scene, I think it just, it was like Reefer Madness time, wasn't it?

00:44:56.76
alexei sayle
yeah yeah

00:44:57.32
Talal K
And they these guys, these potheads were acting insane and just vibrating and jump, unable to be still, which is the opposite of what weed does to you.

00:45:02.17
alexei sayle
yeah

00:45:04.82
alexei sayle
yeah

00:45:09.87
Talal K
It makes you very still. But this guy's just jumping like that, ah which I found hilarious.

00:45:11.42
alexei sayle
yeah

00:45:15.88
Talal K
i Just to go back to that opening shot, I just have to note, I have to commend how even by today's standards,

00:45:15.93
alexei sayle
yeah

00:45:23.45
Talal K
ah that's That, I'm sure, set the bar for tracking shots because it tells so much story and so much story is told through the movement of the camera and not just by words.

00:45:30.87
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:33.59
alexei sayle
yeah Exactly. Yeah.

00:45:35.80
Talal K
And from the very first frame, which is the close-up on the bomb and the guy setting the timer, it's perfection. And the way it weaves and moves so smoothly is really technically impressive, but...

00:45:50.01
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:45:50.46
Talal K
ah brings your attention to different elements of the story in perfect timing and it's just it is mind-blowing and the the lighting you mentioned it was this the dawn was I noticed that the the dawn it was sunrise but um I also noticed throughout the film several shots were shot a day for night they call it so

00:46:13.06
alexei sayle
Right, yeah.

00:46:14.07
Talal K
they They obviously shot it during the day and then added a filter to make it look like night, even though you could see like the reflection of the sun on the car bonnet and stuff like that.

00:46:14.80
alexei sayle
Put a filter on the, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00:46:23.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:23.62
Talal K
So I wonder if there was a matter of logistics there as ah as well, why they did a lot of that.

00:46:23.89
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:27.69
alexei sayle
Well, it was shot very much on a shoestring, I think. So...

00:46:31.00
Talal K
Right. And shooting at night is difficult and expensive, isn't it?

00:46:34.26
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:34.81
Talal K
um Can we talk about Charlton's brown face a little bit?

00:46:38.95
alexei sayle
No, yeah, yeah, that is...

00:46:40.20
Talal K
Yes, that's the one kind of thing you have to... Ignore, because it is ah it's a questionable choice.

00:46:44.06
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:46:46.75
Talal K
And Charlton was famously really right wing dude, wasn't he?

00:46:50.18
alexei sayle
Mmm. Yeah.

00:46:51.16
Talal K
So I found that odd that he's doing this shocking interracial relationship where the male is the foreign guy.

00:46:56.46
alexei sayle
Mmm.

00:46:57.69
Talal K
That is so rare. Normally, if you have an interracial relationship in film and TV, even till today, it's so rare that the man is the ethnic person.

00:47:01.66
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:47:07.17
Talal K
It's always the woman.

00:47:07.67
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:47:08.79
Talal K
But here you have

00:47:09.04
alexei sayle
He's the district attorney, isn't he? I think in in Mexico City or something. He's well-connected.

00:47:13.03
Talal K
He's the chairman of the Pan American Narcotics Commission is what his job position is.

00:47:17.26
alexei sayle
Oh, okay. All right. Right.

00:47:19.61
Talal K
and And he's an amazing performer in this, but his me his Spanish is very bad. I think use you speak better Spanish than him.

00:47:26.90
alexei sayle
He's Spanish, he's very bad, yes.

00:47:29.90
Talal K
Your accent is much better.

00:47:31.16
alexei sayle
with that see Adam

00:47:32.50
Talal K
But what do you think about that? how do you do Do you see that as an issue? Does that ah break the reality of the film for you, seeing Charlton Heston ground up?

00:47:40.63
alexei sayle
it does a little I think I mean you just note it and then move on I think but it's obviously you know it's of its it's of its time the movie so you know that um you know Well, that's a whole debate, isn't it, applying the moral moral standards of today to things of the past.

00:47:55.61
Talal K
but foot

00:48:01.62
alexei sayle
you know it ah it's sort of a It also plays into that conversation we had last week about whether you listen to you know Wagner or watch the films of Woody Allen or you know

00:48:10.84
Talal K
Kanye.

00:48:15.03
Talal K
Kanye West.

00:48:16.12
alexei sayle
Kanye West, yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:48:18.87
Talal K
But the fact that he's such a right-wing person, Charlton Heston, he was famously, you know, you he would have been a he would have been a MAGA today, you know.

00:48:22.10
alexei sayle
o

00:48:25.58
alexei sayle
NRA. Yeah.

00:48:28.69
Talal K
um But here he is portraying a Mexican with a beautiful white American wife, ah being the hero of ah of a movie, which is awesome.

00:48:38.94
alexei sayle
Yeah. I don't know whether he, I don't know much about him, whether he became more right wing in later life, whether he was always right.

00:48:44.47
Talal K
Oh, that's a good point.

00:48:45.32
alexei sayle
mean, the fact that he was friends with Orson Welles, he was, I mean, was not, I mean, Wells never got caught up, I don't think, in the House America. I mean, he was never accused of communism or anything, although he would have been working at the time of McCarthy, I guess. As far as I know, he didn't fall foul of McCarthy. But he was, i mean, I would have thought he was politically a progressive, really.

00:49:07.45
Talal K
And it would this would have been his Hollywood lovey darling years, wouldn't it? He would have just been ah Charlton.

00:49:13.06
alexei sayle
Wells or Charlton.

00:49:13.83
Talal K
Charlton, I mean, Charlton Heston.

00:49:14.86
alexei sayle
Yeah, he but I mean, he was he's a big star then, wasn't he? He was massive.

00:49:22.33
Talal K
um

00:49:25.14
Talal K
he I was annoyed at him for leaving his wife alone in that motel for so long.

00:49:31.06
alexei sayle
I know, it's really, a yeah, it's really, um you it does make you kind of anxious, doesn't it Because he is so he drives past her at one point and she's shouting at him from the the hotel room and stuff, yeah.

00:49:41.50
Talal K
Yeah.

00:49:44.03
alexei sayle
It doesn't entirely make sense, you know, things that happen there, but it's maybe in the longer cut, than everything is explained.

00:49:53.94
Talal K
So you mentioned ah Orson's directing style and it is groundbreaking. You know, it's it's outrageous that he existed at the time he did when I'm sure if you put other films of the time side by side with this, even films in this...

00:50:02.42
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:50:10.49
Talal K
later in the 60s and stuff, the creativity of the of the the camera camera shots. And you'd think it's needless.

00:50:20.69
Talal K
you know There's a fight scene he's having with ah Grandy ah when Orson Welles himself, he's about to murder the the gang leader, Grandy.

00:50:30.14
alexei sayle
Yeah, Mexican guy, yeah.

00:50:33.72
Talal K
And Grandy's trying to escape out of a window and Orson, all he's doing is crossing the room to approach him and he's gonna grab him from the window. yeah But they choose this shot, which is slightly at a Dutch angle, like you mentioned before, but also there's this low bit of the roof. There's this bit of the roof that comes down at an angle and it makes, it forces the character to hunch over as he's coming towards the camera.

00:51:00.92
Talal K
And it just adds, There was no need for that. They could have shot a different part of the room. We could have had him just walking normally, but that little motion that he makes, cause he's like you said, he's so hideous.

00:51:06.97
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:51:11.22
Talal K
He's such an unflattering character. These big bags under his eyes. You can almost smell the alcohol coming off, but that choice just to have them like have to hunch over, which makes him lean towards the cat, makes it so much more menacing and shows you this angle of him and shows you also that cause he's a disabled character.

00:51:21.91
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:51:27.26
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:51:27.54
Talal K
But in this one scene, he overpowers and kills a man, you know, and it shows you that he is still fearsome and strong and all that. and and agile enough to know, you know, dodge these are obstacles. And I wrote down here, like this movie is like a Coen brothers movie.

00:51:43.10
alexei sayle
Yes.

00:51:43.32
Talal K
You know, the the dialogue is snappy. the The bit players, characters who are in it for like one or two scenes or even just have a couple of lines, they all have something interesting about them.

00:51:53.37
alexei sayle
yes

00:51:53.40
Talal K
These fun, quirky characters. Again, there's no need to do that. Any other film would just have, oh, just have Bill come in and say the line.

00:52:00.18
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:52:00.77
Talal K
Orson's like, what can we make different about this guy? What makes him interesting? Even though he's got one or two lines. And that's a very Cohen-esque thing. Well, they're Orson-esque, I guess.

00:52:09.50
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:52:10.54
Talal K
and And some of the dialogue is overlapping even, and there's two different conversations.

00:52:14.42
alexei sayle
lot of overlapping dialogue. Yeah. Yeah.

00:52:16.76
Talal K
And a scene will have two different conversations happening. And you as the viewer have to keep up with both in order to keep up with the story, because there's two storylines here that are hurtling towards each other and you have to stay on top of it.

00:52:22.26
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:52:27.74
alexei sayle
yeah

00:52:30.84
Talal K
And it just keeps you on your fucking toes.

00:52:33.18
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:52:34.17
Talal K
ah And I, yeah, it's just, it's cliche to say, but incredibly ahead of his time, Orson Welles. ah Yeah. And I like that. He says, I don't speak Mexican to the to the Mexican guys. like ah So these are flawed, deeply flawed characters.

00:52:53.59
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Because I so i mean, Orson Welles' career seemed to me to be an object lesson in a way. in how not I mean, it started out magnificently and then so kind of petered out into self-parody, I think. towards the

00:53:07.35
Talal K
yeah

00:53:07.48
alexei sayle
And um it seemed always seemed to me to be an object lesson, really, in... How not to be, really, how not to... I don't know. i mean, I'd say I felt more sympathetic to him watching this arena documentary about him, but, um ah i you know, it's...

00:53:27.90
alexei sayle
ah Yeah, there is, yeah I don't know, mean, there's a sort of, there's a kind of director, particularly film directors, some who thrive on chaos. always think Terry Gilliam is the epitome of that, you know, and did often deliberately kind of almost sabotage their own productions.

00:53:44.50
alexei sayle
That always seemed to me to be an ah object lesson in how not to be, really, how to just turn up and do the work. Yeah.

00:53:56.76
alexei sayle
You know what mean? And I just...

00:53:57.72
Talal K
Yeah.

00:53:59.04
alexei sayle
I was always i was always so sad about Orson Welles' career in a way that he could have...

00:53:59.67
Talal K
You know, you get these figures.

00:54:04.40
alexei sayle
If he'd... I don't know him.

00:54:07.51
Talal K
You get these figures here, they these like...

00:54:08.02
alexei sayle
If he'd just been a bit...

00:54:09.82
Talal K
these artists where the art seems to just consume them and them themselves as a human matters less and they destroy their bodies and they destroy their careers and reputations, but their art seems to have so much thought into it.

00:54:23.53
Talal K
Like i was saying, like every choice in this film, whether it's a light or a camera shot or a line of dialogue, everything seems to be a deliberate decision, a choice, an artistic choice.

00:54:34.71
alexei sayle
yeah

00:54:35.45
Talal K
And they create these amazing things and they seem to be... Even Terry Gilliam, there's stories about him not being really nice person to be around and stuff. And he's, I don't think he's quite the artist that Orson Welles is.

00:54:48.31
Talal K
But yeah, it's tragic, isn't it?

00:54:48.79
alexei sayle
No, no, not at all.

00:54:49.55
Talal K
Especially when it's someone that's created so many things that you love. And then you see them treat themselves, but make bad choices in their own lives.

00:54:59.13
alexei sayle
Yeah, and you know and in the end, if the I don't know. I mean, was obviously the you the story you mean they the studio re re-edited The Magnificent Ambersons, which is his follow-up to Citizen Kane.

00:55:12.57
alexei sayle
The studio obviously re-edited this as well. So, I mean, i don't know. always think the job is to get the best, you know, to to not get yourself in that situation. I don't i mean, Hollywood in the nineteen fifty s was not,

00:55:30.71
alexei sayle
Yeah, it may be so difficult that a genius like him couldn't operate.

00:55:35.74
Talal K
So yes.

00:55:35.80
alexei sayle
But I kind of think to find yourself in that situation where the studio is re-editing your work is um you to a degree your fault, I think. I don't know. I'd be interested to hear what the listeners think about this. What do we do? Do we have their reaction like next week or do we... I'd be interested to hear what people...

00:55:59.26
Talal K
ah We, well, we had,

00:55:59.77
alexei sayle
people um think about it, really.

00:56:03.67
Talal K
ah Ian just ordered the 4K disc of Touch of Evil a restoration cut.

00:56:09.47
alexei sayle
All right, that's dedication.

00:56:10.17
Talal K
ah Omar's watching the restoration cut, was watching it. I had a on Instagram someone say, great film. Alexei should take Akim Tamarov's part in the remake.

00:56:24.57
Talal K
That's the Grandy role. Someone thinks you should play Grandy in the remake ah of it. Did I get any other messages regarding Touch of Evil? Dr. Nick.

00:56:39.80
Talal K
Touch of Evil. Brilliant. Your future is all used up. I love that line as well. I wrote that down. He goes, can you read my future?

00:56:44.86
alexei sayle
Yeah.

00:56:46.24
Talal K
She goes, you don't have any. Your future is all used up.

00:56:49.72
alexei sayle
so I'll use that.

00:56:50.56
Talal K
Despite Chuck Heston's Mexican face and the questionable prosthetics of Wells, this is a work of art. I guess maybe in the HD restorations, you can see the makeup a bit more on Orson Welles's face, but it's not that terrible.

00:57:04.31
alexei sayle
Really? I didn't know. I thought he was just that fat, but he was he was plumped out. as I don't know.

00:57:08.50
Talal K
I didn't notice.

00:57:08.79
alexei sayle
he didn't he couldn't I couldn't see the vision. watched it. couldn't see that.

00:57:11.91
Talal K
I'm not sure which version I saw on IMDb. It did mention something of an um it said it's like an uncut version, but I don't know if that's the 1998 restoration. i'm I'm moving away from this message now for a second.

00:57:22.50
alexei sayle
Mm-hmm.

00:57:23.52
Talal K
ah On IMDb, it says a new version running 111 minutes has been restored by Universal and debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in 1998. It had been re-edited according to Orson Welles' original vision.

00:57:38.51
Talal K
outlined in a 58 page memo that the director wrote to Universal studio head Edward Moore in 1957 after Moore took editing out of Wells hands.

00:57:50.04
Talal K
Oh, in 1957 after he took it. So the original film wasn't like, help they didn't edit Orton Wells' version. They just didn't let him edit it full stop.

00:58:00.98
Talal K
And they put out their studio version of it. um Anyway, back to this message from Dr. Nick. Hi, Dr. Nick.

00:58:12.73
Talal K
ah One of those films where every...

00:58:14.52
alexei sayle
Hello, everybody. Hello, Dr.

00:58:16.09
Talal K
what

00:58:16.75
alexei sayle
Nick.

00:58:17.72
Talal K
One of those films where every shot...

00:58:18.62
alexei sayle
Dr. Nick Rivera from ah The Simpsons. I still do that as well. ah Sometimes I say, when i'm get like I'm going into Kung Fu and everybody's waiting in the hall outside, and I go, hello, everybody.

00:58:32.02
alexei sayle
then, because nobody responds, I go, hello, Dr. Nick. Dr. Nick Riviera from um The Simpsons. And the guy that did The Voice, who I can't remember his name now, was shot.

00:58:42.99
Talal K
Hank Azaria. Oh.

00:58:44.73
alexei sayle
No, not Hank. It was the one who was shot dead by his girlfriend in a motel room.

00:58:47.95
Talal K
Oh, Phil Hartman.

00:58:49.86
alexei sayle
Phil Hartman, was it? Yeah.

00:58:51.86
Talal K
He didn't do Dr. Nick, did he?

00:58:54.58
alexei sayle
I think he did.

00:58:55.51
Talal K
but also to correct you, Dr. Nick says, hi, everybody.

00:58:58.94
alexei sayle
hi everybody.

00:58:59.08
Talal K
Hi, Doctor.

00:58:59.90
alexei sayle
yeah

00:59:00.82
Talal K
No, that's a Hank Azaria voice.

00:59:03.29
alexei sayle
okay.

00:59:03.34
Talal K
it's not It's not Phil Hartman.

00:59:03.81
alexei sayle
So that's all crap what I said.

00:59:04.74
Talal K
Phil Hartman did Troy McClure, amongst others.

00:59:08.31
alexei sayle
Yeah. The President's Neck is Missing. Movies such as The President's Neck is Missing.

00:59:16.70
Talal K
Who is kind of a Charlton Heston parody?

00:59:19.35
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:19.46
Talal K
Troy McNeil. ah Every shot counts and stands out, says Dr. Nick. The cinematographer won an Oscar a couple years later for, do you know the film?

00:59:29.56
alexei sayle
No.

00:59:30.75
Talal K
Spartacus.

00:59:31.16
alexei sayle
after All right.

00:59:32.70
Talal K
ah The sound design in the last 15 minutes, incredible.

00:59:34.26
alexei sayle
Also Charlton Heston. Where's Charlton?

00:59:38.49
Talal K
ah Yes, we need to talk about the final scene before we wrap up. We'll get back to that. Great acting all round and almost throws away cameos by Joseph Cotton, Marlene Dietrich. The plot is sort of beside the point. It's more the experience the film gives you.

00:59:54.30
Talal K
Yeah.

00:59:54.74
alexei sayle
and that's true of all noir isn't it really i mean is that famous set what's the um philip marler the famous one um long kiss good night which is written ray raymond chandler even raymond chandler said he didn't know what it was about

00:59:56.76
Talal K
Yes.

01:00:03.24
Talal K
Oh, Long Kiss Goodnight.

01:00:12.44
Talal K
Or is it the big sleep or is it the big sleep?

01:00:12.47
alexei sayle
you know And there's a famous scene which um Tarantino stole or referenced where the he opens the briefcase and that just a bright light shines. I mean, it's brilliant scene, just shines out of it.

01:00:22.30
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

01:00:25.57
alexei sayle
It's never made clear what it is, MacGuffin.

01:00:27.22
Talal K
Mm-hmm.

01:00:29.05
alexei sayle
Anyway, sorry, where where were we at?

01:00:31.45
Talal K
Um...

01:00:34.76
Talal K
He's just disgraced that this film didn't get any Oscar recognition. Now about the ending. Now we' we're coming up to the end. where should be finishing the podcast now. The ending of the film.

01:00:43.10
alexei sayle
Yes.

01:00:44.82
Talal K
i had a flashback ah ah to the third man as well, because third man ends on this big Ferris wheel and Charlton Heston begins this final scene up in the tower of an oil pump.

01:00:58.94
alexei sayle
Right.

01:00:59.19
Talal K
And I thought the whole thing was gonna take place up there, but he pretty soon climbs down. But Orson Welles likes using tall structures, it seems, at the end of films, I don't know.

01:01:07.51
alexei sayle
Right. Well, that...

01:01:07.89
Talal K
But...

01:01:08.99
alexei sayle
Orson Welles didn't direct, said man, of course. was directed by Carol Reed.

01:01:12.89
Talal K
Oh, okay, forgive me, he's just in it then.

01:01:15.46
alexei sayle
Yes.

01:01:15.83
Talal K
Okay, my miss, well, there you go ah noir classic.

01:01:16.66
alexei sayle
Again, another fucking black and white masterpiece. And, you know, there's a cinema in Vienna that chose that chose nothing but The Third Man.

01:01:25.08
Talal K
Is it?

01:01:25.98
alexei sayle
Yeah, you can go and see it any time. We went when we were in Vienna a few years ago. And they show it in English and then French and in different languages. That's all it chose is The Third Man.

01:01:37.56
Talal K
Because the film is is set there.

01:01:37.75
alexei sayle
And then we found ourselves... It says in Vienna, yeah.

01:01:40.47
Talal K
Yeah.

01:01:40.71
alexei sayle
And then we found ourselves just wandering around Vienna. We found the doorway. The first time that the Joseph Cotton character sees Orson Welles, he kind of emerges from a doorway and sort of out of the shadows.

01:01:53.97
alexei sayle
and that We found that doorway by just Baxton. Of course, the script written by Graham Greene.

01:01:59.95
Talal K
Ah.

01:02:01.18
alexei sayle
Also, somebody you could have a long talk about.

01:02:01.18
Talal K
Okay, let's just quickly talk about the ending of this film. So ah Orson Welles' detective gets back on the booze after 12 years sobriety.

01:02:04.79
alexei sayle
yeah

01:02:09.81
Talal K
He's getting frustrated that Charlton Heston's character, who hasn't technically got jurisdiction on this crime, is getting involved in the solving of it. And so Orson Welles teams up with the gangster, Grandy, to...

01:02:27.83
Talal K
ah to fuck Charlton Heston up and frame a guy for the for the bombings. However, Charlton Heston does some digging and finds out that Orson Welles has been framing criminals or or suspects for years and years, and that's his modus operandi.

01:02:44.50
Talal K
He hasn't got a hunch, ah a quivering knee hunch thing at all.

01:02:44.55
alexei sayle
hmm.

01:02:49.30
Talal K
He just plants evidence and frames people. And so he gets Orson Welles' mate to wear a wire and try and get a confession out of Orson Welles.

01:02:52.02
alexei sayle
Yeah.

01:02:59.32
Talal K
It leads to a bust up by a canal ah leaving them both dead, not Charlton, Orson Welles and his mate. um And then we find out, we didn't really cover Janet Leigh's storyline, but she's safe now.

01:03:16.94
Talal K
But we find out that the guy he was being framed confesses at the very end, which does nullify the whole story, makes it all

01:03:17.45
alexei sayle
Yeah.

01:03:24.09
alexei sayle
Yeah, actually did it. Yeah. very Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:30.04
Talal K
That fucked me up. And I went back and watched the beginning scene, the opening shot, the tracking shot, and it is Sanchez holding the bomb at the beginning.

01:03:34.55
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. All right.

01:03:39.58
Talal K
You can see it. It's him. He's even wearing the same outfit.

01:03:43.96
alexei sayle
I didn't, yeah.

01:03:43.99
Talal K
So I was like, what? The bad guy wasn't the bad guy. or but He was a vile character.

01:03:49.37
alexei sayle
Yeah.

01:03:50.10
Talal K
But yeah, that was messed up.

01:03:52.34
alexei sayle
Yeah, but that's very clever as well, isn't it, really?

01:03:54.62
Talal K
Very clever. Um...

01:03:57.05
alexei sayle
I think we should wrap it up there just because we've got to do a lecture reaction. I'm getting a bit tired, so. But I would happy to carry on this discussion next week. Of course, if you want to um if you want to talk about brownface or blackface, there's also a version of Othello with Orson Welles. It was Othello, I think.

01:04:17.53
alexei sayle
I think I hallucinated that. And i mean, that's, I think there is. i mean, as well as the terrible Olivier one.

01:04:22.52
Talal K
am i ever going to Am I ever going to find in my ah digging, yeah, Orson Welles did do Othello.

01:04:33.10
Talal K
Am I ever gonna find footage of you doing a blackface character or something?

01:04:37.78
alexei sayle
um i

01:04:39.78
Talal K
In some ironic 80s minstrel thing.

01:04:40.25
alexei sayle
There is a, well, Kind of, yes, i'm I'm afraid. I think that the campaign against anti-Semitism and the Board Deputies are sitting on this still. There's a bit in Stuff, which is a joke about continuity, as I seem to remember. And there's one very brief scene where I am...

01:05:07.42
alexei sayle
I can't remember that it's quite the gag, but there's one brief scene where I am in full... It's kind of top, sparkly top. I am one of the black and white minstrels, so I'm in black i mean minstrel face, black face, big white.

01:05:22.78
Talal K
Yes.

01:05:23.86
alexei sayle
So there is ah there is some footage out there of me in black face, but it's not a joke about race or it's a joke about continuity, but I do feel that that when when I run for...

01:05:37.82
alexei sayle
present when I run for Prime Minister of Britain or whatever, I feel that that's still me. I dread the day when that still is um revealed.

01:05:49.02
alexei sayle
So I suppose I'm getting out ahead of it like Melania Trump. I'm getting out ahead of that story.

01:05:51.77
Talal K
Yes, that's the way to do it

01:05:54.70
alexei sayle
So there is that is the only...

01:05:55.70
Talal K
I did not mean to wear the blackface as a racial commentary. It was about continuity. When you run for premier in of the country.

01:06:06.64
Talal K
All right.

01:06:07.00
alexei sayle
yes

01:06:07.32
Talal K
um Fuck me. Arena, the Orson Welles story, episodes one and two are on BBC iPlayer as well. I look forward to watching that. Send us your observations and notes and questions about Touch of Evil 1958.

01:06:21.21
Talal K
I adored it. The ending shocked me.

01:06:23.71
alexei sayle
It's amazing.

01:06:25.11
Talal K
It was beautiful. um If I was ah Charlton Heston's wife, I would never forgive him after that, but she goes home in his arms.

01:06:32.34
alexei sayle
Yeah.

01:06:32.73
Talal K
um Again, she gets drugged and acts like a maniac. They exaggerate so much what drugs do to you. um Big up yourselves.

01:06:43.34
Talal K
ah Yeah, we got to go. Patreon.com forward slash AlexiSell podcast to see the video edition of our podcast and all else. All right, let's go film Alexi Reacts. Let's go now.

01:06:52.57
alexei sayle
All right. Bye-bye.

01:06:56.00
alexei sayle
Bye.