Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Scarface Secrets Revealed! Brian De Palma & A Century of Gangster Cinema with Nat Segaloff
“I’m gonna write my name all over this town with big letters!” Welcome to another electrifying episode of the Goat: A Brian De Palma Fan Podcast! Join host Craig and special guest, author Nat Segaloff, as they dive deep into the wild world of Scarface and De Palma’s cinematic genius. From the 1932 Howard Hawks classic to the 1983 Al Pacino epic, we’re unpacking the history, controversy, and brilliance behind this iconic gangster saga.
In this episode, we sit down with Nat Segaloff, author of Say Hello to My Little Friend: A Century of Scarface, to explore the legacy of Scarface in cinema. From Nat’s early days working with Brian De Palma on Sisters to the gritty details of both Scarface films, we cover the real-life parallels, censorship battles, and De Palma’s fearless filmmaking style. Plus, we get a sneak peek into Nat’s upcoming book on Rambo and his personal ties to The Exorcist. Get ready for a fun, insightful ride through film history with a touch of humor (and a barking Italian Greyhound named Louie)!
Creators and Guests
What is The Director's Chair Network?
Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!
0:00
some little typewriter right i'm going
0:01
to write my name all over this town with
0:03
big letters hey stop him somebody get
0:05
out of my way Johnny i'm going to spit
0:09
welcome back to the Goat Abrian de
0:11
Palama fan podcast and I am very very
0:13
excited today to be joined by author Nat
0:17
Sealof nat welcome hello Craig thanks
0:21
very much the the laughing and the uh
0:23
audio listeners won't have any way of
0:25
knowing this i have an Italian greyhound
0:27
named Louie who insists on joining the
0:29
podcast so if you hear any barking it is
0:32
him and not I yeah it's funny there are
0:35
so many podcasts out there that have
0:37
furry friend guest stars that we
0:39
sometimes see and hear thankfully mine
0:42
are downstairs and behaving today well
0:44
listen if if it wasn't for Louis during
0:46
the uh pandemic I probably would have
0:48
French kissed a light socket
0:50
so Nat uh I introduced you as author Nat
0:53
Seagalof and uh we we are primarily here
0:55
today to talk about a depo related book
0:58
you wrote but before we get into that
1:00
one of the more interesting aspects of
1:02
the book that I found was learning about
1:05
your history in film and your journey
1:09
from uh what film publicity and
1:11
journalism all the way to becoming uh
1:14
the author that you are today do you
1:15
want to sort of give us the little
1:17
cliffnotes version of uh of how you got
Nat’s Film Publicity Journey
1:20
where you are today well I graduated a
1:22
long time ago and I went right into
1:24
movie publicity because I'd been running
1:26
the campus film program and I got to
1:28
know all the publicists in my town which
1:30
was Boston because I wanted to tie in
1:33
with them and so I entered film
1:34
publicity when a job opened and after
1:36
about five years between Boston and New
1:38
York and a little stint somewhere else I
1:40
guess I got black balled by my newspaper
1:43
so I had to find something else to do so
1:45
I became a producer and uh and a critic
1:49
uh in in Boston and then I moved out to
1:51
California so I've been doing that ever
1:53
since and when the industry stopped here
1:55
because I made the mistake of turning
1:57
over 40 uh I started writing books yeah
2:01
excellent and the one we're going to be
2:02
talking about today is Say Hello to My
2:05
Little Friend A Century of Scarface
2:07
before we get into that I wanted to ask
2:11
you a little bit about your career as a
2:15
critic and I and I believe you reference
2:17
this in the book a little bit but
2:22
Depa has always been a a bit of a sort
2:25
of critical
2:28
uh target pin cushion pin cushion yeah
2:30
pin cushion that's exactly right so do
2:32
you have any sort of recollections of
2:37
your time as a critic
2:39
and particular movies or um events i
2:43
know Scarface is one that was critically
2:45
sort of attacked and really took a while
2:48
to to find you know find its audience
2:51
but I was just curious as a critic and
2:53
it seems like you were one of the
2:56
DealMama defenders out there if you had
2:57
any just overall general thoughts about
3:01
your time as a critic as it relates to
De Palma’s Early Career & Sisters
3:03
covering the films of Brian Deama my
3:06
main criticisms of the record were
3:07
written for the Boston Herald which was
3:09
a tabloid and would like to call it
3:10
Boston's alternative newspaper because
3:12
they were conservative i was the second
3:15
string critic and therefore I was never
3:17
given the big pictures to do so when I
3:18
saw Scarface it was just somebody who
3:21
watched Scarface not as the critic who'd
3:23
have the ability to review it i later
3:25
did other films for CBS radio and and uh
3:28
local television but as far as deama's
3:32
works I I got to know him through
3:33
greetings and hi mom and get to know
3:35
your rabbit in the early days before he
3:38
was really you know quote Brian Dealama
3:40
and then I fortunately had him as one of
3:43
my clients when he was doing the press
3:45
appearances for
3:47
sisters that back in the early early 70s
3:50
so I was kind of doing independent work
3:51
for American International Pictures and
3:53
and having a great time i knew who he
3:55
was but the older Boston press and we're
3:58
talking their traditional people really
3:59
had no sense of it so I knew first of
4:02
all that he was a great director of
4:04
comedies and very political neither of
4:06
which his later films so overtly reveal
4:10
so I kind of got in in a side door they
4:13
sent him up from New York and I was in
4:14
Boston and he arrived i think he was
4:16
wearing a safari jacket in those days
4:18
but I really don't remember my mistake
4:21
was that I was wearing a tie and the
4:23
first thing Brian told me was "Get rid
4:24
of that awful tie." So we started doing
4:27
our press appearances and he was funny
4:29
he was charming he was intensely
4:31
interested in film and he hadn't been
4:33
bruised by the press yet unfortunately
4:36
it probably started with with Sisters
4:39
one of the most interesting aspects of
4:41
working with Brian and he god he was so
4:44
smart he brought with him his production
4:46
designs for his next film which was the
4:49
Phantom of the Fillmore filillmore i
4:52
guess rights were involved with Bill
4:53
Graham and he couldn't use that name and
4:55
they changed it to Paradise and he had
4:57
this big thick book of of his his story
4:59
boards not a single critic was
5:01
interested in seeing it he whipped it up
5:03
during a press launch and he showed it
5:04
to people yes yes yes brian tell us all
5:06
about working with Margot KD in Sisters
5:09
okay well there was a retired critic
5:12
named Marjorie Adams who for 52 years
5:14
had been the doian of the Boston Press
5:16
Corps she was the first journalism
5:19
school graduate of the Boston Globe
5:21
everybody loved her in Hollywood but she
5:23
would put you through hell in interviews
5:25
but then the interviews came out and you
5:27
were God i loved Marjorie i was really
5:30
into the older film critics and I would
5:33
go to her apartment occasionally and we
5:35
talked she had hurt her knee she
5:36
couldn't leave the apartment so I
5:37
brought Brian around to her apartment
5:39
which was on Beacon Hill where all the
5:40
Adams lived she wasn't N adams but she
5:44
acted like she was and Marjorie sitting
5:47
on the couch i'm sitting on one Ottoman
5:49
stool brian is sitting on the other one
5:52
and I like to think that I
5:53
helped introduce Brian to the vagaries
5:56
and the uh the tactics of critics
5:59
because she who hadn't seen the film
6:02
because she couldn't get out of the
6:03
house is his sisters kept on peppering
6:05
him with the questions that she had
6:06
given in the past to John Wayne and
6:08
George Cucor and people like that and
6:09
Brian held up
6:11
brilliantly well one of the odd parts of
6:13
it was Marjorie having hurt her knee had
6:15
her her legs propped up marjorie liked
6:18
to wear short
6:19
skirts and when she moved her legs in a
6:22
particular angle well they grow a lot of
6:25
coffee in
6:27
Brazil brian kept his a plum but
6:29
afterwards he kind of looked at me
6:31
sideways uh what was that all about well
6:34
the next person I brought up there to
6:35
meet Margaret was Ernest Morganite whom
6:37
she knew so it was a a ritual a stop and
6:41
it was one of those adventures brian is
6:44
was remarkably open to the press uh he
6:48
would I mean nobody would let Julie
6:50
Solomon I'm sure do a book about them
6:52
the previous person who allowed it was
6:54
John Houston with Lilian Ross doing
6:56
Picture which was based on the Red Badge
6:57
of Courage brian has been was insanely
7:01
open to the press and at the same time
7:03
uh insanely vulnerable yeah i I just
7:06
have so much regard for him and that's
7:08
most of my Brian Dama story but the rest
7:10
of it is lost in the midst of time yeah
7:14
thank you for that and uh yeah not to
7:16
not to sidetrack ourselves too quick but
7:18
that book on the making of the bonfire
7:20
of the vanities is really amazing and
7:23
and u I'm glad you you sort of said that
7:27
you know Deama gave her cart blanch
7:29
basically to write the book that she
7:30
wanted to write and it's it's since been
7:33
sort of retold in a podcast that she
7:35
hosted that was really good
7:38
and it helped me if nothing else
7:41
appreciate that movie i'm I'm not a fan
7:42
of it but it helped me appreciate things
7:45
and uh one thing I've always said about
7:46
DAMA is I respect the fact that he takes
7:49
big swings and sometimes when you take
7:51
big swings you're going to miss yeah the
7:53
Bonfire of the Vanities did not work and
7:55
it wasn't to Palma's fault the fault was
7:57
the film itself and my explanation for
8:00
that is the book was written by Thomas
8:02
Wolf who has a distinctive writing style
8:05
but that's pros and they did not find an
8:07
adequate transition or translation if
8:09
you will to the screen dupalama took it
8:13
in an elegant visual manner but it
8:15
wasn't a visual manner that worked with
8:17
the elegance of Wol's style phil Kaufman
8:20
had the same problem with the right
8:21
stuff so he just really abandoned the
8:23
tone of Wol's book and made his own
8:26
movie with several screenwriters
8:28
contributing to it of course but the
8:30
Palama took the big risks and and still
8:31
does and he just has so much grace and a
8:34
plum that it's hard to really find
8:37
another director who has his combination
8:40
of gifts yeah so so one thing you hit on
8:43
was sort of being on the ground floor
8:45
for Deama's early films those those
8:48
comedies you know prior to Sisters and
8:50
Phantom of the Paradise and I'd like to
8:53
see if if you had any thoughts about
8:56
from a critical perspective and also as
8:58
a viewer
8:59
if those early comedies informed how you
Comedy in De Palma’s Films
9:03
viewed his films knowing that he had
9:05
that sort of level of comedy in him you
9:09
know I always talk about filmmakers that
9:11
aren't sort of viewed as overtly comedic
9:13
you know Deal is definitely one of them
9:15
and I'd rank him in with Cubri who I
9:17
also think you know his films have a a
9:20
comedy streak that sometimes isn't
9:21
caught by audiences i was just curious
9:23
if that was something you were aware of
9:25
as his more challenging films were
9:28
coming out well I think the Palma when
9:31
you start in comedies and you have
9:33
someone like Robert Dairo who one
9:35
doesn't suspect would be funny i'll add
9:37
to that in a moment it's kind of
9:40
unexpected you know it's more of an
9:42
attitude than punchlines when you look
9:44
at for example his film within a film Be
9:48
Black Baby which is a
9:51
dreadfully terrorizing moment and yet
9:54
it's funny especially if you know what
9:56
The Living Theater had done with Judith
9:58
Bassina and Julian Beck and and their
10:00
film of the Brig and you see here's a
10:02
counterpart to that which is audience
10:04
participation there's no way I can
10:06
explain it it it shows that Deama is
10:09
really riding a very thin line between
10:11
comedy and tragedy and that's what art
10:13
is all about he manages to do it what
10:15
what was interesting and I'm thinking
10:17
about about Dairo in those two movies
10:20
people forget that Robert Dairo worked
10:21
with Brian Dema early on and the thing
10:24
of it was he was rippingly funny in a
10:26
very very strange way and so in 1975 I
10:30
think it was when Diro starring in the
10:33
Neil Simon film Bogart slept here that
10:35
Mike Nichols was directing nichols shut
10:37
it down after a few days because he
10:39
thought that Dairo wasn't funny this was
10:41
the actor who' started comedies and
10:44
Nicholls didn't work head-to-head with
10:46
Dairo so what what Dealama got out of
10:49
Dairo was something that even Mike
10:50
Nichols couldn't dealama just has a
10:54
really really great
10:56
reach i'm going on and on here i
10:58
couldn't pretend to describe what his
10:59
style is i mean look at look at get to
11:00
know your rabbit where he is totally
11:02
screwed out of it and yet when it works
11:05
it works
11:06
they couldn't destroy it yeah well
11:08
that's why I wanted to do this podcast
11:10
Nat because I really believe in my heart
11:12
of hearts and I wouldn't do a podcast
11:14
and devote time to a podcast if I didn't
11:16
believe in it that there is no other
11:18
filmmaker like Brian Dealama and you
11:22
know a filmmaker that is able to pivot
11:25
as much as he's pivoted but also who's
11:27
been able to make legitimate
11:29
masterpieces in multiple genres which
11:32
you know there's directors that dabble
11:33
in different genres but you know they
11:36
either get stuck in that genre or they
11:38
make a a serviceable movie you know that
11:41
did the job that they were paid for uh
11:44
but isn't considered a classic to this
11:46
day i mean it's amazing to me that we
11:48
have a movie like Carrie but at the same
11:51
time you know 20 some odd years later
11:53
he's making one of the best movies in
11:55
the of the '90s in Caro's way and
11:57
there's not a lot of filmmakers you can
11:59
draw that line from
12:01
he's given the chance to do a lot of
12:04
films and he's strong enough that he can
12:06
do them the way he
12:08
wants at the same time he's always had
12:10
trouble with the sensors because they
12:12
think he takes it too far i saw Dress to
12:14
Kill in a an exhibitor screening before
12:16
it was cut
12:17
and to me it was a perfectly integrated
12:20
film i Yeah it was violent but I didn't
12:21
think it was too violent then they made
12:23
him cut it and of course the story story
12:25
of the censorship of Scarfaces well not
12:27
only is it in the book it's also one of
12:29
those things where he finally told Marty
12:31
Regman "Well Helen are going to give us
12:33
an X might as well just go for it." Yeah
12:35
which but you think of it just go for it
12:38
is really what Dealama does in his other
12:39
work too yeah and and the funny thing
12:42
about censorship and I think you know
12:44
Paul Verhovven sort of had this
12:46
philosophy on Robocop where they kept
12:50
giving him a hard time so the the
12:52
violence just got more and more
12:54
overblown and it almost became
12:55
cartoonish and I think the the
12:57
opposite's true as well sometimes if you
13:00
start cutting things too much uh like
13:02
that elevator scene in Dress to Kill it
13:06
could become more terrifying and more
13:09
horrific than if you just showed what
13:12
Deama wanted to show you're right and I
13:15
think there's something Hitchcocking
13:16
about that too but you don't show the
13:19
audience is able to imagine in their
13:21
minds but if you had it as graphic as
13:23
Dama had the elevator scene and dressed
13:25
to kill you see exactly what you get and
13:28
no more he's controlling it and it's
13:31
important for us to have that
13:32
information if you make it more obscure
13:34
then the audience gets carried away
13:36
emotionally and you lose your
13:38
rationality for what's supposed to
13:39
happen in the context of the story yeah
13:42
um while we're talking about Hitchcock I
13:44
did want to ask you because one of the
13:46
more interesting things about Dama in my
13:48
opinion is a lot of people say he might
13:50
have rifted on on Hitchcock a little too
13:53
much i think a lot of criticism around
13:57
Obsession you know just sort of
14:00
being a re a remake of Vertigo vertigo
14:04
is one of my favorite films i'm not a
14:05
huge fan of Obsession but my point is I
14:08
think that and I don't know if there's
14:10
any contemporary opinions from Hitchcock
14:12
when he while he was still alive when
14:14
Dama was operating but in my opinion it
14:17
seems like dama is a natural extension
14:21
of what Hitchcock was doing you know so
14:24
less of just a Hitchcock riff and more
14:26
of taking the sort of playbook that
14:29
Hitchcock created and doing things that
14:32
Hitchcock surely would have wanted to do
14:34
had he lived long enough to make those
14:36
kinds of films well two points one when
14:38
Obsession was made Vertigo had been out
14:41
of release for several years and so the
14:43
audience wasn't compelled to make a
14:45
comparison between them i happened to
14:47
like the film but that's because I was
14:48
friends with Cliff Robertson and I like
14:50
anything Cliff was in including
14:51
Spider-Man as far as this whole
14:53
Hitchcock business and I I
14:55
raise I hate to use the word defense
14:58
because I don't think DA Palama needs
14:59
defense but I raised a point in my book
15:02
that Hitchcock developed a vocabulary of
15:05
cinema and deama used that vocabulary as
15:08
other directors have used criticizing
15:10
him for looking in a few shots like
15:13
Hitchcock is like criticizing Hemingway
15:15
because he used the same English
15:16
language that Faulner used the
15:18
vocabulary is there hitchcock perfected
15:21
it wouldn't it be awful if Deama didn't
15:24
use the appropriate shots i mean
15:26
Scorsesa uses it too everybody does paul
15:28
Thomas Anderson is also brilliant at
15:30
that uh but Brian was the first one out
15:33
of the gate and I guess he's the one who
15:35
gets uh as many arrows as St sebastian
15:38
for it yeah so before we pivot to
15:41
talking about the book I did want to get
15:42
your opinion on and and Scarface is not
15:46
a movie that was written by Deama but do
15:49
you have an opinion on the strength or
15:51
weakness of a film based on the fact on
15:54
if it's a story and a screenplay that
15:57
DeAma has developed as opposed to coming
15:59
on as sort of just director
16:03
you know you write so much stuff that
16:04
never gets produced i wouldn't want to
16:05
venture a a foray into that area i I
16:08
know that Blowout is one of my favorite
16:10
diploma films uh at the time please note
16:14
and he wrote that and and you would know
16:16
this more than I I seem to
16:19
recall that in in film comment or
16:22
another aurist type magazine didn't tell
16:26
the story of the film before he wrote it
16:30
i I don't know why this is in my mind or
16:33
maybe it was Home Movies i don't know
16:35
what it was yeah you're ringing a bell
16:37
there and if and if I can find the uh I
16:39
could not find it the history behind
16:40
that I'll include that in the in the
16:41
show notes but yeah but but uh I I don't
16:44
know if he's any more wedded to his own
16:46
stuff he certainly gets more money for
16:47
it the reason Scarface was written by
16:49
Oliver Stone was that Oliver Stone had
16:51
been contracted by Martin Bregman and
16:53
everybody else and it's a long story
16:55
fortunately I I wrote about it but he he
16:59
wanted to write a film that he wanted to
17:00
get into directing and the only job he
17:02
could get was writing it and I'm sure
17:04
Dama made many changes along the way if
17:06
you look at the comparisons of the
17:08
scripts as I did uh you know by the time
17:11
a a script gets to the production floor
17:13
people kind of forget how many hands
17:15
were in it yeah it it's just in in my in
17:18
in sort of my fandom Nat I tend to weigh
17:23
the Deama films that he wrote uh
17:26
differently than the ones that he sort
17:28
of didn't write and like I said I'm a
17:29
huge fan of Carito's Way i really think
17:31
it's one of the best films of the '90s
17:33
and of course he didn't write that so I
17:36
think there's merit in in both um I did
17:38
want to we mentioned Oliver Stone and
17:40
and I do and I've said on this show
17:41
before that I'm a a huge Oliver Stone
17:43
fan i think he's a filmmaker
17:46
that there's a point where I think he'll
17:49
be he'll get a genuine reassessment and
17:52
I think his impact on film making
17:54
especially in the early 90s I think will
17:56
be re-recognized i I I truly feel that
18:00
the run of films probably starting with
18:02
Platoon and it ended with
18:05
um uh let's say Any Given Sunday I don't
18:10
think there were other filmmakers that
18:12
would have been as gutsy as Oliver Stone
18:14
in the fact that he was
18:15
using different media different film
18:18
formats uh he was really I think Oliver
18:21
Stone doesn't get the credit but he was
18:23
really the first like sort of MTV
18:25
filmmaker and uh I I I I truly feel that
18:29
I I there'll be a reassessment of him at
18:31
some point and um I I can say I was
18:34
there um but we're getting ahead of
18:36
ourselves no I I fully agree with you in
18:38
fact I'd even go back as far as Salvador
18:40
and I I think JFK is one of the miracle
18:42
films ever made it's absolutely it's if
18:45
it's a three-hour film you've got 2
18:47
hours and 45 minutes of exposition and
18:49
you don't get bored for one second
18:51
that's brilliant film making and
18:52
Naturalborn Killer is the same way yeah
18:54
but anyway yeah no and and I truly think
18:57
that he he had a a direct influence on a
19:00
lot of a way uh that a lot of films
19:03
looked uh after after uh Naturalborn
19:06
Killers and uh and JFK and even The
19:09
Doors um so getting into the book um Say
Scarface Book Discussion
19:13
Hello to My Little Friend a A Century of
19:16
Scarface I really really enjoyed reading
19:20
the book and uh the main reason was I
19:24
loved the history
19:27
behind really getting into that original
19:32
Howard Hawks Scarface uh the history
19:35
behind it the real life parallels the
19:38
development from the
19:40
novel when that project was sort
19:43
of on the table for you was the diploma
19:48
aspect of it part of the
19:51
appeal actually not it was the entirety
19:55
of the both films that that appealed to
19:59
me i I love the Howard Hawk Scarface and
20:02
that was the 1932 version it's a bit
20:04
pretentious for Hawk's work uh but I
20:07
don't care because MUN is so much fun in
20:09
it and also the script is terrific i
20:11
have an emotional bond with it because
20:13
at the time I showed it when I was
20:14
teaching in Boston
20:16
University you couldn't get copies it
20:18
was completely out of release howard
20:19
Hughes owned it and I'm proud to say
20:21
that one evening I walked in a 16mimeter
20:25
perloin print of Scarface ran it for
20:27
everybody I could find and then two
20:29
hours later it left the building forever
20:32
so there was a a kind of a almost
20:35
sensual feeling about Scarface that I
20:38
carried for many years publishers seem
20:40
to have a great affinity for movies that
20:42
have a round number as an anniversary 50
20:45
being preferred 40 for Scarface being
20:48
secondary in their minds and that is
20:50
what helped trigger the book with
20:51
Kensington Cital Publishers but I always
20:54
had like Scarface and it was an
20:56
opportunity to talk not only about both
20:58
films but about violence in cinema and
21:01
about gangsters and about diploma so
21:03
they all kind of came together in one
21:05
cauldron and the publisher said yes and
21:08
I'm very happy they did yeah uh and and
21:11
again I I think if you're a fan of film
21:14
in general or either one of the
21:16
Scarfaces it's it's worth reading
21:18
because it's really a logical sort of
21:21
journey through the history of of
21:23
Scarface in cinema one thing I did want
21:26
to ask you about Nat is you know there's
21:30
an interesting credit in the um DAPA
21:33
Scarface where they sort of acknowledge
21:35
the work of of Howard Hughes do you
21:38
think in 2024 if they're making Scarface
21:41
if the the writing credits for that
21:43
movie would have been handled
21:45
differently
21:47
i don't know whether the writer guild
21:49
was involved or whether licensing with
21:50
the Sumer Corporation and Universal had
21:52
anything to do with it they should have
21:56
credit Howard Hawks it should have
21:57
credited Ben Heck they should have
21:59
credited a lot of people but I don't
22:00
know if they were compelled to do it in
22:02
some cases since the 1983 Scarface is a
22:05
remake of the 1932 Scarface it certainly
22:08
uses the same structure but it also
22:10
refers to the Armatage Trail novel and
22:13
then adds information from Sydney Lum uh
22:17
Marty Bregman and of course Oliver Stone
22:19
and his escapades so it's a kind of a
22:22
hodgepodge that Depal and his editor
22:24
straightened out i don't know what the
22:27
rules are about crediting people i would
22:29
like to have think that they would have
22:30
credited everybody yeah but they didn't
22:33
yeah i almost wonder Nat if it's more
22:35
like I've always thought of Scarface as
22:39
you know sort of like you mentioned the
22:41
book whereas you look at like the thing
22:43
from another world and John Carpenters
22:44
the thing they're both sort of a a a
22:46
different take on the same source
22:48
material and and I guess you know
22:50
Scarface could be looked at that way but
22:53
one of the more interesting things in
22:55
your book is you you pointed out some of
22:57
the direct similarities
23:00
that both filmmakers made uh from the
23:03
source material again I I think it's an
23:06
excellent book i enjoyed the heck out of
23:07
reading it and I did want to sort of
23:09
give a little bit of time to talk about
23:12
some of your other books because I
23:13
believe uh this year you had released uh
23:16
a book uh devoted to the making of the
23:20
exorcist i have had so many books lately
23:22
co kept me at the typewriter and it it
23:26
worked last year I'm trying to remember
23:29
now you know when you write a book and
23:30
then it goes through the production
23:31
process you forget when you wrote it i
23:34
wrote a book called The Exorcist Legacy
23:37
50 years of fear which was all about the
23:40
various exorci and it mentioned the new
23:43
one the paperback version is coming out
23:45
next year because it'll have an
23:47
additional chapter about exorcist
23:49
believer about which I'll write in the
23:51
book it was that was an exorcism for me
23:55
because I was not only one of the
23:56
publicists on the original exorcist in
23:59
1973 but I am also William Fritken's
24:02
biographer with Billy's permission and
24:04
and a 50-year friendship with him so the
24:07
book was very much a personal effort for
24:09
me as well as a chance to set all the
24:12
record straight about The Exorcist the
24:14
new one by the way includes some
24:15
information from Michael Blatty who was
24:17
the older son of William Peter Blatty oh
24:18
wow oh so I I think the cred their
24:20
credentials are pretty much in line on
24:22
that one i also have coming out this
24:24
coming year he says in a shameless plug
24:27
for his work a book called The Rambo
24:30
Report yes which is of course all about
24:31
the Rambo films and novels and even the
24:34
cartoon series and it is written with
24:36
the close cooperation and blessing of
24:38
David Morurell who wrote the original
24:40
1972 novel First Blood which gave birth
24:43
of course to Rambo so that's at
24:45
Kensington uh Citadel again and I just
24:48
sent them the uh the approved galleys a
24:50
couple of days ago so the ball's in
24:52
their court now oh that's excellent and
24:54
uh for those who don't know prior to
24:56
this podcast I worked on a Sylvester
24:59
Stallone themed podcast called SlyCast
25:02
we did many episodes uh devoted to uh
25:04
the Rambo series and for an anniversary
25:08
of Rambo 2 uh I had the pleasure and
25:12
honor of of sitting down and chatting
25:14
with um with Mr morell um who is an
25:19
amazing podcast guest oh yeah and uh
25:22
after we got off the call he sent me uh
25:26
just a a treasure trove of uh photos and
25:30
articles related to First Blood Part Two
25:33
and uh I really
25:36
enjoy I really enjoy talking with him
25:38
and I also really enjoy uh his novels uh
25:42
I think he's a a great writer and I'm
25:45
really looking forward to that uh that
25:47
Rambo uh book and and one thing I got to
25:50
say is that's quite an undertaking
25:52
there's a lot more films than than uh
25:55
than you know the two Scarfaces uh
25:57
Scarlet films so uh I I'm I'm curious to
26:01
see how you tackle it well there's stuff
26:03
in there that even David didn't know
26:04
about and of course most of the people
26:06
involved with the films are gone now uh
26:09
so I had to do an awful lot of research
26:11
and it it was fun to write because the
26:14
politics of it are what people talk
26:16
about for Rambo and the violence but in
26:18
fact it's really about a man who has
26:20
PTSD yes when I think about all the tens
26:23
of thousands of American service workers
26:25
service men and women who have come back
26:28
with that horrible silent psychological
26:31
problem and how Rambo addresses it in
26:33
strange ways i I was trying to be
26:35
respectful of all of them in writing it
26:37
and I perhaps it'll help people i don't
26:38
know i wouldn't be that presumptuous but
26:40
it's really about adjusting from war and
26:42
about maybe not fighting any oh yeah no
26:45
absolutely so uh I will include uh
26:48
relevant links to to all the the books
26:50
we talked about and there's a lot more
26:52
that we didn't talk about but again the
26:55
deama related book is uh say hello to my
26:57
little friend a century of scarface and
27:00
u if you're a fan of this this show if
27:02
you're a fan of Scarface if you're a fan
27:04
of film it's definitely work worth
27:07
checking out natt I know it took us a
27:08
while to uh to connect and and uh uh
27:12
schedule this this sit down but I'm so
27:14
glad we did and uh hopefully we'll have
27:16
an opportunity to chat again in the
27:18
future i'm here same time same number
27:20
craig thank you so much and thank you if
27:22
Ryan Depal is listening thank you very
27:24
much for the work you've done and
27:26
certainly for all of the fans who
27:27
support you and support him i'm very
27:29
proud to be here thank you oh thank you
27:32
okay and take care