Details, credits, errata: Episode 7, An Extra or a Principal, is written by Sam Thielman and Alissa Wilkinson, produced by Sam and distributed by Alissa, with our very special guest, A.O. Scott—Tony, to his friends. Tony is the co-chief film critic at the New York Times and does not have to be nearly as nice as he is. Please go read his wonderful book Better Living Through Criticism at once; you can buy it here. Our film for the week is the Coen Brothers’ 2016 Hollywood comedy Hail, Caesar!, a favorite of, it turns out, everybody on the pod this week, so a certain amount of it is Sam quoting the lines and laughing at himself, but Tony and Alissa are good.
Tony and his co-chief critic Manohla Dargis interviewed the Coens a couple of years before this film came out; we commend the interview to anybody who likes the Coens, which is basically anyone who likes movies.
Our episode art for the week is a still from the very, very end of The Robe, the movie Hail, Caesar! A Tale of the Christ is travestying. It’s directed by Henry Koster, incidentally, who also brought last week’s film, The Story of Ruth, into the world.
Some significant figures in our discussion beyond the Coens: The Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse figures prominently in the film; feel free to read about him here, at a website run by one of his grandkids. Edgar Mannix, the Josh Brolin character and the hero of the film, was a real guy: Here’s his obituary from the September 9 issue of Boxoffice Magazine. American Cinematography has a good feature on Busby Berkeley’s synchronized swimmers here, including a delightful video. The Channing Tatum character owes a lot to Gene Kelly, as does the musical number “No Dames!”, especially Anchors Aweigh. See for yourself below.
Our theme song is Louis Armstrong and His Hot 5’s Muskrat Ramble, made freely available by the Boston Public Library and audio engineering shop George Blood, LP through the Internet Archive. Hail, Caesar! is copyright 2016 Universal Studios. Brief audio clips are used herein for review purposes. All other content is copyright 2020 Sam Thielman and Alissa Wilkinson.
Episode 7: An Extra or a Principal