Dinner with Dan
Every Sunday, Wroe Avenue meets to discuss the week in Dayton, Ohio. Our host, retired Dayton Municipal Court Judge Dan Gehres regales listeners with hot takes from his life while having a delicious dinner.
Dinner with Dan
Brunch with Ben-Hur
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This week the Gang gathered for brunch to discuss one of Dan's top five movies of all time--1959 Best Picture Ben-Hur. Gathered around with Bloody Mary's and Mimosa--the Jesus adjacent movie with Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur is one for all time.
The cinematography and the scenery make this movie one for the ages. While everyone at the table was impressed with the movie--Dan was disappointed in his tablemates lack of affection for the film.
Pull up a chair for a yummy brunch and we hope you enjoy the conversation!
#DinnerwithDan
We on? Okay. I'd like to uh welcome everyone, all our loyal listeners, to this, the forty-first episode of Dinner with Dan. We are taping on Sunday, July 19th, 2026, from Dayton's historic Five Oaks neighborhood. Today we could have called this brunch with Dan. We are starting it at noon as Nan and Sam have a late afternoon commitment in Columbus. First, I want to let everyone know that our dear Dea made it safely back to her home in India. We know she is listening. So, Dea, everybody at the table loves you and misses you. Come back anytime you want to. Now, I think somebody, you probably have a better understanding of her trip back. So why don't you fill the people in on Dea's trip back? I mean, just which which seem to be uh planes, trains, and automobiles.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know all the details. Kate might know them even better than I do. Um but I know like she Instagrammed me when she got back, like I made it. Um and I think she left from Cincinnati uh what some Sunday night.
SPEAKER_01Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00And then I don't know where she flew to though.
SPEAKER_01She flew to London.
SPEAKER_00Okay, then where'd she go?
SPEAKER_01Then she flew to Mumbai. Wow. And then she had to get on a train to get home. And she told me, she said, you know, it's gonna take two days. I leave on Sunday, but I don't get home till Tuesday. Well, there's six hours at work, so the time difference plus just the sheer amount of travel.
SPEAKER_00Right, because she leaves if she left at nine o'clock on Sunday, that's already Monday in India. And then the whole trip. Yep. And she's back at school.
SPEAKER_07And she's back at school.
SPEAKER_00Wow. She's back at school.
SPEAKER_07But didn't she run into some heavy rain? So she had to couldn't take the train and had to uh I didn't know this part.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know this part. You know more than we do.
SPEAKER_07Maybe Ann Charles or Jason told me that.
SPEAKER_01Did they tell you that?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I think when she got to India, uh the big rains had either washed out the train or whatever, so she had to get a flight to a a different to a city rather than taking a gosh. And then I think it was a two and a half hour trip over for her parents to drive over to get her, and then there was rain problems too.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, what I thought wild.
SPEAKER_07I must have got that from Jason or Ann Charles. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Well, any event, we know Dea's listening because we do have worldwide uh people listening. So hopefully we got that more or less right. If not, Dea. Let us know. You can fact check us and you can send uh Nan a text or an email or whatever, and we'll and we'll make sure that uh we have it right the next time. But anyhow, we miss you, Dea. Okay. Uh and I also want to mention uh we have a dear listener in Paris, Texas, uh Barbara. And Barbara was concerned that we weren't on the air last week. Uh and we've talked about that, you know, when because of varied schedules, we aren't able to do one each week. So we've decided to take the suggestion of two-time guest table guest Marty Garris, my second son, and come up with uh new content for when we're not able to have a full dinner with Dan review of a movie. Yes. So what we've decided to do is, and this is all Marty's suggestion, is we're gonna have a decade review.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So I'm gonna challenge each of us now. Well, we're not gonna do it now, we'll we'll do it later, uh, that we're going to you pick out the your favorite best picture of the decade. Since there was only one in the 20s, we gotta put wings in with the 30s. But uh we'll do the 30s, we'll do the 40s, and now since we're gonna end with the 50s, we'll do the 50s. And so what we'll basically do then, it may not, it won't be, you won't hear us eating and stuff, uh, and it'll probably be a shorter podcast, but it will be new content. Uh, because with summer, you know, we people got things to do. Yeah. Uh so we're gonna do that. It'll be easier us for us just to get together one night and maybe come up with a half an hour recap of and I'm gonna challenge everybody to not only say what your movie is, but uh say why it is. Yeah, and uh and this is not to diss any other movie, but this is of the decade. Which movie would you like to watch again? Okay. So uh so Barbara in uh uh in Paris, Texas, thanks for being a loyal listener. And uh you can send us up some of those uh pecan uh rounders, I think they're called. They're made in Paris, Texas. They're a sugary pecan delight. So yeah, you can send some of those over to Barbara. Okay. Now uh moving on to that. Okay. Um at the table this afternoon, we have table regulars Nan Whaley, Sam Braun, Paul Duncan Robinson, soon to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mountain Police. Thanks for all the smoke you're sending us this way, Paul. Uh Kate Evans and Eddie Garris. Eddie is now uh out in the back room uh finishing watching uh Ben Herr. He's almost to the end. So nearly there. Yeah, he's well it's past the sermon on the mound, so he is he is coming. Uh so anyhow. Everybody says they're so nice and polite, and then he's got to do it zinc.
SPEAKER_01Dan is not happy about this Canadian thing.
SPEAKER_03Okay, live this down maybe for a year and a half or more.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna have to go.
SPEAKER_03You're gonna have to go southbound.
SPEAKER_02I'm wearing my uh Canada t-shirt. Thank you. In solidarity with my friend Paul. Thank you. Wow.
SPEAKER_07Well, and if you were doing southbound now, you'd be choking from all that uh Canadian stuff.
SPEAKER_01But that's what you're gonna have to do, probably to redeem yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we'll see.
SPEAKER_07Okay. So moving on, uh, I'm going to ask, what have we done since we sang the praises of 1958 Best Picture winner Gigi?
SPEAKER_00Oh man. All right. Oh gosh. Uh well, we were off last week because Sam and I went with Anne Charles and Jason to Quebec City. So we left on Saturday and got back Wednesday. Uh this all came about because um Anne Charles was trying to talk us in on a uh cruise in the Mediterranean over Thanksgiving, and we were like, no, we don't want to do that, but we'll go somewhere with you in the summer. And um, I like to have a rule if I'm traveling for fun in the summer. I never go south. I only go north. And uh so we went to Quebec City, we had friends that had raved about the city, and it is um a really uh cute. Have you been there, Paul?
SPEAKER_03Long time ago.
SPEAKER_00Um really cute town.
SPEAKER_07Uh he may have been born there.
SPEAKER_00Um it is uh it's like it's a you know, it's the oldest city in North America. Um because James, like that was continuously Jamestown was and they don't count the South, right?
SPEAKER_02They don't they're they're taking some liberties, like they're not really counting some places on Caribbean Islands and St. Augustine that I think were founded earlier, but pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00That's clever typical Canadian uh 1608. 1608.
SPEAKER_01Are you saying they have a casual relationship with the truth? Is that just making sure only an American would know that, right?
SPEAKER_00So uh um anyway, uh yeah, so the town uh this the town, you know, is uh a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's um they have to always go back and rebuild its original uh nature. It has like a it has like a down city and up city. So every day we climbed 30 flights of stairs, basically, to get up and down. Wow. Um so we got our glute workout. The food was excellent, and I'll let Sam kind of explain this food because we had some of the best meals and uh really good food. Um the thing that was interesting to me, you know, this French speaking in Canada and the way that they protect uh that um culture is pretty tough flame. Yeah, the language and the culture, right? So basically, you know, there's heavy migration in Canada, but in Quebec, uh according to our guide, there is um uh basically only French speakers are really allowed to come in. So when I asked, like, well, where are you getting, you know, there they you know, they still had a good amount of migrants, and it was like Haiti, the ivory coast of Africa, like you know, it was all the French speaking spaces, and they have a law that once you move to France, you have six months or to Quebec, you have six months to learn French. Wow. Uh so so because you they and I like think about it, like, how else are they gonna protect the French language when they're so surrounded by the English language? Yeah. They also like, you know, they're like you can't take government services if you wear any sort of covering. Um, you know, so again, like pretty, I think if you can't go into a government building, you can't, like, you can take them, but you can't work for the government with any sort of religious affection on you, like, you know, cross, no hijab, no, no, no. So they really like, you know, kind of lean in on a secular. In 1960, Quebec had was the most illiterate province in the country. What 60%? Insane. 60% because basically the Catholics and the Protestants owned the education system, not the not they had had no public education. They got a new pr uh prime minister queg back that completely changed that, that made it secular. And now it is like one of the strongest, and it just really kind of shows you like the power education can have over that 60-year period. So I thought all of that, like I didn't know any of those kind of things. And you know, if you travel with Sambron, uh you will get a history tour, you will get a food tour, uh, you will get like all of the and you'll get great food. So um we learned a lot about it, and they also have these 800 women of Quebec that came in in the 1600s uh from France. No, was it from no it's from England, and they they're called the Mothers of Quebec, and Louis got excited about toaster and dang. Uh they're called the Mothers of Quebec, and there were like these 800 women and they were from France.
SPEAKER_02Oh, from France.
SPEAKER_00Oh, can you explain that? We explained that and also the food.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, so basically they didn't have enough women because you know it was. It was burriers. Yeah. Yeah, it was like frontier fur traders, and there were just very few women. So they actually got like 800 women from France, took them over there, and then they made it like in.
SPEAKER_00And they got they got a wedding dress, right?
unknownI think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they that's sorry, they got some things and some money.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To go over.
SPEAKER_02To do it, but then the other thing was they got to pick the men.
SPEAKER_01Thank God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I know. I was thinking this too, but but at least they made it that way. So they'd like parade the men around like in awesome and they would pick the men, and then they would have a week just to take them back. To send them back if they didn't want to walk. Amazing. Like almost like nearly everyone that has lived there for long can trace their linkage to these 800 women.
SPEAKER_07Wow. And you know why I knew that before you?
SPEAKER_02Why is that?
SPEAKER_07Because there was a TV show about that. It was a series. Uh it uh it they it was pre-COVID, and I think they didn't make it after COVID, you know, because COVID hit. And it is exactly that story. Wow. I think it was called Barkskin or Hard Bark. Uh it was uh I think it's maybe Barkskin. Uh but it was uh it was it was based in uh in uh they were all the time going to Quebec City or Montreal, and it was the women that had come over. And it was uh uh one season. They never made a uh a second season of it, but the first season is really good. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really good. And it's very historic. You know, it's the Indians and the and the worrying about the British because the British were always up there with their spies and blah blah blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, the British did come for him.
SPEAKER_07You know, maybe sometime uh somebody can uh remind me. Remind me of the name of the show, but it's worth watching, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, five times someone tried to take the city. Yeah, one was successful, and that was the British in 1759. Yeah and Indian War brought about the British victory in what we call the French and Indian War. It also, the the results of that brought on the American Revolution. So it was very Explain that.
SPEAKER_07Well, because it's the Seven Years' War in Europe, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they call it the Seven Years' War. Treaty of Paris, 1763. Um the British, by winning the war, opened up all this territory for the benefit of the Americans to settle it. All this territory that had been fringed throughout the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. So it was our benefit. England fought the war and suffered all the expenses, so they wanted to tax us to recoup that we're gonna recall taxes.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_02That was pretty much pretty much the way that happened. That's why they thought we were like so ungrateful. Right. And they you know, they they weren't, and they were all, you know, pip a little British arrogance too, like they, you know, we're better than you, you don't get a say, you know, all that stuff as well. Uh and they also tried to take away the identity of the French Canadians with all passing all these laws, but then the American Revolution came about and they were worried the French Canadians would side with the Americans, which they probably would have if the British pursued their uh strategy of like taking away their French identity and their Catholicism. So they reversed it all within 10 years and allowed it to be kind of uh you know, separate.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's really the French colony they did that.
SPEAKER_06Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. So that was interesting. And the Americans, uh, General Montgomery, whom this county is named after it. Oh, yeah. Did not go well. Yeah, every time we went up there in the War of 1812 or the American Revolution, it did not go well for us when we when we had designs on Canada.
SPEAKER_01That's a good point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, otherwise it would have would have been, I think it would have been all one country. But uh yeah, every time we, whether it was going up through Detroit or or Quebec City, uh, and it's like uh very strategically, geographically important because if you control this this point, it's where the river narrows coming in from the Atlantic. So if you control this point, you control like all of like northeastern North America from this point. Um so that's why why it's there, why they built the fort there, and why they kept fighting over it. It's kind of like the point in Pittsburgh controls you can control the Ohio River Valley from there. Oh yeah, so yeah. Food was fantastic. Um it's got like a lot of French influences, but also local stuff where it's a lot of far to table, very fresh. Um they would often have maps of where the stuff came from on your menu, and it was you know always almost always through throughout Quebec. There's also it's a little bit hardier than just French food, so like a lot of pork and meat and potatoes. Maybe maybe some English influence is on it. And usually when I say that, it's a bad thing to be forest food, but here it is not a bad thing. Uh it's very good. Um like you get stuff like duck carpaccio and you know, things like that, some you know, some good things like pork, lots of far seafood. So very good. They they make wine up there too, I don't know.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But you can get uh good French wines are good. We had a great time.
SPEAKER_03That's good. Wow. Okay, um, well, no particular order since uh we last got together. Um I went down to um the front street, you know, art galleries lost. There was a food truck rally a couple Fridays ago. Rain was threatening off and on. Um but anyway, uh we went and um had some barbecue from one of the trucks, so that was pretty good. Uh what else? I went to book club last Sunday since we did not have dinner with Dan. So yeah, my my monthly book club had not seen me since I think November. Um wasn't a strong turnout because of summer vacations and all that, but that's okay. Um what did you read? Uh we read a nonfiction book called Proto by Laura Spinning Spiny. It was about it was about like the um how a lot of the Indo Indo-European languages are uh all related. Um if you go back a few several thousand years, um for me the most interesting part of the book was um how like modern genetics in the last 20 years has really helped uh strengthen the I guess the study of linguistics, at least if you want to trace back to history several thousand years, um, because they've been able to find like populations that are related to each other and help you know explain like the spread of languages over time. Um again, you know, it's a very well I'll say a dry, dry subject, and it had its moments um of interest, but uh anyway, that was our book.
SPEAKER_07Um who picked that book?
SPEAKER_03Uh it doesn't matter. Mike Murray. Michael Murray did not pick the book, but I did remind him that he's on the hook for a man for all seasons.
SPEAKER_07And he agreed, right? He agreed. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Like he did with you. Yep. But we you know. Um, so what else? Um I had uh lunch with my former boss at CareSource. Uh she had retired a little over a year ago, and obviously I haven't seen her in a while, so we caught up. Um we went to Future Fest from the Dayton Playhouse. Um, Future Fest is a uh a program put on by Dayton Playhouse where they solicit submissions for plays, and they are not necessarily from first time playwrights, but the plays themselves are first time, so they cannot have been staged. They can have been a workshop. Um in a couple of years in a row in the past, I was a reader for the Dayton Playhouse or a year. Yeah, where you read out of like say 400 submissions, you might read anywhere from 100 to 200 of those. Um I didn't do it for obvious reasons last year. Um but anyway, we went to one of the um productions um last night. Uh the playwright was one of one of the things that some people like about the Future Fest is that the playwrights are for the five plays that are chosen uh show up, and then there's like five professional um adjudicators that have some role in the theater, um, you generally from out of town, but not always, and uh they give comments you know to help the playwright, you know, maybe hopefully strengthen the play should they want to actually try to get this on a on stage. Um so that was last night. What else? Oh, I started volunteering at Hannah's treasure chest uh last week. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Didn't you used to be board president?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I was board uh chair for six years at Hannah's and on the board for a total of nine years. And so when I showed up, uh I mean I didn't just randomly show up, but uh um I said, Can I show up? And they're like, sure. Of course. And so they're like, well, we don't think we have a name tag for you, but aha, I already had a name tag from all those. So you know, I caught up with some of the other uh volunteers.
SPEAKER_07Uh the ladies were why don't you tell people what Hannah's chest is?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Hannah's treasure chest, uh actually now known as HTC, is a children's focused nonprofit where they uh primarily assemble care packages containing clothes, toys, um, other things of interest. Uh diapers is a big one for the kids. And uh what's notable about them is they work through other social service agencies, so like Home Fool or Children's Hospital. So it's it's kind of a leap of faith on the um the ladies' part because they're not actually working with the recipient. So it's not you know it's not direct care, as you might say. Um but they get a lot of um, there's a lot of camaraderie working together in the volunteer um space. Um anyways, worthwhile activity. It's one of those things. So I was working within the toy department and checking to make sure that like a board game or whatever had enough pieces, etc. So it's one of those things where you spend a lot of time like on one thing, you know. Um, but it you know, it has to be done, and you know, a couple pieces are missing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you don't want to hand out a game, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and chances are if it is missing a piece, um, the volunteers have stored up the missing pieces elsewhere. So there's an inventory of missing pieces. So having missing pieces is not a deal breaker, it's just uh you gotta figure out what's missing.
SPEAKER_02And so to make sure you just had to play that 30-hour game on an option.
SPEAKER_03That's right. You know, Sam, like you say that, and uh, there was a couple times I was tempted to do something like that. In fact, somebody had donated um a set of dominoes that had the Ohio State logo, and I was like, mmm, boy, too bad there wasn't a missing piece here, because might have to just uh borrow that from Mia. But nope, there were no missing pieces. I didn't I didn't sideline it from the uh toy inventory. Um so yeah, arguably that uh that uh was a highlight of last week, but uh no, I'm gonna continue volunteering, but I started last week.
SPEAKER_07Do you is there a branch in Canada?
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh. Uh I think I'm gonna start a support group, you know, for for people that have applied for citizenship, particularly if they're getting grease shunned by their friends. It'll be a little support group. You know.
SPEAKER_07Kate?
SPEAKER_01Are you are you finished? I I guess you are. I guess you are now. Is Dan finished asking the questions?
SPEAKER_03Um that's uh I think I'm done.
SPEAKER_07No curling.
SPEAKER_03No curling related activities. Summertime. Even curling takes a break. I have a board meeting this Tuesday, but I'll be in next time's report, maybe.
SPEAKER_07Ice melts.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's melted during the summer.
SPEAKER_01That's right. It's hot. It is hot.
SPEAKER_07Okay, Catherine Ann, uh, before you start, I have a question.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_07Are they ever gonna fix that sidewalk in front of your house? Oh, they did? Yeah. They finally poured the concrete.
SPEAKER_01They did this week.
SPEAKER_07Okay, super.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had well, I'll I mean I can say I had called the city last week and said, hey, I'm just checking in on this because I don't know what's happening. It's been framed up for like two months. I don't know who's responsible for it at this point, but I figured that since you all framed it, that you were going to take care of pouring concrete. And the lady I talked to was very nice and she said, let me check on that and we'll call you back. And then that day when I got home, there was a bunch of spray paint out there again. And then two days later, the plumbers, Whites Plumbing, who came and did all the sewer work back in the winter, um, during some of the coldest days of the year, if you recall, they were out there on the hottest day of the year putting concrete in. And it was it was the same two guys who spent like a day and a half in the pit in front of my house back in the winter putting concrete down. And it was very nice. And I asked them, I said, Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought it was the city. If I'd known it was you, I would have waited till it was like cooler. But they said sometimes they have to do this the concrete, they said it just depends. So there must have been some note, and they called them and said, Hey, go do this. But they did a really nice job, I think. They were super meticulous when they came and did the digging, and so they did a nice job. But they put grass seed down and straw and everything on the part of the yard that's that got torn up, so yeah, that looks good. Progress. Progress, finally. So, yeah. Okay. So what else did we do? I I've been working a lot, like a lot of race. Well, yeah, lots of lots of regular days, evenings, weekend things. Um that I knew that's what the next few months would be, and that's what they are, and so here we are, lots of work.
SPEAKER_07Um have you been able to get up to the lake?
SPEAKER_01No, no, I haven't done that. But my we took my dad out finally uh for his belated birthday dinner this week. We went to Dan's favorite restaurant, the Pine Club. Um not now and never will be.
SPEAKER_07They could pay me a million dollars, and I would say nope.
SPEAKER_01Nope.
SPEAKER_07Nope.
SPEAKER_01Well, dad enjoyed it, and you know, he turned 75, so it was a milestone this year. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Um I know, I know.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, but it's been, I mean, it's just been I've been really busy. I don't know that there's anything all that interesting to what I've been doing, but you don't have you don't have a story about 800 women? I don't have a story like that. I wish I did. I wish I did. You know, I mean, I spent like time watching the movie for this week. That was an investment.
SPEAKER_07And and the more and more I think about it, I think the name of that show was Bark Skin. Because it that was the bark. No, it was the bark of the trees that they did something with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's what she said. I know that's what she said.
SPEAKER_07Get your mind out of the gutter, Whaley.
SPEAKER_01We were all thinking it. Sorry, but we were all there.
SPEAKER_07Wow. I'm having brunch with some weird people here today.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so you done?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, what is there to say? I'm busy. It's about boring stuff with boring stuff. So there you go. It's work, a lot of work.
SPEAKER_07Did you go to the fair?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, I did not go to the fair at all this year. I was scheduled to go Friday night. Uh, I was gonna be at the uh table with Edmund and Kevin was gonna go, and you know, um, the air quality advisory and the forecast uh forced us to cancel our evening at the fair. So uh So no elephant airs. No, I didn't have a single bite of fair food this year, and you know, I can't say I miss it that much. Well my sister had to go out several times and staff the Board of Elections table. Oh she it sounds like she ate enough fair food for all of us, so yeah. There you go. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_07Well, I guess that means it's my turn. So uh got my notes here. Because I'm 73 and it's the grudge hasn't been 75. It happened in oh at 50, yeah, something it's 50, it happened in 1976.
SPEAKER_01But you're working your way to 75. 50 years ago. Yeah, yeah. If I live only 50 years, yes.
SPEAKER_07So uh since uh the last time we were here singing the praises of Gigi, uh that was July 3rd. So Yeah, it's been a while. We had uh July 4th celebration, and then uh with uh I think with my kids and grandkids, and then the next day we had a block celebration.
SPEAKER_01We did right that's right.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, we had a block celebration. So I think I had a total of three celebrations of uh July 4th.
SPEAKER_00And nice and Marty made really good food. Yeah, Marty made the ribs, really, really good food. That was good.
SPEAKER_07And so then that means I had uh five very good brunches at my favorite diner and official sponsor, Legacy Pancake House, West Carrollton, Ohio, check it out. Uh also during that time, uh last Wednesday, I uh got up and went to the House of Bread uh and was interviewed uh for one of their websites or something as a longtime supporter of House of Bread. Uh for those of you who are not familiar with House of Bread, uh it has it's open 365 days a year, and uh they uh provide uh meals 365 days a year. I've been a long time uh uh supporter of it. Uh I used to play Santa Claus over there uh before my knee surgeries. You know, you gotta let a kid set on your lap when you're Santa, and the knee surgeries were like, eh, I'm I'm done with kids sitting on my lap. But it was nice. I got interviewed about how I became familiar with House of Bread and why I continue to every month financially support it. Nice. Yeah. So that was nice. Uh shout out to uh Sherry Gale, who is uh she used to be the preacher at uh Grace Methodist, and she's running it now, and also to my good friend uh Bill Evans, who was one of the uh prime uh guys that helped get it built. And he made it. That was just the final music uh in the background of uh of uh Ben Her. So Eddie, we got great breakfast out here. Well, you know, the commentaries are the same length of the movie. So, anyhow, uh then uh also I have managed, I haven't been to the dentist for a very long time. And I'm not afraid of going to the dentist. I love my dentist, Dave Strieble. Uh he's been my dentist ever since I was a young attorney, and I did his his collection work. Uh he's done all my kids. But you know, I just kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. And every time when uh one of my boys would come back from seeing Dr. Dave, they would be like, Dr. Dave wants to see you. Yeah. So I broke a tooth about a month ago. So I decided, well, it's time I ought to go there. Better, yeah. You guys already had one out of here. Eddie uh Eddie was constantly reminding me I gotta go see Strebel. So I get out there on uh Thursday, uh Frank was able to take me, and uh after our greetings of haven't seen you for a while, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it comes out. Not only did I break one tooth, I broke two tooth. Oh, oh fortunately, the two teeth that I broke were right next to each other. And so uh half an hour 45 minutes later, I had two ground down teeth that could be saved. So I've got a temporary crown. So I'm just chewing on the left side because I don't want to swallow the temporary crown.
SPEAKER_01When do you go back?
SPEAKER_07When I go back, so I go back uh Wednesday and get uh the permanent one put on. So yeah, so shout out to Dave Strebel and the wonderful staff there, they do a great job. And then yesterday I had a real good visit with my niece Anna. Uh came over with her friend from Columbus, and uh, you know, I've been trying to curate my collection and get stuff out of the house, and my sister-in-law uh Lois moved from Van Wert uh to Columbus to be with one of her daughters and grandkids there. Well, she sent me this box and I shook the box and I said, Oh great, she sent me some more snacks because she has these really good snacks she sends. A couple days later I opened the box. Now it ain't snacks. It's about 400 photographs.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_07And like 150, 200 Bill Clinton 1992, 1996 campaign buttons. That's like the last thing I need is something new coming into the house to go through.
SPEAKER_00Please do not send dancings.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm begging you. Well, Eddie's We appreciate the sentiment.
SPEAKER_07Eddie says he's never going to carry another box in from Edward Hamilton bookseller. So anyhow, uh uh but in the there were photographs of me and all my brothers way back to the 1940s, early 40s, or mid to late forties, baby pictures of me and uh and uh of Anna's uh father, uh which they had never seen. So I got them out and was able to have a really good visit with them. And uh the good thing, well, it was good to see her, and she's a loyal listener, so shout out to Anna. Uh and I'm working on her. She's uh uh a far a pharmacist and she's full-time faculty at Ohio State School of Pharmacy or College of Pharmacy. So yeah, she's smart as a whip. Uh and she's a loyal listener, she's a couple episodes behind, but uh I was gently nudging her about being a uh she said she would eventually do it. Love it. Uh but the good thing uh was beside the visit, she brought back uh brought over food from Schmidt's. Oh nice she brought a carton of uh uh sauerkraut and sausage and German potato salad and two of Schmidt's great cream puffs.
SPEAKER_01Amazing.
SPEAKER_03Dan I thought about you because at that food truck rally at the front street uh loss, Schmitz was there. Schmidt was there, yeah. Uh we shared uh cream puff or whatever, and I thought of you.
SPEAKER_07Well, I uh I ate some of it last night before I went to bed, and then Eddie finished it off sometime during the night when he was up watching Ben this morning when he was watching uh Ben Hur. Uh so anyhow, uh that is what I did. Eddie, you want to talk about what you did?
SPEAKER_04Make bad decisions. Oh that's kind of all I did.
SPEAKER_07And but you've got a doctor's appointment right for the hand here finally?
SPEAKER_01Oh god.
SPEAKER_07That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_07So Eddie's my uh uh the main help with me staying in the house. So we gotta get Eddie hand working back again.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_07Oh, and maybe Passport. Yeah, Passport. Oh, and the other thing Eddie and I did uh in this last week was we took care of Parker, who was Damien's uh dog.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_07So we had Parker for almost a week, and it was nice to have a dog back in the house.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Parker's a good old dog, and uh we uh enjoyed having Parker back in the house.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, that's nice.
SPEAKER_07Okay, so there you go. We are now going to get on to the best picture of 1959. Uh I'm gonna start off with it's Ben Her. It won 11 Oscars. Uh for Best Picture in that year, it was up against Anatomy of a Murder.
SPEAKER_04Is that more than Gigi?
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Gigi had set the record for eight, and then uh Ben Her topped it by three. Uh Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun's Story, and Room at the Top. It also got uh Oscar for Best Actor, uh Carlton uh Charlton Heston, Best Supporting Actor, Hugh Griffith, directing, William Weiler, cinemathy, color, art directions, set decorations, color, costume design color, because back then they were still doing those three color or black and white. Yeah. Uh sound, film editing, special effects, and music score of a dramatic movie or comedy. In uh the book that we call the uh the Bible here, Eighty Years of the Oscar by Robert Osborne, uh the brief write-up is MGM's decision to make a second version of Lou Wallace's Ben Her was risky at the time. The studio was teetering on financial bankruptcy, and yet the decision was made to pour $15 million, an enormous investment of the time, into a do-or-die project. But the film turned out to be a great critical success in a box office bonanza, saving at least temporarily Culver City's Lion for more roars in the future. The most I'm not done. Paul, the Canadian's trying to take my dish away from me. In America, we have this thing called All You Can Eat, Paul. Uh the most awesome sequence in Ben Hur was a mind-blowing chariot race which ran 11 minutes of the film's three hours, 32-minute running time. Charlton Heston was equally impressive as a wealthy Jew sentenced to life as a galley slave by his once best friend played by Stephen Boyd. Director Weiler proved conclusively it was possible to make a rousing spectacle in which audiences and could also care about the people involved. So with that, everybody here has watched the movie because Eddie just finished about five minutes ago. And so I'm going to start. Nan, you want to start?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um, yeah, I thought this the chariot scene is the famous part of this movie, and it's understandable. It's really uh fantastic. Um it's it's really like pretty amazing uh work done in 1959. Also, just like the sheer volume of extras in this movie uh for these scenes was unreal. Like in the when Judah goes, which is the character that Charles Neston plays, uh goes to Rome and all of the folks that are there for him uh when he's there. Um I've never seen Ben Her, so you know I thought a lot of him easier, and so I I just knew like I knew that there was a chariot race, and I knew that Charles and Heston was on it. Uh it's it still could use an editor. Uh it was way like there would be times where it'd be like, you don't have to show us all the different ways. Like again. And I think that like these big productions, they spend so much money on them, it's almost like they want them to be longer in time that that's not necessary. And um Heston is his normal overacting self, but it works in this movie, I think. Um that he overacts. Um I thought that um yeah, like I think it makes sense like he's Moses, he's been like these are the kind of plays. Like watching him overact in the greatest genres was so painful, but here it wasn't as as tough to watch. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Matched the setting, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it kind of matched the grandeur of the movie, I guess, because he was like so over the top, like when he cries in the gun.
SPEAKER_01Which is a which is actually a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he cries a lot, he doesn't paint a lot, and uh uh the the most endearing part of his character is actually I think when he saves the guy that like unshackled him rowing, and you know, the guy wants to die, but then he ends up he had won the whole thing, so then that's how he like kind of comes to rise again. So the story is like a good arc story, I thought, and like uh found it interesting. Um and then you know, you have like all the Christianity that kind of lays through it uh with being Jesus adjacent as I call this. I like that. I like that. Uh but yeah, an interesting and also just like an interesting time in history, right? Like I think this movie does a nice job of kind of laying out that history a little more uh that you don't get a lot of, and I liked I liked that. So overall, like um wouldn't go out to see this on my own, but glad I watched it. Won't watch it again. Oh, one more thing I want to say. The score is over the top ridiculous. It's too loud, you can hear it in here, like they do not have the setting right for it, and it's just over the top. I'm not Surprised it won because it was like trying to win so hard, but way too much on the score, I would say. Like I think it like actually hurt the film.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, too too much, too dramatic. I think I read it was like the longest score ever written.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, too too much, I agree. It had a huge budget. I think it was like $17 million or something like that. Which is an in 1959 money. Yeah. It was an insane budget.
SPEAKER_03With a marketing budget that almost matched that too. Oh yeah. Yeah, they were really trying to promote this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it was they made their money back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they made the money back. Um it was interesting because there's like a couple of elements to the story. One is just like kind of a man who is wrong. Right? And you've seen a lot, like it'll parts of it will remind you maybe some of like uh a movie like Gladiator. Yeah. Where another situation where someone high up in society is is wronged by the Romans and made a slave, and then comes back powerful to haunt the person that did it to him, that did him wrong.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But then there's also like this religious element undercurrent going on with it, with Jesus, who we hardly ever even see, but he keeps being talked about, and we keep seeing his followers. And they're they're trying to draw this contrast between the like the godless Romans and the uh followers of Jesus. Right. Um like they keep saying, like, the Caesar is the Romans god, which wasn't really true. I mean, they had some pagan rituals and beliefs, so that wasn't exactly true. Um and I I don't if you don't know the context, you may understand like the um the tension that's going on between the Jews and the Romans. Um so like the the Romans will they will let you have your religion as long as there's no political dissent. That was generally how they rule, but they rarely ran against ran up against the people that were like monotheistic and so like adherent to their religion. So they had a lot of trouble governing uh the Israelites. And then uh additionally, it was like the edge of the Roman Empire for a lot of those years, and so that made things very tense, like where Rome wanted to keep uh things tightly under control. Um but they they tended to make it seem like just Rome the like Rome as general in general was just the enemy and not like the individual men and some of the decisions they make, like Pontius Pilate, who I think we know like uh from some things, uh historical record, did like some you know really bad things. Really spontaneous, yeah. Yeah, just to like try to put his finger in the Jews' eye in various ways. Uh so that was that was interesting thinking about the history, and then also knowing, and they don't really get into this, but you know, 40 years after this, right, the Jews are going to revolt. And they are going to go to war with the Romans, and the Romans are going to kill every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem and burn the city to the ground. But we kind of don't talk about that. We actually end the movie like on this, you know, sort of uplifting note where the crucifixion happens and then uh the women are cured of the uh person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Eddie?
SPEAKER_01What did you think?
SPEAKER_04It was an okay movie. It was long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Very long.
SPEAKER_04Um was that? That one shape was very hot.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh these are my favorite takes I used to do. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_04The cow was kind of hot too.
SPEAKER_00Um Charlton Heston and Esther were hot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he has he he really gets big muscles rowing on the ship. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. A couple of good lines would keep you alive for the sake of the ship. And that's what he said up to the council, you know, anyway. That was a great line, yeah. Keep you alive for the sake of the ship. Um I thought the Jesus thing kind of just came out of nowhere. Um yeah, that's about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I also want to say, I like I second what Dan said about it being too long and about Hesson's acting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03My take. Um I really enjoyed the cinematography. I um, you know, that cinema scope, you know, you get that big uh horizontal picture. Um it definitely put a lot of care into setting the time and the place. I think Sam, you touched on that.
SPEAKER_02It definitely deserved all those Oscars for costume and fill uh all those set, all those types of things. It was really well done.
SPEAKER_03Kind of like what you said, Sam, about like there or Nan too, like you said, kind of like Jesus adjacent. Like, in some cases, like they were very explicit, like you know, the the birth of Christ, but then other things like the Sermon on the Mount. Like, if you don't know that's a Sermon Mount, you have no idea what's going on. However, what I did like about that scene is that because of this like sweeping panoramic views they're doing, I mean, I'm a s you know, if it wasn't Charlton Heston, they had an extra that was like way in the when they showed it from Jesus' perspective. That was meant to be him, yeah. Yeah, you could see like the Charlton Heston character, uh Judah, like in way in the background, like walking, and then they would flash back to Charlton Heston walking, and I was like, that's pretty good attention to detail. Uh the fact that they had all the extras, um, you know, they they obviously went all out to try to get a sense of of place um and time. I appreciate them on that. Yeah. Um, at first I was, you know, I really wanted to comment about like how how long the movie was, but then you know, through the help of Google, you know, I realized that in the context of the industry, you know, in the 50s and 60s, I mean, these epic movies were a thing. Um you know, they were trying to draw uh viewers or audiences in, you know, from TV with big time popularity. And I mean, I have a list of other movies, thanks to Google, um, that really this is not unusual for being so long. Um however, having said it.
SPEAKER_00Which which ones? Um since you have the list. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I mean, I I specifically looked for movies or asked uh, you know, the AI to uh identify movies that were long. A couple of them we've already seen, like Bridge on the River Kwai was 161 minutes, but Ten Commandments. So these are all like the ones we aren't going to be watching, but like Ten Commandments is also 220 minutes. Um, you know, Ben Hur was 212, um Giant 200 minutes, War and Peace 200. In the 60s, we haven't gotten there yet, but you know, we will watch Lawrence of Arabia.
SPEAKER_02That's just that's another one out score and a long movie. And I I like it, yeah, but it is long. Cleopatra four hours. So I mean a not great movie for we don't need to we don't watch that one. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so not only are these like epic movies, but like some of these are you know very I mean ancient history, yeah, uh, like Cleopatra. Um so it I didn't really want to like dwell on it being too long just because they were in the mainstream for for wanting to do that, although it could lead some to some jokes where like it could have been longer, you know, like they definitely had to cut out scenes that could have, you know, like the uh the the scene the the battle scene on the water could have been longer, you know. I mean, there are definitely opportunities to make it longer. Um well with a little boats fighting. Yeah, well, you know, it's also you know, it it it was before CGI, right? And so you you know, we think of the chariot races, but for some reason I actually, in addition to that, liked the scene, the the battle on the water. I mean, clearly they're using you know models, you know, miniature for that time. Yeah. Yeah. Because they had fireballs, like they're in a really great scene, too. They had to come up with these miniature fireballs to like you know, fight at each other, you know, fight each other. So that was pretty cool. Um, I the the plot, the plot hole, you know, in some ways it doesn't really need like too strong of a plot, right? I mean, this this the story arc, you know, has been mentioned about being wronged and then trying to seek redemption. I mean, that's not new. They're piggybacking on the story of Jesus, so they didn't have to invent that. So that's why I to for me, like some of the plot holes, um, like I didn't I didn't buy the fact that there was conflict between the Jews and the Romans. Like, they don't really show anything. Um, or we're just taking it for granted that that there's conflict, and it's and it's just because Judah's uh yeah, and it's hard to understand why.
SPEAKER_02What are they fighting about other than like the Romans have power over them? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I mean, for any any uh Monty Python Life O'Brien fans, I mean there's more anti-Roman stuff for comedic purposes in that movie than there is in this movie. So I didn't really buy that, and it was hard to buy that Ben Hur is a representative of these people because he's done pretty well for himself under Roman.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, and he's fictional, character, totally fictional character.
SPEAKER_03And his whole, I mean, granted, he he he got put on as a galley slave and he had to like through you know circumstances with the adopted son of the Roman consul, so he comes back to exact his revenge from a position of privilege, not like Russell Crowe and Gladiator, where he has to really slog it out to try to get his revenge. So I just and then uh maybe a controversial part, which Eddie, I was hoping you might say something here, is like, you know, he wasn't set up, he didn't take care of his property, and the clay tile fell, and like you know, turned the gun.
SPEAKER_02This is a property maintenance.
SPEAKER_01Property maintenance. That is the reason that started.
SPEAKER_03He was responsible. Like to say that he was unresponsible. So I wish they'd come up with a different plot device. I wish it'd come up with a different plot device to uh have him, you know, that deferred maintenance really led to a huge problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it could have been something a little less uh random to get into and you could still get to the same point and have the you could still have the roam and overreact.
SPEAKER_01I think though, when he you know his former friend who has come back was looking for any reason, right, to make an example. So it like it didn't really matter what it was.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, agreed. So anyway, um you have questions for me? You're giving me that look like you have questions.
SPEAKER_01He's giving you a look like, oh little Paul. Oh, Paul.
SPEAKER_03Alright. I'm done. Oh, well, I I do want to point out that um William Weiler, of course, Kate was probably taking Kate's words from her. We would have seen him in Mrs. Miniver in 1946, and uh was it General Um No, Best Years of Our Life. Best Years of Our Live. Yeah, and then the producer Sam Zimbelis. We last saw him, so to speak, when he was the editor for Broadway Melody. Yeah, 1929 winner?
SPEAKER_001930.
SPEAKER_031930. Yeah, second one. So I like the tie back. The director.
SPEAKER_01The director.
SPEAKER_03Oh, so he did best editors of the movie. Yeah, he won three Oscars, and then he was nominated nine more times, no Oscars for those other nine movies. None of the others were past Oscar, so probably not a coincidence there. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Well, um a lot of my thoughts have kind of been set already. I so I've seen this movie before. Um this, it was like, as Nan pointed out, it was always on at Easter. And I like remember bits and pieces of this movie as a kid seeing it. I had lots of eye rolling as a kid about it because it was long and it seemed boring to me. And it, you know, Charlton Heston was not impressive to me.
SPEAKER_02No, but it always the one I remember was always the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01Well, they'd show that to commercial interruption, you know that it stretched it out forever. I will say, Ben Hur, I think is a it's a far superior movie to the Ten Commandments as a movie. And like the story, I think, is gripping, and it's it's just it's a better movie uh than the Ten Commandments. It makes for I don't know, better entertainment. Not in 1959, probably not married couples can't sleep for the same day. That's right. That's right. No, so Charlton Heston is a scene tour and not in the like Betty Davis, Joan uh Crawford like good way. But it's like he literally, it's like whether he's happy or sad and in pain, he's always like gritting his teeth. Yeah, and he's doing his best, Charlton Heston. It's like there's always like a gritting of the teeth with Charlton Heston. But I think to Nan's point, it actually works better in this movie because he is playing someone who, you know, is wronged and is knocked down uh to the bottom of the pit and has to climb his way out. And so there is a lot of pain and you know, sadness and suffering in the story uh for him. Um but yeah, Paul makes a good point about the privilege though that he enjoys both in the beginning of the movie and then as he begins really the redemption of his character and uh you know taking the fight back to those that wronged him. Um, you know, as for the length of the movie, it it is a long one and I feel like it could be shortened. I honestly I enjoy from before the intermission, I I like the scene, the battle scene, right? But honestly, from the intermission on, I think is the best movie. It's like it could be its own thing, you know, with a little bit of work, the whole front half, which is like I think it's like the intermission doesn't come until almost two hours in, two something hours in. And it's almost like you could condense that first part and make a really good movie with a little a condensed first part and the second part. Um, I think you it would still have the same power. Um and yeah, I mean it's it's an epic, it's very cinematic, um, but it just it kind of goes on uh too long to hold your attention really well. I don't know. I found my mind wandering a lot, and then I'd like zip back into it and not have missed anything. It's like so, yeah. I don't know. I like it alright. Not not in the top for me, but not in the bottom either. Yeah. No, nothing, nothing, nothing will be. Even John with a win. Even Hamlet. Even Hamlet, wow.
SPEAKER_00Okay, Danny, there you go. That's what your table says.
SPEAKER_01There's where we are.
SPEAKER_07Once again, my table has been hijacked.
SPEAKER_01What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_07Once again, the table has been hijacked.
SPEAKER_01You characterize it as hijacking, but I I don't think that's the right word. Yeah, we didn't we disagree, perhaps. We liked the movie. We liked it overall. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Tells a good story, kept my attention.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Where do I begin?
SPEAKER_01And I will say one more thing.
SPEAKER_07Where do I begin?
SPEAKER_01Um, I do I appreciate the Jesus adjacency, but it's almost as if that they could have still made it, I think, a really entertaining movie without that. You know, so it's an it's a I I'm just saying, like, it could have been a really and I know that that's not necessarily the point. Okay. You missed the translations of the gospel.
SPEAKER_07There's a Okay, now this is where we'll s this is where all start. Okay. Okay. It was based on a novel written by Lou Wallace, who was a uh uh general in the Civil War for the North. He was also uh He was credited as general. He was He was an attorney from Indiana, and he also was the territorial governor of New Mexico, where he finished writing the novel. The novel is Ben Her A Tale of the Christ. So give me a break. One, two, three, four, five. Five of you who were all upset about being Jesus adjacent. Nobody said they were upset! We're just we're just saying, I didn't interrupt I didn't interrupt any of you guys when you were going on.
SPEAKER_01Well, you're mischaracterizing that.
SPEAKER_07I'm not attacking you. I'm not attacking you. Uh I will say this. I have seen I was up till two o'clock this morning because I watched it all the way through without the commentary, and then I watched it again all the way through with commentary by a guy named uh uh let me get his name here. Commentary with a guy named uh Gene Hatcher, who wrote the definitive book on the making of Ben Hur, and Charlton Heston. So I watched three hours or whatever of Ben Hur, and then I watched it again with the commentary. And so I think if any of you at the table would uh take the time to listen to the commentary, I think you would have a better appreciation of this movie and what went into it and the history of it. Now, uh the book came out in 1880, uh was not a success, but then eventually it became. It first was a stage production on Broadway. Started in 1899 with Real Horses and a Galley. Uh and it ran for 22 years on Broadway.
SPEAKER_06Wow.
SPEAKER_07The first film version was in 1907. It was a 15-minute uh silent that had the sea battle as well as the chariot race. But the first big production, MGM did, in 1925, was two hours and twenty four minutes long, uh, and it grossed four million dollars, which was a lot of money, and it had the sea battle and the chariot race. Uh this movie was filmed almost entirely in Italy because at that time after World War II, uh the the rebuilding countries in Europe had a financial thing where the money had to stay there, so it was a lot uh more productive to do a film there. They filmed it for almost a year in Italy. Uh they had it's just remarkable listening to everything that went into the making of this movie. Now, as Charlton Heston aged and he kind of got weird when it came to the NRA, he still is one of my favorite all-time actors. Uh uh from uh from Moses to Ben Hur to L Cid to uh Andy Jackson in uh Buccaneer to Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, Soil and Green. I've always loved the acting of Richard Hair of uh uh Charlton Heston. Uh the uh some of the other interesting things about the making of the movie was uh William Wyler, whose actual name whose real name was Willie, uh but they decided that child sounded too childish, so they changed it to William. But he was actually uh legally named Willie. Uh he wanted English actors to play all the Romans. So if you remember the guy that plays uh uh the the Roman uh Admiral, he was in Bridge Over the River Quiet. He was uh and uh uh Hugh Griffin who got the uh got the best supporting actor playing the Arab Prince uh with that owned the horses, uh he was actually from Wales. So and Stephen Boyd was Irish. So almost all the other actors were uh English, but for the woman that played Esther. She was actually Israeli. Yeah, she was. Very good looking lady.
SPEAKER_03Can you make a comment, Dan, based on what you just said? Uh huh. Can you make a com can I make a comment based on what you just said?
SPEAKER_07It's America.
SPEAKER_03I guess Stephen Boyd was not nominated for the role of Masala, right? I think that's correct. Yeah, I and I find that interesting because I thought that was a much stronger role than um Hugh Griffin. Yeah, for the the shape. Yeah. Which was an enjoyable role, but I was like kind of stunned at that kind of how that played out in the awards and the nominations.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Now Charlton Heston was not the first pick to play uh Van Herb. Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster. Oh and Weiler actually wanted Charlton Heston to be Masala.
SPEAKER_01Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. But uh anyhow, uh then that Martha Scott, uh, we see her in a lot of movies. Uh she's the one that played the mother. Uh also uh to keep it historically correct, uh they had on the set a top uh uh scholar of uh uh Jewish history from uh uh Israel who was always there to say nope, they wouldn't have done this, nope, they wouldn't have done that. Uh so from from a historical standpoint, at least as regards to the Jewish faith, that was all uh all kosher the way it should have been. Uh and interestingly enough, the uh the woman who played uh the sister, she was actually discovered uh in Schwab's drugstore, which is that famous place where all the actresses are discovered. And uh her they changed her name to uh Kathy O'Donnell because uh the the press agent said, yeah, we Americans like uh actors and actresses with Irish last names. And we've done a board. We've seen her before uh because she was Wilma in Best Years of Our Lives. Yeah. So it's interesting you see all these actors and actresses that are going in and out of all these different movies. Uh okay. Oh, and also William Weiler hired uh Jaffy, who had been blacklisted for six years. So that was a big uh shout out to William Weiler for doing that. Uh and then um Okay, then the other thing that I found interesting by listening to all the commentary was how much was filmed and then cut out because in the novel there's all these subplots, there's all these romances that they're trying to force on to Ben Hur uh in Rome. You know, they see her with the woman. Well, that was a whole subplot in the book, and they threw that out. Uh the Arab Prince there was a subplot where they're trying to get Van Hur to.
SPEAKER_01You feel both of those sections in the movie, yeah. It's like they they don't spend a lot of time, and so you it makes sense that the book was much you know more involved in those periods of his life.
SPEAKER_07So they you know they did a lot of uh a lot of editing. Okay. Uh now this movie, uh Sam Zimblis, who was the uh uh the producer, he died halfway through it. He had a massive heart attack and died halfway through it. Uh but this had been his baby. He wanted to do it. They actually started filming this uh in 1955.
SPEAKER_06Wow.
SPEAKER_07Uh the battle scenes were filmed uh that uh this sea battle was filmed, that was one of the few things that was filmed in Hollywood that done with miniature ships, although they did have a life-size galley made that was in a tank that was huge.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Uh but uh they filmed a lot of this before they really had the go-ahead from MGM to do it. And Sam Zimbelis was really pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. So I found that very interesting that that movie took so long to finally get the suits of MGM to kick up the money to, you know, to finally do it. Uh okay, what else? Oh, so we get to the thing that's probably the most known is the chariot race. Okay, one of my uh, you guys have heard me from time to time talk about my college girlfriend, loyal listener, Eleanor Jean Butterball Payne, in Wichita Falls, Texas. Uh she texted me or called me, I can't remember which, that she had just got done watching it, and she thought that they had changed the horses, uh, the horses that won, by looking at, and she's a cowgirl because she's from Texas, uh, by looking at their snouts. And she said, I'm not sure, you gotta watch it again, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm watching it, and I'm like, okay. Well, when you listen to the commentary, you find out there were four or there were two teams of white horses that makes sense. That be you you could use the horses for a certain period of time, then you had to rust them. Yeah. So there were actually two teams of white horses that they makes total sense. Then they also had other teams of horses that were trained to do a specific thing. Like when they walk into the tent, those were specially trained horses just to do that scene. Yeah. And when they start eating his scarf, another specially trained horses, which I thought was very interesting. It was a famous uh Hollywood uh uh stunt coordinator who did uh the uh the chariot with all the horses. And I think if I remember right, he was also a very minor beginner in that genre as a stunt man in the 1925 version of Ben Hurley. Okay, that's really interesting. He had been there. Yeah now, when they bring the horses all in, all the nine teams, uh, they bring them in and they march them around the you know in the arena. How they got them to stay together, they were all tied together.
SPEAKER_01I wondered about that because it was almost too perfect, yeah.
SPEAKER_07They were all tied together. Now, with the exception of uh uh when they had to have the stunt doubles for Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd, the other seven uh guys that were doing the chariot uh they were stunt men from western. They were Hollywood stunt men, they knew exactly what they were doing and everything else. Heston uh had already learned how to do a two-chariot from being Moses in Ten Commandments, but four horses is a big difference. And so he spent a month learning how to control the four horses. Stephen Boyd only had like two weeks to figure it out by the time he got there for his filming. You know, Heston was there like every day.
SPEAKER_05That's right, that's way lost.
SPEAKER_07You know, Heston was there, he's like in almost every scene, yeah. But you know, these other people come and go and stuff like that. And like Esther would leave for a month and go do another film and then come back and do something with all these guys, yeah. Uh and so uh the race is it's real, there's no CGI in it. Yeah, uh, but they filmed it at different speeds, and then they were able to put it all together. Yeah, like where Heston goes up and over and he falls out, that was an unplanned unplanned uh accident. The the guy who was the head stunt guy, it was his son, was playing Heston. And you can, you know, yeah, you can tell a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Well, because of the wig, it's the hair, it's the hair.
SPEAKER_07And you when you do the commentary, you hear all that. It's like, yeah, you can tell when it's not Charlton in the uh in the chariot by the wig.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_07And the guy, his dad had said, now make sure you're buckled in when you go up and over. He had forgot to buckle in, so he went flying out of it and had to struggle to get back in. But the film was so good, they're like, oh yeah, we're leaving that in, which I thought was very interesting. But that horse, those horses were trained to do that. That was done intentionally. Yeah, and uh they said uh the the guy that wrote this book that there was three uh big myths of uh Ben Hur. One that somebody died during the chariot race, not true. Some people got hurt, but nothing was major, no limbs were broken or anything. That there, if you look close, you can see a red Ferrari part. And he's like, I've watched this movie, is it not true? And the other one was that you could see Charlton Heston had a wristwatch on, and they're like, nah, not true. So I thought that was interesting. Now, after they got the uh chariot race filmed, the film editor spent three months making that race what we see today. It's amazing. And you know, today it would just be all CGI. Some guy with a belly as big as me sitting in his basement would be doo-doo doo doo-do. Well, certainly it's editing and the chat and the chariot race would be done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You would have had real people in the audience that would have been CGI.
SPEAKER_01We know it's interesting that we're watching this at the same time that the Odyssey has come out, which has you know, has like really consumed a lot of the pulp culture talk. And that was shot on 70 millimeter IMAX film, which is something that is like rarely done. And so it had to be spliced and edited, um kind of it, you know, the old school way, more so than most movies these days. And it's fascinating to think, you know, that this is just how it was always done back then. You know, I mean that's that takes a lot of effort and a lot of like patience and time because they're physically splicing film together, you know. It's yeah making decisions to cut frames, like frame by frame, and then cutting and splicing actual film. You mean to go see the Odyssey? I want to, yeah. Because it seems like pretty amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Now all the sets were basically real. The the the big statues and the thing, those were actually big statues, they were 30 foot tall. Uh the uh uh another thing that I found really interesting. Uh I'm just trying to look at my notes. Uh when they were doing the original casting, Charlton Heston recommended uh Chuck Connors to be Masala. Oh, interesting. The rifleman fan. Yeah, but uh it didn't work out, so Chuck Connors went on to be rifleman, which is one of my all-time favorite TV westerns. But he would have made a good bad guy. Yeah, he would have made a good bad guy. Oh yeah, because he did play good bad guys.
SPEAKER_03Apparently, that that the arena for the chariot race was like essentially a replica. They tried it based on the historically accurate arena that would have existed in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_07Well, interestingly enough, it was a historically accurate, but from a hippodome too. Yeah, from it that would have the the the historian was like, yeah, the Romans could get away with a lot, but the the Jewish people would have never put up with that in Jerusalem, that that would have caused a major rebellion, maybe on the outside of Jerusalem, but not in Jerusalem. But anyhow, uh so I thought it would work. You know, that's the thing we certainly all all remember. Uh and uh yeah, and some of these uh uh drivers and uh horse trainers also did uh uh uh uh Roy Rogers horse and the Lone Ranger's horse. So that was I thought that was very, very interesting. Um okay, uh let me see here. Oh, and and just as an aside, uh Charlton Heston was talking about uh what he learned about it was you had to put the strongest horse on the inside because he has to bear all the weight when you go through the turns, and you put the fastest horse on the outside because he has to run the longest distance in the curves. And I thought that was kind of interesting that it got down to you know that detail about doing it. Uh okay. Uh oh, and then the other thing that is different about this movie than I think, you know, you've all just well, some of you have not been happy with the soundtrack. There's no music during the chariot race.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Just the hooves. There's no music during the chariot race. Just those hooves pounding. Might be why it's good as part of the movie.
SPEAKER_07Okay, now the the oh man, I tell you, I gotta you know, they're talking about packing the Supreme Court now. I gotta talk about packing the table here.
SPEAKER_01I think I you're you're uh I think I need some people over.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wait till we call how can we actually caucus before this to gang up on you? Like we're not even we're all for this movie.
SPEAKER_07Okay, now the other thing is uh in in the stadium that that was over 2,000 extras, and uh they were just basically unemployed uh people that wanted to be extras. Uh and they would check in, uh they uh had bags that they put their clothes in, they gave them uh the clothes to wear into the scene, and uh then at night when they were done shooting that day, they had to give them the clothes back to get paid. So nobody could take off with the, you know, because they were pinching every penny. And on the last day of when they last day of filming, that was not in the script for everybody to jump out of the stands. They did that, the crowd did that on their own. Wow. And it was just like spontaneous that everybody just jumped out and started doing that. And that scene where the guy picks up Masal is uh totally ad-libbed, and they're like, Okay, we'll keep that. That looks good. That looks good. So I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, yeah. Uh now, when they did uh the leper colony, that was a cave on the outside of Rome, and their problem was homeless people were living in it. So they had to uh work around the homeless people. Now, the other interesting thing, too, and I didn't write down all these notes, but about leprosy then, back then, it could have been leprosy or it could have been any other skin disease. I'm sure. Yeah, that just all got bunched with leprosy. And so it could have been psoriasis, it could have been this, it could have been that, but it was seen as you were unclean. Right. So they had to be cast away. The uh the commentary talks about the you know, the Jewish tradition of you know, they had to wear rags and they had to say, I'm unclean, I'm unclean, but it could have just been something as simple as uh bad psoriasis. But anyhow, uh so let me see if I got anything else I want to bring up. Oh yeah, they do talk about how MGM was almost ready to go belly up. Uh the one of the things that did save them was uh they re-released uh Gone with the Wind.
SPEAKER_01Oh boy.
SPEAKER_07And uh well, you know Well, why not?
SPEAKER_01If they knew it was popular and they didn't have to make a movie again, right? Right. They could make money off a movie they already had.
SPEAKER_07Right, oh absolutely. And you know, you younglings now are so used to clicking your phone on and seeing whatever's going on anywhere in the world. But back then, I mean, I didn't see Gone with the or around the world in 80 days for almost two years until it finally played at Van Wert. Same thing with uh with this. Okay, uh and Paul was right, they did have a lot of merchandise and a lot of promotion that went into it. Uh oh, and then the other thing I thought was interesting, uh they they didn't want it to be too religious because they didn't want to offend anybody. Uh so that's why they had the the Jewish uh historian rabbi that you know, and they really toned down uh the over that part of the book, and that's why Weiler did not want anybody to see Jesus' face. So you never see his face.
SPEAKER_01And that's to my point about how they made the movie. That's why I say it wasn't a diss. I'm just saying that it was almost so absent that it didn't need to be there for this to be an entertaining movie. Yeah, I don't think that that was my point earlier. It's like it was just so no, no, I get it, but like you even you just said that they made a choice not to lean hard into the religious parts of the book, and so they made choices to kind of keep that on the edges, but that's my point is like it was so on the edges, I felt like honestly, an entertaining movie was there with or without it.
SPEAKER_00I I kind of like I thought it would be seeing it. Yeah, um, you know, I called it Jesus adjacent. I I I like I actually liked that. Yeah, I like that into his face, I like that it was just like it wasn't super. Like he kind of drifted in and out during the time of Jesus, and this guy was moved by Jesus, but it took him a lot to like get there. I mean, Jesus gave him water and just forgot who he was. Yeah, so uh, but I liked how they did that. I like I actually liked yeah, I mean, I I don't can't think of another movie that's Jesus adjacent.
unknownThey're usually like Jesus, you know, so kind of like that.
SPEAKER_07So, anyhow, you bring up the thing about water. That is another thread that runs through the whole thing about water. You know, from almost almost from the beginning to the end, it's the water. And it, you know, kind of really ends that way, you know, with the big rainstorm and uh Jesus giving him water and then uh uh you know getting water on the galley and da-da-da-da-da. So I thought that was interesting how life giving. Yeah, life giving how they arc that all the way through it. So, anyhow, uh as I go through my thing, uh Okay, and the guy that wrote the book uh makes this and and and Charlton Heston said it was his favorite movie of all time that he was ever in. Uh the guy that wrote the book said, and and this I think is where I see things different than you guys do. Uh back then theater uh movies were struggling to fight TV. They were struggling to fight TV. There was no reason for people to go to a movie, pay the movie.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_07You could turn the TV off if you didn't like it. You didn't have to leave your house, you didn't have to get dressed up, you didn't have to do that. So uh the whole thing about they needed to give people a reason to leave their house. Sure. And you just talked about the Odyssey. Well, they're trying to give people epic to leave the house, yeah, to go do it. Yeah, and that's meant for the big screen and and I I understand you guys think these movies are too long and everything, but you know, Around the World in Eighty Days, Ben Herr, we're gonna get into uh Lawrence of Arabia. I mean, they were epics designed to get people not to turn the TV on but to come to the theater.
SPEAKER_03That's why I didn't like that for me, I didn't hit too hard on how long it was because I mean that that was what was going on, right?
SPEAKER_00I mean also the Odyssey is very long, I understand. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, like there was a there was a remake of Van Her in what 2016. I will probably not watch it, but it is way shorter than this. It would be interesting to see what choices they made. Have you seen it?
SPEAKER_01The no, but the one, the silent version is a bit less two.
SPEAKER_07Well, it's two hours twenty-four minutes.
SPEAKER_01But it's not three and a half, you know, three hours and whatever.
SPEAKER_07Interestingly enough, on that there was uh the the when they were getting ready to do the chariot uh scene. I and that was you know, there's first unit, second unit, third unit. Right. I think the chariot scene was uh directed by the second unit. Uh and so they all watched the silent film.
SPEAKER_01Which is that scene in the silent film Silent is really unbelievable.
SPEAKER_07Because they said they wanted to do it better than that. And after they watched the silent, they said, Oh, we're screwed. It's so good. We don't know if we can do it. It's unbelievable we just hope we could do it almost as good as which I thought was very interesting.
SPEAKER_01So there's something about the black and white, and the it just looks so like gritty and violent in that silent version. It's yeah, it's wild.
SPEAKER_07Okay. So we've pretty much gone around the table. I'm going to say this about my comment about uh Ben Hur. It's in my top ten all-time movies, and it is probably in my top five.
SPEAKER_01Wow. How many times do you think you've watched it?
SPEAKER_07I have watched Ben Hur, beginning to end, eight, nine times. Not counting this. And my favorite line of all time, Eddie referenced, is when Charlton has saved the the Admiral and you know you live to serve this ship real well and live. That is my favorite my of this movie. That is my favorite line.
SPEAKER_01I think that the sea, when he is at sea, probably yields some of the best lines. Yeah. I love the one, you know, they're calling him by his number, right? 41.
SPEAKER_07And in the book he's 60. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So they're calling him 41, and I love when he goes, Oh, 41, you have hate in your eyes. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive.
SPEAKER_07Well, and then he says, uh, uh, I can't believe that God is uh going to let let me die chained to an oar. Yeah. But that is my favorite about, you know.
SPEAKER_00What is the line again? Your favorite line?
SPEAKER_07Uh you live, you live, uh we keep you alive to serve the ship, uh well and live.
SPEAKER_00We keep you alive to serve the ship.
SPEAKER_04Row well and live. Okay.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And he says that to the console when he's on like a little site. So he's keeping him alive.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah. So anyhow, that was uh so yeah, it's it's in my it's probably in my top five. I mean, Casablanca is my number one, but this is and I understand what you guys say about Charles Hudson. And you know, he I'm uh sad the way he ended up. I think when they made that movie Bowling for Columbine, I think Myers was a jerk for doing that to him because he already had Alzheimer's and was in the the beginnings of dementia, made him look like a doddering old fool. That was, I think. And I'm not Michael Moore, yeah. Uh I'm not the only guy that has said that's the a good criticism of Michael Moore, the way he way he did that. Uh I can remember Charlton Heston 64 on the march on Washington with Martin Luther King. You know, there was a time. Yeah, and I think as he got older, like sometimes he just got more conservative. Uh but I love him in uh Planet of the Apes. Get your get your paws off me, you damn dirty apes.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I mean I really try just to be clear, I try to separate him as a person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00He is an overactor. It is like I've seen him twice. I've only seen him twice. I haven't seen the other movies. But in both of them, he does the gritting, the like well, yes, you know. And it works. But it works in this movie. I'm saying it works in this movie. Yeah, yeah. Like that's his that's his MO, apparently, because he overacted in this.
SPEAKER_01Kind of kind of stiff and yeah, just yeah.
SPEAKER_07And he did get to make a movie with Chuck Connors now that I think about it. Cause uh he plays the good cop in Soylent Green, and Chuck Connors plays a bad uh guy uh in uh Soylent Green.
SPEAKER_00All right. So anyhow I mean I can see on this to be somebody's top five.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it's it's yeah when you mind, but like I can't and uh I know nobody other than some weird person's gonna listen to three and a half hours of the commentary. But it really when you listen to those com when you listen to those commentaries, you say, wow, it took three months to make that chariot scene work. That we're talking about it 1959, and we're we're stole an all of it, even after CGI has taken us to galaxies far, far away.
SPEAKER_00But Dave, that's why we have the podcast because we don't have to watch the whole thing. Can you tell us the best parts of the commentary?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, there you go.
unknownIt's the clip notes of the commentary for some of us.
SPEAKER_07I was up till two o'clock this morning doing it.
SPEAKER_01I'm proud of you for dinner with Dan.
SPEAKER_07Uh but I do want to give a major shout out to my son and table regular, Eddie Garris, for watching this movie. Because he hadn't started watching it as of two o'clock last night when I went to bed.
SPEAKER_04I watched it this morning.
SPEAKER_07Well, yeah, but yeah, but I'm I'm giving you a major shout-out for that, Eddie. So, anyhow. Final comments, Nanette?
SPEAKER_00Uh no. Um, just in the heat in the dumb days of summer, I mean, that's where we're at this this week stuff. So we'll be back next week. I won't be here next week, but I'm heading again to Canada. Oh my gosh. Uh I'm going next.
SPEAKER_07Looking for real estate for Paul?
SPEAKER_00I'm going next to me. Uh as the table regulars know, I am a huge Anna Green Gables too. Oh, this is totally it! And uh Virginia and I used to sit in the back and watch the And you cried every time Matthew died. How can you not? Uh so my best friend Crystal, who's been on the podcast, and I are going to Prince Edward Island to do the Anna Green Gables tour. Something Sam happily said, please go with I will miss that. So that's Robin.
SPEAKER_01And this was a reschedule, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we were supposed to do it last year, but her dad got too, so this is finally getting to do this. Uh to DC, we fly out Friday and I'll get to the end. Take a shirt. I'll take a shirt. I'll take a shirt for both of us so we can take a photo. Which we did do a photo in Canada. I love it. Uh behind the um uh there's these big falls. Montmorency Falls. Mont Morency Falls in Saint Montreal, Canada, uh, Quebec. So the four of us in our shirts, and also Jason and Sam in their hero shirts zip lined across the falls.
SPEAKER_07And when I saw that film, I said, oh hell no. Danny Boy's never going on that zipline.
SPEAKER_00Um Emily, my sister-in-law, was in Quebec City just three weeks before, and she said we sent the video to her, and she said, Oh no. We all said, Who are the idiots that do that? And now I know.
SPEAKER_02Sound weight, wasn't it? So I barely weird. Yeah. Sam, final comments. Uh great fucking conversation.
SPEAKER_07We'll put that down as $5 for Sam Braun.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_07Uh Eddie, final comments. You can do a Charlton Heston scream if you want to.
SPEAKER_04Oh uh, I think it's BF shortless guy's okay, shortless skulls are not okay. That's very anti-feminist. Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_07Well, and since you brought that up, another thing from the commentary when they filmed the scene where the Nubians were dancing in Rome.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that wasn't zoomed in once. It was terrible.
SPEAKER_07Let me tell you this. That was a uh a well-known uh uh troupe of African dancers and that performed around, and they filmed two versions of it. One topless and the other not topless.
SPEAKER_02Somewhere in the vault.
SPEAKER_07Somewhere in the vault, in MGM's vault, there's the topless version of it. But anyhow, okay. Anything else, Eddie?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_07Have you I hope they take care of your hand this week at the doctor's.
SPEAKER_03Me too.
SPEAKER_07Paul?
SPEAKER_03I know looking forward to spending some more time in Hannah's treasure chests, and that's about it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I do have I do have one more thing to say.
SPEAKER_07Okay, say it.
SPEAKER_00Get the microphone. You know, this uh past six weeks, as everybody knows, my husband loves all sports. Yeah. No matter what. So he made both Wimbledon and the World Cup. And um when we went to Quebec City, we even had to watch the Norway game because the Hilliard Watts. Not because of me. The Ann Charles Watts experience became a huge Norway fan, too.
SPEAKER_07Me too. Once the US was out, I was Norway all the way.
SPEAKER_00Um in the morning of the New York Times, they had this guy that had talked all about like he followed all the soccer around the country, and he wasn't like he played soccer once and then just was like watching all the games. And he had this line, it's what has it taught you about soccer? You know, the World Cup. And he wrote, I have learned that soccer is ridiculous, cruel, maddening, nonsensical, unjust, heartbreaking, horrendous, a total waste of time, a fraud perpetrated on humanity, the absolute absolute worst sport ever invented, and also the only thing that matters in life.
SPEAKER_01Football is life. Football is life. Danny Rohan said it. Anyway, I thought that was a great line.
SPEAKER_03A friend of mine was in Edinburgh watching the Argentina England game. Oh, wow. She said the Scots that were in the pub in Edinburgh were uh rooting for Argentina. Oh, well, sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they were. Yeah, yep. Sorry, thank you. But yeah, Tifa.
SPEAKER_07And uh anything else, Paul? No. Kate?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, just hope everybody has a good week. Looking what's our movie next time? Apartment. The apartment. The apartment with Billy Wilder. Yep. Very exciting. Uh we're getting into the 60s. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Since the the World Cup was brought up, uh, I want Sam to know that yesterday I was all in for uh France. I was I I texted, you can get my text messages. I texted everybody. They were with us in the Revolutionary War. I'm with France. That's right. Yeah, that's cool. It was killing me. And of course, uh Jean, my college girlfriend, she studied in France for a year, so she was all in for France. So we were texting back and forth, and when it looked like France was staging their comeback, we were okay. I I texted that uh Joan of Arc had suited back up and was on the pitch with France, but then it did not work out. No. Today two things. Uh, because it's Spain versus Argentina. In deference to my daughter-in-law, whose family is from Chile. If you know anything about South America, every country in South America hates Argentina.
SPEAKER_01It's true.
SPEAKER_07And especially Chile, because they have that long border that they share, and they share Patagonia with Chile. Uh so I said, Carla, Argentina, she said, Oh, hell no. And plus, plus, I finished watching Lucy Worsley, uh, you know, who's that British historian. I love her to pieces. I th and I think she's smoking hot too. Uh the uh she did a thing on the British version of the American Revolution. And you know, I was a history major, but I forgot this. Spain actually entered on our side after the French did in the American Revolution. So keeping with my thing yesterday and honoring my daughter-in-law Carla, I'm all in for I'm all in for Spain. But uh, and my daughter Lily, Lily, shout out to you. When she bought the package to watch all the World Cup games, uh, she bought the Spanish version language because it was cheaper. Well, now it's on all Spanish uh World Cup. Yeah, there you go. Argentina, you know, we won't have Portuguese-speaking Brazilians in there.
SPEAKER_00So, anyhow, okay, it's been a fun six weeks.
SPEAKER_07Yep, it's been a fun six weeks. I want to thank everybody for uh another great podcast. And Dan, we will miss you next week. But uh you're gonna be here, Sam? Yes. Okay, and we've got the apartment to watch, and with that, I'll say uh thank you to all the loyal listeners. Dea, we really missed you. Uh, Paul made a great fruit salad today, which would have been super for you. You would have been face first into it. Uh yeah, you know, because she was vegetarian. Yeah. Um and so with that, I'm gonna say God's feed and fairly beauty.