Midweek Mention... Marathon Man

Marathon Man

Sidey: Pete, you're back. Hi. This is the start of a dentist slash teeth themed week.

We're taking it way back to 1976.

Pete: Yes. And I, I hadn't seen this film ever. This was my first ever time seeing it. But I had been made aware at some point of a pretty famous scene that involves some dentistry.

Sidey: I had seen it before.

That's the only thing I could remember of it. Mm-hmm. So this was almost like watching it

95% of it for the First

Dan: time I, I was in a similar place.

Howie: I, I just remember the terrible running from Hoffman. His technique was fucking terrible.

Sidey: Well,

Pete: he'd never run a

Howie: He

was wearing lazy loons as well.

who runs in grave

Sidey: Well, that, that's pretty much how it

Dan: Have you,

have you ever run a marathon though?

Pete: No. No. I, I think if you add up all of the running I've done in my life, it would end up

Dan: just shy.

Sidey: way short.

Dan: of a half

Pete: marathon. No. The reason I've never run a marathon is cause I've got a car, so I just drive myself there.

No, no one's got a marathon in room, have they? You haven't got, you haven't got it in you movie.

Dan: i I didn't do it in 2016. Didn't do it in 2017. Didn't do it in 18 2019. Didn't do it in 2 21. I used a running joke, Pete. I mean, it's

Howie: Fuck.

Pete: What an

awful start to the

Dan: Okay. can only get better from here.

Pete: me. Yeah. Harry, I know you definitely haven't run a marathon.

Howie: I've run that distance before, but it, it involved a series of crimes, at butcher's, but we don't talk about it.

Dan: Well,

there's, there was this one runner who just ran the whole didn't stop and he got arrested for, for resisting arrest.

He just didn't rest.

Howie: Oh

Sidey: Jesus Christ.

It's a new

Dan: You better hurry up and talk about

Pete: can you stop, please? No. Yeah.

Sidey: begin with running.

What is the, some stock footage of a, a marathon runner?

Howie: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: And kind of c p tones. I do have the name of the chap people apparently thought it was Jesse Owen. It is not.

Pete: Who wasn't a marathon runner?

Sidey: No, it's a baby Bela.

Pete: Ah, okay.

Sidey: Ethiopia Ethiopian. He was the one who won, I think he won whilst wearing no shoes.

So must have had some blisters. Then it segueways into the Hoff doing his running. I think he's running.

Pete: you say the Hoff let's , let's say this is Dustin Hoffman. Yeah. Not David Hassel

Dan: Hoffman.

Yeah.

Sidey: mean they're very similar, but it's dust Ben Hoffman.

Pete: Yeah. And like you say, Harry, it's an odd running technique, but he's an odd guy.

So

Sidey: he's method. So he actually would, he would let make them, let him. Run a lap and then film so that he was genuinely out of breath. And there's a famous thing that we can get into later that Lawrence Olivia said to him,

Dan: I honestly, I'd hate to run a marathon . I would, you know, you've gotta organize all the roads. You've gotta be closed, you've gotta get all the, the tickets and everything. It's terrible.

Howie: fuck

Pete: Psych

Dan: Okay.

Sidey: He's obviously got a bit of a competitor streak because a dudes a real, like pretty muscly dude in some real short shorts and a

Howie: Yeah. And he kind of does a bit of a rapy run stalk thing

Sidey: Yeah. He won't let the guy run off and he

doesn't,

Pete: he,

at one point does he turn around and flick him the bird?

Yeah.

Howie: Yeah.

And imagine doing it at the cycle track. Yeah. Fuck off

Pete: do you mean? Imagine? Yeah,

Sidey: So

that happens. And then there's a couple of guys like getting into it with their cars.

Howie: Well, and I know it, it starts off with the quite obviously creepy old German guy and a safety deposit

Sidey: Yes. Yeah.

Howie: he pulls out a pack of band-aid from the, the box.

Sidey: I don't think it was band-aid in't there. I got that feeling right from

the get-go.

Howie: Yeah. I, I thought there was,

Sidey: was, yeah.

Howie: Junior disciplin instead of

Pete: It was like a metal

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: Almost like a, A tin of corn beef kind

Howie: Yeah.

Pete: But with Band-Aid

Howie: just a massive prepper. And he's got spam underneath

Sidey: Safety deposit box seemed to be quite a thing in America. I dunno. Like films, Hollywood films, they love a safety

Dan: We could do a top five safety

Sidey: five safety box. it's a great shout.

Pete: I've already, I've immediately thought of like three or four.

Dan: Yeah,

Sidey: We're not even drunk yet. And this is going shambles.

Pete: I, I left my cue cards in the safety deposit box. That's what I couldn't get my words out.

Sidey: But I

Howie: I'm sorry.

Sidey: have you ever contemplated using a safety

Howie: deposit? Uh, There was that time when I left Berlin in 1946 and I had loads of stuff on me. I thought there's somewhere it's gotta go.

Sidey: I do know someone that has,

Howie: what is he, does he do auction house in Jersey?

No,

Sidey: No, he he recorded a single and he thought it was amazing and he didn't want anyone to like, it was like electronic music. And he, so he put his like master copy in a safe deposit box.

Pete: is someone you know, Simon over here. Simon, yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. And I thought that was weird. And it's the only like case I've ever heard of someone really using a safety deposit box.

Pete: Okay. I feel like this is gonna be a long episode. if we, if we stop

Sidey: Two people get into a fight

Howie: The cars. Yeah. So angry old Jewish guy

Sidey: Yeah,

Pete: old German

Howie: Old German guy going through what is a j German Jew mixed

Sidey: Jewish guy was already annoyed. Yeah. About everything. He was just, he had road rage.

Irrespective of the Nazi guy.

Yeah.

And then the Nazi guy's, Mercedes is stalling and he can't get it to go up a hill. And he's like really annoyingly holding up the traffic and just flummoxing around trying to get it going again. And then the angry Jewish guy just like gives him loads of shit. So he, some anti-Semitic abuse, I think he had Kanye West on the

stereo and he just starts fucking ramming him

Howie: up. Yeah. Like proper rage, proper road rage. And then they go into this bizarre pursuit where they're side by side really slowly.

Sidey: Yeah.

Howie: Yeah. And just shouting at each other through an open window. And you, Jeremy

Bastard's trading insult. Yeah.

Sidey: they?

Yeah. They, I think they go past the synagogue and it is all, it's all kind of stuff going on and

Howie: then yeah, there's cutaways to the neighborhood,

Sidey: Yeah. And then the soundtrack, the score gets a little bit like, you know, something is coming, it's leading you into it. And then a like a fuel truck. Yeah.

Reverses out and, you know, it's

Howie: because it's America and because their cars are so terrible, there's an instant explosion from a five mile an hour

Sidey: I thought it was quite convincing. I thought it was still pretty well done.

Pete: I thought you were gonna say, cuz their cars get so few miles to the gallon, those trucks just follow, like cars round.

So

Howie: listen, there's a man running alongside

Sidey: But it, but they do, they do crash. They both die. And as the Nazi guy is dying, you see he's holding the keys to the safety deposit box, and I think he says something, we don't really know what,

Howie: that's just iron schnitzel in here comes Thena.

Sidey: yeah. Something like that.

And the Hoff man is running past and he can see just in the distance that something's going on. And he goes back to his shitty

Howie: where he gets shouted at and called the creep.

Sidey: He gets loads of

Pete: Oh, by the guys across the road again. This is, this is, we've spoken about this like films before a certain time, American films before a certain time.

If you wanna know if this is a bad guy or not, it's like, look at his ethnicity, like Yeah. And it is, it's usually like, kind of like Puerto Rican, Cuban kind of, you

Sidey: know, well, they

Pete: kind of vibes going on.

Sidey: They give him some shit, but they,

Pete: they're not baddies necessarily, but you know that

Sidey: they help him out. I mean, they, they,

Pete: well, they do,

Sidey: his back bit later.

Howie: on

Pete: they, they, they're all carrying

Sidey: and yeah. yeah.

And then we get introduced to Roy Shi. Yeah.

Howie: Who's he's looking. I like his wardrobe.

Sidey: he's looking, slick. He's looking really slick and buff?

Yeah. And we see him do a bit of working out later on. He's in great shape. And he did a film other than

Dan: Yeah, yeah. The, the, the press ups off the bed in it. He's

Howie: I, I immediately, I immediately liked the good stereotype of smelly French protestors. . I thought that was amazing. That that's straight in. Oh, everyone in America now knows they're in France. Yeah. Just a baguette. And then there would've been fully, fully in there,

Sidey: He is involved in something. There's a definite espionage vibe something they're tracking.

Someone Yeah. So he's, he's a courier. We, we learn. Yeah. But there's something under hand going on. We don't, you know, exactly know how it's all gonna fall into place just yet.

Howie: Yeah, he's in France cuz he's he goes to, he pulls up alongside and goes to an antique shop, doesn't he?

And there's, he's a, there's someone there who's obviously a handler or recipient or

Sidey: we've, we've seen him. He's,

he's put, he's put this pack in a box of chocolates. It's taken the bottom layer out. It's really annoying if people eat some of the top layer and then go to the bottom layer. Yes. That's a

Pete: Who does that?

Sidey: People that I don't like. Anyway, he, this is his disguise. He takes it and the guy's like, no, I haven't got it for you yet, or, I can't do that for you yet. Meet me at the opera later on. Yeah. He's like, I'll,

Pete: I'll, which, which he immediately kind of is troubled by,

Sidey: This guy's shady. Yeah.

Pete: you, you're supposed to read into that this is normally like routine and clockwork and so on. And, and I guess that's the point where you, you're men are like, connect the dots. This fella's died in New York.

And now just so coincidentally when he goes to do his normal doings in France or whatever, there's a bit of resistance or, or there's a different arrangement to, to what he's

Howie: yeah.

And, and it's, and it's hyped up a bit because there's a lot of preemptive, something going on, like a creaking hotel door that's slightly ajar and he feels like Roy Schneider's being watched. And do we get, at this point, sort of in the shadows that Asian guy with the glass eye,

Sidey: constantly see him just like looking out of a window or just spying on them. And there's a guy with a pram just pushing the pram and it looks like every single person in the street is watching

and like, not quite to be trusted.

Howie: And a bomb goes off obviously

Sidey: the pram. the

pram turns out to be a bomb.

Pete: So clearly it's it is become obvious that there's now assassination attempts going on certainly aimed at Roy. Do we see any other people?

Howie: Well, it cuts, I, I think it. Back momentarily to the start of these flashbacks. And I think at this point I think it's, it's his father that's dead and you assume it's a suicide. Yeah. Cause he's got a smoking is a gun or

Sidey: he's found with a gun in his hand and it looks like a self-inflicted gunshot

wound.

Howie: yeah. And, and I think there's a brief intersection where Hoffman's in the classroom and he's obviously in some select group of academia where he is doing a dissertation. And his dad, his dad is referenced by the lecturer as someone that he admired and

Sidey: he was a historian.

Yeah. Dustin Hoffman is a historian. His brother's like

gone against the grain. He's gone into Yeah. His, his cover story. And the, the professor asks a question and Hoffman just writes the answer down, but he won't, doesn't want to say it out loud, but he sort of smokes him down that he

Pete: Although there was only like two

Sidey: people Yeah. one,

But, and he, he kinda gets a, a pep talk slash dressing down from the, from the, the main man there. So, you know, you could be something blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And but we can tell that something's gonna, you know, the, the plot is gonna intertwine. And he, he does go, eventually goes back to his apartment and doc.

Roy is there.

Pete: Yeah.

Howie: Oh, what? We, we, we've missed the fact that the antiques dealer in the opera, is that his,

Sidey: do that again.

Howie: that his?

Sidey: He does, he does go and meet matey the antique dealer at the opera. He's cut himself shaving it,

Pete: Yeah. He's brutally hacked his head

Sidey: Yeah.

Howie: matter how much tissue paper he is stuck in those little

Sidey: Yeah. He's bled out. He fled out. Yeah.

So he's a gunner

Howie: and he goes back to his hotel room.

And he doesn't quite get the acting right at this point because the guy with the glass eye swos behind him with the cheese wire. Cheese wire, yeah. But he does it. He puts his hand up to block it just before the cheese wire comes in. So there's a limit, a level of preemptive what he's done there.

Sidey: I, I can work out how he knew he was there.

Anyway, he does, they have a, they have a good old fight and he is really cut his hand

to shit. I mean,

Howie: that Looks like it hurts.

Pete: He's quite nasty.

Dan: will do it. He, well, he's trained, isn't he? I mean, he's a fighter. He's, as you say, it's his cover story. It's

Sidey: take down this one.

Knee to the back and then just pauses his head back and snaps his neck. You know, he's no getting

Dan: swift.

Pete: clean kill.

Sidey: yeah,

Pete: yeah. So we know that he's definitely embroiled in something really shady. At this point we don't know that he's, so babe is dust Hoffman's character and

Sidey: Doc is Roy Roy yeah.

Pete: Not Schneider. That's the guy from Bruce Juice. Juice Bigelow,

Sidey: yes. Rob Schneider. Yeah.

Pete: Him. Yeah.

So we don't know that they're brothers, but we find out very soon because

Sidey: well he makes his way across the Atlantic and rocks up at Babe's apartment.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: I'm

Howie: sure there's a, a real odd bit of stalking by Hoffman with this woman that he's obsessed with in the library, who's got a bit of a German accent as well.

Pete: Yes, we do meet her first.

Howie: We meet her

Sidey: Is is that

Pete: first, yeah, we do meet her first.

Sidey: She was real foxy,

Howie: but he stalks her and she, it is

Sidey: basically

she says just like, no, she's really like abruptly.

Like no,

Pete: she says no. About 40 times when after he's followed

Howie: her,

admitted that he stole her

Pete: Yeah, stole her stuff.

Looked up where

Sidey: follows her

through the door of her building. Yeah. Then like, won't let her close the door and like forces her in a way to accept going out on a date. And she even then says it won't go anywhere,

Howie: Mm-hmm.

Pete: Mm-hmm.

But so, and this is, this is controversial, but the she, that's what she wants. She wants to engage with him.

Yeah. And so really sometimes no means Yes. Is what I'm saying

Sidey: saying in,

in this instance because of plot,

Howie: used like Jeremy Clarkson all of a sudden

Pete: Yeah. So it, well, like at the time, and she's saying that she's Swiss.

Sidey: Yes.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah. It doesn't take long because

they have a

Pete: speaks French, but she has got a bit of a, a Germanic accent as well, which Swiss would probably explain that,

Sidey: Yeah. It's a good cover story. Yeah. So they, they very quickly do have a burgeoning kind of relationship. He

Howie: Bit of boob as well shown, I

Sidey: They have, they have sexual

Howie: in that really Grotty flat. Yeah. Oh

Pete: Yeah. You've, you've lived, definitely lived in worse

Howie: Yeah.

after this it does another scene where it goes to South America and you start to see the, is he called the, the white eagle or something? Not

Sidey: angel. But you don't know that.

Yeah, I don't

Howie: that. But he's cutting his hair and folding his clothes

Sidey: We see like there's a German opera playing.

They last for three or four

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: then he cuts off his hair and he, there's people it seems like watching them. And he has to wear. He wears fancy dress, basically to escape out on the boat from where he's hiding out. But he's got all these German newspapers. His it might as well be goosestepping around the place pretty

Pete: Yeah, there's a lot of

Howie: he's got pictures of yo and Klinsmann

Pete: everyone Yeah. There, there's not very subtle references to like, help us like get up, get up with the plot here,

Howie: American audiences. This is a Nazi.

Sidey: So he's on the move. Babe is now Sorry. Doc is now in New York. It is New York, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's in New York. And they go out, doc, babe and

babe's,

lady friend,

Pete: I'm gonna say Elsa, but is that, I'm thinking of frozen. Frozen,

Sidey: Elsa. Opal. Opal. They go out for dinner and

Roy, Roy s Ider like sees through her bullshit like immediately.

Yeah.

He makes up, he makes up some bullshit. She says she's from Verre and he just makes up some story about someone who works in the office who loves to ski there. Oh, you must know, blah, blah, blah on such and such a mountain. And she's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing. I can't believe it. And he's like, that's all bullshit.

Yeah. And like , Dustin Hoffins, it's like, oh, nevermind.

Pete: stop Being Mean . Yeah. I guess because of Doc's profession, which still hasn't really come to light just

Sidey: yet. No.

Pete: But obvi later on in the film, you know, that because of his profession, he's trained to, to be like hyper kind of paranoid and, and supe suspicious

Sidey: of somebody.

Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: Even people that are engaging with his family his extended family or whatever. So he yeah, he digs a out straight away smells a rat.

Howie: He smells her rats. Yeah.

the

Pete: Yeah. No, that was, that was a cut scene.

Howie: And then we kind of, I, according to my amazingly terrible notes, I'm sure this is now the start of, he Hoffman is walking in the park with her.

Sidey: Yeah. He, he, they're in Central Park late at night, and they dodge in the seventies. Ba Ill

Howie: well, central Park in the seventies was just lawless. Yeah. Proper, genuinely proper

Sidey: Yeah.

And there's two fellas in suits, so not your usual kind of hoodlums. And they, they catch up with them and, and mug them. It's meant to look like a mugging, but

Pete: but this obviously

Sidey: a fairly brutal takedown.

Pete: It is like, yeah, Elsa gets a, a good like, you know, jab in the chops and so on, but it didn't really, because of the way that these guys were presented and also the fact that they didn't actually steal anything.

It, it became immediately apparent that there was way more to it than just Yeah. A, a run of the mill mugging. babe, let's doc know about this, that they've been roughed up cuz he, he comes around and tends to his bruises and so on.

Howie: he then, does he arrange a meeting with Zelle who we, you see as the,

Sidey: well there, there's a fountain and some big.

You know, big place, big Orman, big sort of open public space. And he goes to meet them. And these two guys, these two guys in suits are there and, and it's Lawrence and Olivia is this our character. And they meet and he's sort of reads in the right act a little bit about, you know, what's going on and listen.

And he's sort of quite threatening even though he's the one that's maybe, you know, he's had a few assassin assassination attempts on. Yeah. But I guess quite ballsy cuz they're out in the open, they're in a public space. And you kind of learn a bit more about what's going on. And it just fucking gets stabbed.

Like,

Howie: well he's got that metal

Sidey: we saw him put it on, on the plane line. It's like, what the fuck is that?

Howie: Because I was wondering, was it a briefcase

Sidey: weird handcuff thing.

Pete: looks like a big letter opener,

Sidey: but it yeah, it's a, it's an automatic kind of like spring loaded Yeah. Knife on his wrist that he,

Dan: switched blade. Yeah.

Sidey: And it takes doc. Down.

Pete: well he gives him a, a good old stabbing. Yeah. And and like lets him drop to the floor and then they skid Adel Zelle and his

Sidey: Yeah. his cronies. Yeah.

Pete: And then the next, the next scene is, is babes are at home and all of a sudden

Sidey: well, as, as it, as it fades away, you see his hand is still moving. He's got his hand plan on the floor and he is stomach.

Like

Pete: still hope for

Sidey: He's got a bit of life left in him.

Pete: him. Yeah. But his the, the makeup that he's wearing in the next scene where he, he bursts through babe still indicates he's a dead man walking cuz he's

Howie: it was a bit count.

Dr. Drac Count Dracula. Yeah. Dracula the new one. Yeah.

Pete: Yeah, he's he's clearly lost a lot of blood and just bursts through managers and effectively dies in, in babe's arms and is flat.

Howie: And How awful are the police at The one guy sat there in a fag

Pete: They've

Howie: just drawn some short ground. Him

Sidey: Yeah, it gets a bit naked gun,

doesn't

Howie: they?

Yeah. It's really like, you're like, fuck it. Hell,

it's,

Sidey: It does does Matey turn up at this point? It

Pete: oh, I know. who you mean. Jane

Sidey: Wa is Jane Way at the scene

Howie: He turns up.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: turns up and he explains to babe that they're in the,

he doesn't say which agency.

Howie: says

Pete: called it the, it's not the

Howie: fbi.

He make, he says it's the, it's the spaces between or something like

Sidey: He says all these agencies, they're all in. They're all competing and we operate, we're in the blah,

blah, blah.

But he doesn't say like CIA or whatever it is. He just

says, I

Dan: I think I him fair anyway

Sidey: Yeah. But

And we are tracking this and he explains what's going on, that he's a career that they. This guy has a fucking shit load of diamonds. They're couriered around and we allow this to go on. But he informs us about other high ranking Nazis,

and we got

Pete: at large.

Sidey: so He's just

basically a fucking informant Yeah. To the officials. And so they kind of let this sort of stuff go on. But

Pete: and, and I think that, well, the assumption if it doesn't like explicitly say the assumption is that these diamonds were like hoardings from Auschwitz

Sidey: does explicitly say

1. So he started

off and I think it's, I think it's after we get the actual scene that we watched this for, is that he realized, he saw that the, the end was ny of the, the war.

Yeah. And so he was like in it for himself and he would say to the prisoners in the concentration camps, I'd get you out. You've gotta give me your fucking, your gold teeth or your diamonds or whatever. So he's hoarded all this stuff. Yeah. And that's what's being carried around the world. That's his currency.

Yeah.

Pete: Okay.

Howie: and Jane Way is saying to Hoffman, babe, what was his last words? What did he say? What did he say?

Sidey: Yeah, he must have told you something. We must have come back here for a reason. He must have told you something. He said, you need to tell us. And then he says, well actually what we can do if it's right with you, I'm gonna use you as bait if you are up for it to lure him out and we'll, we'll get him that way. And he is like, but well, okay. Yeah. Fuck it. Why not?

Pete: Yeah.

But as it happens, he doesn't really need to, he just has to go for a bath.

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: flat.

Sidey: Yeah. This is quite I thought it was quite spooky.

Howie: Do you know? I thought that too. Okay. This is proper method. Yeah. It's a bit like they are your mouth's open underwater and

just didn't

look nice.

Sidey: He's in his bath. He can hear, you know, is that they do it quite a lot in this with the creaking floorboard and stuff. And you say, you know, someone's in there, you're probably gonna be these two fucking guys again.

And you can see the shadows moving and he's, he's fuck all he can do, you know, he is uh, we do get, see his ass though. And he, who he does is lock the bathroom door. He's got some pokey little window that he could maybe try and get out. Can't get outta that.

So he just shouts

Pete: he wasn't gonna climb outta that. Cause there's still jagged bits of glass and he's naked, like

Howie: just get a sack caught on it.

Sidey: So in the end he just has to, they're, they're crow barring

the door.

off the

Pete: like jimmying the whole like, bathroom out.

Sidey: And you're like, it's quite tense. It's really quite

tense. It

is end. He's got no choice for it to try and open the door and run for it, and they just grab him straight away

Pete: at this point. So, so this film has, has been, you know, it, it's, it's got a decent pace and tempo to it and everything and I wouldn't say it's been like super violent or anything, but it is quite, but you know, like the scenes I guess back in the day, like the scene with the, with the guy with the cheese wire and everything, like all of that,

it's

Dan: hard hitting.

Pete: Yeah. Would've been quite sort of like

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Pete: And so yeah, it, it gives you enough in, in all of these kinds of scenes to think something really fucking horrible could happen. And so yeah, the tension is, is pretty high even though because of looking, watching it now and it's a seventies film, whatever, some of the, some of the things are are really kind of like dated and a little bit comical.

It, you know, judged by today's standards, but it is still a, a in 2022 are a, a tense

Sidey: I think it's just got more of an authenticity about the violence than the things that go on because it's not played for like a big movie audience, if you like.

It's just, this is what would happen, you know,

Howie: no kung fu high special

Sidey: you get hit in the face, that fucking hurts and you'll probably hit the deck. You know? That's, that's what happens in the

Pete: True. Oh, there, there's one thing in particular that I was thinking about, which you haven't got to yet, which I thought was a little bit kind of like comedy, but

Sidey: there's a bit at the end of my, it's the same thing.

Yeah. Anyway, when he come, he's, he's made a breakthrough. He is tried to like, just open the doors. Literally got no fucking choice. So he tries to run out and they just grab him and then he's woken up. He's like tied to a chair. Yeah. In some grotty, horrible fucking warehouse. Yeah. From and they come through and Zel is there and he's got a little.

Like stainless steel table on wheels, and he puts down his little rolled up leather thing, opens it up, and it's toolkit. It's a toolkit of

Pete: well, dentistry, dentistry utensils.

Sidey: teeth and we know, we know his history.

Howie: I found this so hard to watch

Sidey: that he was taking, he was taking gold teeth and stuff, and he's based on Joseph Mangler, the, the like concentration camp guy at Auschwitz.

It's like a real fucking like, piece of shit, like murdering torturous scumbag. And that's where this guy is

Dan: have to brace yourself for this bit, don't you?

Pete: Oh God. I, so I, I watched this the night the same night that I'd had double root canal surgery that very day.

Sidey: so you can relate to

1. yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was it safe?

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: And this is the famous scene that probably a lot of people had heard of, even without seeing the movie.

And it's why it got nominated today for, for the Dentistry on show. And he doesn't say anything to him other than. Is it safe? Yeah. And Hoffman's just like I tell what the fuck you're talking

Dan: I, I don't even think that was part of the, the script.

It was just something that he, he put out Lance, Olivia, and, and then it, it didn't really connect or moon it, but

Sidey: and he just, says it in a

Dan: just gone on. Yeah.

Sidey: and Hoffman tries everything.

He's like, yeah, yes, it's safe. And he is like, no, it's not. No, I, and he doesn't know what to do cuz he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. The yeah. And we, you know, we don't either really. We, we have no idea. We just realize it's bloody scary being asked if some guy's got a drill and he is strapped you down to a chair and Yeah. Gonna drill into it. Because he starts talking about the nerves, doesn't he? He says, oh, we won't do that tooth.

That will be dead already. Or we wanna get this one. Oh,

Pete: he gets the, the, the, the little pointy metal bit and he finds one at the back that's got a little cavity in it and he has a good waggle around in

Dan: there. Yeah. And I mean, he's a steam sealer isn't he? Where wherever he,

Pete: A steam sealer.

Dan: Yeah.

Sidey: Seeing

the

Dan: Yeah, that's, you put that into a sensible set of words you

Howie: there is an incredible piece of acting where he is doing both good and bad cop when he gives him the clove of garlic and he says, look, look,

Sidey: no, it's

Howie: not clove of garlic?

Sidey: Sorry? It's oil of

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Howie: Yeah. And he, and he does the whole, putting his finger in his mouth and going, look, look, I can stop the pain. Look here, go. And he's And then he fucking

Sidey: when he holds him up, then, doesn't he, the, the tool and the, the oil. And he says, now you can get some more relief

Or,

you

know, you

can get some more work done.

get 10

And then they throw him back. And I, I thought, I remember this scene being a lot longer than this because they, he's back in his like room that they've got 'em confined to.

and

he's just like, fuck. That was, you know, I thought, has this, has this been cut? Because I remember this being more brutal than this.

And then the guy comes back to get him, doesn't he? One of the, no, no. One of the guys in the suits is, is there. And Janeway is walking down the corridor and and you see him reach for something. And I honestly, I totally forgot. And the message's like, oh my God. He's like totally double crossed him, but he pulls out a.

stabs that guy.

Pete: Yeah. One

Sidey: get away. Then the older fell in the suits. He gets shot. Yeah. And they do make a

Pete: that that shot was comedy. Like when he, he's like, put the guy, the guy's kind of like just gone ah, and just like fallen sideways

Sidey: reason for that.

Pete: sideways to the floor. Well, there is

Sidey: then they, they get in the car and they, they like leg it off and he is still asking him about, you know, they must have thought that you knew something. What did you, what did you knew? And he, the conversation goes on and on and hoofing it round and kind of getting followed. And basically all he's done is just done like a loop round the block, brought him back and then he realize he has fucking double crossed him.

Yeah. And he just delivers them straight back for some more dentistry.

Dan: He, he was just trying to do that. Yeah. I think gamer Thrones used that

Pete: oh, they did? Ramsey Bolton did it with,

Dan: right. It's a really horrible double cross, isn't it? Because it gives you that hope that, but it, it also is really clever because potentially could have spilled the beans there and said, oh, I look like they did in that one.

Oh, we've got away with it and you know, we go on. And but he didn't know anything, so he couldn't say anything.

Pete: Well, you, you said again, like you find out that, cuz then at that point you think, okay, so Jane raises like a double agent, but it is still with a view. It is because the, the, the, the, what's the word?

The the, oh come to me. The mission, his mission is still more important than like Dustin Hoffman's life. Yeah. He's a double agent, but still with a view to keeping Z on site to be able to find out the, you know, the, where these other Nazis are and everything. So,

Sidey: so yeah, he's he's back in the dentist chair and this time he's got the proper drill out.

Yeah. And it's that noise that you just, hey. Yeah,

Pete: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Howie: his front

Pete: I'm familiar with that one now, and it's like straight into a front. One of the front ones.

Sidey: Yeah. It's pretty barren smash. Yeah. But he does end up getting away. Yeah. I can't remember how

uh,

Howie: He's getting put in the car. And the guy's, guy's kind of, the, the, the henchman gets kind of awkwardly into the side of the car and he leaves Hoffman slumped over the

Sidey: That's right.

Yeah.

Howie: And Hoffman makes a run for it, hence

Sidey: because

he, he said, he said earlier on when the, the, oh, what's her name?

Elsa,

says, I dunno how you do that. And he, and he gives this thing about marathon running. It's all the minds really, you know, it does hurt, but you just gotta, in your mind, you just gotta tell yourself that it doesn't hurt and, and just keep going.

Yeah. And so he's obviously in a lot of pain through all this

fucking torture. Literal torture that he's been on and he's running down the street and just like

pants and

Pete: this, this is how, this is how juvenile when he like makes a break for it, he runs past a wall with his graffiti and cunt is written on the wall.

I even stopped it

Sidey: it, a picture of it,

Pete: just to prove it. I was like, did that, was that say cunt? Yeah. Yeah. So he ma he makes a dash for it and then Yeah, he has to run through like wasteland.

Sidey: Yeah. He's getting chased by Jane Way. Jane Way's fired a couple of shots at him and he manage to climb over some. And get onto the kind of freeway, like a, like an exit ramp or an entrance ramp anyway and he gets, they chased him in the car and eventually jumps over another one.

And he does get away, but where's he gonna go? Cuz you know, he's like fucking naked basically. And running around New York.

Pete: Does it and then doesn't he put in a call to Elsa, like looking for some,

Sidey: He does. He says, he says, meet me at such and such address in one hour. He goes back to his place. Yeah. And this is where the guys from across the road at his apartment.

He, he goes to them,

Pete: Yeah, he has to, he goes it's, it's very, he goes, it's, it's creepy. Like is they, that's how they know him.

Sidey: And Yeah, they, they do him a solid, he goes back and they're all just tooled up and when Janeway comes and pulls a gun out, there's just six of them with a gun. And it's like, you know, fuck

Pete: So he, he, he

explicitly tells him to rob his house and get certain bits that he's gonna need, including his gun, which has been referenced earlier, that he still has a gun in a drawer.

Sidey: So It does, it does meet our, so they go out to some country house. Yeah.

Whereas

Pete: is quite a nice setting

all

Sidey: gonna go down.

Yeah. And they're followed and he says to her,

I,

because he's even says that, I didn't know you were gonna double cross me. He says, brother, are they gonna be here? And she says, yeah, they'll be here

soon. Yeah.

And he's obviously devastated cuz I think he genuinely like, thought that that she loved him maybe.

yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the

Pete: case.

Howie: Meanwhile, Jane Way has said to z Schnell, Zelle

where his name is, that he needs to up his tools and fuck off. And he's gotta get those diamonds appraised

Sidey: He, yeah, he doesn't know what they're worth on the, on the open market.

So he

Howie: really like odd scene where he goes around the diamond valuation who are all obviously a very big Jewish community.

Sidey: Yeah. And he

A woman clocks him?

Howie: Oh no. He goes into a

Sidey: a well, she clocks him first and she sort of looks over and she's like, mm. And then he goes into a couple of places and they're kind of farting about. And he goes, he goes to, I think it's the second one, was a really tall guy. And he, he's like, I recognize you from somewhere.

And he puts his hand down and Zel clocks the concentration camp, like barcode tattoo thing that he is got on his arm. And he is obviously like, shout to G here.

Dan: They won't like me here.

Sidey: No, he is not, it's not very popular. And then as he, when he goes out again, the woman's like Zelle Z, and she just starts screaming

at

Howie: calls him the white,

Sidey: Yeah. She starts calling him and then mate, he runs down the street and he grabs him and he is like, I know, I know who you are. And he just gets the knife, the like, like what's his face that the opera must have had,

you

Pete: Yeah. Like in, in broad daylight. And then immediately like holds him and he goes, this guy's hurt. Like, help him, help him. And then like

Sidey: jumps into the cab that's right next to it. And the cab is fine with all that. Yeah. And

Pete: but he, he gets he does get evaluation,

Sidey: Person, he 15,000 per Kara, I think the guy said, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And then he goes, then he goes from there, the cab drops him at the bank and he goes to his safety deposit box and he's like giddy when he sees

how many diamonds he's actually Got in there.

And the guy actually calls, knocks on the door of the like little room that they give you. And he's like, you okay? It's just like,

Pete: when, when you work, when you, I dunno exactly how much we're talking, but if it's 15,000 a carrot and you see how many fucking diamonds there are and how big they are, you know that that's

Dan: more than

Pete: yeah, yeah.

That's a lot of money right there.

Sidey: Yeah. So he's got a suitcase basically completely full to the brim of diamonds. Yeah. Like a lot, a high value number. But then we go to Hoffman back in the country house and we can see the car is, is coming up the road towards them.

And it's all gonna go off.

Pete: And this is this is Jane Way and the

Sidey: Yeah. The two

Pete: That are in the, that are in the car. Then, then there's a scene in, in the house. So not, and in the house's, pictures of Zelle from, you know, when he was Yeah.

Sidey: Him and his brother. Yeah, yeah,

Pete: yeah. And he even says directly, ask Elsa also, what's the crack? He is mistress or something.

Sidey: Yeah.

She says, no, I'm just another, like another courier or whatever it is. But Yeah. They have a kind of Mexican standoff. Mm. Yeah. He takes her

babe

takes her kind of hostage. And has the gun pointed at them. They all have the gun pointed at him.

Janeway is kind of in between. And who shoots first?

Janeway shoots one of the henchman.

Pete: Yeah. Because one of the henchman is gonna shoot either like through Elsa or you know, or whatever. And Jane way decides, right, this is gonna work better for me if these two henchman guys are out the way. And now the only people I've got to worry about are babe Elsa and, and the, the white angel fella.

Sidey: Yeah. So he shoots one of them. He pauses gun babe, shoots him.

Pete: Not yet. But

Sidey: basically no, she, no, the two henchman go.

Pete: Yeah, the two henman go. But then Jane Way basically says to babe, listen, you go and have it out with Matey, I'll let you go.

down. Yeah. And then as he goes out, he shoots Elsa. Yeah. Cuz she's another like, lead that ne in lu end that needs to be tied up.

Babe hears this and even though she's, she was never into him really in the first place or whatever he sees that turns around, shoots through the window and shoots him I think in the

Sidey: tap in the

Yeah, he gets run in the gut and as he turns he shoots him through the cheek.

Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. He's So, he's gone.

Pete: Yeah. But, and, and I thought, oh this is gonna, you know, he's gonna break down cause he loved her and everything, but he just kind of like gives a, a bit of a sad glance through the window and he's like, no, I'm gonna go and

Sidey: got the blood last now and

Pete: I've gotta go and have it out with the white Angel instead.

Sidey: Yeah,

Dan: So he's killed drain way. She's gone. And yeah,

guys,

Howie: pumps the

Dan: The

Pete: plumbing services.

Dan: and Yeah. And then he, he, he's on to the final kind

Howie: So now

Sidey: the end boss,

Howie: How I admit, I looked away at this point for about two or three minutes and I, he then was with the white angel in New York by, was that by chance or how did

Pete: some sort of pumping station?

I dunno,

Howie: No, no, no, no. Out before that they meet in the street or something, don't they? And he walks him to the

pumping station. Oh, okay. But I didn't know how he found him. That was where I thought the film had a bit of continu, well, not continuity, like a Link

Pete: I watched

Sidey: It's, no, he knows,

Pete: I can't remember either.

Sidey: Before j Mo's gone, he said, I'll tell you what, what You need to leave. I'll you gimme the girl. I'll tell you where he's gonna be. He gives him the bank. Okay. And, and the whole time, Z's been so paranoid that as soon as he leaves the bank, he's gonna be robbed. And it's exactly what happened. So, Janeway has given him, which bank is 54th and whatever it is.

And he, he go, he's waiting for him. So as soon as he exits the bank, he forces him. He takes him away. Yeah. And then they, yeah. For some reason they end up at this water treatment facility. Yeah. And they end, they end up on this grated kind of steel

staircase set Yeah.

Pete: But you, you'd think that, that, that obviously serves the purpose. I was wondering there's like those wheels that you would turn and so on.

It like,

it's Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it's, it's a good scene for a final

Sidey: Well, the, it's, it's an open kind of mesh like

staircase thing that, that great thing, which works out well when you throw diamonds at someone and they fall down and you get enraged about your diamonds going like down into the deep blues as it were.

Pete: Yeah. Because it, it becomes apparent, you know, babe, now he, I mean, he's lost his brother over this. He's lost the, the woman that he loved. And he, he just wants this guy like dead or out the picture or whatever,

Sidey: he says you can keep the diamonds, but you go eat them.

Yeah. So he

Pete: as many as you can

Sidey: Yeah. So he does

Pete: I'd have been good

Dan: good

Pete: just like massive handful.

Howie: I've been like a ua goose. Yeah.

Sidey: So yeah, he's one and then us, he's like, no, fuck off. I'm not doing that. And I think he, he doesn't zeal doesn't think that babe's got it in him to like pull the tree, like cold bloodedly just like off him. Yeah. This was the, like, I loved it and I, I do really like this film, but this bit I just found like the, the, the climax is a little bit of an anti-climax bit because he basically just for no reason falls down the stairs.

Howie: Yeah.

Pete: Well he chucks

Sidey: his, he's, he's been throwing handful after handful of diamond at him, and then he throws the whole briefcase and it just kind of lands

Pete: at the

bottom of this, like it spiral staircase.

Sidey: And

then he just kinda goes, woo, and like, falls down

the

Pete: Yeah, Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: yeah. He didn't push him or hit

Pete: well I think probably what it's meant to be showing is that even though like this, this Z guy is like a, you know, I mean he's a fucking serious Ronan,

Sidey: Yeah.

Pete: But when you see the scene of how giddy is looking at the diamonds and everything that he's amassed he, he's got this, fuck it.

I dunno. They, they call it something that, you know,

Dan: Oh, he's just got mad, isn't he?

He's greedy mad. And, and yes, it's this dizziness,

Pete: you get like gold sickness or whatever, it's like

Dan: gold fever. Yes. But he's got like diamond fever,

Pete: So yeah, he's I mean it is quite a, there, there weren't any like health and safety, you know, so like careful tight staircase and stuff like that.

And because of that he had a full, so there would've been a claim there. Had he,

Howie: no

Sidey: whether there's blame as a claim, he does imply that Babe's father was involved in this at some

point. Yes.

And that

he,

he was weak and that he blah, blah, blah. And he was part of this plan and whatever. And that's the point when he throws the, the briefcase, he's enraged.

And then he sort of like tries, I guess it's him trying to dive and save it or whatever. And he just rolls down the stairs and drowns.

Pete: Well, he doesn't what he does cuz he's got his knife out by now. He falls down

Sidey: stair. Oh he does? Yeah. He harpoons himself Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: his, giant letter

Sidey: right.

Yeah, he does.

Pete: And

And then, you know, kind of like, almost like looks, looks up as if to say, oh, was stupid, wasn't it?

And then he goes over the barrier and into the, into the water.

Howie: I want to see the next part of the film, which is the police investigation as to what the fuck has gone on how Dawson Hoffman's gonna get away with this.

And if Dustin Hoffman goes as they leave, I just have a couple of handfuls diamonds because I've basically lost my flat. Everything's been rinsed from it by the CIA

Sidey: Yeah, you a hundred percent would've taken because he,

yeah,

because what happens is he just walks off and he throws the gun

into

Pete: he's been running all the time and broad daylight just LOBs the gun over the fence.

Sidey: so he's not gonna go. And I, I took it. He was just

gonna walk off. he's not gonna

Dan: not. If you phoned

Sidey: report a crime, so take some fucking diamonds. The easiest thing that I'm told in movies to move.

what

Pete: didn't want the diamonds anyway. He could have taken the diamonds at any point. He had a gun and the guy and the diamonds, he

Sidey: he went off though, like counterclockwise round where everyone runs really

annoyed me. yeah, yeah, He would've been getting everyone's way. And that's the end, that's the very end of the film. It just faced to black. No, doesn't he just, he it is just him walking. Yeah. With the credits rolling as he's

just walking further And

Howie: national anthem.

Pete: Yeah.

Sidey: So what did you think?

Pete: So I, I, I like the film.

It was considering it's, it's what, over two hours?

Sidey: Yeah,

Dan: it's just over

Pete: just over two hours. It didn't drag at any point. It was, you know, like you've got, I mean, fucking Laurence, Olivia, Dustin, Hoffman, like Schneider, you've got like stellar performers here. So it's really well acted. I think the tension and the, the, like the, it's a good plot.

It's a good storyline. It's, it's obviously based on, it has some foundations in reality cuz all of these things, maybe not all as one story, but all of these things happen. Nazis fucking off to South America and being at large and they're being like people, you know, boies for them and and, and invested like probably US government, like entire departments dedicated to finding them and so on.

And all the stuff with the diamonds and, you know, nicking it off the, off off the people from Auschwitz and, and shit. So. A lot of it ticked a lot of boxes. But there was some stuff that I think is just, from my view, obviously dated, even though, you know, that's not the film's fault there were sometimes the, the plot like, was I, I forgive it cuz it forgave it, sorry, because it was it was a good film, but the plot did get a little bit either confusing or convenient at times.

But yeah, in gen in general, this is like a, you know, seven and a half, eight outta 10 for me.

Howie: Yeah, I'd go with that. I think I think it was particularly haunting. You mentioned the point where the old lady recognizes him across the street. There's a huge amount of tension build up there that works really well, and that's based upon a real occurrence that happened with one of the, he's a, again, I'm not gonna be able to historically name the guy, but he was one of the guards that was based in Belarus and lived in, like, he was brought up on war crimes up to about 10 years ago.

And he was spotted in a crowd in in a city and people and for various people. And that kind of situation But he was obviously then brought to justice. I thought Hoffman's performance was excellent. Olivia was very understated and just was menacing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That the way, and it was very slow and menacing.

But then the weird levity that occurred when he got all giggly about diamonds Yeah. Was wholly believable and made you realize the drive in his greed, which is what

it all was.

Pete: you could imagine, because this is, that's a, that's a long time. He's been waiting to realize this plot that he put into, you know, process all those years ago.

And he's, and he's been at large for such a long time and managed to manipulate and negotiate his way to, to this being his end game. So he is really, he's nearly there. And obviously he's a horrible prick, so he doesn't care that, you know, his brother's gone and all these people have died as a result of it.

It's

Howie: Which, just part of his plan.

Pete: Yeah.

Dan: yeah, yeah. He enjoyed it. I mean, it's marathons you know, I, it's not a lot of running in this if you're into sports movies, I have to, I have to warn you that now. But my friend Ty he ran the Beijing marathon and he won the gold medal

Which was really good, but the Chinese refused to recognize Taiwan.

And it was, it was just so horrible. So I'm, I'm never sure, you know, when I start to think about these things, but no, it, I've seen this film before. I've seen it at least twice before. Yeah, I think and, and it. It was one of those, I wasn't really looking forward to watching that much because I'd seen it a couple of times before, didn't think I would watch it again, but I did.

I watched it and I did enjoy it again. And you're right, Pete, I mean, although it's two hours, the there is holes or jumps or, or kind of sticky points within the plot. But the, the story is, has its own intrigue. You know, with the, the cia you've got Nazis, you've got innocent parties and, and things like that.

Running around you. Obviously the dentist scene is the big, scary kind of iconic scene. I, I really think Olivia's fantastic. He's just seems to have so

Sidey: o Oscar nominated for this.

Dan: He just has so many faces. I've seen him in lots of different things. And the characters that man can play from the nicest bloke you've ever seen to a menacing, horrible.

Pete: all of those things that even in one scene at a time, you're like, you almost like feel sorry for it. He seems a bit like, kind of like weak and pathetic to just the worst, like an angel of death.

Dan: Yeah.

Pete: it's all in one. Like,

Dan: Yeah, just in a look, in a twist. And, and the way you can,

Sidey: the Thing that I, I referenced it earlier, is when Hoffman's renowned for being like a real method guy. Yeah. So he stayed up for three days and nights before the dentist torture scene to make himself look like he'd been put through the

mill.

Howie: That, that's under dispute.

Sidey: Cause Well, it, I'm, yeah. I get say, and the, the famous story is that he, like, he turned up on set and Sylvia was like, look, you, what the fuck's wrong with you? You know, you look horrendous. And he, and he explained it. He'd done this because this is what, and he's like, haven't you ever tried acting

Like, just, just pretend, you know, just act . It turns out to not be completely true. That's not actually

how

Howie: went on the piss at Studio 54,

was

Pete: Oh, legends. That's a better story.

Sidey: Lawrence, Olivia took the role expecting this to be his last because he was absolutely like, riddled with cancer at the time.

Dan: which you wouldn't know looking at

Sidey: this.

No. And I, I think he might, he

Pete: more years out of him.

Sidey: Yeah, well, he, I probably was not maybe like enthused about playing a Nazi, but he thought, fuck it, you know, at least it'll be a payday for the family, you know, I'll leave some money. Anyway turned out that he like miraculously just fucking beat the cancer and, and carried on for like, a good few more years.

But the producer and the casting guys, they, like, he was the, the number one guy they wanted for the role, but because he was so riddled with cancer, he was uninsurable so they couldn't get him initially.

They refused to use him. So they called up Mel Oberon and David Nevin. Oh yeah. David Nevin.

To arrange a meeting with the House of Lords and they put pressure on Lords of London, Toure him. So

Howie: oh my

Sidey: Fucking

Dan: In no way that that's,

Sidey: just a fucking film, like,

Dan: Yeah. But you know, it's just the kind of things we want that guy and, and

Sidey: We're going, we're going straight to House of Lords.

I never

Dan: know all the right people to ask David Niven.

And one,

Pete: one thing I would say about it in general is, is like, it's called Marathon Man.

Right? And it's an adaptation of a book, right? Yeah. and I imagine, I haven't read the book, I dunno if anyone has, but I imagine that the, the, the marathon running theme probably runs through it a little bit more cohesively than it does. It's, it's a bit of a kind of clus in the sense that, alright, okay, we get it.

He's running at the beginning and then that becomes useful because later on he has to run away from somebody. But that's pretty much it. That's the only real kind of, and then you've got the, the

Sidey: the there, there's loads more in the book about Doc being killed and why he went back to Babe's apartment.

Right. It's like explained a lot more. It's kind of was cut out the film

Dan: bit when he hits the wall.

Howie: Well, there's other bits as well. The c p flashback of him running up that hill. His, with his, with his brother and his dad. Yeah. And there's stuff, I think it's him treading in his father's footsteps and not quite meet, meeting the demands upon him and his brother was always running ahead.

There's loose links there, but I see what you mean. Pete though. Yeah.

Yeah,

Pete: It was good and, and good. Dentist torching.