Episode Summary

DJ and Matt return from the holiday break at the trailer park to discuss the 1983 HBO original film "Right of Way". This "Trauma TV" era drama stars screen legends Bette Davis and James Stewart as an elderly couple facing a terminal diagnosis and the controversial decision to end their lives together. The hosts delve into the film's heavy themes of autonomy, dignity, and the societal interference that follows their private choice

Key Discussion Points & Timestamps

1. [00:00:00] Survival of the Holidays: DJ and Matt recap the New Year's festivities at the trailer park, including Lula May's "ball drop" flagpole stunt and Hector's dangerous play near a propane tank.
2. [00:02:53] 1983 Context: A retrospective of 1983, featuring Cold War anxieties, the Strategic Defense Initiative, the birth of stars like Chris Hemsworth, and the introduction of the first commercial cell phone.
3. [00:04:20] The Era of "Trauma TV": Matt highlights the cultural impact of 1980s television movies like The Day After (nuclear war), Something About Amelia (incest), and Adam (the Adam Walsh story).
4. [00:10:19] Plot Setup: Introduction to Minnie and Teddy Dwyer, a devoted couple who decide to exit life on their own terms after Minnie's terminal blood disease diagnosis.
5. [00:15:25] Love vs. Ethics: A deep dive into whether a joint suicide pact represents ultimate love or a crossing of moral lines, contextualized by 1980s laws versus modern "Death with Dignity" standards.
6. [00:26:41] The Legendary Cats: Discussion of the Dwyers' many cats, which Teddy named after acting legends like "Bobby De Niro," "Pacino," and "Bobby Redford".
7. [00:44:31] The Conflict of Interference: How the couple's daughter, Roda, unintentionally triggers a "whirlwind of invasive strangers," including social workers and nosy reporters, by confiding in the family doctor.
8. [01:08:26] The Ending Controversy: DJ and Matt explore the three different endings produced for the film—ranging from the original "Acceptance" ending to the revised versions created to avoid public backlash.

Featured Legends

1. Bette Davis: Matt reflects on Davis's career, her reputation as a "tough cookie," and how she channeled her real-life recovery from cancer into this performance.
2. James Stewart: The hosts discuss Stewart’s "quiet power" and his legacy in Hollywood classics like Rear Window and Vertigo.
3. Next Time: A look at a 90s film featuring stars from Friends and Reality Bites. "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion"

Well, hello there, folks.

We've survived the holidays.

We're in that part of January that there's no hope for spring.

Although we do get a hint of it every now and then.

I, I checked the, the weather and it was like 50 something out the other day, so half the snow in the yard was melted.

But I hear tell that new is going to be on its way soon.

Well, that would be lovely.

Yeah, and Cooter Jack's got that side gig going on there, so he'll get possibly paid for using his pickup truck.

But yeah, the, the, the, the big old party there in the trailer park out back there was something pretty special.

We got to see Lula May slide down the flat.

That's their version of seeing the ball drop.

Well, I'm sorry, but after three of those trucks blew up from those stupid fireworks that Cooter Jack had, I don't know where he got those from, girl.

I don't know where you think those were fireworks.

I don't know.

I think it might have been just.

Dynamite because Hector was playing around the propane tank again.

He was probably huffing it, knowing that little brat, right?

I mean, you gotta test out the, the moonshine, see, make sure the batch is good.

But Lula May, she.

She got pretty fancy this year because before she climbed up to the top of the flagpole, she got out the boombox and she was playing that Miley Cyrus wrecking ball.

Yeah, but did she have to wear those thongs?

Oh my God.

Did she get those from a thrift store?

No, actually somebody forgot their wash in the laundromat, so she.

Or something ate them.

Lightly worn, but they were her size.

Well, that's what you get for getting thrift store panties.

Not talking out of school there at all, but you might be able to look on the interwebs there and find some of our amateur poetry if, if not in other words, there.

But anyways, yeah, it's, it's kind of a slow part of the year here at the Vidya store and, well, I mean, other than counting the jugs of moonshine that Lula May is stocking in the back room there, I guess we should probably figure out what we're going to talk about here today.

So we got this VCR that looks like it was smuggled out of a secret government base.

And we're just gonna put this tape in here.

So here we go.

Foreign.

Good afternoon, time travelers.

Science and culture also surged forward with Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, and the very first commercial cell phone was approved.

The year also marked poignant losses, including playwright Tennessee Williams and classic film icon David Niven.

It was a year of endings, beginnings and history in the making.

I haven't seen her wear those day glows in quite some time.

I thought she was all that.

And she literally looks 40 years younger.

So that's another sign.

Well, that's true.

I don't think she was given getting that medicine at the free clinic.

She had good kybella.

Right.

So, so this was a big year in television movies that really left an indelible mark of trauma on the Gen X children culture, starting with the Day after, which depicted the aftermath of nuclear war starring Jason Robarts and Jobeth Williams.

And then if you go to the other channel down here, something about Amelia, which tackled incest and family trauma starring Ted Danson and Glenn Close.

Then, oh, they ran Adam the True Story about the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh, starring Daniel Javante and Jo Beth Williams.

Oh, and his dad was the one that did that TV show about wanted people.

Right.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

I forgot about that.

And then we had V, of course, which we've talked about on the show before, which is a sci fi tale of alien occupation starring Jane Badler and Mark Singer.

I mean, it was kind of like Scooby Doo because the bad people were what was underneath the costume.

Rip the face off.

And then, and then of course, oh, look, there's a movie called Right Away, which had an emotionally heavy drama about terminal illness and end of life choices starring Bette Davis and Jim James Stewart.

No, I went too far back this time.

Okay, let's try this again.

So it was a wonderful year to remember.

But no wonder Gen X is scarred no wonder we are just traumatized beyond belief.

I mean, it was the year that the supermarket tabloids were probably just like falling off the shelves.

They were selling so fast because people were having alien babies too back then.

But with a title like right away, you would think that this was a movie about rules of the road and, and how you drive a car.

But we're going to find out, I think.

Well, I don't know.

Let's see what we're watching.

Yeah, right.

The V blinking.

So we're going to let this guy tell us what's going on today.

You're watching a television movie named Right of Way starring screen legends Bet Davis and James Stewart.

As a devoted long married couple facing the unthinkable, one of them receives a terminal diagnosis.

They decide to embrace death.

As they have faced life together, their controversial and private decision draws concern and judgment.

After confiding in their daughter turns into a whirlwind of invasive strangers and nosy reporters forcing their morality onto the elderly couple.

Directed by George Shaffer and written by Richard Lees, this powerful adaptation of Lees stage play is an unflinching intimate drama.

One so provocative it earned selection for the Montreal World Film Festival.

This is a story about love, dignity and the right to choose when time is running out.

Well, speaking of running out of time, I hear that rock and roll guitar.

So rewind through time into movie night.

Blockbusters, indies in black and white.

From 80s thrills to silver screen dreams trapped in the past by a time machine.

Each times a door for DJ and Matt to explore.

The past is present and you're gonna want more.

Well now we're watching a TV movie because this wasn't just a movie.

This is that weird hybrid that we decided was going to exist when you made a movie.

But for television and in the 80s there was this strange thing called premium movie channels.

You had a box on your TV because you couldn't get this channel without the, the cable being unscrambled.

This was for the home box office, hbo.

And yes, this.

Apparently we could talk more about this in a bit.

This was originally going to be a movie for another station.

Yeah, maybe a network.

And it got shopped.

They got moved over to maybe somewhere with more money.

Hbo.

Well also it was too controversial anyway.

Because we couldn't show women's ankles for a while.

So if you, if you stayed up past after seven and you paid a little bit extra for your TV stations, you, you might get some legendary screen actors in their twilight.

So setting things up here because there's several parts to a story, a movie, because it's a.

It's a play when it's first written up.

Well, actually, this was a play when it was first written up.

Did you know that?

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

So in the classical sense, this actually was a performance piece of theater piece.

But right of way centers on Miniature.

Miniature, which was her full name.

Minnie and Teddy or Theodore Dwyer.

Not dryer, like in us in a clothes dryer, although there is a hose involved later.

But Teddy Dwyer, play played by screen legends Bette Davis and James Storch, a devoted elderly married couple who've spent decades together and have no interest in being apart.

When Miniature is diagnosed with a terminal illness, they quietly decide that it's one of them, that one of them is going to die, and they'll do it together on their own terms.

All right, so with that in mind, Matt, we have some things on our mind about the story, about the performances.

So maybe we should lay it all out on the table here.

Go ahead and start off with the setup and the problem.

Well, okay, so this.

The setup is these two old people have decided that she's so apparently.

Let me get this.

Gay.

She said, I guess, something like she got some disease and, like, her mother had it too or something.

And it's basically like her.

Her body was allergic to her own blood.

So.

And there was like, a treatment where they could, like, freeze her, transfuse her blood, and then put in fresh blood and then unfreeze her and then see if it worked.

I didn't understand that.

That was awfully like.

Really?

Are you sure?

That's what I mean.

If.

If I were somebody who wasn't, like, medically schooled or educated.

Huh.

The explanation given would give me the impression that that could be like, leukemia because she's got some sort of a blood disease and we don't understand a whole lot about it, but that's the gist.

She's got a blood disease.

Yeah.

So.

So anyway, so basically, she opts not to try for a treatment.

She may have a few months to a year, and she decides that she doesn't want to seek treatment, she just wants to go.

So she and her husband.

Who.

Her husband, Jimmy Stewart.

Jeremy Stewart, doesn't want to be there without her.

And, well, let's face it, he was kind of old and lost, too.

So they decide together that they're going to go out on their own terms and they are going to commit.

Well, the.

In the.

The.

The more common language, they're going to commit suicide.

They're going to go together.

And so they decide that.

And then they make the stupid decision because, I'm sorry, when you decide you're going to do something like that, you don't tell anybody.

You just do it.

Right.

But they decide, oh, let's tell our daughter so she can take care of the cats or the dolls or whatever.

And we'll get into that, I'm sure, in a few minutes too.

Oh, by the way.

Ding, ding.

Go ahead.

Oh, Anyway, so.

So she.

So they tell the daughter and the daughter freaks out and the daughter's all like, but we'll talk about that in a little bit too.

So.

But basically they, they want to go out on their own terms.

They're quite older, they're anything could go any minute, and they don't want to be separated, so they make that decision and they decide how they're going to do it.

Etc.

So anyway, hey, a couple questions about this, though.

When a couple decides that they want to die together, do you see that as love or does it feel like something has crossed the line?

That's a hard question, because when this movie came out, and this will be part of our discussion as we go deeper in.

When this movie came out, I mean, eons before I did.

I know, I mean, at least you were almost old enough to have a drink bought for you, but not that.

Not that old.

Yeah, that would be a decade away.

Thank you.

It depends on if Lula May was your babysitter.

Well, then I'd get drunk at three years old.

Right.

So, yeah, they're not right to die states.

Right.

So we call it death with dignity.

But.

So, okay, did they cross the line?

Was it love?

I think perhaps maybe it was an intention of, of representing love.

Although I would think that nowadays it would be a different conversation because we've gotten used to the idea that we're going to live longer and people might have incurable illnesses.

So we may have more conversations about what will you do when I'm gone?

And do you have my blessing to move on?

But.

Right.

I think, though, that for the time that this was made in, if that was the impression that they had was that someone was going to have to get along without the other, I could see that as being love.

It's.

It's almost like a Romeo and Juliet, if you, if you want to think about it.

Well, and also you're talking about an older couple and I mean, they had to have been close to 80, because she didn't have her daughter, who was 39.

They, she didn't have her until she was about 40, so they had to have been in their 80s.

He seemed like he was having kind of Alzheimer's issues kind of going on.

They didn't seem like they, if she wasn't there, didn't really seem like he would be able to get on that well by himself.

And of course, the daughter's like, you can come and live with me, blah, blah, blah.

And then there was that whole, like, scene on the pier with dialogue that did not make any sense.

It almost seemed like it was moving into something about Amelia territory.

So.

But that took place.

That took place at about halfway through, I think.

Right, Right.

Yeah, but she was trying to convince him.

Basically, the gist is she was trying to convince him to let mom die.

I'm fine with that.

Which she was.

And then, But.

And then you can come and stay with me.

And then he was all like, no, don't think of me that way.

Oh, I can't bear it.

I did wrong.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

Well, I kind of want to think, though, that him deciding Teddy, Jim Stewart, Jimmy Stewart's character, Teddy, deciding that he wanted to depart this earth with his wife Minnie, was, Was almost a, A, A insult to his daughter, because if she was more stable and more independent, maybe he could consider living with her.

But I didn't see her having much representation of having independence, of being stable, because her, her dad's impression of her is that she's a spinster.

It's like, you're 39, you don't have any children.

And of course, the only thing that a woman could accomplish in life is to find a man.

Right?

Yeah, exactly.

But it's just like, I, I understand, especially at that period of time, couples were still under that, like, oh, we've made this promise together, and we're going to be in it together.

And when you do find that one person who is like your.

I mean, for lack of a better term, soulmate.

I mean, you don't want.

You don't want to be without them.

So it's like, how, how much longer before.

Before he would kind of die anyway, Naturally.

So just, I, I understood the decision.

I. I thought it was.

I thought it was love and it was well done, and they wanted to be together.

So anyway, if you think about it, the age that they were when this was made, in 83, that was.

That was considered their Twilight I mean, even the actors themselves didn't live for more than a decade past that being their first.

Right.

And I don't think they were as old as their characters either.

Yeah.

But this was also done when the Dr. Kevorkian.

I don't know if you remember that.

Yeah.

Was very fresh and was like, on Donahue.

And people thought he was like a monster because he was helping terminal people die on their own wishes.

And he was actually jailed because of it.

Mm.

And we'll talk about it more in a little bit here.

But in history, Oregon was the first state to pass the.

The right to decide when it was your time.

So this is very ahead of its time.

And these actors were discussing a difficult subject.

So it was much more than a popcorn Lifetime movie.

This was.

This is Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart using their talent to promote a topic that was important to people of their age, of their generation.

And it's part of the trivia we'll get to in a bit.

But basically, they had their own quote, unquote demons with portraying this, because outside of the characters that they were portraying, there were their own issues about whether this was ethical or not, so.

Right.

So the film shows them as completely united from the start.

Do you like that, or would you have wanted to see more doubt or disagreement between them?

I think that in terms of the topic of her passing, that's difficult because maybe if we were led to believe that she only recently found out she was terminal, there might have been a way, a.

A crisis of conscience of.

A crisis of faith.

But maybe if this is something she's known for a while, he's gotten used to the idea, possibly.

And if he.

If he doesn't have anything he can do about it, maybe being in agreement that this is what we're going to do is how they get through it.

So I. I think.

I think it's important that they both agreed on it, because it would almost be a weak argument if you were to introduce the daughter as being the voice of the audience, and her having to confront her parents about something that they couldn't even agree on themselves.

Right.

Yeah.

And we needed to know.

We needed them to.

To be solid on it.

There was one part in about the middle where they kind of questioned.

He kind of.

I think it was him that kind of questioned, do you think we're doing the right thing?

And she actually tried to, I think, dissuade him at one part and say you could blah, blah.

And they were like, nope, we're doing this.

And.

And we needed to see that united front from the start.

So I think it was a good thing.

So do you think the real problem was the illness or everyone else telling them what they should do?

That was the actual problem.

I think that either way, the problem was going to be everybody interfering with their life.

Because even when it comes to people being of a certain age, I think that just as a culture, as a society, we get the impression that we should be free to do what we want.

If you're somebody who's a person who has older parents and maybe you have priorities and what you want to accomplish in life, the burden, quote unquote, of taking care of your parents is a huge obstacle.

So the problem isn't that.

The problem isn't what they want is the fact that they're the age they are and other people have their own opinions about, oh, well, they can't take care of their own yard anymore, so maybe they shouldn't be living here.

Right.

The neighbor's perception.

And I'm so.

Well, this is.

This is a relevant point too, on.

On the problem being the illness or the age.

But I was concerned, as I know you probably were too, because this film involved portraying animals and the care of animals.

I was concerned because I. I had seen this movie long time ago, but I didn't remember it well.

And although I would say that there wasn't entirely abusive animals there, there was some mistreatment, but there was also misperceptions.

The neighbors assumed that certain things were happening because they had so many animals there.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, go ahead.

Oh.

As I said, but you saw that they were, quote, unquote, well cared for.

Yeah, I think so.

What I intimated from the setup and what I saw and everything was that they were actually a very good, functioning couple.

But once she got the diagnosis and once they decided that they were going.

They were both going to go through with not being there anymore, that they were going to go do this.

They decided what?

This stuff here, the house, the yard, etc.

Doesn't matter.

No matter what we do, there's no point in fixing it.

There's no point in getting the new desk.

We'll just come put some books up.

That was a whole weird thing.

So.

But they basically said, what?

None of this matters anymore.

Stop.

We don't have to put out all the energy taking care of the yard.

So they just let the yard go and that became a big thing.

Oh, my God.

What are the neighbors saying?

About you letting the yard go.

I don't know.

Why don't we talk to the one neighbor that we see that has 20 kids that are shooting cats with BB guns or whatever they were doing with them, throwing things at them, so.

And also the cats.

I don't.

I think the cats were all stray cats.

Yeah.

That they basically were like, well, let's just feed the cats.

Who the hell cares?

Have some cats.

They're.

They're fine.

Because.

But I think they were mostly street cats and stray cats that they just kind of gave names to.

And I have somebody very close to me living in back who has done that to all the neighborhood stray cats here, feeds them and gives them all names.

So when I was watching it, I'm just like, yeah, you get to a point where you're just like, okay, what else?

Whatever, buy the cat.

And buy them some cat food.

It's all good.

And name them all after people.

We backed it with Bobby De Niro and stuff like that.

I mean, I noticed that too.

Okay, so point of fact, ladies and gentlemen, and anyone in between, is that if you choose to watch Right of Way, which I, we found on public domain, aka YouTube, because it was never released on home video.

But yeah, there, there are scenes where Jimmy Stewart's character Teddy is talking to the, the neighbor about these names.

And you thought my first impression was that this guy is like senile or something.

He's talking about friends who aren't there anymore because as Matt said, he gave names to the neighborhood cats that were famous actors and.

Right.

If you don't think about the fact that Jimmy Stewart himself is a legend, you just think this, this old man is off his rocker and he started talking about his old friends as these famous people.

But of course the neighbor lady is like, oh, well, I'll let.

If I see Robert Redford.

Right.

So the, the cat, the main couple's cats were named Bobby Dairo Pacino, Jimmy Con and Bobby Redford.

So, I mean, I thought that was fun.

Hilarious and really good throwback to their lives.

It was a really tongue in cheek part and it was fun.

But anyway, so they decided we're gonna die, we're not gonna be here.

This stuff doesn't matter anymore.

Stop worrying about all the physical stuff because we're gonna leave it behind.

And she stopped paying.

She stopped paying some of the bills because why, why bother?

Why pay the taxes on the house?

We're about to leave the house.

Nobody, nobody cares.

Probably the daughter doesn't want it, although she could have sold it, but Whatever.

There's just all this like, they're done, they're done.

They're on their way out.

But other people who don't know that information are like, oh, no, they're old and they can't take care of themselves because what do they do?

They tell children you're young, you're stupid, you can't take care of yourself.

You're in your teens.

You'll understand when you're older.

You're in your 20s.

You'll.

You're not, you're not sophisticated enough to wait till you're older.

Then you have this little prime period where I guess you're a functioning adult.

Maybe I haven't gotten there yet.

Until you start neighboring the neighborhood cats, right?

You can't take care of yourself.

In any little thing that.

That isn't towing the party line is, you're crazy, you're old, you can't take care of yourself.

And so, and this is a perfect example of that because they, they're just like, oh, no, you're old, you're crazy.

And it's like, no, they, they got it.

They know what they're doing.

And what a perfect example, too, of somebody in the spotlight.

Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart, who were themselves basically in their Twilight, right?

And, and they're used to playing characters with dignity and presence and charm.

They decide, we're going to use our names to promote these subjects.

And yeah, we're just playing the average old person just trying to get through life.

All right, but you're paying attention now because Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart, those.

Cause those flashes and bangs, it's like, oh, all of a sudden this means something now, Right?

Exactly.

What else means something?

The director.

Let me tell you about him.

Okay, so it's a delayed ding, ding.

Go ahead.

He was a director, of course, and he did a lot of television dramas, miniseries, stage adaptions, and his career actually began in theater, and he became a major television figure in the 60s, 80s, and usually he specialized in directing adaptations of plays, which this was one of.

He won multiple Emmys, including actually a Hallmark hall of Fame production.

And he was respected for his actor focus style.

So he really just went all in on making sure the actors were the stars of the show, basically.

And more.

More than just than they were.

Anyway, he did the Ghost of Sierra de Cabrera.

Okay.

A Love War, A Delicate balance.

And in right away he actually applied his restraint and theatrical sensitivity, as they're saying, guiding legendary stars, of course, Betty and James through their final screen performances.

Because this was their final screen performance performances with ser.

Seriousness and emotional clarity.

But basically.

Oh, and we didn't even know.

We didn't even say that he was the same director who directed something that you.

That we talked about.

I think it was Ubian and Toppy.

You and I and.

Oh, really, I forgot that.

Yeah.

So.

So before, before had Matt had even joined me in the right seat here.

It was sort of his audition because he was filling in the shoes for Mr. Smelly.

We discussed a previous George Schaefer movie that happened to be one of Lucille Ball's last performances.

Right.

And it was Stone Pillow, I believe.

And I had watched that and said, oh God, I hope I never have to watch another thing like that.

And yet here we are.

But yeah, yeah, he had, he sort of gained a reputation in that time frame of working with stars in their twilight because now they were ready to represent common themes that maybe didn't get enough attention.

And they did.

I mean she, she was, she represented being homeless Lucille Ball in.

In Stone Pillows and, and this was another very heavy handed hard topic and with amazing actors.

So I mean, I may not 100% enjoy his style of.

Of work yet.

God, how amazing did he have it to work with that level of just talent?

And despite whether or not anybody feels like this movie right of way is something that you need to watch more than once if you, if you think about it by merit of performance, one of the cast members that plays the daughter, Melinda Dillon.

And we'll talk about her in a little bit.

This, this was for the time frame, a highlight of her career because she got to work with screen legends that.

Yes.

Heard about growing up.

So there is that.

I mean, you may not think that this, this recipe tastes any good, but it's been passed down on the family generation after generation.

Right.

I mean, it's just incredible.

So I don't know, is it, is it about time for intermission or in.

About seven minutes so you can get on about Georgia?

Well, hey, you want.

Oh, I think we pretty much talked about him.

I mean, what an incredible director.

Again, maybe not my, my favorite of genre, but he just, he needs accolades for what he did.

But what I really want to hear about, I want to hear about some.

Jimmy Stewart oh, well, okay.

So Mr. Teddy or Theodore Dwi was the husband in Right of Way.

And I, I, before I talk about the actual actor playing Teddy Dwyer, did you pick up on that when Minnie Bette Davis was talking about when her mother met her future husband, did you get that impression that they had the same name before they were married, that they both were Dwyers?

No, I didn't.

I got the impression that she wouldn't have to change her name because they were both Dwyer.

D W Y E R I don't know.

That just gives me the impression that a little Elvis was going on there, that Elvis is married.

Yeah, Elvis's grandparents were actually like first cousins, so.

But yeah, first cousins is legal.

Just gonna say in, in I think Missouri.

But yeah, so, so Jimmy Stewart, who was born in ought eight.

Now he's known for his tall frame, distinctive drawl, not Southern necessarily, and every man charm.

So he was, he was a leading man.

He had elegance, he had style.

And he starred in classics like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and of course, iconically It's a Wonderful Life, which is that, that little snapshot of a Picture Perfect life and what goes wrong or what can go wrong.

And also it's an Alfred Hitchcock film.

Rear Window is one of Jimmy Stewart's big performances, and he was also in Vertig.

Now, Stewart won an Academy Awards Oscars for the Philadelphia Story and earned several additional Oscar nominations.

But did you know that During World War II he served as a decorated U.S. air Force pilot rising to the rank of Brigadier General in the reserves.

That meant that he could have been called into duty at any time.

Later in Jimmy Stewart's career, he appeared in westerns and television films.

So in the 80s he might have known the man in the Oval Office because they could have worked together.

But Right of Way was one of his television films and it was, as we said, one of his final screen performances.

So.

But as a, as a child of the 80s, I remember Jimmy Stewart most iconic because he used to do the commercials for Campbell's Soup, you know.

Good.

Oh, there's these dumplings and these carrots and oh, Mary, it's good.

I vaguely remember that.

But yeah, so his top films included the aforementioned Rear Window, which was an Alfred Hitchcock film.

And I actually saw that.

Oh, I think it was just this last summer I was watching it because I, I have a, a list of things to check off.

And I want to see all the most famous Hitchcock movies.

That one was pretty good.

He's a man who broke his leg and he's stuck in his apartment recovering.

And the whole film is about everything that he could see from the window of his apartment.

But it's quite unique because he faces a courtyard, so everybody's windows of their apartments face that interior with him.

So that's all.

All the story entails is his sort of observing the life in the other apartments there.

So another one of his top films was the man who Shot Liberty Valance, and it was one of the most influential westerns ever made.

And also among his top films included Vertigo, which of course is the Fear of Heights.

I believe that was another Alfred Hitchcock film.

And in he was ALS Jimmy Stewart, one of his other top films was Winchester 73, which redefined his career and westerns as adult dramas at that time.

And then, of course, one of the films that Jimmy Stewart is most well known for, besides, I would say It's a Wonderful Life.

And maybe that's just because I'm from.

From western New York.

And there's a certain aspect of storybook life like It's a Wonderful Life that Jimmy Stewart's remembered for, because part of it, It's a Wonderful Life is inspired by the small towns in western New York.

In fact, I think it's Seneca Falls that was the location that they filmed parts of the movie for, or at least that's Small Town was based on.

So.

But anyways, the.

The last film on his list of top films was something called Harvey, and it was a comedy hit, and it was about a man who had an imaginary friend who just so happened to be a rabbit.

A very large invisible rabbit.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I. I think it's really interesting, though, that you.

I mean, these are great films.

I mean, Rear Window, Vertigo, the Man who shot Winchester 73, and Harvey, I. I haven't seen.

There's a couple I haven't seen, but for the most part, I.

They're all movies that you hear about.

About.

They're still in the.

But every year on multiple channels, everybody watches It's a Wonderful Life.

And yet it's still not listed as one of his top five films out of the 80 films that he actually was in.

So, all right, we're talking about Jimmy Stewart.

And just like kids that collect playing cards, we're going to compare our scores here.

So of all the movies that Jimmy Stewart did, and there are quite a lot of them I've seen knowingly, because Mind you, I grew up watching these things with my dad.

I can remember specifically about five.

So of course It's a Wonderful Life.

Now we also discussed this, this last year a.

Another Hitchcock film that had Jimmy Stewart in it and it had sort of a homoerotic element there, rope from 48 that was early in his career.

And I've seen Harvey and Rear Window, so that's four of my five.

And then another film that I think has had a more recent remake was called Flight of the Phoenix.

And it's about a plane that, that crashes in the middle of the desert.

And basically the development of the story is them figuring out how to get out of the desert and how to, to fix the plane sort of thing.

So.

But that was made in 65 Flight of the Phoenix.

So that's about five Jimmy cards.

How many do you have, Matt?

I have about 12.

And again, like you said, these are.

I grew up watching television with like, with my grandmother and stuff like that.

So I could have seen many more, especially cowboy films and stuff and not realized it when I was a kid.

But knowing that going through the things, knowing like I made a point of watching like Rear Window and Vertigo and all the classics like that.

And I have seen Harvey saying that it's a comedy.

I was like, really?

That's a comedy?

Okay.

But yeah, so I think I'm pretty sure I've seen about 12.

My favorites are Rear Window because it was so well done.

I mean, just whether you like that type of movie or not, you can't say that that was not a really well done movie.

But.

And then Bell, Book and Candle, which was one of the movies.

There was about two or three movies that actually Bewitched was kind of based on and taken from and Bell, Book and Candle was one of them.

And it's, it's, it's.

Oh, I, It's a flawed movie, let me tell you that.

But it is one that I still love.

Like, and it's much better than some of the other early.

It'll still record, but it's rare.

It's so much better than some of the other early witch movies.

And of course our.

One of my beloved, the Good Witch has, is also kind of based on a Bell, Book and Candle type thing.

That's the name of the store.

So in the, in that, in that show.

So anyway, those are my favorites.

Oh, I am aligned in for the county and I work the main road.

Okay.

So Matt, that brings us into the next segment of the story.

Sort of the, the, the second act here which is the conflict and the rising action.

So what the couple sees as a private, loving decision quickly spirals outward when they tell, or rather they make the mistake of telling, their 39 year old daughter, played by Melinda Dillon.

Now, for those of you who don't know who Melinda Dylan is, slap yourself for me.

Yes, that she was.

Other things that she's done.

Oh yes.

Most famously, she was, she was Richard Dreyfus's wife in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I had no idea.

And then she was also, in absence of malice, no idea it was her.

And with John Lithgow and Harry and the Hendersons.

Oh, I forgot about that too.

So a lot of things are so wonderful.

Melinda Dylan is the 39 year old daughter that they made the mistake of telling.

Now she panics and tells their doctor.

You would think he would know, but maybe this isn't the same doctor that Minnie went to.

So the family doctor.

But suddenly social workers, court workers and lawyers, everyone's got their hands in the pie.

And all of them have opinions about what this couple should do with their final days.

Because they're not in their right minds.

They can't make decisions for themselves.

Suddenly they're like children.

And the situation escalates when the press gets hold of their story and prints their names.

What starts as an intimate choice turns into public moral battle about love, control and who really gets the final say.

Because back in these days these small towns had to know everything about it's historical.

Folks, if you do any sort of family tree work, those little towns and their newspapers had gossip columns so somebody who had a relative coming in from out of town.

Now their business was your business because it's in the paper.

Not only that, but in the early 70s, like if they would print, like when kids had their birthdays, that it was their birthday and they're turning three years old and they'd be like, blah, blah, Ferguson, who lives at.

And they would print the address.

I was like, wow, that is crazy.

I don't know if it's still the practice, but if you have, if anyone has had the misfortune of mishandling their own finances and having to file bankruptcy, at least it used to practice that you are publicly shamed in the newspaper and your name was on a list of people who have filed bankruptcy in court recently.

Yeah, they used it when, when I went through bankruptcy when I was about 24.

Ish I, we had to take out ads in a newspaper that said that we were doing was ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

So we were all about shame in that day and age, and probably still are.

It might not have been her intention, but that's what happened.

So, yeah, that's the conflict and the rising action.

Now, once the daughter tells the doctor, Matt, does this situation stop being a family matter or should it still belong to the couple?

Should it have been kept private?

Oh, it absolutely should have been kept private.

But.

And, and that's the thing I said at the beginning.

If you decide to do something like this, you don't tell anyone.

You just put your affairs in order and you go do it.

You tell somebody and they're gonna, it's the whole moral police.

And of course they're gonna tell their daughter.

Their daughter's gonna freak out.

That, that's completely understandable.

But then when she freaked out and she went and Arkansas, I think it was a social worker or something.

And then the next thing, social workers are at their door and they're like, yeah, sorry, but this is now, this was referred to me.

This is now public matter.

You're going to be, we're going to have you evaluated and put into conservatorship.

I'm just all sorts of stuff.

So of course, what did they do?

They, what was the next thing they do?

Oh, so when they, the social worker assesses them, but basically comes after their house, he's oh my God, you guys have a messy yard.

Oh my God, you guys have 400 cats.

Well, I think it was about seven, but still.

Oh my God, you guys have a, a desk that's made of books.

Oh my God.

Oh my God, look at all these dolls.

So base.

Oh, and I don't think we really talked about how miniatures she, her, her mother got from her mother that they make doll houses and, and specialty dolls that sell for a lot of money.

And that's how they made.

She made a lot of money.

So she's been.

She makes these special dolls which are creepy as.

Oh, I said edit, edit, edit.

Well, well, but to your point, though, however, whether or not Betty Davis actually did these dolls, I don't think she did.

But whoever made the dolls had an attention for detail because in the end, we'll tell you more about it.

But, but the dolls had a very good resemblance to who they meant to represent.

Yes, they did.

And.

But they were very kind of creepy and so, and they're all kept in a chest, which is also kind of creepy, I guess, but.

But also part of that discussion here.

Now, what's in the public eye?

We have an intervention.

They show up at their door.

Right.

Well.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Okay.

So.

Yeah, so.

So there's this.

And so the social worker comes, she sees the mess, she sees the.

The dolls, she sees the cats, and she's like, oh, my God, these people, they're crazy.

We're gonna.

And so.

So she ends up making the court, telling the court, and the court serves them papers.

Right.

So.

And part of this, too, is that they send out people to.

That are part of the court system to document all this.

Well, the couple isn't home for some reason.

The door is open, unlocked.

I don't know why they.

Well, because they trusted people in those days when they grew up.

Okay, I'll go with that.

And so these two people, these two.

I'm.

I'm not calling them the name.

I want to just walk in and start taking pictures of everything.

And here is a perfect example of you don't know the situation, so you just say, oh, yeah, old crazy people.

Oh, get a picture of the dolls, and let's throw the dolls on the floor.

By the way, I think the word.

That you meant to use was government employees.

Yeah, we'll go with that.

Hasn't changed much.

Anyway.

All right, we are at about the halfway mark in our program, so we're going to take a brief break for some nostalgia, some ads, some jingles.

Something from the early 80s will be just tickling you in your ears there.

As we mark the midway session, or midway point in this session, you can just imagine the things from the early 80s that might be considered advertising.

I mean, maybe it's scrubbing bubbles, maybe it's twins advertising, chewing gum.

I'm not quite sure, but.

Okay.

Eunice, travel plans.

I need to be in New York on Monday.

LA and Tuesday, New York on Wednesday, LA and Thursday, New York on Friday.

Got it, got it, got it.

So you want to work here.

What really makes you think you deserve.

Well, sir, I think all my feet.

I'm good to figures and have a sharp mind.

Excellent.

Can you start on Monday?

Yes, sir, absolutely.

Without hesitation.

Congratulations.

Welcome aboard.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

And in conclusion, Jim, Bill, Bob, call Fred.

Low dork.

Eight of them, Ted.

Business is business.

And as we all know, in order to get something done, you got to do something.

In order to do something, we got to get to work.

So let's get to work.

Thank you for taking me PD did a bang up job on putting you in charge of Pittsburgh.

I know.

It's perfect, Peter.

That's why I picked Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's perfect, Peter.

May I call you Pete?

Call me Pete.

Pete, there's a Mr. Schmidtler here to see you.

Come to wait 15 seconds.

Can you wait 15 seconds?

I'll wait 15 seconds.

Congratulations on your deal in Denver, Dave.

I'm putting you down to deal with Dallas.

Don, Is it a deal that we have a deal?

It's a deal.

I got to go.

I got a call coming in.

Hi, Doc.

Just tell it, Johnny.

In this fast moving high pressure, get it done yesterday world, aren't you glad there's one company that can keep up with it all?

You got to deal.

Good.

I'm putting you down to deal with Dick.

Dick.

What's a deal with the deal?

Are we dealing?

We're dealing, Dave.

It's a deal with Don Dark and Dick Dark.

It's a deal with Dave.

Dick and Dave.

Don.

It's a dork.

With Dick.

David D. Gotta go, Dave.

Disconnecting.

Gotta go, Dick.

Disconnecting.

Gotta go, Dan.

Disconnecting.

Federal Express.

When an absolutely positively has to be there overnight.

Time to make the donuts.

The donuts.

It isn't easy owning a Dunkin Donut because unlike most supermarkets, we make our donuts fresh day and night.

The guys who make supermarket donuts are still in bed.

Plain donuts aren't enough.

Five kind.

Of course, when you make donuts this good, there is one reward.

They taste so great.

Morning, folks.

People buy an awful lot of them.

Joey called this morning.

So how's Jo?

Joey, what's wrong?

Nothing.

Nothing.

How?

Joey called.

2,000 miles.

The kids are all right?

Fine.

Sally?

Fine.

The kids are fine.

Sally's fine.

So why did he call?

I ask him that too.

And why are you crying?

Cuz Joy said I call just cuz I love you, mom.

Okay, we are back.

So, yeah, so they're.

They're doing this and then the they get served that they have to go to court to basically defend their way of life.

Yeah.

So they.

And so they talk to a lawyer and the lawyer says, no, no, sorry, it's illegal.

I can't have anything to do with this.

We never met, blah, blah, blah.

Okay, that's fine.

But the next thing he went to the newspaper.

I'm like, what in the h e double hockey sticks are you doing?

You are a lawyer.

They should have a moral conflict with the fact that their 39 year old daughter, who's single, is staying at a motel by herself.

Right, exactly.

No, it just escalates and then the papers find out.

Of course, I think they printed the address, I'm not sure.

And then, then that goes into.

Of course the TV reporters have to get in on it because they want that juicy goods story.

And that is where I draw the line because I worked in journalism for 30 years and I'm sorry, when I see TV journalist depictions of journalists that do this stuff, it is wrong.

These are horrible people.

They are, they have given journalism a bad, bad name.

They're awful.

Okay, Social workers have gotten involved and the courts getting a lawyer and they, they got their, their addresses and such in the paper because that's the thing that we did in those days there.

So Matt, we've got the, the leading lady who plays Minnie, Ms. Dwyer, Mrs. Dwyer, Jimmy Stewart's Twilight bride on the scene there.

Tell us about Bette Davis, if you will.

And she, her mother was told her that if she couldn't say something good about somebody, don't say anything at all.

So when she heard that somebody had died, she said good anyway.

But actually she was one of the most formidable and influential actors, actresses in Hollywood history.

I mean, sharp wit, expressive eyes, songs written about her eyes, the, those fearless performances.

And she really built a career playing complex and often unsympathetic women at a time when few actresses really did.

She won several Academy Awards for Dangerous and Jezebel and earned a record setting 10 additional Oscar nominations.

I know, right?

And her films included classics like All About Eve, which is still known as one of the top rated movies in Hollywood.

Now Voyager, Dark Victory, and of course, whatever happened to Baby Jane?

Because you are in that chair.

But you are Blanche.

Yeah, okay.

Anyway, but basically never content with being merely glamorous, she really fought studios for better roles and creative control and she really became a symbol of our artistic independence in a time when you just.

The studios controlled everything.

So I, I will say this about Bette Davis.

I think that like a lot of performers, she had a reputation for being a tough cookie.

But I think that probably in private she was a different person that she then she let people believe she was because there, there have been TV shows made in more recent years, iconically.

Feud.

As we were talking before we hit the record here, we're all about the Conflicts between people like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

But was that really what went on in public?

Of course not.

If you weren't starring in a movie, if your name wasn't in the headlines, how did you stay relevant?

Well, right.

I threw a dog of.

Or threw a bag of dog crap on Joan Crawford's front doorstep.

Right.

And suddenly now there's reason to keep their names in print.

So.

Right.

Yeah.

So she did.

Go ahead.

Oh, good.

For what it's worth, as we were saying at Right of Way may not be a movie that you feel like you need to watch more than once.

My husband and I watched Right of Way together recently, and what he said about Bette Davis's performance was this.

In the 70s, there was a sequel to Escape to Witch Mountain.

Oh, dear God.

Yeah.

And it was called Return to Witch Mountain.

Bette Davis was in this movie, and what he had good to say about Right of Way was that Bette Davis's performance in Right of Way was much more present than their performance in Return to Witch Mountain.

Well, she was probably so damn embarrassed to be in the other one, and she was probably, like, just phoning it in to get the hell out of there.

But, yeah, no, it.

I watched that about, I don't know, five years ago or something and just went, oh, holy moly.

This is.

This is really bad.

But you watch a performance like this, and of course you didn't.

Miniature is one of those characters that you understand, but you don't necessarily like her that much.

But she did.

She.

And it was an unforgiving part and she stuck to it.

And she.

God, she was really good.

She just did eight.

Ate that part up.

And she has been in approximately 100 movies.

Now, that's not even including television appearances and other things.

But her top five, of course, was, as I mentioned, All About Eve, which is still like, one of the most acclaimed movies in.

In Hollywood history.

And then Jezebel, which solidified her as a top star and actually earned her a second Academy Award.

Then she had Dark Victory, Now Voyager, which was a massive wartime hit, and then another movie called Mr. Skeffington, which I know very little about, but it's got a really interesting name.

Well, if we were to compare our trading cards here on the.

I would be having to turn in my gay card because I've only seen a couple of them that I'm aware.

I've probably seen many more.

I think that I've probably seen All About Eve.

I just didn't know that was the name of the movie.

But besides Right of Way, I have two other movies, so actually technically three.

So whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Because you practically get your own copied issued to when you come out of the closet.

Right.

And.

And then Return from Witch Mountain, which if you're not a fan of low budget sequels, the only reason you might have to watch Return from Witch Mountain is to see this very creepy scene where there's a guy who's in his early teens that they tie up and drug to make him tell the truth about it.

I forgot about that.

Or I blocked it out one or the other.

And it's for the very same reason that we don't give children ages and addresses in newspapers anymore.

Yeah, no, that.

I'm sorry that was such a bad.

And I love the first one, but that one, I just.

No, I don't want to see that again.

So your faves, are, are you gonna include that in your faves?

No, I, I think that I would probably put Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is, is my favorite of those.

And then Right of Way would have to be the second.

But that Return to Witch Mountain, I won't even keep it on the list.

Right.

She, she was probably paying her bills because this to.

To the, to the point as we talk about Right of Way being a topical film that stars in their twilight use their platform to promote.

Betty Davis was going through a very difficult time in her own personal health at this time.

She had just recently had, I think, a double mastectomy.

So she was in recovery from cancer and all that trauma.

So this was an inspired performance on her part because to.

To put it bluntly, she was living her truth in this character.

Right.

And you could kind of tell that with that wig something was going on too.

But yeah, I mean, and that's the thing too.

And I, as much as I might criticize Return to Witch Mountain, you have to realize that for actresses that are over, well, at that point, probably 40, very rarely they took whatever work that they could get.

And it didn't matter how much of a name you were, how, how respected in the industry you were, if you had that little age number right after your, your name, you didn't have any juicy roles, so you took what you could get.

Anyway, I've seen about seven of her films and I would say that All About Eve, which you really should watch, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane are probably my favorites.

And somebody might be like, well, that's a little cliche.

What.

I'm okay with that because they were phenomenal parts.

I mean, there's a reason why you get a, get a copy of it.

Mind you, we, we have to talk to the members of our club when we have our next meeting because I'm not sure that we ever graduated from VHS to dvd.

And it's no wonder these young kids that come out of the closet don't have a problem proper schooling because they can't even watch our movies.

I could probably find it on YouTube.

So, I mean, they have ways.

They have ways.

So bringing the story to the resolution, I'd say climax, but with both of these two in their twilight, I think that would be a little dangerous.

But speaking of which, they did talk about long drives that they go on the weekend.

I mean, they had fond remembrances of their car.

And if we want to impress upon our listeners a, a moment of, of interacting with us, if you will, because that's, that's.

I hear that's something that some people do sometimes, people who listen to podcasts send emails.

But you know, I, I've heard.

But supposedly Minnie, Ms. Mrs. Dwyer, played by Bette Davis, had a fondness for a car that they once had.

And she talked about it, she said the Lincoln.

And when they go to take a ride in the car that they have in the garage, it wasn't a Lincoln.

So I'm trying to figure out for myself without maybe having to watch the movie over again, whether she was just being nostalgic for a car they don't have anymore, or if maybe the studio had a continuity problem and they couldn't track down a Lincoln for the movie.

But so the resolution, the film reaches its emotional peak when Minnie and Teddy, they have a private decision that became fully public.

Now authorities intervene as you heard, reporters swarm and the couple is treated less like loving partners and more like a social problem to be managed.

Their quiet personal choice is stripped of dignity as the system steps in.

Those government types that want to take pictures of everything and they come in when you forget to lock your door.

And they are turning an intimate moral dilemma into a public spectacle.

The tension centers on whether society will allow them agency or forcibly over ride their wishes for their own good.

Now, point Matt.

No point of fact.

Next there.

So in the original version of this, okay, the film ends with their adult daughter, 39, spinster, makes pots for a living and teaches people how to throw pots.

Anyway, so she, anyway, the, the, the adult daughter, she comes to understand and accept their decision and she's just like, okay, this is happening, whatever.

And she basically recognizes that what they want to do is an act of Love.

It's.

It's consented, got mutual consent.

And it's not really despair that this is what they want to do.

And she decides that she's going to respect that.

She doesn't necessarily like it, but she's going to respect it.

And this ending emphasizes the dignity, autonomy, and the couple's right to choose how they live their lives.

So she basically goes and knocks on the door, realizes, oh, they're in the garage and they're killing themselves.

Okay.

So she goes inside, she takes the doll that's there and leaves and drives upstate.

And she's like, la, la, la.

My parents are killing themselves.

But it is a very interesting, like, accepting it, and it happens and they succeed.

And that was the original ending.

But now get this.

Just like those books that we used to get when we were kids, when you got excited, when the book fair came to school, you.

You had choices to make.

And the people that made this movie weren't quite sure how the public would accept the version that they chose to air.

So as Matt is saying, they came up with options.

That was one of the options.

And what were some of the others?

Well, okay, so they.

They finally decided that that ending was not acceptable.

So fearing backlash, they actually wrote.

Got several other endings.

One of them is where she just kind of like.

Like, drives away upstate.

She calls.

She calls them on the phone and they don't pick up.

So she, like, leaves a message and she just drives away.

And that's the ending.

Right.

But the other one was actually that they decided that as a.

As this result was, the ending was rewritten to stop the couple and to basically impose the external control, which dramatically shifted the.

The film's message and basically made audiences just left with no conclusion.

So in the revised ending.

Go ahead.

Alrighty, girl.

So in the revised ending, the couple is stopped because these nosy reporters from television who jump like this, screech into the parking lot right in front of them.

They jump out of their van.

They're just gonna get this big story.

And then they can't find them until one of them goes and smell, oh, my God, I smell gas.

So they stop them and say, oh, aren't we wonderful?

We stopped this old couple, who are.

One of them's dying anyway, from committing suicide.

We're such a brave heroes, right?

And then.

Go ahead.

Do you want to.

Oh, I was just gonna say they treated it like they were arriving at the scene of a crime where these kids were in the middle of making graffiti.

But instead.

But it doesn't matter.

The Fact that somebody has a terminal illness, we're going to treat it the same.

These people are breaking the law.

Right.

And they are breaking the law.

So of course they call the ambulance, the ambulance gets there, the give them the oxygen, they revive them.

And Jimmy Stewart's character basically looks like his.

His mental acuity is gone.

Like he breathed too much gas and his mind is just gone.

He's in shock.

He can't say anything.

And both of them are saved.

And the police are there, and the police are.

And the daughter's all like, oh, I'll take care of them, I promise.

And they're like, well, that's really nice.

But now they're both under arrest and probably.

They will never.

They'll probably never see each other again.

Yeah.

Because they conspired to help one another.

We can't trust them to be around one another.

And not only that, but because they broke the law.

If the judge goes by the book, they'll probably both have to go to prison and they'll be put in separate prisons and they will probably never see herself.

She'll die in a couple of weeks, couple months, and.

And he'll just be in prison until.

If he's not already a vegetable.

Right, exactly.

Because it really looked like they were playing it like his brain was fried from breathing all that gas and the same.

Because we're talking about the alternate endings here, right?

And this is one of the sort of quote unquote, fun things that we get to explore because this is a film from some years ago.

Now you can hunt down the alternate endings.

And one, the one that Matt is talking about where they're basically treated as criminals, also involves the couple being separated because they're being put into hospital beds for the ambulance.

But Jimmy Stewart's character is given a doll that his wife has made because they're.

They're potentially going to be separated.

And there's some symbolism that takes place there because after Jimmy has the doll, the doll is taken away from him.

Yeah.

So that's.

That's another one of the endings.

Right.

And is there a third version, Matt?

The third.

The.

The third version was actually where the daughter is supposed to just like, call from the car or something like that.

She's driving home, she stops, she uses the phone, doesn't pick up, leaves a message, and then keeps driving.

And so doesn't know, but so they actually are able to.

To do what they need to do.

It's sort of a fade to black.

It's like whatever happened, happened, Right?

Yeah, exactly.

And so the, the version that we saw on YouTube was the one that they got arrested basically with the, the harsher reality.

Now I think that the one that hbo, who produced this film, I think that the one that they actually aired was the quote unquote fade to black one where the daughter is calling her parents by phone and then they fade away from the scene when you see them in the garage with the car.

So you're left to draw your own conclusion that they've carried out their wishes and the daughter is going to come to the reality before long.

But yeah, but I think of those three, the one that I feel is the most fitting, that wasn't the one that was aired, mind you, is the version where the daughter comes on the scene, realizes that they're in the garage doing what they told her they were going to, and then she makes the decision not to stop them, but goes inside because something that should be noted, which is sort of a heartening meaning a heartwarming part of the alternate ending is that when she chooses not to stop them and she goes inside, she is surprised to learn that her mother has made a doll with her likeness on the face.

Right.

So the daughter is left a doll that looks like herself that her mother made her.

So which is important because she and her mother have never had a good relationship.

So that's one of the things that's really poignant during the show because she was basically like, daddy, you can come live with me.

Bye bye, Mommy.

But again, it was one of those shows where Bette Davis character, I mean, and it was understandable that they didn't get along, but.

So you feel that that was the most honest ending.

And I do too.

I am fine with that.

Like, okay, what's going on?

You don't like it, but you accept it and you go, you do your thing.

Not the one where they're basically going to have to be forced to spend their life in probably be mental institution or jail or whatever because they can't be trusted.

You have to, we have to make sure that you, you die painfully and how we want you to because it's our religion that says that we have to make you die this way or you might go to this fictional place, but we won't talk about that.

Yeah, we're, we're, we're just going to hold you to our standards of moral.

Well, like remember, remember that story recently, not long ago about her name was like Terry Scovo or something like that where she was basically brain dead, but her, her family, for religious reasons just kept her on life support, like for I don't know how long, years, months or whatever, but she was already gone.

But so, hey, how, how does the daughter's acceptance of, of this, in this version change the message of the film?

Well, I think that from the perspective of the story and the audience, the fact that these, these screen legends in their Twilight use their own platform to promote this topic is, is one part.

And depending on your age group when you saw this, you either related with the people who had the terminal illness or you're related with the daughter because maybe you have an older parent and this might be a decision you have to make in your future.

Now for, for that matter, I should point that I feel very fortunate that I'm the youngest of several siblings because unfortunately for some, they have to make the decision, but I was spared that I had older siblings who had been closer to the family when, when our matriarch passed.

So I'm very grateful I have older siblings.

But.

Okay, so does the, her acceptance change the message?

I think so, because any, any story that has a, a moral, I hate to say because that's all based upon someone's faith or someone's religion, the moral or the ethic, but the message is that you should honor somebody's wishes whether or not you believe in them.

And especially in this case where these are her parents, they existed long before she entered this world.

They're the reason she's here.

So she, she has a, well, for lack of a better term, a good reason to think that they know what's best.

They've looked out for her all of her life and made all these decisions that made sure that she survived.

So the long way around it is that her acceptance of this being their will, their wish, it was important because the endings also, they drive home the message too.

And I think that them having aired the version that was the fade to black was almost a, a compromise.

It was a, for lack of a better term, a cop out because they didn't want to inform the audience's opinion.

They wanted you to decide for yourself what you took from the story.

I, I, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I definitely would hope that they would do that, but I, I think it was more of a cop out because they didn't want to give an ending one way or the other that was, would send a message because that they were going to pee off one group or the other.

But, but yeah, it's, I, I think that the, the whole thing, I think that there was a part and, and this plays into the part where they were on the pier where she was basically thinking that this was all her mother's idea and she was trying to blame her mom because she, she and her mom didn't get along.

And Jimmy Stewart's character basically had to tell her, no, this is my choice.

This is our choice.

We're doing this together.

Your mom was like, she said, oh, your mom just, My mom just wants you to, she's gonna kill herself.

She wants you to go too, because she's selfish.

And that's not how it was.

The, the ending where she accepted?

Yeah, I don't think they would have.

At least with the public majority being folks who accepted conservative leadership.

Because in 83 we had a conservative president in the White House and he was a two term president.

Yeah, I think that the quote unquote public sector would have had a problem with it.

Right.

Fate.

So yeah, death with dignity is what we call it and.

Right.

Oregon is one of the first states that passed it, albeit more than 10 years after right of Way was made.

Yeah, I know a little bit of something about this because I wrote a book called Last Romance where it deals with somebody who has terminal cancer, is given three months to live.

And this is one of the things that he has to weigh his options of whether he wants to take that decision.

Yeah, yeah, basically.

And, and so I won't spoil it in case anybody wants to read it.

Hand.

Hand.

But just, just kisstheguy.com yes, but so I, I know a little bit of something about it and I am, I am all for it.

I, I think that there are times when you, if you're suffering and you just, there comes to a point where it's, it's, if you, if you are so miserable that you're willing to make that decision or even think about it, then it needs to be an option.

We'll put down our pets and, and let them go so that they aren't suffering horribly to have a natural death.

But we won't do it for like our own grandparent where it's like, no, let them go anyway.

That's just my opinion.

I don't want to influence anybody.

HBO but to the point though, also having said that, 14 states have passed their own legislation Some of those states are also changing the legislation that they already have put on the books to create conditions where now you don't have to be a resident of that state because we understand only some of the union has legislation that favors people choosing their own ending.

So now come to our state because we have dignity here.

So.

Oh, that.

That actually played.

I'm surprised.

Wow.

The others didn't.

Okay, so let's talk about some other cast members.

Yeah.

So there were other people that shared the screen with Betty Davis and Jimmy Stewart and Melinda Dylan, which I didn't speak enough about because as I said, In 83, Melinda Dylan not only got to share the screen with some of her own childhood legends, Betty Davis and Jimmy Stewart, but she also got to be in Christmas story there in 83.

Now, Melinda Dylan is known mostly for Christmas Story, but also closely counters the Third Kind with Richard Dreyfus and Absence of Malice.

And as I said, she was also in Harry and the Hendersons with John Lithgow.

But also some of the other cast members of note were Priscilla Morrell.

She, she played a widely recognized Earl.

She's widely recognized as Dr. Helen Noel on General Hospital, which is a role she played for many years.

There's a bunch of more other people, Matt.

Who are some of the other people on the screen?

Well, John Diner, probably mispronouncing that, but he was known for a lot of westerns and televisions, including have Gone Will Travel and numerous appearances in classic frontier dramas.

Now there's also Midge Ware, who was known primarily for recurring guest roles in 70s and 80s television dramas and soap operas.

He was one of those faces where you're like, I don't know his name, but I sure know his face.

And then there was Tom Troup.

Now he was familiar with guest roles on prestige television, including Broadway productions.

He played Dr. Starnes.

Now I had to look this up, okay.

Oh, by the way, he, he passed away just in July of this year, but I had to look him up so.

Because I didn't remember him.

So he was the father of the red headed child in the episode where they're, they're doing that hail, hail, fire and snow, friendly angel, we will go.

And so he played the, the father.

And of course you find, find out that the children are being led by this mysterious evil angel alien played by Melvin Belli, the attorney.

And that basically they have killed their parents and the father, you see him go.

And that was turned out to be Tom.

Now in this, of course, he played that nosy photographer who went in and just walked in their house and.

Yep.

Well, and then also Priscilla Morrow, she was in Mary Tyler Moore is one of the regulars for a little while there.

Oh, really?

Tom Troop.

And then Midge Ware, which.

That sounds like some sort of a hosting dish that you get for a gift or Midge wear.

But she was known primarily for recurring and guest roles in the 70s and 80s TV dramas and soap operas.

Now, a name that I'm adding last minute here as I get out my device, the neighbor lady in right of way, the nosy woman with all the kids.

Nothing nice to say about her neighbor.

Her name was Lula May, right?

Oh, right, Mrs. Belkin.

You know, like the.

The brand name of products for our phones and things.

Anyways, she was played by an actress named Jackie Lynn Colton.

Now, she hasn't had a whole lot of notable roles, but she was in some other films like Robin Williams and Toys.

But she was in a movie in the 80s, which is iconic.

She appeared in the Michael Keaton film Mr.

Mom, and she was one of the neighborhood housewives who came over to play poker for coupons and then dragged him to the strip club.

Oh, yeah, I. I have that movie.

I love that movie.

I haven't watched it.

I used to.

Well, before I came out, I used to watch Mr. Mum and rewind it to the scenes of when they went to the club.

Because Geraldo didn't have exotic dances on his show just yet.

Yeah, not.

Not yet.

So you mentioned our Star Trek connection, but we're gonna just lead the way about the discussion and say this.

Which character would you most want to hang out with from this movie and why?

I mean, you might not have a chance if you showed up too late, but.

Yeah, I. I think if I. I'd probably want to hang out with Jimmy Stewart's character.

I mean, he seemed like a good guy and.

Yeah, he was learned too, because that desk that he had seemingly were all books that he had read.

Because they were poetry.

Yeah.

And they had a flow because despite the fact that the.

The clumsy oxes that ransacked their house, knocked it over.

Yeah.

Could he could tell if a book was out of order in his stack there?

Exactly.

And not only that, but when he wanted to translate something, he.

He walked himself down to his.

His Mexican or his neighbor who spoke mostly Spanish and asked him to translate it and was very, very Thankful for that.

So I think he would be the one I'd hang out with.

Okay, and I'll edit, edit, edit, because I want you to look something up for me in a minute, but.

Okay.

So to be different, I think that I would want to hang out with Melinda Dylan, because as somebody who is the youngest child in my family, I think I would want to know more about what's going on in her Life.

This lady's 39, and she had some pretty incredible parents.

And despite the fact that she seemed to not get along with her mother, she had enough positive influences in her life.

Why can't she find a relationship?

Maybe she's had relationships and they just didn't turn out right.

But I like to be the one who thinks that they're the.

The bestie.

And if I can't make good decisions for my own life, maybe I can help you, maybe make better.

I'll tell you exactly why she hasn't had a relationship yet.

She hasn't come out.

Oh, that may be.

I mean, she.

She does travel alone and stay in motels, right?

She's not afraid of anything.

So she hates her mother.

She's whiny.

I just.

I mean, she's a daddy squirrel.

You can tell that.

So, yeah, maybe she's got a little bit more in common with her dad.

Maybe.

Maybe she wants to take a long drive to Pasadena and have something in her glove box.

Whatever you need to do.

I mean, there's a lot of innuendo in this movie if you want to take it that way.

And maybe that's the reason why you should watch right of way, folks, because there's a scene where the couple is nostalgic about the long drives they would go on on the weekend.

And they talked about the day that they bought the car that they were driving.

And, well, there's a memory attached to that that's cute and charming.

So maybe you'll want to watch right away.

But, Matt, this is where I'm going to edit it out, because there's something we should discuss that's part of the ending of the film, and it involves the neighbor.

There is a note, a handwritten note that's left with the dolls that the daughter finds.

And the quality of the copy of the movie that I viewed really didn't lend it to being screen readable.

But if you were to look up what that note said, we'll just read it because there's an important connection with the neighbor.

There's a moment in the film where Teddy Dwyer, played by Jimmy Stewart goes to his neighbor.

Now of course, in modern days we can just go to our smart devices and ask it to translate something.

But Jimmy Stewart's character, who was book educated, had a poem that was in Spanish and he didn't know what the translation was.

But he went to his neighbor, point of fact that Matt had mentioned, who did speak Spanish and he asked for him to translate it.

And it was a poem that was in Spanish and Jimmy Stewart chose to write that out on the handwritten note that his daughter would find amongst the dolls.

So I'm sure that it has some special meaning.

But you're not finding it.

No.

Let me.

What did the note left in right of way TV movie say in Spanish?

Did the note.

The note.

And right away did not contain Spanish writing.

The content was in English.

It was a suicide note from an elderly couple.

However, one scene in the movie does feature a question in Spanish.

Que pasa?

Okay, okay.

The que pasa con los abres ovala de la.

Anyway, it translates to what happens to the forgotten men.

And I believe in the movie he was supposed to be translating it and it's supposed to be like what happens to those who are forgotten or what happens to those who are lost or lost souls.

So for, for those, for those who are left behind, kinda.

Yes, exactly.

That's what it was.

Okay, so that's, that's sort of the, the literary based, literal moral of the story, if you will.

Because when we're talking about classic works like Shakespeare and whatnot, there is a message to be learned from the experience of the performance.

And so it's, it's sort of dismissed into the ethers depending on the version of the ending that you watch.

But I would like to think that if we were to honor the memory of the characters, the daughter finding a note left by her book smart father.

It would have been apropos to have a piece of poetry written out as her father's last message to his daughter.

Right.

So I think it was more of a. I think it was more of a message to whoever found them because she saw the note, she read it in one of the endings.

She saw the note, she read it, she set it back down, she stole the doll and she took the doll that was made to look like her and she went on her way.

And that was.

But obviously it was good to leave that behind because that would be recorded as whoever found her body.

And yeah, fingerprints and whatnot.

But.

But yeah, wasn't it us?

I don't know if it was Paul Simon or Simon and Garfunkel.

But there's a famous song from that era.

Let it be.

Yes.

Let it be.

Let it be.

Yep.

Okay, so a little tidbits, little breadcrumbs.

This is the only film to co star Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart.

So maybe Bette Davis's reputation preceded her.

Maybe so.

Maybe so.

Yeah.

And not only that, but.

Well, I mean, obviously this is filmed in 82, released in 83.

And it was also the final film of Patricia Morell.

She didn't make any more movies after that.

Yeah.

And this, this movie was.

Was too hot button for the folks in the networks.

Right.

And did you know that it also became a very successful movie for HBO and earned cable Ace Award nominations for both leads and best actress and best Actor categories.

Because, you know, up until like the 90s and more recent times, it used to be a belief that people's careers, their arcs, were based upon your.

Your medium.

Like, if you're an artist, you work with oils or you work with acrylics or whatever, but as an actor, you're either a theater person, you're a film person, or a TV person.

And usually those folks did not cross paths.

They worked in just that venue.

But these are screen legends who are now doing a TV movie.

So.

Right.

So for a lot of people, it was considered to step down and like.

Oh, yeah, you got awards.

We got awards for like cable awards.

But I'm sorry, this, this was.

These were amazing performances by them.

They were.

And the main couple's cats, Minnie and Teddy were.

They gave great performances as well.

Yeah.

Huh.

As you said, they were given names of living legends.

And nowadays I think that if this movie were made today, the.

The cats would all be cg.

But to.

To people who think that having too many animals is a certain number, I counted specifically six cats on that property, so I know people who have more than that.

I'm a person who firmly believes that if you live in a small household, like for us, there's hubby and I, you should have one more animal than you have humans because then you live in their world and they are less animals and more sentient beings.

So.

All right, so three is a perfect number in, in my universe.

There.

Let's see now.

Also, as you said, Priscilla Morelli.

All right, so we are now going to talk about other things you might enjoy if you like things like right of way.

Or maybe it's not even a matter of enjoy.