A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode thirty-two — THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH with Margaret H. Willison

On February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced a band from Liverpool, England formerly known as The Quarrymen to an estimated 73 million viewers of his primetime CBS variety show. And down the dial on NBC, the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color drew an audience of something less than 73 million for the first installment of its three-part The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, an adaptation of Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan's novel Christopher Syn starring our man Patty McG as an 18th century man of the cloth* by day/masked-smuggler-by-night who helps the common people by... paying their taxes, we think? Using the funds he earns from smuggling brandy and tobacco. He also helps them elude the pressgangs who roam the marsh looking for reasonably able-bodied youngish men to abduct into King George III's Royal Navy.

*Specifically, a "fuckable vicar" in the estimation of our generously oversharing special guest Margaret H. "Hula Hoop" Willison, whose effervescent personality really ties the room together. (Dang. That's the wrong Coen Bros. reference.) 

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

Teleplay by Robert Westerby, from the novel Christopher Syn by Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan

Directed by James Neilson

Original airdates February 9, 16, and 23, 1964

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode thirty-one — SILVER STREAK with Ronald Young, Jr.

Pop some vitamin E before listening, because it's gonna be hug 'n' munch all the way to Chicago! Solvable host Ronald Young, Jr. joins Glen and Chris to examine Silver Streak, ostensibly a hybrid romantic thriller / buddy comedy that gave the world the long-running Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor screen partnership and was a huge hit upon its release in 1976. America's bicentennial anum was a great a year for movies, more despite Silver Streak than because of it, but hey, the movie features a loveably smarmy Columbo-era Patrick McGoohan as the despicable villain. Along with a lot of trite and, by contemporary standards, deeply offensive comedy. Choo choo!

Silver Streak

Written by Colin Higgins

Directed by Arthur Hiller

Released December 8, 1976

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode thirty — BRAVEHEART with Alexandra Petri

Edward the Longshanks as embodied by the inimitable Patrick the McGoohan.

It's primae noctis for your ears because we can put it off no longer: The quintuple-Academy Award-winning a-historical epic Braveheart is the most widely seen and, your hosts agree, best latter-day expression of undiluted Patrick McGooted. The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri returns to discuss her journalist doppelganger, the New York Times' Alexandra Petri, and to share with Glen the virgin Braveheart experience. Freeeeeeeeeeeedommmmmmm!

Given the volume of Star Wars talk that seems to follow (the Post's) Petri around, it's a wonder we forgot to mention that Braveheart was produced by Alan "Laddie" Ladd, Jr., who 20 years earlier had been the guy preventing the board of 20th Century Fox from firing George Lucas off of the weird, expensive kiddie movie he was making and/or shutting the production down. 

Braveheart

Written by Randall Wallace

Directed by Mel Gibson

Released May 24, 1995

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Red Notice" and What's Making Us Happy

Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, and Dwayne Johnson pose their way through a greenscreened globetrotting caper. (Frank Masi/Netflix)

Red Notice! Linda Holmes, Margaret H. Willison, Ronald Young, Jr. and I watched it! Others will likely insist upon doing the same.

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode twenty-eight — MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

It’s the Notorious V.R.G. v. the founder of the Jackson Fivehead in this 16th century showdown among two dope queens—and we don’t mean Timothy Dalton & Ian Holm! PLUS: Jimmy Stewart! Current Release Corner! Dispatches from the French of Liberty, Kansas! This episode is a royal rumble.

The Seven Ages of 007: How Daniel Craig Became the Bookend Bond

No Time to Die is a Bond flick like no other for several reasons, one of them being that it’s the only one I’ve ever gone to see immediately after interviewing Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who’ve been producing these films since 1995’s Goldeneye. The Bond movies are their family business, having been started by their father, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, with his partner Harry Saltzman six decades ago. Ms. Broccoli and Mr. Wilson were very generous with their time, which gave me the platinum-level problem of having lots more good material than I could Tetris into my four-minute radio piece for Friday’s All Things Considered, which you can listen to below.

Here’s the prose version, which became a related-but-separate piece that wouldn’t have worked on the radio for several reasons, including the fact I wrote it before I landed the interviews.

I have all the thanks in the world for the wonderful and ultra-capable NPR Books editor Petra Mayer, who edited both the prose piece and the radio piece, which meant adding two labor-intensive tasks to what was already a packed week for her. (She hosted a panel at New York Comic Con this week, along with all her usual duties.) Nobody does it better.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "No Time to Die" and What's Making Us Happy

Daniel Craig and Jeffrey Wright as old soldiers James Bond and Felix Leiter. (Nicola Dove/MGM)

What a treat to join my pal and Degree Absolute! cohost Glen Weldon, frequent co-panelist Daisy Rosario, and writer/comedian Jourdain Searles to perform the Pop Culture Happy Hour autopsy on No Time to Die.

Everybody Does It Bitter: A History of 007s Kvetching About Their Jobs

At the end of Casino Royale, the 1953 Ian Fleming novel that begat the James Bond legend, “the bitch [was] dead”… but the bitching had not yet begun!

Here, for The Ringer, is my deeply-sourced account of how no man who has ever worn the most famous tuxedo in movies has ever been happy about it for very long. Except Pierce Brosnan.