A Degree Absolute! episode thirty-four — THE MOONSHINE WAR

Patty McG's first major project after The Prisoner wrapped up in early 1968 was The Moonshine War, for Sex and the Single Girl director (and title-song lyricist!) Richard Quine. Quine did not pen this film's remarkably concise and descriptive title song, "The Ballad of Moonshine," leaving that to Hank Williams, Jr.

The great crime writer Elmore Leonard adapted the screenplay of The Moonshine War from his own 1969 novel. No one will argue it's on the level of later, adapted-by-other-screenwriters Leonard translations like Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight, or the TV series Justified, but the seeds are here. 

Also here: Richard Widmark! A pre-M.A.S.H. Alan Alda! A pre-fame Teri Garr and a pre-billing Tom Skerritt! A pre-The Waltons Will Geer! Lee Hazlewood of Lee Hazlewood Industries as gun thug Dual Metters! Plus the Patty McG bedroom scene you've been dreading.

Here's the condescending and phony behind-the-scenes featurette we discuss on the episode.

The Moonshine War

Screenplay by Elmore Leonard, from his novel

Directed by Richard Quine

Released July 1970

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Our song: "A Degree Absolute!"

Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek

Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark

Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark

Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark

Bass by Marcus Newstead

A Degree Absolute! episode thirty-three — "THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA" with Josh Spiegel

Does Mister-not-Doctor Andrew MacDuhui (Paddy McG) hate pets? (He does not, no matter what his low-information neighbors in the fictional Scottish town of Inverinoch think.)

Did Walt Disney hate cats? (Our very special guest Disney expert, Josh Spiegel, makes a compelling case.)

Were animals harmed during the making of this motion picture? (Most certainly, regrettably.)

Our principled stand against pandering to the Internet's insatiable appetite for cat content crumbles as we pad, paw, 'n' claw our merryish way through...

The Three Lives of Thomasina

Written by Robert Westerby, from Paul Gallico's novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God

Directed by Don Chaffey

Released December 11, 1963

"BLOOD, SWEAT, AND CHROME" reviewed in the Washington Post

Zoë Kravitz and Charlize Theron in George Miller’s 2015 masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road. (Warner Bros.)

Mad Max: Fury Road is one the wildest and most unconventional blockbusters ever made, and I’d like to think I did it justice when I reviewed it for NPR upon its release in May 2015.

I’m just as enthusiastic about New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan’s new oral history about the movie’s genesis, production, and legacy, which I reviewed for the Washington Post. Anyone interested in filmmaking should read this book.

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.