December 21, 2024 • 44 mins
What happens when the biggest movie star in the world directs the smallest Christmas film on basic cable? A holiday miracle.
Today on the show: The never-before-published, extremely bizarre story of the making of ‘Christmas in Connecticut’... the remake.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Christmas is one week away, and how am I celebrating
with restraint and circumspection. In the glabew family, we do
a mid century modern Christmas. Spare elegant, minimalist, lots of
the baby Jesus in a tasteful Scandinavian leather and rosewood manger.
No Santa, no reindeer, no elves. Not so for my
(00:25):
colleague Ben adaf Halfrey. The Globows impose a dollar limit
on gifts, like price controls in some socialist state that
at half Halfreys spend months thinking of what to get
one another. The globows by a tree at the last moment,
and would be happier if we could just move the
whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine. In the backyard.
(00:45):
Ben's family has a tree, a little model village covered
in snow, and his father's vintage electric train set, plus
a little metal tree with ornaments that's up year round.
So when I told Ben that I had never watched
It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned. Then he reached
out to me as the good smartan did to the
(01:06):
traveler lying beref by the side of the road. How
could this be? He asked me gently, because, as you
can imagine, within the daf Haffreys, It's a wonderful life
is a sacred text. Then Ben told me another story
about what, in his mind is an even more important
Christmas tale, a story that he regards as the apotheosis
(01:28):
of all Christmas movies, a story not in a film,
but of the making of a film. Welcome to revisionist history.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show, Ben the n
alf Halfrey relays for the very first time in history,
the truly screwy story of the making of the oddest
(01:52):
Christmas film of all time. Trust me, you have never
heard this story before ever, nor have you ever seen
the movie in question. Unless you do. You remember the
extended dedf Halfway Clan or were recently incarcerated in a
state that limits prisoner's streaming access to obscure television movies
in the nineteen nineties. But when you listen to what follows,
(02:12):
you're going to ask yourself the same question I ask
myself when Ben first told me this story.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How do I miss this?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Unlike Malcolm, I am a great lover of Christmas movies.
Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I'm firing
up the Bishop's Wife, Miracle on thirty fourth Street, or
It's a Wonderful Life. And then there's my favorite Christmas movie,
a little less famous, the nineteen forty five romantic comedy
Christmas in Connecticut. I've watched it pretty much every year
(02:48):
since I was little. Barbara Stanwick plays a magazine columnist
who's famous for entertaining on her grand Connecticut farm. She's
known as a great cook. It's the end of World
War Two and her magazine's public sure has an idea
for a great feature. Jill hosts a returning war hero
for Christmas on her farm. There's just one problem. It's
(03:08):
all a lie. She doesn't live in Connecticut. She lives
in a tiny apartment in New York. And she has
no clue how to cook.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
My fun? Oh yes, my fun?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh my fine? And you want to see you right
away to arrange it.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Arrange it? Are you crazy?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Where am I going to get a farm? I haven't
even got a window.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Boss, That's just it.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
We'll have to star him off, you know what, to
stick to the truth.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
If he ever finds out we've been making all this up,
you'll fire the both of us.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Chaos ensues. It's a classic screwball comedy and a total delight.
But the thing I really want to tell you about
in this episode is what happened after I discovered, quite
by accident, that there was a remake of this favorite
Christmas movie of mine, an action packed, star studed, joke filled,
really very different version of the original, made for TV
(03:59):
and directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. A kind
of shocking twist if you ask me, I mean, why
would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut? So I
did what any good Christmas fiend would do. I talked
to a dozen people about something that happened thirty years
ago for way too many hours to get the real story,
(04:21):
and I discovered in the process. But I have come
to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've told this story many times, I've never told it
all the record. It's a big story, So if you've
got the time, I will tell it to you.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's Stan Brooks in the early nineteen nineties. He was
an independent made for TV movie producer.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So I'm developing movies and a friend of mine goes
and gets the job at TNC, and I make the
very first movie for him.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
TNT launched in nineteen eighty eight, at the start of
the cable television revolution. Then, as now, cable was expensive,
but it was growing. The whole game was trying to
raise awareness to get people to sign up, and with
channels running twenty four to seven, there was a lot
of space to fill, which led to a boom and
made for TV movies. Stan's first film on TNT was
(05:12):
a big success. So he got another bite at the
apple and he calls.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Me, He goes, what do you want to do next?
So they said, Nami years, would you ever let me
do a remake from the MGM library because that's what
Ted owned, And he said, yes, just pick one.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Christmas movies always do well, and there is one. Stan
loved Christmas in Connecticut, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Know the Barber Stanlet movie, and so I said, well,
this could be a good one. It was right as
Martha Stewart was exploding. I thought, well, what if this
is Martha Stewart. What if she's on TV and has
an empire and it's all fake? And so they loved
that take, and so off we went to the races.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
He got a writer to work up the script in television.
It was It was great because you can get your
stuff made.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
This is Janet Brownew, one of the all time great
Bards of TV movie writer on Eloise at the Plaza,
Twelve Dates of Christmas, Days of Our Lives and the
uncredited rewrite of Tim Allens the Santa Claus all Brown.
Now she loved the original Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
I mean it's a charming and in fairst to me,
the original draft was very close.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Janet wrote the draft of the script for Stan's remake.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And we turn it in and they go, this is
this is do me in a Christmas movie. So now
I have and I have a nice little Christmas programmer
and nothing more.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It's the middle of nineteen ninety one in Hollywood. Janet
and Stan's low budget television movie remake isn't really the
sort of thing to get people talking, but they're making progress.
He's got the old school movie star Diane Cannon cast
in the lead as the Martha Stewart character, and an
offer out to a director. And then one day his
phone rings. His assistant says, it's a big Hollywood agent
(06:56):
named Lou Pitt.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Now I understand I'm in the television movie business. These
guys are never calling me, so if they do call me,
it's never good. And and he he gets on the
phone and he says, the other director for your Christmas
in Connecticut movie. And I said, uh, well almost yeah,
(07:21):
we may have an offer out And he said, okay,
Well if he doesn't say yes, I want you to consider
my client. And I go, okay, wait to hear the name,
and I go who He goes Arl Schwarzenegger, and I
burst out laughly.
Speaker 9 (07:34):
Oh he was. He was totally shocked.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Lou Pitt, legendary agent Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's hilarious. No, seriously, is this a joke?
Speaker 9 (07:44):
Is this a joke?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He goes, no, seriously, and he goes, I'm Schwartzaker's not
going a Christmas movie for tn T.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
To be clear, Arnold had just finished shooting James Cameron's
epic Terminator too Asta La Vista Baby. Terminator two is
the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a killer cyborg sent
from the future to protect young John Connor from a
different killer cyborg also sent from the future to kill him.
As you can imagine, such a plot necessitates a lot
(08:14):
of elaborate production work. He was movie making on a
scale that was practically unheard of, especially in Los Angeles.
Speaker 10 (08:22):
The production actually changed the course of a river to
shoot high speed chases in the extensive clood control channels
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Anyways, back to Stan and Lou the Agent.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I go, Lou, why on earth were Arnold Swartz? He says, well,
here's why.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Arnold Schwarzenegger was forty four years old, he had two kids.
Nobody is an action hero forever. Maybe it was time
to explore some alternatives.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And so he was kind of tired after T two
when he said to Blue, I would like to direct
a movie.
Speaker 9 (08:57):
The directing thing was kind of out of the box,
out a left field, and they.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Said, well, can we'll put together a big feat direct
He goes, no, no, no, I want low risk. If I
do a terrible job, I don't want anyone to be upset.
I don't want a big budget, and I want it
to be family friendly because I don't want anything to
be controversial nothing. I just want something very simple. And
the only one that fit the bill was Christmas, Connecticut.
(09:21):
So I said, okay, I'll I'll call you if this
guy passes and I ham the phone off force my
hearts jumping out him like I go.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
What and and I said, yeah, I'm serious. I read it.
I think he'd like it, So get me an offer.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Stan gets the green light from the executives at TNT.
There's some negotiating and they offer Schwartzenegger one hundred thousand bucks,
and then one night stands phone rings.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I pick it up and I hear Sam Brooks, yes
please hold for homes forts Snagger and now I'm serious.
I can see my heart beating, and he goes hello.
I go, uh, Arnold, you're the guy with this Christmas script?
I said yes. He says it's fantastic. I'd love to direct.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
I go okay.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
He goes, but I have to shoot in Los Angeles,
knight to do it in these days. And he goes
a nice some notes of the script. I go, okay,
can you be here in an hour?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And I go, uh no.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He goes, can you be on Wednesday? I go, yes,
I could be there on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
He goes over for a meeting at Arnold's offices in
Santa Monica.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So now going to see me on Wednesday? And you
walk in and there's this giant lobby and and the
first thing you see is the exoskeleton, the metal thing
with the red eyes from Terminator. So there's no doubt.
I mean, the posters are up on the wall, but
there's no doubt. When you walk in and you see
this seven foot thing, you go, oh, crap, I know
(10:51):
where I am. My heart's beating and I go in
and he's in his office, which is massive. It's like
you know, signs of a football field, and he's on one.
You walk in on this end and he's on the
other ends. You go walk past all the you know,
the props and stuff, and then he's at a big,
huge desk with a big giant chair, and behind him
(11:12):
is a bookshelf but with all of the Mister Universe awards,
not film stuff, it's all his bodybuilding awards. And I
remember we were going through the script and I said, hey,
I want to use the restroom and he pointed to
me by putting up this bicep and pointing it like this,
and his bicep comes cleaning. He goes this doc wo
(11:35):
and I go, is that just to show me your
boy step? And he goes, I have to show you know,
the guns whenever I can, and I realized, okay, so
this guy definitely has a sense of humort by himself.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
They sit down, Arnold has notes on the script he
will he wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
A more humor and a little more jeopardy, and so
we added in like this like sort of big action
sequence at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Where he rescues the and all of a sudden, Janet Brownell,
who wrote the original script for the remake, is looking
at a very different movie.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
The whole thing took this like one hundred and eighty
degree turn. At that point, it was just like what
is And Stan just did not want to lose him,
And I'm like, Okay.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
I truly don't see this.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
But if it gets a film green light, I don't
give a shit.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Arnold wants them to get someone else to come in
and punch up the script.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
He wanted more humor, and as it happened, my best
friend in the world had written.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Commando Commando, the nineteen eighty five action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger,
which the critic from the La Times referred to as
a quote gory crowd pleaser and a glorified fireworks display.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And Arnold loved them and said, if you think you
get him to do a comedy past.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Jeff Low, the friend who wrote Commando, gets hired to
do the rewrite with his writing partner.
Speaker 9 (13:00):
We walk in.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
He's sitting on a white couch, maybe it's literally the
length of the biggest limousine you've ever seen in your life,
and he has his feed up on this white porcelain
marble table. He's got a big cigar in his mouth
and scrips all around him, and he doesn't say hello,
(13:22):
He doesn't introduce himself, he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
He just the first thing out of his mouth is, so,
what of you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not
going to the gym.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I just have to say, everyone in this episode is
going to do their own Schwartzenegger impression, which is good
because even though we couldn't land an interview with him,
I feel like he's here with us in spirit anyway.
They settle in and start rewriting the film Commando style.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
So that's where things kind of went off the rails
for me personally, because it's like, Okay, this is becoming
a completely different thing. It just Schwartzenegger eye into like
this thing that was bigger than life.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I mean, she just did an amazing job. We didn't
make any real big structural changes. That's all hers, but
a dialogue pass and goes through it and try to
find more Bold's vision.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They start burning through the script. A big job for
any director is giving notes on the rewrites. Schwarzenegger was
calling in help from his director friends, including legendary comedy
director Ivan Reitman, the guy who did Ghostbusters. Everyone was
working to realize Arnold's vision.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Now you have to understand that on Commando he would
do this all the time.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
He would go, I have a great idea this and
this is what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
When the guy comes at me, I want to throw.
Speaker 11 (14:49):
A buzzsaw at him and it chops off his arm,
and then I'm going to pick up his arm and
punch me in his face with his old arm. And
we would go, well, we like the bus off part.
Can we just do the bus off art? So like,
our job is not to go I think that's not
gonna work. Our job is to make it work. And
(15:10):
it doesn't help that the next day he would say.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Okay, we're doing really well, We're really getting there.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It's really coming to where I wanted to be, so
I gave it to Steve It.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
And Stephen talked to me last night and he said,
I have to really be careful that and this is
what I want you to do. And again I'm like,
is Stephen the guy at the jim is Stephen?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Who is Steve It?
Speaker 6 (15:35):
And then suddenly as you go, you know, as he
starts to sort of talk more, you go, he's talking
about Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
This is beginning to look like a train nobody would
step in front of. Back at TNT, the executives had
a dim sense of what was going on.
Speaker 10 (15:50):
It's not it's not has done now.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Lorie Postman Tier one of the TNT executives.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
Whether you're famous or not, as a director agent, that
doesn't happen. To let somebody go and change things as
much as we're change.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Meanwhile, they've cast the rest of the film. Joining Diane
Cannon would be Hollywood screwball legend Tony Curtis, probably best
known for playing opposite Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
Along with him would be ex country music star Chris Kristofferson.
Here's TNT's senior vice president of production at the time,
Nick Lombardo.
Speaker 12 (16:23):
Even when they cast it, I thought, well, that is
the weirdest cast I ever heard of. I mean, the
idea that these people fit together made no sense at all.
I mean, Diane Cannon and Chriskus Dobinson in the same frame.
It makes a star is born when he's holding Barbara
Streisad look organic.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So armed with one of the all time weirdest, most
stacked casts in the history of film, a comparatively small
budget of three million dollars, a slot on an upstart
cable network, and a script based on a nineteen forty
screwball comedy that's been punched up by two of the
writers behind a big eighties blockbuster. An Austrian former bodybuilder,
fresh off his repeat performance as a time traveling cyborg,
(17:01):
prepared to direct his first Christmas film.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You don't, as a TV movie producer ever get near
anything this hot. You just don't.
Speaker 10 (17:11):
I mean, we're we're all a little nervous about the
whole thing, you know, because it's like you're playing with
matches and you know, oh, yeah, that's that Arnold directed this.
Speaker 9 (17:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (17:21):
It's like, for us three million dollars was a lot
of money.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
I don't know, I don't know whatever.
Speaker 10 (17:27):
It was like, Oh yeah, he wanted to prove that
he could be a director.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And everyone was about to find out whether or not
he could. Christmas and Connecticut, the remake began filming about
two months before Christmas in Los Angeles. Because Arnold Schwartzenegger
had never before directed a future film, though what the
(17:54):
record show he had directed an episode of the TV
show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for to
film more or less in the order they happen in
the film. There's a lot less to keep track of
continuity wise that way, but this also posed a problem.
One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of
art is figuring out how to make it your own.
The nineteen ninety two made for TV remake of Christmas
(18:16):
in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead,
a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid workout routine in
his mountain cabin. If you're looking for signs that this
is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the site of
Chris Christofferson as Jefferson Jones, sweating after busting out some
chin ups on a beam in his cabin is your
first morning, a man on the television offers some brisk
(18:39):
exposition while he cools down. In the last hour, experts
predict this shouldn't be the biggest storm to hit the
Rockies in the last decade.
Speaker 13 (18:47):
More than four feet of snow is anticipated to blanket
the area in the next forty eight hours.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
The phone rings. Another ranger is calling to tell Jones
a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard. He has
to go out and find him. This is the fabled
action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested. They shot the blizzard on
a sound stage. It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero,
which is why he gets invited to be a guest
of Elizabeth Blaine's for a Christmas special in Connecticut. It's
(19:13):
got to look epic. It's got to have that Arnold
Schwarzenegger feeling. Unfortunately terminator, this is not. Here's Jim Wilberger,
director of production.
Speaker 10 (19:23):
You know there's a scene where Christofferson, you know, suddenly
has rescued the kid and you see him rolled down
this little hill of snow which was shot on stage
and trying to make more of more of it because
there wasn't that much set for that little hill, and
you know, and then suddenly you see all the people
(19:45):
rush in to rescue you know. I mean, this was
just not good blocking, and that's just an experience.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Schwarzenegger wanted Jeopardy, but this kind of looks like a
snowball fight gone. Jones stumbles over a very small hill
holding a child that looks like it might be a mannequin.
He's groaning and yelling, but his lips aren't moving, so
tough start. Luckily, though, a lot of the film is
set inside Elizabeth Blaine's fake Connecticut house where she's shooting
(20:16):
a Christmas special in celebration of Jones. The bulk production
happened there, so the whole crew set up at a
house in South Pasadena for the real work. This introduced
Arnold to the second problem of directing actor ego management,
and the issue of his trailer.
Speaker 14 (20:33):
Arnold's trailer was like a house on wheels.
Speaker 15 (20:36):
It was literally like you'd look at it from the
outside and you'd say, wow, that's got all kinds of
popouts and the roof went off and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
But when you got inside, it was literally like you
had just walked into like the Greystone Mansion, you.
Speaker 10 (20:48):
Know, it's probably almost three times as wide as a
normal trailer, and that it was the length that became
the issue. Diane comes in and she says, why is
Arnold's trailer bigger than my trailer? Nobody's supposed to have
a bigger trailer than me.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Diane Cannon was the star of the film, but she
was maybe realizing that this production was all about the director. Schwarzenegger, though,
was dealing with other problems. Namely, he had chosen one
of the hardest genres for his first major directing for
a screwball comedy is like dancing on the head of
a pin. It thrives on chaos, but it has to
be a kind of controlled chaos. With his big personality cast,
(21:30):
low budget, short timeline, and hastily rewritten script, Schwarzenegger had
an excess of chaos and a minimum of control. I mean,
you have one somewhat disgruntled actress portraying fake Martha Stewart,
and another who's a macho park ranger, but who, for
no apparent reason, relays this backstory part way through the movie.
Speaker 16 (21:50):
Actually, before I moved to Colorado, I lived in Chicago.
I grew up there, taught comparative Literature at the University
of Container really offered tenure and head of the department,
and it's what I thought I wanted. That's being caged
in by concrete and crowds for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
This is I'm pretty sure the only time in the
entire film Jefferson jones Is past as chair of the
University of Chicago's Comparative Literature department is mentioned. And I
love Chris Kristofferson, but most of the rest of his
performance veers between stiff and oddly sexually charged.
Speaker 10 (22:27):
When he starts smearing the pine staff on her neck.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah that it's it's it's just kind of transcendently weird.
Speaker 10 (22:37):
Yeah, well, not to mention his two times he's like
staring at her butt.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You know, there's an extensive shot of that.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
But you can't buy that at Limingdal.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So you've got two characters who really just barely hang together,
and then you have to direct them in tightly choreographed
zany sequences that have got to feel plausible yet also hilarious.
Us for instance, the scene with the baby. Remember in
Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth is a total fraud. She doesn't
know how to cook. It's not even her house in Connecticut,
and she's got this fake, staged family with her, including
(23:13):
a fake baby. She had to keep up appearances for
the sake of her column. In the original film, there's
a lovely scene where she and Jefferson Jones give her
fake baby a bath. She a supposed domestic goddess, is
meant to bathe her child, which she suspiciously has no
clue how to do. He steps in and does it
for her like a total pro. It's part of why
(23:34):
she falls in love with him, and because it's so
well executed in the original film, we believe they're following
in love in this totally implausible moment.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So so oh refer tho she's eating the soul? Would
I do what they are doing?
Speaker 15 (23:52):
Oh?
Speaker 17 (23:53):
Really, you'd make a wonderful father.
Speaker 16 (23:56):
Mister jere You're not married off by any chance, are you?
Speaker 9 (24:02):
No cards are stacked against me.
Speaker 16 (24:04):
I guess every time I meet a girl I like,
it turns out she's already married.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Oh that's too bad now.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
This also happens in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.
Speaker 10 (24:14):
Maybe we should finish up for finish up?
Speaker 18 (24:16):
What you know what?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I just had the most wonderful idea.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
How would you like to bathe me?
Speaker 17 (24:23):
Sure, I think it'd be fun for you.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Here what happens next is the greatest travesty in the
history of bath time. It's as if you gave two
aliens a baby and said, give this a bath, not
realizing that on the planet therefrom not only are there
no babies or baths, but actually there's not even water.
What do you remember about.
Speaker 10 (24:43):
That, Well, some of that was improvised.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
What happens is they just drenched the baby in shampoo
and then they barely wash any of it out. On
the bath scale, it's two rubber duckies out of ten.
But the premise of the scene is that Jefferson Jones
is crushing it.
Speaker 10 (24:58):
It was pretty hilarious, I thought, and also very clumsy,
and they really grouped up with the kid's hair.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
My god, I don't know, my chapoo, here's.
Speaker 17 (25:10):
Some soap, sweetie.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
That's the director thing.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
I mean, that is a flat out director fail.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I mean that right, like, retake the scene and there
probably were.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Three or four versions of that. That's the one he chose,
you know, It's not like that was the only one.
Speaker 10 (25:28):
That you're off the shit with that for a bachelor,
you know, you're sure you don't have a whole stel
of kids hidden somewhere nursed.
Speaker 16 (25:34):
A couple of bear clubs to their mother.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Came back.
Speaker 15 (25:39):
Beauty.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's like on SNL when the actors break and laugh
when Elizabeth's like, I'm not sure if we got all
the soap out and Jefferson's like, well we didn't. That's
the true reaction and it must be improvised. But then
they go back to the scripted version where Jones is
doing a great job. Most of the people on set
have some kind of moment like.
Speaker 10 (25:57):
This, you know, the forest with the snow and a
sleigh that comes along, and there's even one shot I
noticed where you can see the wheels under the sleigh.
Speaker 18 (26:09):
I remember the day I was there, they were filming
that scene where chaos RUPs, you know, and the tree
falls down and all that. We had to do that
scene quite a number of times. It was as chaotic
as the scene is, but behind the scenes it was
even more so.
Speaker 12 (26:26):
It's a little like opening a belode factory for cultural
you know, it's sort of like, what's going on in there?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Nothing good?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Nothing good, don't ask anything so it was kind of
hectic on set, and yet I think you can hear
in people's voices how much they love telling this story.
Pretty much across the board. This was a happy memory
for the people I spoke to, not least of all
because they never lost sight of just how improbable it
(26:54):
all was.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
And then in the middle of all this is all
running round going, you know, move the top or overhead,
I do this over here, let's go do this. No,
I think it could be ten times funny. I'll come on.
So there's Arnold's voice, you know, just bellowing out. And
that was the other thing that I really remember was
(27:16):
that while this is happening, while we're making this little,
tiny movie, he is in theaters with Terminator too, and
it's doing numbers that no one has ever seen before.
And we were on set when it crossed five hundred
(27:40):
million dollars. But when you're standing next to the guy
who's the star of that movie, and his major concern
is whether or not is it didn't focus forehead.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Let's go the forehead thing. You're not the first person
to bring that up. Several people mentioned to me that
Arnold Schwartzenegger's favorite put down was to call someone a forehead.
This actually made it into the movie. When Elizabeth Blaine
and Jefferson Jones get pulled over by the cops mid
sleigh ride, the one where you can see the wheels,
this happens.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
What's your hands?
Speaker 9 (28:14):
Where I can say them?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
You're both under arrest?
Speaker 14 (28:16):
Oh, come on, come on, you foreheads, get him up?
Speaker 6 (28:19):
You what?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
This is actually a big part of why I love
this movie. It has a kind of free jazz improvisitory
quality to it. It's oddly self referential and also very sweet.
It's like how you can hear in someone's voice when
they're smiling. That's how this movie feels. Because, even at
the risk of himself being labeled a forehead who couldn't
direct the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger was showing up every day
(28:44):
and putting in his all for the film, Buffs and
the crew. It was a dream come true just to
work with him or with a legend like Tony Curtis.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
You know, it was a trip to oz that I
knew it was short lived, but it was something I
was going to know, take in and enjoy them as
much as possible.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
After twenty days of shooting the film, wrapped. They had
a party at Arnold Schwartzeninger's restaurant. It was around Christmas time,
and they all got sweatshirts with the name of the
film on the front.
Speaker 10 (29:14):
And on the back was a picture of Arnold with
a Santa hat on, wearing sunglasses and saying something about
I can't remember the full thingybody used for you forehead.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Later, Jim was kind enough to send me a photo
of the sweatshirt. It said on the back more snow
u forehead. There's my Schwartzeninger impression. With the film in
the can. Post production and premierees loomed. That's after the break.
(29:59):
Before we get to the premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's nineteen
ninety two Christmas in Connecticut remake, I want to tell
you about something that happened earlier this year.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Thank you all for coming, Thank you Mitch for coming
down from Try Yeah, thanks for having me here.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Malcolm interviewed Mitch Album live on stage at the ninety
second Street y Album is the best selling author of
some ungodly number of books, but he's probably most famous
for Tuesdays with Maury. He and Malcolm were there to
talk about his new novel about the Holocaust, The Little Liar.
They were warming up with some Mitch backstory about his
time as a musician in New York.
Speaker 17 (30:36):
I tried the whole starving musician thing, and I played
in all the clubs around here on Monday nights.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I was backstage at this event peering out. I hadn't
read Mitch's book. I was up to something else.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Wait, we should probably do this, befrobab. We get too
far afield on the music thing. If you've been talking
so much, you will note that behind you. Yeah, there
is a corg.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
At this point, the audience of people who had come
that night to hear the author of Tuesdays with Maury
discussed the Holocaust noticed the electric piano behind him.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
And we have a request that you play one of
your most famous compositions, which you know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about Cooking for Two from the legendary Arnold
Schwarzenegger nineteen ninety two, made for TV movie Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 17 (31:30):
Yeah, can you see the recognition?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yes it was my keyboard, and yes I had planted
it there.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Mitch, No, no, this. For some reason, I have no idea.
My colleague Ben is obsessed with this and really wanted
us to do this, And I thought, how great would
it be for you to sing one of our songs,
just like, just give us a little taste.
Speaker 17 (31:50):
Well, I have to tell you the story.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Tell us tell a story. Okay.
Speaker 17 (31:54):
So after I got out of the music business, I
had a college roommate who went into the movie business.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
That would be Stanley m Brooks, executive producer of Christmas
in Connecticut. Stan and Mitch were roommates at Brandeis.
Speaker 17 (32:08):
And he knew that I was a musician, and he
was making a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a producer,
and Schwartzenegger was the director of Christmas in Connecticut. The remake.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Sounds about as.
Speaker 17 (32:22):
Good as it was, I think, And they needed as
a song because she played Diane Cannon played the lead
and she was a cook on TV or whatever, so
the song had to be about food. And they wanted
to use Harry Connick's Recipe for Love or something like that,
but they couldn't afford it. Yeah, so stan calls me
(32:45):
and says, we need a song that's kind of upbeat
about food for Arnold Schwartzenegger's movie.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Can you do it? You know.
Speaker 17 (32:51):
I said, well, what do you need it by Thursday?
You know, it was Tuesday, you know. So I just
went and wrote a little song. And my wife as
a singer, a fantastic singer, and I said, honey, can
you sing this song because we don't have time to
go find anybody else. And he listened to it and
he said, I liked a one but the girl. And
(33:14):
that's how the song was chosen. Yeah, yeah, I want
you to play it. I really think you should.
Speaker 18 (33:20):
So it went.
Speaker 17 (33:22):
Now, remember it had to be about food. Food, So went,
let's go to the kitchen. I got something fixing, almantizing,
and do here's a flue. We're cooking for two. They're
(33:45):
inside the oven, something warm and loving. Friends would laugh
and they knew that it's true. We're cooking for two.
Here's the corner on the bridge. I was a soup
for one girl nombers every night all but once I
tasted your kisses. I was dining my candlelight. Here's a
(34:09):
recipe for all the world to see.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
We take some me and some you.
Speaker 16 (34:13):
The it's.
Speaker 17 (34:15):
We're cooking for two. We're cooking for two. That definitely
(34:38):
ranks amongst one of the most embarrassing things.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I've ever done. They planned to play it over the
credits with a Mitch Album closing track in hand. Christmas
in Connecticut was almost ready to debut. Most made for
TV movies you just put out on television, but not
this one.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
First of all, TV movies don't have screens. If we
have a screening, it's like ten people and you know,
you were in a screening room somewhere like this was
the big theater at the DGA, which holds I don't know,
a thousand people, massive screen and there's a huge red
carpet and a press line.
Speaker 18 (35:15):
We had two theaters going and there were phil When
I tell you.
Speaker 13 (35:19):
That there's never been a television movie before since, they
had a press line. And he's walking down working the press,
and like, you know and I know that this person,
this is Ambrose executive.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Producer h Arnold.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
According to san Ivan, Wrightman and James Cameron were there,
along with the whole slew of Hollywood Royalty. The screening
was in LA. It was a media sensation.
Speaker 8 (35:41):
Watch out Hollywood. There's a new director in town and
he's used to making a big impact.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That is in front of the camera.
Speaker 13 (35:48):
When you act and you see such talent the directors
as I've worked with, it inspires you.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Janet Brown, now the screenwriter, was not having such a night.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
I remember sitting at the screening with my agent and
I was like crying.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I mean, I was like, oh my god, why were
you crying?
Speaker 8 (36:09):
Is I get so bad?
Speaker 9 (36:11):
And my name is on this.
Speaker 8 (36:13):
My agent was very fast to get me a drink
at that point. I just remember outside there was kind
of a Christmas theme sort of party, and just like,
I need to get out of.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Here, but there was no putting the genie back in
the bottle. TNT was running promo's NonStop.
Speaker 16 (36:30):
I love romantic comedies, so I made one myself, Christmas
in Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
It's a romantic comedy with.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
All the trimmings.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
What in the world could comfortably go wrong?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Christmas in Connecticut? Directed by Arnold Schwarzening, you have a
problem with that.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
TNT exclusive premiere Monday, April thirteen.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I don't know if you caught that, but the film
came out in April, one week before Easter. As one
review put it, quote, don't ask me why a Christmas
movie is premiering in April. As his then wife Maria
Shreiver reflected, he just does. He's a big one on.
Don't think about it or talk about it, do it.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And then he goes, I think we want to scud
into it again. That was too much fun. I go, okay,
I go see if I can organ. I go no,
I want to sco in Washington with my friend Jack Lent.
So now we all fight Washington and uh.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
It was a who's who of Washington, and it was
senators and members of tabinet.
Speaker 9 (37:32):
It was a seated dinner.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
And I remember my wife and I sit down. We've
been working the room, so we sit last at our table,
and the guy next to me has got like a
dress came of form on and I say, hey, Sam Brooks,
I'm the producer, and he goes, hey, Oliver North.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Oliver North of Iran contra fame. The film was a
big hit in the Beltway. So if I sit to
say this made for television Christmas movie had an unusually
big reception, but it also didn't really do much to
establish Schwartzenegger as a director. The reviews were mixed.
Speaker 10 (38:04):
Well, I'm looking at IMDb right now, it's like the
rating is four point eight out of ten, and they're
not far off.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
We nobody had any Oh my god, we're making it's
a wonderful life.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I realize I've had a lot of fun with this
movie and gun to my head. Do I think it's good? No?
But do I love it? Obviously yes, because it's so
totally weird and overcommitted to its bit that it has
a kind of joyfulness to it that honestly gets me
in the Christmas spirit and at its core, like the
best Christmas films, the story behind the movie is a
(38:39):
story of love and friendship between Arnold Schwartzenegger and San Brooks,
two men brought together by a love of making movies.
After the film, Stan and Arnold stayed in touch. Stan
even moved into Arnold Schwartzenegger's office building. Their kids played
football together, and even though they never made another movie together,
(39:00):
their collaboration had one more act. Almost ten years to
the day from when Christmas in Connecticut began shooting, Arnold
Schwarzenegger became the governor of California. At the time, there
was a lot of hand ringing over an issue called
runaway production. Lots of states had started offering tax breaks
to lure films into shooting somewhere other than California. It
(39:22):
had become a real problem for Hollywood as an industry town,
and this was one of the crises Schwarzenegger would have
to face in his new role as governor. Now, the
way people talked about his becoming governor was the same
way they talked about his becoming a director, So it
only makes sense that he wanted Stanbrooks in his administration.
Speaker 15 (39:42):
So when he became governor, he was in about a
year and he called me and he said, how would
you like to be on the film Commission? And I said, well,
that's a dumb idea. He goes why.
Speaker 14 (39:53):
I said, well, because I don't shoot movies in California.
Speaker 15 (39:56):
I said, I'm like the worst person you could put
on the film commission because I take movies out of state.
Speaker 14 (40:01):
And he goes, oh, that's why we want to because
we want to try and.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Pass the taxpayer stan joined the California Film Commission, and
over the next few years he was a key part
of the lobbying efforts to pass the tax credits that
would make it easier to film in California.
Speaker 14 (40:16):
It was a hard fight, and so I ended up
making a short film a short documentary film where we
interviewed some of the families that left on why and
that ended up being more powerful than any speech we
could make in their office.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The first tax credits passed in two thousand and nine.
They've been renewed ever since. So back to our original question,
why did Arnold Schwarzenegger direct to this bizarre one off
Christmas film? I found my answer in the story Stan
told me.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
He said to me one night we finished around seven
or eight, and he goes, well you're doing And I said,
I'm going home, and goes he goes, Maria's making dinner.
You want to come to the house. So oh, yeah, yeah,
So we both jump in our cars and we drive
to visit Kyle's eight. And at that dinner, I remember
Arnold turn to me. He says, you have a great town.
I own the stat Why you don't de big feetes?
(41:08):
And I say, to be honest, I didn't get in
the business to make big, famous movies. I got in
the business to make movies. And I get to make
two or three a year. If I'm the future visits,
I'm lucky. If I make one every other year every
three years, I go, I'm happy with my life. He goes, well,
that's why I'm dastic.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
The story really had honed for me, because I get
what that's like to just love making something, even a
kind of improbably dense story about the making of the
remake of a Christmas movie. It's like Stan said, if
you love making movies or anything, it's just a gift
to get to make more, even if they're maybe not
the best, especially if it's clear how much fun you
(41:50):
had making whatever it is you're making. So to close,
let me just share one quote from the very last
page of Charles Dickens as a Christmas Carol, a passage
about Scrooge after he's seen the light.
Speaker 14 (42:04):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but
he let them laugh, and little heeded them, for he
was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on
this globe for good, at which some people did not
have their fill of laughter. In the outset, his own
heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. Maybe
Stan and Arnold didn't make It's a Wonderful Life, but
(42:29):
it seems to me like their own hearts were laughing.
So from all of us here at Revision's History, happy holidays,
your foreheads see you in the New Year. Revisionist History
is produced by me Ben Nattiaffrey and Lucy Sullivan with
(42:50):
Nina Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking
on this episode by Sam Russick, a resident Schwarzenegger fan.
Original touring by Luis Gara, mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nis,
David Arnott, Linda Berman, Iris Grossman, and Scott Sassa. I'm
(43:14):
Ben Mattahaffery.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Three two one.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
We wish.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Marry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
We wish you are Mary Chris.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
We wish you are Mary Chris M. Yeah, that's what
we do, guys.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I
Christmas is one week away, and how am I celebrating
with restraint and circumspection. In the glabew family, we do
a mid century modern Christmas. Spare elegant, minimalist, lots of
the baby Jesus in a tasteful Scandinavian leather and rosewood manger.
No Santa, no reindeer, no elves. Not so for my
(00:25):
colleague Ben adaf Halfrey. The Globows impose a dollar limit
on gifts, like price controls in some socialist state that
at half Halfreys spend months thinking of what to get
one another. The globows by a tree at the last moment,
and would be happier if we could just move the
whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine. In the backyard.
(00:45):
Ben's family has a tree, a little model village covered
in snow, and his father's vintage electric train set, plus
a little metal tree with ornaments that's up year round.
So when I told Ben that I had never watched
It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned. Then he reached
out to me as the good smartan did to the
(01:06):
traveler lying beref by the side of the road. How
could this be? He asked me gently, because, as you
can imagine, within the daf Haffreys, It's a wonderful life
is a sacred text. Then Ben told me another story
about what, in his mind is an even more important
Christmas tale, a story that he regards as the apotheosis
(01:28):
of all Christmas movies, a story not in a film,
but of the making of a film. Welcome to revisionist history.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show, Ben the n
alf Halfrey relays for the very first time in history,
the truly screwy story of the making of the oddest
(01:52):
Christmas film of all time. Trust me, you have never
heard this story before ever, nor have you ever seen
the movie in question. Unless you do. You remember the
extended dedf Halfway Clan or were recently incarcerated in a
state that limits prisoner's streaming access to obscure television movies
in the nineteen nineties. But when you listen to what follows,
(02:12):
you're going to ask yourself the same question I ask
myself when Ben first told me this story.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How do I miss this?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Unlike Malcolm, I am a great lover of Christmas movies.
Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I'm firing
up the Bishop's Wife, Miracle on thirty fourth Street, or
It's a Wonderful Life. And then there's my favorite Christmas movie,
a little less famous, the nineteen forty five romantic comedy
Christmas in Connecticut. I've watched it pretty much every year
(02:48):
since I was little. Barbara Stanwick plays a magazine columnist
who's famous for entertaining on her grand Connecticut farm. She's
known as a great cook. It's the end of World
War Two and her magazine's public sure has an idea
for a great feature. Jill hosts a returning war hero
for Christmas on her farm. There's just one problem. It's
(03:08):
all a lie. She doesn't live in Connecticut. She lives
in a tiny apartment in New York. And she has
no clue how to cook.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
My fun? Oh yes, my fun?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Oh my fine? And you want to see you right
away to arrange it.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Arrange it? Are you crazy?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Where am I going to get a farm? I haven't
even got a window.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Boss, That's just it.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
We'll have to star him off, you know what, to
stick to the truth.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
If he ever finds out we've been making all this up,
you'll fire the both of us.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Chaos ensues. It's a classic screwball comedy and a total delight.
But the thing I really want to tell you about
in this episode is what happened after I discovered, quite
by accident, that there was a remake of this favorite
Christmas movie of mine, an action packed, star studed, joke filled,
really very different version of the original, made for TV
(03:59):
and directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. A kind
of shocking twist if you ask me, I mean, why
would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut? So I
did what any good Christmas fiend would do. I talked
to a dozen people about something that happened thirty years
ago for way too many hours to get the real story,
(04:21):
and I discovered in the process. But I have come
to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've told this story many times, I've never told it
all the record. It's a big story, So if you've
got the time, I will tell it to you.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
That's Stan Brooks in the early nineteen nineties. He was
an independent made for TV movie producer.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So I'm developing movies and a friend of mine goes
and gets the job at TNC, and I make the
very first movie for him.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
TNT launched in nineteen eighty eight, at the start of
the cable television revolution. Then, as now, cable was expensive,
but it was growing. The whole game was trying to
raise awareness to get people to sign up, and with
channels running twenty four to seven, there was a lot
of space to fill, which led to a boom and
made for TV movies. Stan's first film on TNT was
(05:12):
a big success. So he got another bite at the
apple and he calls.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Me, He goes, what do you want to do next?
So they said, Nami years, would you ever let me
do a remake from the MGM library because that's what
Ted owned, And he said, yes, just pick one.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Christmas movies always do well, and there is one. Stan
loved Christmas in Connecticut, and I.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Know the Barber Stanlet movie, and so I said, well,
this could be a good one. It was right as
Martha Stewart was exploding. I thought, well, what if this
is Martha Stewart. What if she's on TV and has
an empire and it's all fake? And so they loved
that take, and so off we went to the races.
Speaker 7 (05:50):
He got a writer to work up the script in television.
It was It was great because you can get your
stuff made.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
This is Janet Brownew, one of the all time great
Bards of TV movie writer on Eloise at the Plaza,
Twelve Dates of Christmas, Days of Our Lives and the
uncredited rewrite of Tim Allens the Santa Claus all Brown.
Now she loved the original Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
I mean it's a charming and in fairst to me,
the original draft was very close.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Janet wrote the draft of the script for Stan's remake.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And we turn it in and they go, this is
this is do me in a Christmas movie. So now
I have and I have a nice little Christmas programmer
and nothing more.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It's the middle of nineteen ninety one in Hollywood. Janet
and Stan's low budget television movie remake isn't really the
sort of thing to get people talking, but they're making progress.
He's got the old school movie star Diane Cannon cast
in the lead as the Martha Stewart character, and an
offer out to a director. And then one day his
phone rings. His assistant says, it's a big Hollywood agent
(06:56):
named Lou Pitt.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Now I understand I'm in the television movie business. These
guys are never calling me, so if they do call me,
it's never good. And and he he gets on the
phone and he says, the other director for your Christmas
in Connecticut movie. And I said, uh, well almost yeah,
(07:21):
we may have an offer out And he said, okay,
Well if he doesn't say yes, I want you to consider
my client. And I go, okay, wait to hear the name,
and I go who He goes Arl Schwarzenegger, and I
burst out laughly.
Speaker 9 (07:34):
Oh he was. He was totally shocked.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Lou Pitt, legendary agent Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's hilarious. No, seriously, is this a joke?
Speaker 9 (07:44):
Is this a joke?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
He goes, no, seriously, and he goes, I'm Schwartzaker's not
going a Christmas movie for tn T.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
To be clear, Arnold had just finished shooting James Cameron's
epic Terminator too Asta La Vista Baby. Terminator two is
the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a killer cyborg sent
from the future to protect young John Connor from a
different killer cyborg also sent from the future to kill him.
As you can imagine, such a plot necessitates a lot
(08:14):
of elaborate production work. He was movie making on a
scale that was practically unheard of, especially in Los Angeles.
Speaker 10 (08:22):
The production actually changed the course of a river to
shoot high speed chases in the extensive clood control channels
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Anyways, back to Stan and Lou the Agent.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I go, Lou, why on earth were Arnold Swartz? He says, well,
here's why.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Arnold Schwarzenegger was forty four years old, he had two kids.
Nobody is an action hero forever. Maybe it was time
to explore some alternatives.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And so he was kind of tired after T two
when he said to Blue, I would like to direct
a movie.
Speaker 9 (08:57):
The directing thing was kind of out of the box,
out a left field, and they.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Said, well, can we'll put together a big feat direct
He goes, no, no, no, I want low risk. If I
do a terrible job, I don't want anyone to be upset.
I don't want a big budget, and I want it
to be family friendly because I don't want anything to
be controversial nothing. I just want something very simple. And
the only one that fit the bill was Christmas, Connecticut.
(09:21):
So I said, okay, I'll I'll call you if this
guy passes and I ham the phone off force my
hearts jumping out him like I go.
Speaker 9 (09:29):
What and and I said, yeah, I'm serious. I read it.
I think he'd like it, So get me an offer.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Stan gets the green light from the executives at TNT.
There's some negotiating and they offer Schwartzenegger one hundred thousand bucks,
and then one night stands phone rings.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I pick it up and I hear Sam Brooks, yes
please hold for homes forts Snagger and now I'm serious.
I can see my heart beating, and he goes hello.
I go, uh, Arnold, you're the guy with this Christmas script?
I said yes. He says it's fantastic. I'd love to direct.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
I go okay.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
He goes, but I have to shoot in Los Angeles,
knight to do it in these days. And he goes
a nice some notes of the script. I go, okay,
can you be here in an hour?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And I go, uh no.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He goes, can you be on Wednesday? I go, yes,
I could be there on Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
He goes over for a meeting at Arnold's offices in
Santa Monica.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So now going to see me on Wednesday? And you
walk in and there's this giant lobby and and the
first thing you see is the exoskeleton, the metal thing
with the red eyes from Terminator. So there's no doubt.
I mean, the posters are up on the wall, but
there's no doubt. When you walk in and you see
this seven foot thing, you go, oh, crap, I know
(10:51):
where I am. My heart's beating and I go in
and he's in his office, which is massive. It's like
you know, signs of a football field, and he's on one.
You walk in on this end and he's on the
other ends. You go walk past all the you know,
the props and stuff, and then he's at a big,
huge desk with a big giant chair, and behind him
(11:12):
is a bookshelf but with all of the Mister Universe awards,
not film stuff, it's all his bodybuilding awards. And I
remember we were going through the script and I said, hey,
I want to use the restroom and he pointed to
me by putting up this bicep and pointing it like this,
and his bicep comes cleaning. He goes this doc wo
(11:35):
and I go, is that just to show me your
boy step? And he goes, I have to show you know,
the guns whenever I can, and I realized, okay, so
this guy definitely has a sense of humort by himself.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
They sit down, Arnold has notes on the script he
will he wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
A more humor and a little more jeopardy, and so
we added in like this like sort of big action
sequence at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Where he rescues the and all of a sudden, Janet Brownell,
who wrote the original script for the remake, is looking
at a very different movie.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
The whole thing took this like one hundred and eighty
degree turn. At that point, it was just like what
is And Stan just did not want to lose him,
And I'm like, Okay.
Speaker 8 (12:21):
I truly don't see this.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
But if it gets a film green light, I don't
give a shit.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Arnold wants them to get someone else to come in
and punch up the script.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
He wanted more humor, and as it happened, my best
friend in the world had written.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Commando Commando, the nineteen eighty five action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger,
which the critic from the La Times referred to as
a quote gory crowd pleaser and a glorified fireworks display.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And Arnold loved them and said, if you think you
get him to do a comedy past.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Jeff Low, the friend who wrote Commando, gets hired to
do the rewrite with his writing partner.
Speaker 9 (13:00):
We walk in.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
He's sitting on a white couch, maybe it's literally the
length of the biggest limousine you've ever seen in your life,
and he has his feed up on this white porcelain
marble table. He's got a big cigar in his mouth
and scrips all around him, and he doesn't say hello,
(13:22):
He doesn't introduce himself, he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
He just the first thing out of his mouth is, so,
what of you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not
going to the gym.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I just have to say, everyone in this episode is
going to do their own Schwartzenegger impression, which is good
because even though we couldn't land an interview with him,
I feel like he's here with us in spirit anyway.
They settle in and start rewriting the film Commando style.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
So that's where things kind of went off the rails
for me personally, because it's like, Okay, this is becoming
a completely different thing. It just Schwartzenegger eye into like
this thing that was bigger than life.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I mean, she just did an amazing job. We didn't
make any real big structural changes. That's all hers, but
a dialogue pass and goes through it and try to
find more Bold's vision.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They start burning through the script. A big job for
any director is giving notes on the rewrites. Schwarzenegger was
calling in help from his director friends, including legendary comedy
director Ivan Reitman, the guy who did Ghostbusters. Everyone was
working to realize Arnold's vision.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Now you have to understand that on Commando he would
do this all the time.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
He would go, I have a great idea this and
this is what I want to do.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
When the guy comes at me, I want to throw.
Speaker 11 (14:49):
A buzzsaw at him and it chops off his arm,
and then I'm going to pick up his arm and
punch me in his face with his old arm. And
we would go, well, we like the bus off part.
Can we just do the bus off art? So like,
our job is not to go I think that's not
gonna work. Our job is to make it work. And
(15:10):
it doesn't help that the next day he would say.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Okay, we're doing really well, We're really getting there.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It's really coming to where I wanted to be, so
I gave it to Steve It.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
And Stephen talked to me last night and he said,
I have to really be careful that and this is
what I want you to do. And again I'm like,
is Stephen the guy at the jim is Stephen?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Who is Steve It?
Speaker 6 (15:35):
And then suddenly as you go, you know, as he
starts to sort of talk more, you go, he's talking
about Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
This is beginning to look like a train nobody would
step in front of. Back at TNT, the executives had
a dim sense of what was going on.
Speaker 10 (15:50):
It's not it's not has done now.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Lorie Postman Tier one of the TNT executives.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
Whether you're famous or not, as a director agent, that
doesn't happen. To let somebody go and change things as
much as we're change.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Meanwhile, they've cast the rest of the film. Joining Diane
Cannon would be Hollywood screwball legend Tony Curtis, probably best
known for playing opposite Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
Along with him would be ex country music star Chris Kristofferson.
Here's TNT's senior vice president of production at the time,
Nick Lombardo.
Speaker 12 (16:23):
Even when they cast it, I thought, well, that is
the weirdest cast I ever heard of. I mean, the
idea that these people fit together made no sense at all.
I mean, Diane Cannon and Chriskus Dobinson in the same frame.
It makes a star is born when he's holding Barbara
Streisad look organic.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
So armed with one of the all time weirdest, most
stacked casts in the history of film, a comparatively small
budget of three million dollars, a slot on an upstart
cable network, and a script based on a nineteen forty
screwball comedy that's been punched up by two of the
writers behind a big eighties blockbuster. An Austrian former bodybuilder,
fresh off his repeat performance as a time traveling cyborg,
(17:01):
prepared to direct his first Christmas film.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You don't, as a TV movie producer ever get near
anything this hot. You just don't.
Speaker 10 (17:11):
I mean, we're we're all a little nervous about the
whole thing, you know, because it's like you're playing with
matches and you know, oh, yeah, that's that Arnold directed this.
Speaker 9 (17:20):
You know.
Speaker 10 (17:21):
It's like, for us three million dollars was a lot
of money.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
I don't know, I don't know whatever.
Speaker 10 (17:27):
It was like, Oh yeah, he wanted to prove that
he could be a director.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And everyone was about to find out whether or not
he could. Christmas and Connecticut, the remake began filming about
two months before Christmas in Los Angeles. Because Arnold Schwartzenegger
had never before directed a future film, though what the
(17:54):
record show he had directed an episode of the TV
show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for to
film more or less in the order they happen in
the film. There's a lot less to keep track of
continuity wise that way, but this also posed a problem.
One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of
art is figuring out how to make it your own.
The nineteen ninety two made for TV remake of Christmas
(18:16):
in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead,
a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid workout routine in
his mountain cabin. If you're looking for signs that this
is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the site of
Chris Christofferson as Jefferson Jones, sweating after busting out some
chin ups on a beam in his cabin is your
first morning, a man on the television offers some brisk
(18:39):
exposition while he cools down. In the last hour, experts
predict this shouldn't be the biggest storm to hit the
Rockies in the last decade.
Speaker 13 (18:47):
More than four feet of snow is anticipated to blanket
the area in the next forty eight hours.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
The phone rings. Another ranger is calling to tell Jones
a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard. He has
to go out and find him. This is the fabled
action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested. They shot the blizzard on
a sound stage. It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero,
which is why he gets invited to be a guest
of Elizabeth Blaine's for a Christmas special in Connecticut. It's
(19:13):
got to look epic. It's got to have that Arnold
Schwarzenegger feeling. Unfortunately terminator, this is not. Here's Jim Wilberger,
director of production.
Speaker 10 (19:23):
You know there's a scene where Christofferson, you know, suddenly
has rescued the kid and you see him rolled down
this little hill of snow which was shot on stage
and trying to make more of more of it because
there wasn't that much set for that little hill, and
you know, and then suddenly you see all the people
(19:45):
rush in to rescue you know. I mean, this was
just not good blocking, and that's just an experience.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Schwarzenegger wanted Jeopardy, but this kind of looks like a
snowball fight gone. Jones stumbles over a very small hill
holding a child that looks like it might be a mannequin.
He's groaning and yelling, but his lips aren't moving, so
tough start. Luckily, though, a lot of the film is
set inside Elizabeth Blaine's fake Connecticut house where she's shooting
(20:16):
a Christmas special in celebration of Jones. The bulk production
happened there, so the whole crew set up at a
house in South Pasadena for the real work. This introduced
Arnold to the second problem of directing actor ego management,
and the issue of his trailer.
Speaker 14 (20:33):
Arnold's trailer was like a house on wheels.
Speaker 15 (20:36):
It was literally like you'd look at it from the
outside and you'd say, wow, that's got all kinds of
popouts and the roof went off and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
But when you got inside, it was literally like you
had just walked into like the Greystone Mansion, you.
Speaker 10 (20:48):
Know, it's probably almost three times as wide as a
normal trailer, and that it was the length that became
the issue. Diane comes in and she says, why is
Arnold's trailer bigger than my trailer? Nobody's supposed to have
a bigger trailer than me.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Diane Cannon was the star of the film, but she
was maybe realizing that this production was all about the director. Schwarzenegger, though,
was dealing with other problems. Namely, he had chosen one
of the hardest genres for his first major directing for
a screwball comedy is like dancing on the head of
a pin. It thrives on chaos, but it has to
be a kind of controlled chaos. With his big personality cast,
(21:30):
low budget, short timeline, and hastily rewritten script, Schwarzenegger had
an excess of chaos and a minimum of control. I mean,
you have one somewhat disgruntled actress portraying fake Martha Stewart,
and another who's a macho park ranger, but who, for
no apparent reason, relays this backstory part way through the movie.
Speaker 16 (21:50):
Actually, before I moved to Colorado, I lived in Chicago.
I grew up there, taught comparative Literature at the University
of Container really offered tenure and head of the department,
and it's what I thought I wanted. That's being caged
in by concrete and crowds for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
This is I'm pretty sure the only time in the
entire film Jefferson jones Is past as chair of the
University of Chicago's Comparative Literature department is mentioned. And I
love Chris Kristofferson, but most of the rest of his
performance veers between stiff and oddly sexually charged.
Speaker 10 (22:27):
When he starts smearing the pine staff on her neck.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah that it's it's it's just kind of transcendently weird.
Speaker 10 (22:37):
Yeah, well, not to mention his two times he's like
staring at her butt.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You know, there's an extensive shot of that.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
But you can't buy that at Limingdal.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
So you've got two characters who really just barely hang together,
and then you have to direct them in tightly choreographed
zany sequences that have got to feel plausible yet also hilarious.
Us for instance, the scene with the baby. Remember in
Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth is a total fraud. She doesn't
know how to cook. It's not even her house in Connecticut,
and she's got this fake, staged family with her, including
(23:13):
a fake baby. She had to keep up appearances for
the sake of her column. In the original film, there's
a lovely scene where she and Jefferson Jones give her
fake baby a bath. She a supposed domestic goddess, is
meant to bathe her child, which she suspiciously has no
clue how to do. He steps in and does it
for her like a total pro. It's part of why
(23:34):
she falls in love with him, and because it's so
well executed in the original film, we believe they're following
in love in this totally implausible moment.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So so oh refer tho she's eating the soul? Would
I do what they are doing?
Speaker 15 (23:52):
Oh?
Speaker 17 (23:53):
Really, you'd make a wonderful father.
Speaker 16 (23:56):
Mister jere You're not married off by any chance, are you?
Speaker 9 (24:02):
No cards are stacked against me.
Speaker 16 (24:04):
I guess every time I meet a girl I like,
it turns out she's already married.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Oh that's too bad now.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
This also happens in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.
Speaker 10 (24:14):
Maybe we should finish up for finish up?
Speaker 18 (24:16):
What you know what?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I just had the most wonderful idea.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
How would you like to bathe me?
Speaker 17 (24:23):
Sure, I think it'd be fun for you.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Here what happens next is the greatest travesty in the
history of bath time. It's as if you gave two
aliens a baby and said, give this a bath, not
realizing that on the planet therefrom not only are there
no babies or baths, but actually there's not even water.
What do you remember about.
Speaker 10 (24:43):
That, Well, some of that was improvised.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
What happens is they just drenched the baby in shampoo
and then they barely wash any of it out. On
the bath scale, it's two rubber duckies out of ten.
But the premise of the scene is that Jefferson Jones
is crushing it.
Speaker 10 (24:58):
It was pretty hilarious, I thought, and also very clumsy,
and they really grouped up with the kid's hair.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
My god, I don't know, my chapoo, here's.
Speaker 17 (25:10):
Some soap, sweetie.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
That's the director thing.
Speaker 8 (25:15):
I mean, that is a flat out director fail.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
I mean that right, like, retake the scene and there
probably were.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Three or four versions of that. That's the one he chose,
you know, It's not like that was the only one.
Speaker 10 (25:28):
That you're off the shit with that for a bachelor,
you know, you're sure you don't have a whole stel
of kids hidden somewhere nursed.
Speaker 16 (25:34):
A couple of bear clubs to their mother.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Came back.
Speaker 15 (25:39):
Beauty.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's like on SNL when the actors break and laugh
when Elizabeth's like, I'm not sure if we got all
the soap out and Jefferson's like, well we didn't. That's
the true reaction and it must be improvised. But then
they go back to the scripted version where Jones is
doing a great job. Most of the people on set
have some kind of moment like.
Speaker 10 (25:57):
This, you know, the forest with the snow and a
sleigh that comes along, and there's even one shot I
noticed where you can see the wheels under the sleigh.
Speaker 18 (26:09):
I remember the day I was there, they were filming
that scene where chaos RUPs, you know, and the tree
falls down and all that. We had to do that
scene quite a number of times. It was as chaotic
as the scene is, but behind the scenes it was
even more so.
Speaker 12 (26:26):
It's a little like opening a belode factory for cultural
you know, it's sort of like, what's going on in there?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Nothing good?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Nothing good, don't ask anything so it was kind of
hectic on set, and yet I think you can hear
in people's voices how much they love telling this story.
Pretty much across the board. This was a happy memory
for the people I spoke to, not least of all
because they never lost sight of just how improbable it
(26:54):
all was.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
And then in the middle of all this is all
running round going, you know, move the top or overhead,
I do this over here, let's go do this. No,
I think it could be ten times funny. I'll come on.
So there's Arnold's voice, you know, just bellowing out. And
that was the other thing that I really remember was
(27:16):
that while this is happening, while we're making this little,
tiny movie, he is in theaters with Terminator too, and
it's doing numbers that no one has ever seen before.
And we were on set when it crossed five hundred
(27:40):
million dollars. But when you're standing next to the guy
who's the star of that movie, and his major concern
is whether or not is it didn't focus forehead.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Let's go the forehead thing. You're not the first person
to bring that up. Several people mentioned to me that
Arnold Schwartzenegger's favorite put down was to call someone a forehead.
This actually made it into the movie. When Elizabeth Blaine
and Jefferson Jones get pulled over by the cops mid
sleigh ride, the one where you can see the wheels,
this happens.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
What's your hands?
Speaker 9 (28:14):
Where I can say them?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
You're both under arrest?
Speaker 14 (28:16):
Oh, come on, come on, you foreheads, get him up?
Speaker 6 (28:19):
You what?
Speaker 3 (28:21):
This is actually a big part of why I love
this movie. It has a kind of free jazz improvisitory
quality to it. It's oddly self referential and also very sweet.
It's like how you can hear in someone's voice when
they're smiling. That's how this movie feels. Because, even at
the risk of himself being labeled a forehead who couldn't
direct the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger was showing up every day
(28:44):
and putting in his all for the film, Buffs and
the crew. It was a dream come true just to
work with him or with a legend like Tony Curtis.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
You know, it was a trip to oz that I
knew it was short lived, but it was something I
was going to know, take in and enjoy them as
much as possible.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
After twenty days of shooting the film, wrapped. They had
a party at Arnold Schwartzeninger's restaurant. It was around Christmas time,
and they all got sweatshirts with the name of the
film on the front.
Speaker 10 (29:14):
And on the back was a picture of Arnold with
a Santa hat on, wearing sunglasses and saying something about
I can't remember the full thingybody used for you forehead.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Later, Jim was kind enough to send me a photo
of the sweatshirt. It said on the back more snow
u forehead. There's my Schwartzeninger impression. With the film in
the can. Post production and premierees loomed. That's after the break.
(29:59):
Before we get to the premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's nineteen
ninety two Christmas in Connecticut remake, I want to tell
you about something that happened earlier this year.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Thank you all for coming, Thank you Mitch for coming
down from Try Yeah, thanks for having me here.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Malcolm interviewed Mitch Album live on stage at the ninety
second Street y Album is the best selling author of
some ungodly number of books, but he's probably most famous
for Tuesdays with Maury. He and Malcolm were there to
talk about his new novel about the Holocaust, The Little Liar.
They were warming up with some Mitch backstory about his
time as a musician in New York.
Speaker 17 (30:36):
I tried the whole starving musician thing, and I played
in all the clubs around here on Monday nights.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I was backstage at this event peering out. I hadn't
read Mitch's book. I was up to something else.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Wait, we should probably do this, befrobab. We get too
far afield on the music thing. If you've been talking
so much, you will note that behind you. Yeah, there
is a corg.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
At this point, the audience of people who had come
that night to hear the author of Tuesdays with Maury
discussed the Holocaust noticed the electric piano behind him.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
And we have a request that you play one of
your most famous compositions, which you know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about Cooking for Two from the legendary Arnold
Schwarzenegger nineteen ninety two, made for TV movie Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 17 (31:30):
Yeah, can you see the recognition?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yes it was my keyboard, and yes I had planted
it there.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Mitch, No, no, this. For some reason, I have no idea.
My colleague Ben is obsessed with this and really wanted
us to do this, And I thought, how great would
it be for you to sing one of our songs,
just like, just give us a little taste.
Speaker 17 (31:50):
Well, I have to tell you the story.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Tell us tell a story. Okay.
Speaker 17 (31:54):
So after I got out of the music business, I
had a college roommate who went into the movie business.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
That would be Stanley m Brooks, executive producer of Christmas
in Connecticut. Stan and Mitch were roommates at Brandeis.
Speaker 17 (32:08):
And he knew that I was a musician, and he
was making a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a producer,
and Schwartzenegger was the director of Christmas in Connecticut. The remake.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Sounds about as.
Speaker 17 (32:22):
Good as it was, I think, And they needed as
a song because she played Diane Cannon played the lead
and she was a cook on TV or whatever, so
the song had to be about food. And they wanted
to use Harry Connick's Recipe for Love or something like that,
but they couldn't afford it. Yeah, so stan calls me
(32:45):
and says, we need a song that's kind of upbeat
about food for Arnold Schwartzenegger's movie.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Can you do it? You know.
Speaker 17 (32:51):
I said, well, what do you need it by Thursday?
You know, it was Tuesday, you know. So I just
went and wrote a little song. And my wife as
a singer, a fantastic singer, and I said, honey, can
you sing this song because we don't have time to
go find anybody else. And he listened to it and
he said, I liked a one but the girl. And
(33:14):
that's how the song was chosen. Yeah, yeah, I want
you to play it. I really think you should.
Speaker 18 (33:20):
So it went.
Speaker 17 (33:22):
Now, remember it had to be about food. Food, So went,
let's go to the kitchen. I got something fixing, almantizing,
and do here's a flue. We're cooking for two. They're
(33:45):
inside the oven, something warm and loving. Friends would laugh
and they knew that it's true. We're cooking for two.
Here's the corner on the bridge. I was a soup
for one girl nombers every night all but once I
tasted your kisses. I was dining my candlelight. Here's a
(34:09):
recipe for all the world to see.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
We take some me and some you.
Speaker 16 (34:13):
The it's.
Speaker 17 (34:15):
We're cooking for two. We're cooking for two. That definitely
(34:38):
ranks amongst one of the most embarrassing things.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I've ever done. They planned to play it over the
credits with a Mitch Album closing track in hand. Christmas
in Connecticut was almost ready to debut. Most made for
TV movies you just put out on television, but not
this one.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
First of all, TV movies don't have screens. If we
have a screening, it's like ten people and you know,
you were in a screening room somewhere like this was
the big theater at the DGA, which holds I don't know,
a thousand people, massive screen and there's a huge red
carpet and a press line.
Speaker 18 (35:15):
We had two theaters going and there were phil When
I tell you.
Speaker 13 (35:19):
That there's never been a television movie before since, they
had a press line. And he's walking down working the press,
and like, you know and I know that this person,
this is Ambrose executive.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Producer h Arnold.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
According to san Ivan, Wrightman and James Cameron were there,
along with the whole slew of Hollywood Royalty. The screening
was in LA. It was a media sensation.
Speaker 8 (35:41):
Watch out Hollywood. There's a new director in town and
he's used to making a big impact.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
That is in front of the camera.
Speaker 13 (35:48):
When you act and you see such talent the directors
as I've worked with, it inspires you.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Janet Brown, now the screenwriter, was not having such a night.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
I remember sitting at the screening with my agent and
I was like crying.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I mean, I was like, oh my god, why were
you crying?
Speaker 8 (36:09):
Is I get so bad?
Speaker 9 (36:11):
And my name is on this.
Speaker 8 (36:13):
My agent was very fast to get me a drink
at that point. I just remember outside there was kind
of a Christmas theme sort of party, and just like,
I need to get out of.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Here, but there was no putting the genie back in
the bottle. TNT was running promo's NonStop.
Speaker 16 (36:30):
I love romantic comedies, so I made one myself, Christmas
in Connecticut.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
It's a romantic comedy with.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
All the trimmings.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
What in the world could comfortably go wrong?
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Christmas in Connecticut? Directed by Arnold Schwarzening, you have a
problem with that.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
TNT exclusive premiere Monday, April thirteen.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
I don't know if you caught that, but the film
came out in April, one week before Easter. As one
review put it, quote, don't ask me why a Christmas
movie is premiering in April. As his then wife Maria
Shreiver reflected, he just does. He's a big one on.
Don't think about it or talk about it, do it.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And then he goes, I think we want to scud
into it again. That was too much fun. I go, okay,
I go see if I can organ. I go no,
I want to sco in Washington with my friend Jack Lent.
So now we all fight Washington and uh.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And it was.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
It was a who's who of Washington, and it was
senators and members of tabinet.
Speaker 9 (37:32):
It was a seated dinner.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
And I remember my wife and I sit down. We've
been working the room, so we sit last at our table,
and the guy next to me has got like a
dress came of form on and I say, hey, Sam Brooks,
I'm the producer, and he goes, hey, Oliver North.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Oliver North of Iran contra fame. The film was a
big hit in the Beltway. So if I sit to
say this made for television Christmas movie had an unusually
big reception, but it also didn't really do much to
establish Schwartzenegger as a director. The reviews were mixed.
Speaker 10 (38:04):
Well, I'm looking at IMDb right now, it's like the
rating is four point eight out of ten, and they're
not far off.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
We nobody had any Oh my god, we're making it's
a wonderful life.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
I realize I've had a lot of fun with this
movie and gun to my head. Do I think it's good? No?
But do I love it? Obviously yes, because it's so
totally weird and overcommitted to its bit that it has
a kind of joyfulness to it that honestly gets me
in the Christmas spirit and at its core, like the
best Christmas films, the story behind the movie is a
(38:39):
story of love and friendship between Arnold Schwartzenegger and San Brooks,
two men brought together by a love of making movies.
After the film, Stan and Arnold stayed in touch. Stan
even moved into Arnold Schwartzenegger's office building. Their kids played
football together, and even though they never made another movie together,
(39:00):
their collaboration had one more act. Almost ten years to
the day from when Christmas in Connecticut began shooting, Arnold
Schwarzenegger became the governor of California. At the time, there
was a lot of hand ringing over an issue called
runaway production. Lots of states had started offering tax breaks
to lure films into shooting somewhere other than California. It
(39:22):
had become a real problem for Hollywood as an industry town,
and this was one of the crises Schwarzenegger would have
to face in his new role as governor. Now, the
way people talked about his becoming governor was the same
way they talked about his becoming a director, So it
only makes sense that he wanted Stanbrooks in his administration.
Speaker 15 (39:42):
So when he became governor, he was in about a
year and he called me and he said, how would
you like to be on the film Commission? And I said, well,
that's a dumb idea. He goes why.
Speaker 14 (39:53):
I said, well, because I don't shoot movies in California.
Speaker 15 (39:56):
I said, I'm like the worst person you could put
on the film commission because I take movies out of state.
Speaker 14 (40:01):
And he goes, oh, that's why we want to because
we want to try and.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Pass the taxpayer stan joined the California Film Commission, and
over the next few years he was a key part
of the lobbying efforts to pass the tax credits that
would make it easier to film in California.
Speaker 14 (40:16):
It was a hard fight, and so I ended up
making a short film a short documentary film where we
interviewed some of the families that left on why and
that ended up being more powerful than any speech we
could make in their office.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The first tax credits passed in two thousand and nine.
They've been renewed ever since. So back to our original question,
why did Arnold Schwarzenegger direct to this bizarre one off
Christmas film? I found my answer in the story Stan
told me.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
He said to me one night we finished around seven
or eight, and he goes, well you're doing And I said,
I'm going home, and goes he goes, Maria's making dinner.
You want to come to the house. So oh, yeah, yeah,
So we both jump in our cars and we drive
to visit Kyle's eight. And at that dinner, I remember
Arnold turn to me. He says, you have a great town.
I own the stat Why you don't de big feetes?
(41:08):
And I say, to be honest, I didn't get in
the business to make big, famous movies. I got in
the business to make movies. And I get to make
two or three a year. If I'm the future visits,
I'm lucky. If I make one every other year every
three years, I go, I'm happy with my life. He goes, well,
that's why I'm dastic.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
The story really had honed for me, because I get
what that's like to just love making something, even a
kind of improbably dense story about the making of the
remake of a Christmas movie. It's like Stan said, if
you love making movies or anything, it's just a gift
to get to make more, even if they're maybe not
the best, especially if it's clear how much fun you
(41:50):
had making whatever it is you're making. So to close,
let me just share one quote from the very last
page of Charles Dickens as a Christmas Carol, a passage
about Scrooge after he's seen the light.
Speaker 14 (42:04):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but
he let them laugh, and little heeded them, for he
was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on
this globe for good, at which some people did not
have their fill of laughter. In the outset, his own
heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. Maybe
Stan and Arnold didn't make It's a Wonderful Life, but
(42:29):
it seems to me like their own hearts were laughing.
So from all of us here at Revision's History, happy holidays,
your foreheads see you in the New Year. Revisionist History
is produced by me Ben Nattiaffrey and Lucy Sullivan with
(42:50):
Nina Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking
on this episode by Sam Russick, a resident Schwarzenegger fan.
Original touring by Luis Gara, mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nis,
David Arnott, Linda Berman, Iris Grossman, and Scott Sassa. I'm
(43:14):
Ben Mattahaffery.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Three two one.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
We wish.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Marry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
We wish you are Mary Chris.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
We wish you are Mary Chris M. Yeah, that's what
we do, guys.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I
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