May 29, 2024 • 43 mins
We are going back to April of 1989 to cover the depression era drama, Winter People. And... I’m going solo today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Katie (00:31):
Hello.
Hello.
I'm Katie and welcome to RetroMade, your pop culture rewind.
We are going to go back to Aprilof 1989 for the 35th anniversary
of the release of Winter People.
Since this is a little lesser knownKurt Russell movie and it's not
super readily available to stream,I'm going to go solo today, so
(00:53):
hopefully that's okay with you all.
But I do want to Sincerely, thank you allfor listening, going along this journey
so far with me before we get into thetime capsule just remember, you can
keep in touch with me also by sendingan email to retromadepodcast at gmail.
com.
I'm going to read a listeneremail here in a little bit.
So you can be like, so,oh, also the Facebook page.
(01:17):
There's other nostalgia.
Keep up with what's going on over there.
And as always, I do reallyappreciate ratings and reviews.
If you can spare a couple of minutes.
If you're new to the show, welcome.
I cover retro movies and the TV musicand other pop culture of the time.
(01:40):
So in terms of listener emailsthis one's long overdue.
So this is from Zoe Richardson and heis from Backlook Cinema, the podcast.
I've guested on that.
He's guested on this show as well.
And he always has very well thought out.
Emails, and I just haven't had achance to read this 1 on the show yet.
(02:03):
It's actually in reference to theepisode that I did with Jamie and
Milo covering the remake of roadhouse.
The 1 with the 2024 1with Jake Gyllenhaal.
So, if you have not listened to thatepisode, be sure to market to go back
to, or go listen to that and come back.
(02:24):
Be sure to listen to this one as well.
And if you recall, we didn't love it.
I'll just say that.
So I'm synthesizing down alittle bit, trying to catch
the main points of Zoe's email.
It was a lovely email.
So thanks again, Zoe, for that.
But I'm not going to read the whole thing.
So he says, so I heard your reviewof Roadhouse and I assume you've
(02:45):
seen my video and I take it thatyou didn't like it that much.
So yes, Zoe did see.
Your video and you guys go checkout those response to the movie.
He continues.
He says, honestly, I'm a littlesurprised and not surprised at all.
I'm sure that, you know,my feelings about it.
I thought that it was pretty good.
I was immensely entertained , inspite of some of its flaws.
(03:08):
I think that some of the things thatyou guys hated about the film were
the things that I loved about it.
Now, I'm not going to try and convince youas to why you should like it rather here.
We have an opportunity as towhy we see the film differently.
So, he goes on to talk about remakesin general, the fact that me and
my guests didn't even really want.
(03:29):
We didn't want this movie.
Therefore, he didn't think thatwe were as open minded as maybe
we could have been, which is fair.
I will just reiterate that I am a bigfan of Jake Gyllenhaal and I tried,
or at least I told myself that I wasgoing to be open minded because of that.
I thought if, if it could be good,It could be good because of Jake.
(03:51):
Let's see.
He also, he just thinks that maybe wemissed some things that he really enjoyed
like, not realizing certain things.
And I don't know if maybe, maybesome of us did and some of us didn't.
I just think we didn't, I don't knowif it's that we missed those things.
I think it's that we caughtthem, but we didn't, still didn't
(04:11):
like it or that it just didn't.
It just felt very disjointed.
So then there's a point at which someof the flaws in the remake, that
we attributed as it's flaws elementsof the remake that were in the
original, like, he says, you notedthat this town was full of bad guys.
(04:32):
Yeah, so is the remake.
Like Dalton seemed invincible, but hewas kind of invincible in the original,
and this is a trope in action movies.
A friend of mine would call itan invincible white man trope.
Admittedly, they really went pastthe limit with Dalton's invincibility
in the remake, but it wasn'tenough to derail my enjoyment.
Speaking of enjoyment, Imentioned that there were things
(04:54):
that I loved that you hated.
I loved the fight scenes.
I didn't even know thatsome of it was CGI.
I totally bought into the scenes.
I guess in this case,your mileage will vary.
Some people were able todiscern CGI and others couldn't.
I never stopped to think about it.
Now this I'm begging for you guys.
(05:15):
To write in I, that was my biggest beef.
I'll just say that was mybiggest beef with the movie.
There was no stakes init for me because it was.
Basically, a Marvel movie, like,it was a cartoon didn't seem real.
And that was 1 of the thingsthat we loved about the original.
It had excellent real fight sequences.
So I'll just reiterate that.
(05:36):
I, yes, I hated the CGI fights.
It took me completely out ofit, but I realized that I'm not
the only opinion that matters.
So I'd love to hear anyoneelse's thoughts on this.
Also.
So Zoe goes on with a few otherexamples, you know, about.
Dalton's character beinga little bit different.
(05:56):
And so in the context of so inthe original Dalton, rips out
the throat of a guy in the remake.
This is what so says.
In the remake, theycontextualized this element.
The act of killing someone andwrapped the whole movie around it.
Instead of a random stranger,it was Dalton's friend.
Instead of a purposeful act,it was done by accident.
(06:16):
This is a man suffering with PTSDand is struggling to cope with it.
He doesn't know how to get close to peopleagain, and so we don't get the sex scene
and we don't get the rom com ending.
Both elements that we broughtup, though, says by the end of
the movie, he's still struggling,but perhaps handling it better.
There was something about him gettingon the bus at the end that I really
liked this aspect of the character.
(06:37):
That is his struggles with his guilt andanguish felt more real and accessible to
me than a guy with a degree in philosophywho chooses to work as a bouncer.
Good point.
So good point.
But it was the 80s.
That's what it was about.
Okay.
So says, don't get me wrong.
This roadhouse remakehad a lot of problems.
There were jumps of logicthat didn't make any sense.
(06:58):
There were scenes thatcarried on too long.
There were a lot of things thatyou pointed out that were just bad.
And I sort of agree with someof your points, but I also
was too thrilled to care.
Jake carried the fuck out of thisfilm, more than anything else,
he really made this thing work.
Before I stop typing, I want toaddress the comment, no one asked
for this, or who asked for this.
(07:20):
I'm not a fan of this sentiment, asit's contradictory and illogical.
The answer to this question orstatement is that no one asks for
anything, and you get exactly whatyou asked for, you'll hate it.
The trick is to give you something newand unexpected, yet somehow familiar,
and that's what this movie brings.
You might like it, you mighthate it, but that's the chance
that's taken in creating a thing.
(07:40):
It has very little in commonwith the original film, but
that's what makes it good.
They know the legacy of the original,so they're not trying to create an exact
duplicate of the original, rather a newstory using elements of the old one.
Thank you, Zoe.
He has other points, I'm not gonnaread all of his email, but that's Very
good points, Zoe, and I will say, Iattribute some of this to the changing
(08:06):
landscape of movies and moviegoingexperiences nowadays, but I clearly was
in the minority here because they arealready slated to make a sequel to it.
All right, you guys, letme know what you think.
Now we can open the timecapsule from April of 1989.
(08:30):
So, this is Nielsen ratings from 88 to 89.
I feel like we've covered a lot of thesebefore, but just to refresh your memory.
We have the Cosby show Roseanne, whichwas its premier season now on this.
I actually was consideringexpanding on Roseanne since it was.
It's premiere season, but I reallydon't want to rush that discussion
(08:53):
because there's a lot there.
So I'm going to save it foranother upcoming episode.
So if you like Roseanne, keeplistening, keep watching.
Also big top rated shows.
That season was a different world.
Cheers.
The Golden Girls, ofcourse, Who's the Boss?
Murder, She Wrote, EmptyNest, and Anything But Love.
And yes, that does sound familiar.
I think we've covered anything butlove before, because I recall not
(09:16):
remembering it and looking it up.
Let's see.
It stars Richard Lewis and MartyGold and Jamie Lee Curtis as
coworkers at a Chicago magazine.
It had 56 episodes, apparently.
That's kind of shockingto what four seasons.
Wow.
Don't remember it at all.
Does anyone?
So the shows that weren't necessarilyin the top, but premiered.
(09:44):
Which would make them all 35 yearsold now, good morning, miss bliss.
You guys please tell me you remember this.
It actually was let's see.
It was only a single season becauseso miss bliss is Haley mills and
it's the saved by the bell kids.
But like, in junior high school, andthen when they got into high school,
(10:05):
they swapped some characters, but.
It was on the Disney Channel originally,also kind of known to be the junior
high years of Saved by the Bell.
We also have Just the 10 ofUs premiering this season.
I'm going to have to expandon that in a future season as
well, because I adore that show.
Coach Lubbock from Growing Painswas spun off into his own TV show,
(10:30):
and that was Just the 10 of Us.
(11:14):
China Beach.
Do you guys remember China Beach?
, Empty Nest, which was the GoldenGirls spinoff, also very good.
Murphy Brown, Dirty Dancing.
Yes, I said Dirty Dancing.
So this was a super short livedseries after the success of the movie,
Dirty Dancing, of course, but thereare, is not a single cast member.
(11:37):
From the movie that's in the TV show,but Malora Hardin starred in it.
Jan from The Office, MaloraHardin, that's who she is.
Let's see.
We also have The Wonder Years,Garbage Pail Kids, and Yo MTV Raps.
And then some of the showsthat ended this season.
(11:58):
American Bandstand, Highway to Heaven,Kate and Ali, Small Wonder, Moonlighting,
Webster, and The California Raisin Show.
Interesting grouping there.
Yeah.
So that is the popular TVfrom the 88 to 89 season.
Now the specific week that winterpeople came out April 14th, 1989.
(12:24):
The songs that were big Billboardtop 10 number one song is she drives
me crazy by fine young cannibals.
The look by Roxette is number two.
Ooh, there's a lot of girlsMadonna with like a prayer
(12:45):
oh god.
I still I love this videolike a prayer Yeah, good one.
The bangles with eternal flame.
That's a goodie and Girl,you know, it's true by Millie
Vanillie is the number five song
(13:20):
Number six is Stand by REM.
Number seven is FunkyCold Medina by Tone Loke.
Now I think people probably assume orjust they have good thoughts about that
song or oh yeah that's a great song.
It's good in theory is what my opinionis because it's the most repetitive
(13:41):
song ever and if it's played at likeuh some sort of a wedding or a dance
or something it it's not fun todance to because it's so repetitive.
It's just too repetitiveand gets old real quick.
My two cents anyway.
Number eight, did notknow what the song is.
I looked it up.
Superwoman by Karen White.
Does anybody know this song?
(14:02):
It is like a sad love song.
And after watching the video,it is extremely clear that
Beyonce borrowed from this.
Very much borrowed from this for her.
If I were a boy video, it's like thesame kind of, and I love that video.
I like Beyonce's better, but at any rate,number nine is you got it by Roy Orbison.
(14:28):
And number 10 is your mama.
Don't dance by poison.
I think this is maybe one of the mostvaried genre wise top 10 we've ever had.
It's literally a little bit of everything.
Wrapped into it.
And so, you know, that'swhat the eighties was.
(14:50):
This is 1989
news and events is likemostly sporting things.
Tons of sports news.
Do you guys remember WrestleMania five?
Apparently Hulk Hogan beat RandyMacho Man Savage for the WWF
heavyweight title in April of 1989.
(15:15):
It was a certain NBA stars last game,any guesses, Kareem Abdul Jabbar
and Mike Tyson got in some trouble.
He both strikes a parking attendantwhen asked to move his car and
then separately from that gets aspeeding ticket for drag racing his
(15:40):
Lamborghini in Albany, New York.
Hillsboro disaster.
Hmm.
England.
Yeah.
Okay.
So 96 people are crushed to deathand 766 people were injured at the
Hillsboro football stadium in Sheffield,England during a semifinal between
(16:04):
Liverpool and Nottingham forest.
96 people were crushed to death.
Oh, wow.
I don't know.
I feel like I've heard ofthis, but I don't remember it.
Well, also the central park 5.
I'm sure you all have heard of them.
5 teenagers were wrongfullyconvicted and each spend between
(16:30):
6 and 12 years in prison.
For the violent rape of jogger, Triciamelee in New York City's central park and.
This is one of the most widelypublicized crimes of the 1980s.
And yes, they were wrongfully convicted.
I think one of them is inNew York, he's on the city
council or something like that.
No, I want to say George W.
(16:53):
Bush and Edward W.
Rose become joint CEOsof the Texas Rangers.
I did not know this.
And he did anyone else,
Massachusetts declaresnew kids on the block day.
And this is wild 1989, you guys,April, the World Wide Web, WWW
(17:19):
is first launched in the publicdomain by computer scientist.
Anybody knows name Tim Berners Lee.
I did not know that.
A couple of famousweddings happened in April.
Jon Bon Jovi weds his high schoolsweetheart, Dorothea Hurley,
(17:40):
at Graceland Chapel in Vegas.
Also, actor and comedian RobinWilliams weds nanny Marsha Garces
at a private ceremony in Lake Tahoe.
We have a couple of deaths, though.
American boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson.
Now, I don't Okay, I don't knowwhat the deal is in boxing,
(18:04):
why everybody is named Sugar
and Sugar Ray.
Like, every Like, there's a SugarShane, there's a couple Sugar Rays.
What's the story with the sugar?
Boxing.
Does anyone know Anyway, I don'tthink I knew Sugar Ray Robinson,
but he was the World Welterweightchampion from 1946 to 1951.
(18:25):
He was the middleweight champion from51 to 52, also in 55 and 58, and he
dies of Alzheimer's disease at age67, and that was in April of 1989.
Lucille Ball died.
Of a heart attack at age 77 andSergio Leone, the Italian director
(18:49):
who invented spaghetti westerns.
For example, the man with noname trilogy, he died of a heart
attack also, but he was only 60.
All right, let's move past the sadnesswith other big movie releases of the time.
Field of Dreams.
(19:10):
Pet Cemetery, Major League, K9, The Dream Team, Say Anything,
She's Out of Control, and Cyborg.
I don't realize.
I sort of thought Cyborg was not ahit, but it must have been pretty big.
It was one of the biggermovies in April anyway.
(19:30):
Hmm.
All right.
Well, without further ado,let's get into the movie.
Winter People released April 14th, 1989.
It was PG and I, so it has a 6.
(19:53):
2 out of 10 on IMDb, which is actuallykind of high, I think, considering.
It did not do well with critics and Ijust feel like no one talks about this.
I don't really know anyonewho's seen this movie.
So you guys will have to let me know.
The director is well known.
(20:13):
We actually just talked about himbecause he directed Uncommon Valor with
our other everyman, Patrick Swayze.
He also directed First Bloodand Weekend at Bernie's.
Ted Kochef.
Hmm.
Interesting.
So this was based on a bookby John Ellie or E H L E.
(20:39):
Not entirely sure how to pronounce that.
Apologies.
It was a novel of written in 1982that this film was based on and the
other writer was Carol Sobieski.
And she's known for tons of TV movies.
Also a couple of fantastic movies, friedgreen tomatoes and Annie from 1982.
(21:02):
I'm going to have to find a way tocover that because I love that movie.
Anyone else?
Okay.
So our Everyman KurtRussell stars in this.
He plays Wayland Jackson.
So he is a young widower who moveswith his daughter into a North
Carolina mountain town in 1934.
So this is the depression.
(21:25):
He quickly takes up with a youngwoman played by Kelly McGillis.
She plays Colly Wright.
You guys know her from Top Gun, but shewas also in Witness and The Accused.
So they're the couple in this movie.
So he quickly takes up with her andshe has an illegitimate baby, which
(21:48):
was like an enormous deal at the time
.So first he must prove himself to her father and her three brothers.
He does so first by joining them ona bear hunt and then by designing
a clock tower for the small.
Community trouble comes when it isrevealed that the baby's father is the
demented son of a mean clan across theriver and they want revenge for his death.
(22:14):
There's a lot of people in thisbecause so this is like a dueling
families story a little bit.
Sort of the backdrop in like Appalachiaduring the depression, right?
So that's kind of the stage that we'rein and each clan has several brothers.
So, it kind of gets confusing, Ithink Lloyd Bridges is also in this.
(22:36):
He plays Collie's father, William Wright.
So we have the Wrights,which is Collie's clan.
Collie, yes, Collie isspelled like the dog, Collie.
I've never, I've never heardthat before, but I like it.
There's actually, actually to thatpoint, the names in this are wild.
(22:57):
Okay, so we have Wayland, Collie,William is normal, but so Lloyd Bridges
plays William, and we talked about himin the North Eye, actually, because
I did that solo as well, talked abouthim in the North and South episode
because he played Jefferson Davis.
(23:18):
And I don't know if I, I mean,I knew he was like Hollywood
royalty, but when I looked him up,his credits go back to the 1930s.
I don't think I realized that.
It's Lloyd Bridges.
And then Drury Campbell.
He is the patriarch of the Campbell clan.
(23:40):
They're like across the river.
Drury.
D R U R Y.
He is played by Mitchell Ryan, and wetalked about him in Uncommon Valor as
well, because he played Chief Tom Riordan.
He is a familiar face andhe's in a ton of things.
(24:02):
You definitely know him.
He has that.
Despite him playing in this, notnecessarily like a regal person,
he is typically playing likea regal older man type role.
I'm pretty sure he played Greg'sdad in Dharma and Greg, and he was
also the general in Lethal Weapon.
(24:24):
So that's Mitchell Ryan.
Now, Paula Jackson, Waylon'sdaughter, so he, his wife dies, and
he moves with his daughter, Paula.
She is played by Amelia Burnett,and she did not continue acting.
Like, this is it for her.
Annie Wright is played by Eileen Ryan.
(24:48):
Does anyone know Eileen Ryan?
It did not ring a bell to me, butshe is Sean and Chris Penn's mom.
So there you have it.
Now we have another brother,another Wright brother.
(25:08):
So we have William as the dad, Collie,daughter, and then here are the brothers.
Gudger?
Yes.
Like, the names are wild.
G U D G E R, he's, he'splayed by Lanny Flaherty.
I don't know if I'mpronouncing that right.
Sounds very Irish.
(25:29):
Not well known, but his parts tendedto be, like, always sort of that just
disheveled looking old timey outlaw type.
Sort of what, what he usually plays.
Another brother, his name is Young.
Like he's young right at first.
I thought they were like just sayinglike the young right boy, but no his name
(25:52):
is young and He's played by Don MichaelPaul who played Craig Bodie on Models
Inc if anybody remembers that show fromthe 90s And he also directs a lot of
small budget straight to video moviesor straight to streaming, I guess now.
And then Milton, right?
(26:14):
Yet another brother isplayed by David Dwyer.
And this is actuallyhis first movie credit.
But he also played the sheriff in TheHighwaymen and a prison guard in the Firm.
And recently, if anybodyhas seen the movie Hillbilly
Elegy, he plays Uncle Arch.
Or Uncle Archie.
(26:36):
That's who David Dwyer is.
Now, the Campbells.
Now here are the three Campbell brothers.
The other clan.
See, I don't know whythere's so many brothers.
It's hard to keep everyone straight.
So Cole Campbell is, spoileralert, he's the baby's father.
(27:00):
The illegitimate baby's fatherfrom the clan across the river.
So it's like very risque.
Cole Campbell is played by JeffreyMeek, and he is a little bit familiar.
He had a really long run onAs the World Turns, as Craig
(27:22):
Montgomery, that's who he played.
He also played Remo Williams in theTV movie, Remo Williams, The Prophecy.
And he was also in theMortal Kombat, Conquest.
TV series did not watch that.
But if anyone did, he will be familiar.
Now we have Skeet in addition.
So Cole and Skeet.
(27:44):
Skeet is played by BillGribble, who's not well known.
And then the third brother is Harmon.
So we have Drury as the father,Cole, Skeet, and Harmon, Campbell.
Harmon is played by Wallace Merk, and heis not well known, but since we brought up
(28:04):
that one of the writers, Carol Sobieski,is known for writing fried green tomatoes.
Wallace Merck is also inthat movie in a bit role.
He plays a KKK guy.
So isn't that lovely?
All right, so that's our cast ofcharacters It seems like a lot and I
I guess I got a kick out of the namesmore so than their characters because
(28:24):
they didn't really Do a whole lot
The music I wasn't familiar with thename John Scott It's good music,
and it's very fitting for the setting.
And he is an English composer and musicconductor who's collaborated with a ton
of well known directors including MarkDamon, Richard Donner, Charlton Heston,
(28:46):
Mike Hodges, Hugh Hudson, Norman Jewison,Urban Kirschner, and Roger Spottiswood.
We talked about him too in what did he do?
The best of times, I think.
Now I could not find what thebudget for this movie was.
AI tells me it was 500,000 really low, right?
(29:07):
I don't know if that's accurateor not, but it would track
based on the box office.
It only made 2 million.
So there's that.
Not available to stream, as I said,so it's kind of annoying to cover.
Thus I'm doing it solo again.
Okay.
There is a whole situationaround Wayland played by Kurt.
(29:32):
He comes to town.
He's a clockmaker.
So he, everyone's commenting on,like, he doesn't have calloused hands.
He has nice hands and thatthey think that's, you know,
for this area, a little odd.
So he is Talking with Kali's fatherand brothers about the idea of building
(29:52):
a clock tower in the town center.
While this conversation is happening,Kali makes a suggestion about
it, but she quickly apologizes.
And at first I was like, what,what did I miss something?
But then no, no gasp.
She apologized because women certainlyshould not have nor express ideas.
(30:17):
Silly rabbit.
1 of them though is super jazzedabout the idea and he's like, oh, and
it can have a bear coming out of it.
Like, I don't know if that wasa big thing back then they have,
like, instead of a cuckoo clock.
This is like, a big town squareclock tower, but a bear kind of.
Comes out of it and rings the bell.
(30:39):
So that's what they're talking about.
So they need to go on a bearhunt and , kill a bear to put
in , this tower, apparently, andthey try to convince Wayland, Kurt
they try to convincehim he's not into it.
He's a clockmaker.
And plus his daughter's like,it's not cool to kill animals.
(30:59):
So they try to convince him that, yougot to be a real man and only real men,
I don't know, march into an animal'shabitat while he's minding his own goddamn
business and kill it for no reason.
So this is pleasing to his daughter'sears, but he's like, no, thanks.
I'm, I'm not curious about that.
Like, I don't need to killsomething to feel like a man.
And so.
(31:19):
His daughter's right.
It's dumb.
And she's a smart kid, but what's whatdoesn't make sense is then the next scene.
I feel like there was some editingissues or something, or the
story just was cobbled together.
Oddly, because the next scene is.
He goes, he's like all happy and they'regetting ready to go and Collie and the
daughter, 'cause they're staying withCollie at her house and with the baby, or
(31:44):
like in the, not in the house, but there'slike a, I don't wanna say an outhouse,
but it's like an outbuilding, like a shedof sorts that they're kind of staying in.
So it's, you know, it's on the up and up.
But of course they fall inlove, but, so they're apparently
the, these hunting trips.
Take a very long time becausethey're all gearing up and getting
(32:04):
ready and they're all excited.
And so there's a scene where they'reputting things in trucks and there's
all the hunting dogs are around.
One of the brother's dogs isapparently really mean and
he's, he's super proud of that.
And then he gets into afight with the other dogs and
apparently that's hilarious.
I don't understand howthis is supposed to work.
(32:26):
Like, how are they supposed to dotheir quote unquote hunting job?
Anyway, I just, not for me.
I don't like those kind of things.
It's not funny.
But I, I get it.
It's a movie.
I get it.
But it's like, are wesupposed to like these people?
Because I don't.
They're laughing at the dog beingmean and fighting the other dogs.
They're making fun of their sister,to the man who's courting her.
(32:51):
And they're making fun of her to him,like, basically calling her a huge
slut because she has a bastard baby.
I don't know.
It was weird.
I was not endeared to these brothers.
And then, Wayland, somehow, there's awhole sequence of They attack the bear,
(33:12):
so then the bear, the bear obviouslyis trying to defend itself and young.
1 of the brothers is in danger.
And so Wayland ends up being kind of theheroic 1 jumps on the bears back and it's
like, just with a knife going to kill it.
And then Greg shoots it.
And then they proceed to argueabout who gets credit for the kill.
(33:37):
So , they get their bear.
They kill their bear.
This will come back into place later.
So hold on to the factthat they get their bear.
And the purpose of this bear hunt was thatthey needed a bear for this clock tower.
Okay, let's remember that there'sadditional, I thought, extremely heavy
handed foreshadowing, like several times.
(33:58):
Kurt slash Wayland is being warned,you know, about, oh, you know,
you better stay away from Kali.
There's a lot of that.
So we see it coming froma bazillion miles away.
What's what's going to happen.
So Cole Campbell, the youngest ofthe Campbell brothers from again,
apparently feuding families.
We don't ever see anythinglike no, even a little bit of a
(34:23):
backstory about why they feud.
It's just they're a feudingfamily from across the river.
And so that's why they can't be together.
So Cole is the baby's father.
The reason that he's not a partof the baby's life or that they
couldn't get married is becauseof this feuding family situation.
(34:44):
Apparently it was again.
I found this a little bit off because.
I'm not sure how to describe it, butsomething just felt really off, either
about the writing or the editing.
Now, I've not read the book, so Idon't know if it is a better portrayal.
But the whole Cole and Collie thing,I don't know, it was weird because,
(35:10):
so Cole, apparently, the reasonthat they even know each other.
Is because Cole wasfriends with Young, right?
Young, as in Colly's brother,Young but the Campbells have no
knowledge of said friendship at all.
So there's that.
And then Colly, when she'stelling Weyland About the baby's
(35:37):
father and how that happened,
she indicates, I thought unless I gotit completely wrong, but the way that
she's telling him about it is thatit was not a consensual situation.
But
then, and so, okay, that tracks.
Okay.
And we see Cole being kind of ashithead, not kind of a major shithead.
(36:01):
He's really got his, angeris a bit out of hand.
We see him being violent towards Kali.
We see her he even like later inthe movie attempts to rape her.
So we don't see them and she'slike hesitant to kiss him or, or be
near, like, she seems afraid of him.
(36:22):
But then she also says in another scene,in more than one scene, I think, that they
actually really did want to be together,but it was the family dynamic that they,
they couldn't and that she loved him.
So, I don't know.
I'm, I'm not really sure what Iam supposed to think, or maybe
(36:43):
I'm supposed to have, you know,mixed emotions about it, perhaps.
I don't know, but Cole ends up deadand, his dead body does arrive at
Collie's house because his horseknows the way to Collie's house.
Everyone comes there to view the bodyand to mourn him, after he's already
(37:05):
in a coffin and everything, whichseemed odd to me, like, why wouldn't
he be at his own home, especially giventhe rift between the families, like
they couldn't have moved the coffinto Cole's house across the river.
I don't know.
That seemed odd to me.
But you'd think now would be a great time.
(37:25):
To maybe have the police called.
This dude ends up dead.
People are suspicious of how thathappened, but no, no, no, no, no.
This is not the type of people northe time to call, call in the law.
No, no, this is a vengeful people.
This is a eye for an eye typepeople, a life for a lifestyle
(37:46):
revenge that never ends.
Right.
You kill my person, I kill your personand on and on and on and on and on.
Right?
There's a famous saying about that, right?
An eye for an eye leavesthe whole world blind.
Something like that.
Okay.
Well, what to do about this revengesituation, because obviously the
(38:08):
Campbell's either think that.
Kurt Russell's character Waylandwas responsible for the death
or one of Collie's brothers.
Right?
So they're having this discussionand she's going to lose the love
of her life because he decides thathe'll take the blame and leave town.
(38:29):
And he thinks that that will kind ofsolve the problem if they think he did
it, but now he's nowhere to be found.
They can't kill him.
End of story, but healso has the daughter.
So, what's going to happen?
Is the daughter going to stay with Collie?
What's the situation?
I don't really know, but the nextscene is we see this dramatic scene
(38:50):
where Collie with the baby is likein cold winter time crossing the
river to go to the Campbell household.
And she wants to make a deal withthe patriarch Drury that she sort
of asks, like, Does a life fora life have to be a life lost?
(39:12):
You see where she's going with this.
This is your son's child.
I am now willing to givehim to you to raise.
Therefore, it's an even trade, alife for a life, quote unquote.
So she makes this deal, right?
And obviously, she now goesinto a deep depression.
(39:34):
Wayland stays by her side.
I'm not sure how long thislasts, but time passes.
He makes her a musical clock and theyare actually engaged to be married.
And so he's, he's trying toget her out of this depression.
He goes to the Campbell's encampment andtries to ask them like on a human level.
(39:59):
Hey, in the springtime at Easter,Colleen and I are going to get married.
Would you please at least bring babyJonathan to the wedding so she can
see him one last time or, or whatnot.
, This is not well received andthey sort of shoo him out of camp.
(40:19):
So he's like, assumingthat the answer is no.
Then, you know, it's springtimeand it's now a combo ceremony.
We have the wedding ceremony combinedwith the unveiling of the clock
tower in the town square, right?
Well, what do you know?
(40:41):
Somebody's coming along on thehorse with a baby and Drury does in
fact bring the baby to the wedding.
, gives him to Collie and she'sholding him and crying and the end.
So at first I thought Kurt asks himto bring the baby to the wedding.
(41:06):
And he thought about it and was like,I'll be a human and at least, you know,
bring the baby to his mother's wedding.
But then I thought, well, maybewe're meant to believe that this
is like a major act of kindnessand that their feud is over because
(41:28):
does he actually give back the baby?
He decides.
It's not fair.
He's being a good, a good person.
The bigger man, shall we say.
So, I don't know.
What do you guys think?
Do you think that he's being the biggerman, giving the baby back to her?
Or is he just bringing thebaby to attend the wedding?
What do you think?
Also, don't forget aboutthe bear in the clock tower.
(41:53):
The bear that comes out to ring thebell in the clock tower is not actually
the stuffed bear that they killed.
It's just like a, I don'tknow, a figurine of a bear.
So I don't know, I wasreally let down by that.
What was the whole point of the bear hunt?
Why'd you kill that bear?
Okay, there's really not very muchtrivia about Winter People, you guys,
(42:14):
again, I had never even heard of thismovie to be honest with you until
I started doing the season of theUltimate Everyman on Kurt and Patrick.
So I really do want to hear from youguys on socials or email or what have
you, if you've seen this or have youread the book, please let me know.
The only trivia I could find isthat this is actually the first film
(42:35):
produced by Castle Rock Entertainmentand that this movie was filmed
on the Toe River in Speer, Ohio.
Which is Avery County, North Carolina,and the current, apparently, I don't
know how true this is, the currentresidents still talk about meeting
Kurt Russell and Kelly McGillis.
(42:58):
And they especially remember how kindGoldie Hawn was to the local residents.
I would like to, I wouldlike to think that's true.
All right, you guys, whileI really am intrigued by old
timey Appalachian stories.
I definitely don't want tolive in its depression era.
(43:18):
So I'm happy to return to present dayreality until next time, be kind, rewind.
Hello.
Hello.
I'm Katie and welcome to RetroMade, your pop culture rewind.
We are going to go back to Aprilof 1989 for the 35th anniversary
of the release of Winter People.
Since this is a little lesser knownKurt Russell movie and it's not
super readily available to stream,I'm going to go solo today, so
(00:53):
hopefully that's okay with you all.
But I do want to Sincerely, thank you allfor listening, going along this journey
so far with me before we get into thetime capsule just remember, you can
keep in touch with me also by sendingan email to retromadepodcast at gmail.
com.
I'm going to read a listeneremail here in a little bit.
So you can be like, so,oh, also the Facebook page.
(01:17):
There's other nostalgia.
Keep up with what's going on over there.
And as always, I do reallyappreciate ratings and reviews.
If you can spare a couple of minutes.
If you're new to the show, welcome.
I cover retro movies and the TV musicand other pop culture of the time.
(01:40):
So in terms of listener emailsthis one's long overdue.
So this is from Zoe Richardson and heis from Backlook Cinema, the podcast.
I've guested on that.
He's guested on this show as well.
And he always has very well thought out.
Emails, and I just haven't had achance to read this 1 on the show yet.
(02:03):
It's actually in reference to theepisode that I did with Jamie and
Milo covering the remake of roadhouse.
The 1 with the 2024 1with Jake Gyllenhaal.
So, if you have not listened to thatepisode, be sure to market to go back
to, or go listen to that and come back.
(02:24):
Be sure to listen to this one as well.
And if you recall, we didn't love it.
I'll just say that.
So I'm synthesizing down alittle bit, trying to catch
the main points of Zoe's email.
It was a lovely email.
So thanks again, Zoe, for that.
But I'm not going to read the whole thing.
So he says, so I heard your reviewof Roadhouse and I assume you've
(02:45):
seen my video and I take it thatyou didn't like it that much.
So yes, Zoe did see.
Your video and you guys go checkout those response to the movie.
He continues.
He says, honestly, I'm a littlesurprised and not surprised at all.
I'm sure that, you know,my feelings about it.
I thought that it was pretty good.
I was immensely entertained , inspite of some of its flaws.
(03:08):
I think that some of the things thatyou guys hated about the film were
the things that I loved about it.
Now, I'm not going to try and convince youas to why you should like it rather here.
We have an opportunity as towhy we see the film differently.
So, he goes on to talk about remakesin general, the fact that me and
my guests didn't even really want.
(03:29):
We didn't want this movie.
Therefore, he didn't think thatwe were as open minded as maybe
we could have been, which is fair.
I will just reiterate that I am a bigfan of Jake Gyllenhaal and I tried,
or at least I told myself that I wasgoing to be open minded because of that.
I thought if, if it could be good,It could be good because of Jake.
(03:51):
Let's see.
He also, he just thinks that maybe wemissed some things that he really enjoyed
like, not realizing certain things.
And I don't know if maybe, maybesome of us did and some of us didn't.
I just think we didn't, I don't knowif it's that we missed those things.
I think it's that we caughtthem, but we didn't, still didn't
(04:11):
like it or that it just didn't.
It just felt very disjointed.
So then there's a point at which someof the flaws in the remake, that
we attributed as it's flaws elementsof the remake that were in the
original, like, he says, you notedthat this town was full of bad guys.
(04:32):
Yeah, so is the remake.
Like Dalton seemed invincible, but hewas kind of invincible in the original,
and this is a trope in action movies.
A friend of mine would call itan invincible white man trope.
Admittedly, they really went pastthe limit with Dalton's invincibility
in the remake, but it wasn'tenough to derail my enjoyment.
Speaking of enjoyment, Imentioned that there were things
(04:54):
that I loved that you hated.
I loved the fight scenes.
I didn't even know thatsome of it was CGI.
I totally bought into the scenes.
I guess in this case,your mileage will vary.
Some people were able todiscern CGI and others couldn't.
I never stopped to think about it.
Now this I'm begging for you guys.
(05:15):
To write in I, that was my biggest beef.
I'll just say that was mybiggest beef with the movie.
There was no stakes init for me because it was.
Basically, a Marvel movie, like,it was a cartoon didn't seem real.
And that was 1 of the thingsthat we loved about the original.
It had excellent real fight sequences.
So I'll just reiterate that.
(05:36):
I, yes, I hated the CGI fights.
It took me completely out ofit, but I realized that I'm not
the only opinion that matters.
So I'd love to hear anyoneelse's thoughts on this.
Also.
So Zoe goes on with a few otherexamples, you know, about.
Dalton's character beinga little bit different.
(05:56):
And so in the context of so inthe original Dalton, rips out
the throat of a guy in the remake.
This is what so says.
In the remake, theycontextualized this element.
The act of killing someone andwrapped the whole movie around it.
Instead of a random stranger,it was Dalton's friend.
Instead of a purposeful act,it was done by accident.
(06:16):
This is a man suffering with PTSDand is struggling to cope with it.
He doesn't know how to get close to peopleagain, and so we don't get the sex scene
and we don't get the rom com ending.
Both elements that we broughtup, though, says by the end of
the movie, he's still struggling,but perhaps handling it better.
There was something about him gettingon the bus at the end that I really
liked this aspect of the character.
(06:37):
That is his struggles with his guilt andanguish felt more real and accessible to
me than a guy with a degree in philosophywho chooses to work as a bouncer.
Good point.
So good point.
But it was the 80s.
That's what it was about.
Okay.
So says, don't get me wrong.
This roadhouse remakehad a lot of problems.
There were jumps of logicthat didn't make any sense.
(06:58):
There were scenes thatcarried on too long.
There were a lot of things thatyou pointed out that were just bad.
And I sort of agree with someof your points, but I also
was too thrilled to care.
Jake carried the fuck out of thisfilm, more than anything else,
he really made this thing work.
Before I stop typing, I want toaddress the comment, no one asked
for this, or who asked for this.
(07:20):
I'm not a fan of this sentiment, asit's contradictory and illogical.
The answer to this question orstatement is that no one asks for
anything, and you get exactly whatyou asked for, you'll hate it.
The trick is to give you something newand unexpected, yet somehow familiar,
and that's what this movie brings.
You might like it, you mighthate it, but that's the chance
that's taken in creating a thing.
(07:40):
It has very little in commonwith the original film, but
that's what makes it good.
They know the legacy of the original,so they're not trying to create an exact
duplicate of the original, rather a newstory using elements of the old one.
Thank you, Zoe.
He has other points, I'm not gonnaread all of his email, but that's Very
good points, Zoe, and I will say, Iattribute some of this to the changing
(08:06):
landscape of movies and moviegoingexperiences nowadays, but I clearly was
in the minority here because they arealready slated to make a sequel to it.
All right, you guys, letme know what you think.
Now we can open the timecapsule from April of 1989.
(08:30):
So, this is Nielsen ratings from 88 to 89.
I feel like we've covered a lot of thesebefore, but just to refresh your memory.
We have the Cosby show Roseanne, whichwas its premier season now on this.
I actually was consideringexpanding on Roseanne since it was.
It's premiere season, but I reallydon't want to rush that discussion
(08:53):
because there's a lot there.
So I'm going to save it foranother upcoming episode.
So if you like Roseanne, keeplistening, keep watching.
Also big top rated shows.
That season was a different world.
Cheers.
The Golden Girls, ofcourse, Who's the Boss?
Murder, She Wrote, EmptyNest, and Anything But Love.
And yes, that does sound familiar.
I think we've covered anything butlove before, because I recall not
(09:16):
remembering it and looking it up.
Let's see.
It stars Richard Lewis and MartyGold and Jamie Lee Curtis as
coworkers at a Chicago magazine.
It had 56 episodes, apparently.
That's kind of shockingto what four seasons.
Wow.
Don't remember it at all.
Does anyone?
So the shows that weren't necessarilyin the top, but premiered.
(09:44):
Which would make them all 35 yearsold now, good morning, miss bliss.
You guys please tell me you remember this.
It actually was let's see.
It was only a single season becauseso miss bliss is Haley mills and
it's the saved by the bell kids.
But like, in junior high school, andthen when they got into high school,
(10:05):
they swapped some characters, but.
It was on the Disney Channel originally,also kind of known to be the junior
high years of Saved by the Bell.
We also have Just the 10 ofUs premiering this season.
I'm going to have to expandon that in a future season as
well, because I adore that show.
Coach Lubbock from Growing Painswas spun off into his own TV show,
(10:30):
and that was Just the 10 of Us.
(11:14):
China Beach.
Do you guys remember China Beach?
, Empty Nest, which was the GoldenGirls spinoff, also very good.
Murphy Brown, Dirty Dancing.
Yes, I said Dirty Dancing.
So this was a super short livedseries after the success of the movie,
Dirty Dancing, of course, but thereare, is not a single cast member.
(11:37):
From the movie that's in the TV show,but Malora Hardin starred in it.
Jan from The Office, MaloraHardin, that's who she is.
Let's see.
We also have The Wonder Years,Garbage Pail Kids, and Yo MTV Raps.
And then some of the showsthat ended this season.
(11:58):
American Bandstand, Highway to Heaven,Kate and Ali, Small Wonder, Moonlighting,
Webster, and The California Raisin Show.
Interesting grouping there.
Yeah.
So that is the popular TVfrom the 88 to 89 season.
Now the specific week that winterpeople came out April 14th, 1989.
(12:24):
The songs that were big Billboardtop 10 number one song is she drives
me crazy by fine young cannibals.
The look by Roxette is number two.
Ooh, there's a lot of girlsMadonna with like a prayer
(12:45):
oh god.
I still I love this videolike a prayer Yeah, good one.
The bangles with eternal flame.
That's a goodie and Girl,you know, it's true by Millie
Vanillie is the number five song
(13:20):
Number six is Stand by REM.
Number seven is FunkyCold Medina by Tone Loke.
Now I think people probably assume orjust they have good thoughts about that
song or oh yeah that's a great song.
It's good in theory is what my opinionis because it's the most repetitive
(13:41):
song ever and if it's played at likeuh some sort of a wedding or a dance
or something it it's not fun todance to because it's so repetitive.
It's just too repetitiveand gets old real quick.
My two cents anyway.
Number eight, did notknow what the song is.
I looked it up.
Superwoman by Karen White.
Does anybody know this song?
(14:02):
It is like a sad love song.
And after watching the video,it is extremely clear that
Beyonce borrowed from this.
Very much borrowed from this for her.
If I were a boy video, it's like thesame kind of, and I love that video.
I like Beyonce's better, but at any rate,number nine is you got it by Roy Orbison.
(14:28):
And number 10 is your mama.
Don't dance by poison.
I think this is maybe one of the mostvaried genre wise top 10 we've ever had.
It's literally a little bit of everything.
Wrapped into it.
And so, you know, that'swhat the eighties was.
(14:50):
This is 1989
news and events is likemostly sporting things.
Tons of sports news.
Do you guys remember WrestleMania five?
Apparently Hulk Hogan beat RandyMacho Man Savage for the WWF
heavyweight title in April of 1989.
(15:15):
It was a certain NBA stars last game,any guesses, Kareem Abdul Jabbar
and Mike Tyson got in some trouble.
He both strikes a parking attendantwhen asked to move his car and
then separately from that gets aspeeding ticket for drag racing his
(15:40):
Lamborghini in Albany, New York.
Hillsboro disaster.
Hmm.
England.
Yeah.
Okay.
So 96 people are crushed to deathand 766 people were injured at the
Hillsboro football stadium in Sheffield,England during a semifinal between
(16:04):
Liverpool and Nottingham forest.
96 people were crushed to death.
Oh, wow.
I don't know.
I feel like I've heard ofthis, but I don't remember it.
Well, also the central park 5.
I'm sure you all have heard of them.
5 teenagers were wrongfullyconvicted and each spend between
(16:30):
6 and 12 years in prison.
For the violent rape of jogger, Triciamelee in New York City's central park and.
This is one of the most widelypublicized crimes of the 1980s.
And yes, they were wrongfully convicted.
I think one of them is inNew York, he's on the city
council or something like that.
No, I want to say George W.
(16:53):
Bush and Edward W.
Rose become joint CEOsof the Texas Rangers.
I did not know this.
And he did anyone else,
Massachusetts declaresnew kids on the block day.
And this is wild 1989, you guys,April, the World Wide Web, WWW
(17:19):
is first launched in the publicdomain by computer scientist.
Anybody knows name Tim Berners Lee.
I did not know that.
A couple of famousweddings happened in April.
Jon Bon Jovi weds his high schoolsweetheart, Dorothea Hurley,
(17:40):
at Graceland Chapel in Vegas.
Also, actor and comedian RobinWilliams weds nanny Marsha Garces
at a private ceremony in Lake Tahoe.
We have a couple of deaths, though.
American boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson.
Now, I don't Okay, I don't knowwhat the deal is in boxing,
(18:04):
why everybody is named Sugar
and Sugar Ray.
Like, every Like, there's a SugarShane, there's a couple Sugar Rays.
What's the story with the sugar?
Boxing.
Does anyone know Anyway, I don'tthink I knew Sugar Ray Robinson,
but he was the World Welterweightchampion from 1946 to 1951.
(18:25):
He was the middleweight champion from51 to 52, also in 55 and 58, and he
dies of Alzheimer's disease at age67, and that was in April of 1989.
Lucille Ball died.
Of a heart attack at age 77 andSergio Leone, the Italian director
(18:49):
who invented spaghetti westerns.
For example, the man with noname trilogy, he died of a heart
attack also, but he was only 60.
All right, let's move past the sadnesswith other big movie releases of the time.
Field of Dreams.
(19:10):
Pet Cemetery, Major League, K9, The Dream Team, Say Anything,
She's Out of Control, and Cyborg.
I don't realize.
I sort of thought Cyborg was not ahit, but it must have been pretty big.
It was one of the biggermovies in April anyway.
(19:30):
Hmm.
All right.
Well, without further ado,let's get into the movie.
Winter People released April 14th, 1989.
It was PG and I, so it has a 6.
(19:53):
2 out of 10 on IMDb, which is actuallykind of high, I think, considering.
It did not do well with critics and Ijust feel like no one talks about this.
I don't really know anyonewho's seen this movie.
So you guys will have to let me know.
The director is well known.
(20:13):
We actually just talked about himbecause he directed Uncommon Valor with
our other everyman, Patrick Swayze.
He also directed First Bloodand Weekend at Bernie's.
Ted Kochef.
Hmm.
Interesting.
So this was based on a bookby John Ellie or E H L E.
(20:39):
Not entirely sure how to pronounce that.
Apologies.
It was a novel of written in 1982that this film was based on and the
other writer was Carol Sobieski.
And she's known for tons of TV movies.
Also a couple of fantastic movies, friedgreen tomatoes and Annie from 1982.
(21:02):
I'm going to have to find a way tocover that because I love that movie.
Anyone else?
Okay.
So our Everyman KurtRussell stars in this.
He plays Wayland Jackson.
So he is a young widower who moveswith his daughter into a North
Carolina mountain town in 1934.
So this is the depression.
(21:25):
He quickly takes up with a youngwoman played by Kelly McGillis.
She plays Colly Wright.
You guys know her from Top Gun, but shewas also in Witness and The Accused.
So they're the couple in this movie.
So he quickly takes up with her andshe has an illegitimate baby, which
(21:48):
was like an enormous deal at the time
.So first he must prove himself to her father and her three brothers.
He does so first by joining them ona bear hunt and then by designing
a clock tower for the small.
Community trouble comes when it isrevealed that the baby's father is the
demented son of a mean clan across theriver and they want revenge for his death.
(22:14):
There's a lot of people in thisbecause so this is like a dueling
families story a little bit.
Sort of the backdrop in like Appalachiaduring the depression, right?
So that's kind of the stage that we'rein and each clan has several brothers.
So, it kind of gets confusing, Ithink Lloyd Bridges is also in this.
(22:36):
He plays Collie's father, William Wright.
So we have the Wrights,which is Collie's clan.
Collie, yes, Collie isspelled like the dog, Collie.
I've never, I've never heardthat before, but I like it.
There's actually, actually to thatpoint, the names in this are wild.
(22:57):
Okay, so we have Wayland, Collie,William is normal, but so Lloyd Bridges
plays William, and we talked about himin the North Eye, actually, because
I did that solo as well, talked abouthim in the North and South episode
because he played Jefferson Davis.
(23:18):
And I don't know if I, I mean,I knew he was like Hollywood
royalty, but when I looked him up,his credits go back to the 1930s.
I don't think I realized that.
It's Lloyd Bridges.
And then Drury Campbell.
He is the patriarch of the Campbell clan.
(23:40):
They're like across the river.
Drury.
D R U R Y.
He is played by Mitchell Ryan, and wetalked about him in Uncommon Valor as
well, because he played Chief Tom Riordan.
He is a familiar face andhe's in a ton of things.
(24:02):
You definitely know him.
He has that.
Despite him playing in this, notnecessarily like a regal person,
he is typically playing likea regal older man type role.
I'm pretty sure he played Greg'sdad in Dharma and Greg, and he was
also the general in Lethal Weapon.
(24:24):
So that's Mitchell Ryan.
Now, Paula Jackson, Waylon'sdaughter, so he, his wife dies, and
he moves with his daughter, Paula.
She is played by Amelia Burnett,and she did not continue acting.
Like, this is it for her.
Annie Wright is played by Eileen Ryan.
(24:48):
Does anyone know Eileen Ryan?
It did not ring a bell to me, butshe is Sean and Chris Penn's mom.
So there you have it.
Now we have another brother,another Wright brother.
(25:08):
So we have William as the dad, Collie,daughter, and then here are the brothers.
Gudger?
Yes.
Like, the names are wild.
G U D G E R, he's, he'splayed by Lanny Flaherty.
I don't know if I'mpronouncing that right.
Sounds very Irish.
(25:29):
Not well known, but his parts tendedto be, like, always sort of that just
disheveled looking old timey outlaw type.
Sort of what, what he usually plays.
Another brother, his name is Young.
Like he's young right at first.
I thought they were like just sayinglike the young right boy, but no his name
(25:52):
is young and He's played by Don MichaelPaul who played Craig Bodie on Models
Inc if anybody remembers that show fromthe 90s And he also directs a lot of
small budget straight to video moviesor straight to streaming, I guess now.
And then Milton, right?
(26:14):
Yet another brother isplayed by David Dwyer.
And this is actuallyhis first movie credit.
But he also played the sheriff in TheHighwaymen and a prison guard in the Firm.
And recently, if anybodyhas seen the movie Hillbilly
Elegy, he plays Uncle Arch.
Or Uncle Archie.
(26:36):
That's who David Dwyer is.
Now, the Campbells.
Now here are the three Campbell brothers.
The other clan.
See, I don't know whythere's so many brothers.
It's hard to keep everyone straight.
So Cole Campbell is, spoileralert, he's the baby's father.
(27:00):
The illegitimate baby's fatherfrom the clan across the river.
So it's like very risque.
Cole Campbell is played by JeffreyMeek, and he is a little bit familiar.
He had a really long run onAs the World Turns, as Craig
(27:22):
Montgomery, that's who he played.
He also played Remo Williams in theTV movie, Remo Williams, The Prophecy.
And he was also in theMortal Kombat, Conquest.
TV series did not watch that.
But if anyone did, he will be familiar.
Now we have Skeet in addition.
So Cole and Skeet.
(27:44):
Skeet is played by BillGribble, who's not well known.
And then the third brother is Harmon.
So we have Drury as the father,Cole, Skeet, and Harmon, Campbell.
Harmon is played by Wallace Merk, and heis not well known, but since we brought up
(28:04):
that one of the writers, Carol Sobieski,is known for writing fried green tomatoes.
Wallace Merck is also inthat movie in a bit role.
He plays a KKK guy.
So isn't that lovely?
All right, so that's our cast ofcharacters It seems like a lot and I
I guess I got a kick out of the namesmore so than their characters because
(28:24):
they didn't really Do a whole lot
The music I wasn't familiar with thename John Scott It's good music,
and it's very fitting for the setting.
And he is an English composer and musicconductor who's collaborated with a ton
of well known directors including MarkDamon, Richard Donner, Charlton Heston,
(28:46):
Mike Hodges, Hugh Hudson, Norman Jewison,Urban Kirschner, and Roger Spottiswood.
We talked about him too in what did he do?
The best of times, I think.
Now I could not find what thebudget for this movie was.
AI tells me it was 500,000 really low, right?
(29:07):
I don't know if that's accurateor not, but it would track
based on the box office.
It only made 2 million.
So there's that.
Not available to stream, as I said,so it's kind of annoying to cover.
Thus I'm doing it solo again.
Okay.
There is a whole situationaround Wayland played by Kurt.
(29:32):
He comes to town.
He's a clockmaker.
So he, everyone's commenting on,like, he doesn't have calloused hands.
He has nice hands and thatthey think that's, you know,
for this area, a little odd.
So he is Talking with Kali's fatherand brothers about the idea of building
(29:52):
a clock tower in the town center.
While this conversation is happening,Kali makes a suggestion about
it, but she quickly apologizes.
And at first I was like, what,what did I miss something?
But then no, no gasp.
She apologized because women certainlyshould not have nor express ideas.
(30:17):
Silly rabbit.
1 of them though is super jazzedabout the idea and he's like, oh, and
it can have a bear coming out of it.
Like, I don't know if that wasa big thing back then they have,
like, instead of a cuckoo clock.
This is like, a big town squareclock tower, but a bear kind of.
Comes out of it and rings the bell.
(30:39):
So that's what they're talking about.
So they need to go on a bearhunt and , kill a bear to put
in , this tower, apparently, andthey try to convince Wayland, Kurt
they try to convincehim he's not into it.
He's a clockmaker.
And plus his daughter's like,it's not cool to kill animals.
(30:59):
So they try to convince him that, yougot to be a real man and only real men,
I don't know, march into an animal'shabitat while he's minding his own goddamn
business and kill it for no reason.
So this is pleasing to his daughter'sears, but he's like, no, thanks.
I'm, I'm not curious about that.
Like, I don't need to killsomething to feel like a man.
And so.
(31:19):
His daughter's right.
It's dumb.
And she's a smart kid, but what's whatdoesn't make sense is then the next scene.
I feel like there was some editingissues or something, or the
story just was cobbled together.
Oddly, because the next scene is.
He goes, he's like all happy and they'regetting ready to go and Collie and the
daughter, 'cause they're staying withCollie at her house and with the baby, or
(31:44):
like in the, not in the house, but there'slike a, I don't wanna say an outhouse,
but it's like an outbuilding, like a shedof sorts that they're kind of staying in.
So it's, you know, it's on the up and up.
But of course they fall inlove, but, so they're apparently
the, these hunting trips.
Take a very long time becausethey're all gearing up and getting
(32:04):
ready and they're all excited.
And so there's a scene where they'reputting things in trucks and there's
all the hunting dogs are around.
One of the brother's dogs isapparently really mean and
he's, he's super proud of that.
And then he gets into afight with the other dogs and
apparently that's hilarious.
I don't understand howthis is supposed to work.
(32:26):
Like, how are they supposed to dotheir quote unquote hunting job?
Anyway, I just, not for me.
I don't like those kind of things.
It's not funny.
But I, I get it.
It's a movie.
I get it.
But it's like, are wesupposed to like these people?
Because I don't.
They're laughing at the dog beingmean and fighting the other dogs.
They're making fun of their sister,to the man who's courting her.
(32:51):
And they're making fun of her to him,like, basically calling her a huge
slut because she has a bastard baby.
I don't know.
It was weird.
I was not endeared to these brothers.
And then, Wayland, somehow, there's awhole sequence of They attack the bear,
(33:12):
so then the bear, the bear obviouslyis trying to defend itself and young.
1 of the brothers is in danger.
And so Wayland ends up being kind of theheroic 1 jumps on the bears back and it's
like, just with a knife going to kill it.
And then Greg shoots it.
And then they proceed to argueabout who gets credit for the kill.
(33:37):
So , they get their bear.
They kill their bear.
This will come back into place later.
So hold on to the factthat they get their bear.
And the purpose of this bear hunt was thatthey needed a bear for this clock tower.
Okay, let's remember that there'sadditional, I thought, extremely heavy
handed foreshadowing, like several times.
(33:58):
Kurt slash Wayland is being warned,you know, about, oh, you know,
you better stay away from Kali.
There's a lot of that.
So we see it coming froma bazillion miles away.
What's what's going to happen.
So Cole Campbell, the youngest ofthe Campbell brothers from again,
apparently feuding families.
We don't ever see anythinglike no, even a little bit of a
(34:23):
backstory about why they feud.
It's just they're a feudingfamily from across the river.
And so that's why they can't be together.
So Cole is the baby's father.
The reason that he's not a partof the baby's life or that they
couldn't get married is becauseof this feuding family situation.
(34:44):
Apparently it was again.
I found this a little bit off because.
I'm not sure how to describe it, butsomething just felt really off, either
about the writing or the editing.
Now, I've not read the book, so Idon't know if it is a better portrayal.
But the whole Cole and Collie thing,I don't know, it was weird because,
(35:10):
so Cole, apparently, the reasonthat they even know each other.
Is because Cole wasfriends with Young, right?
Young, as in Colly's brother,Young but the Campbells have no
knowledge of said friendship at all.
So there's that.
And then Colly, when she'stelling Weyland About the baby's
(35:37):
father and how that happened,
she indicates, I thought unless I gotit completely wrong, but the way that
she's telling him about it is thatit was not a consensual situation.
But
then, and so, okay, that tracks.
Okay.
And we see Cole being kind of ashithead, not kind of a major shithead.
(36:01):
He's really got his, angeris a bit out of hand.
We see him being violent towards Kali.
We see her he even like later inthe movie attempts to rape her.
So we don't see them and she'slike hesitant to kiss him or, or be
near, like, she seems afraid of him.
(36:22):
But then she also says in another scene,in more than one scene, I think, that they
actually really did want to be together,but it was the family dynamic that they,
they couldn't and that she loved him.
So, I don't know.
I'm, I'm not really sure what Iam supposed to think, or maybe
(36:43):
I'm supposed to have, you know,mixed emotions about it, perhaps.
I don't know, but Cole ends up deadand, his dead body does arrive at
Collie's house because his horseknows the way to Collie's house.
Everyone comes there to view the bodyand to mourn him, after he's already
(37:05):
in a coffin and everything, whichseemed odd to me, like, why wouldn't
he be at his own home, especially giventhe rift between the families, like
they couldn't have moved the coffinto Cole's house across the river.
I don't know.
That seemed odd to me.
But you'd think now would be a great time.
(37:25):
To maybe have the police called.
This dude ends up dead.
People are suspicious of how thathappened, but no, no, no, no, no.
This is not the type of people northe time to call, call in the law.
No, no, this is a vengeful people.
This is a eye for an eye typepeople, a life for a lifestyle
(37:46):
revenge that never ends.
Right.
You kill my person, I kill your personand on and on and on and on and on.
Right?
There's a famous saying about that, right?
An eye for an eye leavesthe whole world blind.
Something like that.
Okay.
Well, what to do about this revengesituation, because obviously the
(38:08):
Campbell's either think that.
Kurt Russell's character Waylandwas responsible for the death
or one of Collie's brothers.
Right?
So they're having this discussionand she's going to lose the love
of her life because he decides thathe'll take the blame and leave town.
(38:29):
And he thinks that that will kind ofsolve the problem if they think he did
it, but now he's nowhere to be found.
They can't kill him.
End of story, but healso has the daughter.
So, what's going to happen?
Is the daughter going to stay with Collie?
What's the situation?
I don't really know, but the nextscene is we see this dramatic scene
(38:50):
where Collie with the baby is likein cold winter time crossing the
river to go to the Campbell household.
And she wants to make a deal withthe patriarch Drury that she sort
of asks, like, Does a life fora life have to be a life lost?
(39:12):
You see where she's going with this.
This is your son's child.
I am now willing to givehim to you to raise.
Therefore, it's an even trade, alife for a life, quote unquote.
So she makes this deal, right?
And obviously, she now goesinto a deep depression.
(39:34):
Wayland stays by her side.
I'm not sure how long thislasts, but time passes.
He makes her a musical clock and theyare actually engaged to be married.
And so he's, he's trying toget her out of this depression.
He goes to the Campbell's encampment andtries to ask them like on a human level.
(39:59):
Hey, in the springtime at Easter,Colleen and I are going to get married.
Would you please at least bring babyJonathan to the wedding so she can
see him one last time or, or whatnot.
, This is not well received andthey sort of shoo him out of camp.
(40:19):
So he's like, assumingthat the answer is no.
Then, you know, it's springtimeand it's now a combo ceremony.
We have the wedding ceremony combinedwith the unveiling of the clock
tower in the town square, right?
Well, what do you know?
(40:41):
Somebody's coming along on thehorse with a baby and Drury does in
fact bring the baby to the wedding.
, gives him to Collie and she'sholding him and crying and the end.
So at first I thought Kurt asks himto bring the baby to the wedding.
(41:06):
And he thought about it and was like,I'll be a human and at least, you know,
bring the baby to his mother's wedding.
But then I thought, well, maybewe're meant to believe that this
is like a major act of kindnessand that their feud is over because
(41:28):
does he actually give back the baby?
He decides.
It's not fair.
He's being a good, a good person.
The bigger man, shall we say.
So, I don't know.
What do you guys think?
Do you think that he's being the biggerman, giving the baby back to her?
Or is he just bringing thebaby to attend the wedding?
What do you think?
Also, don't forget aboutthe bear in the clock tower.
(41:53):
The bear that comes out to ring thebell in the clock tower is not actually
the stuffed bear that they killed.
It's just like a, I don'tknow, a figurine of a bear.
So I don't know, I wasreally let down by that.
What was the whole point of the bear hunt?
Why'd you kill that bear?
Okay, there's really not very muchtrivia about Winter People, you guys,
(42:14):
again, I had never even heard of thismovie to be honest with you until
I started doing the season of theUltimate Everyman on Kurt and Patrick.
So I really do want to hear from youguys on socials or email or what have
you, if you've seen this or have youread the book, please let me know.
The only trivia I could find isthat this is actually the first film
(42:35):
produced by Castle Rock Entertainmentand that this movie was filmed
on the Toe River in Speer, Ohio.
Which is Avery County, North Carolina,and the current, apparently, I don't
know how true this is, the currentresidents still talk about meeting
Kurt Russell and Kelly McGillis.
(42:58):
And they especially remember how kindGoldie Hawn was to the local residents.
I would like to, I wouldlike to think that's true.
All right, you guys, whileI really am intrigued by old
timey Appalachian stories.
I definitely don't want tolive in its depression era.
(43:18):
So I'm happy to return to present dayreality until next time, be kind, rewind.
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