The Pink Smoke podcast

Hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg turn their attention to one of the most mysterious films from the golden age of Jean Renoir’s filmmaking career: 1932’s La Nuit du Carrefour. Despite being championed by André Bazin and described by Jean-Luc Godard as “the only great French detective film,” this film remains possibly the most obscure work produced by Renoir in the 1930’s. Adapted from a book by the punishingly prolific Belgian crime novelist Georges Simenon, the film serves as the first cinematic depiction of the author’s wildly popular Inspector Maigret - a character who appeared in 75 novels and 28 short stories in addition to innumerable films and tv adaptations. The conversation considers the strange place of the film in Renoir’s body of work, the synergy of Simenon and Renoir’s artistic sensibilities, and how to tell who will be the villain in any given Renoir film just by looking at them. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/cfunderburg John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

"She is all merciless night animal...yet with a wisdom that goes back to Egypt and beyond - and which is invaluable to me. For she is my spy on buildings, you see, my intelligencer on metropolitan megastructures. She knows their secrets and their secret weaknesses, their ponderous rhythms and dark songs. And she herself is secret as their shadows. She is my Queen of Night, Our Lady of Darkness." In two books written nearly 25 years apart, "weird fiction" guru Fritz Leiber examined how ancient witchcraft and black magic continue to prey malignantly on unsuspecting contemporary characters deeply entrenched in the rational. Whether it's faculty wives hexing a sociology professor in CONJURE WIFE or the paramental entities tormenting a writer in San Francisco in OUR LADY OF DARKNESS, Leiber sees modern life as a conduit for a "new science" of the supernatural, which we dig into with this horror-themed October episode! Our guest is Rebecca Baumann, head of public services at Lilly Library, curator of the 2018 exhibition Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life and Resurrection of Mary Shelley's Monster and avid collector of genre fiction. Baumann shares her take on these essential "weird" tales as well as details of Leiber's life that offer rare insight into his perspective on femininity. (Also on how to pronounce his name, which John gets wrong through most of the episode.) The Pink Smoke site: 
www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke For the Frankenstein 200 book: https://iupress.org/9780253039057/frankenstein-200/ Hellebore issue discussed in the episode: https://helleborezine.bigcartel.com/product/hellebore-3-the-malefice-issue The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke Rebecca Baumann on Twitter: twitter.com/arkhamlibrarian John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by filmmaker & professor Mtume Gant (Whiteface, Spit) to discuss Elem Klimov's shattering WWII phantasmagoria, Come & See. The conversation touches on the function of even the best war films as righteous propaganda, extreme cinema, the film's relationship to post-War cinema in Japan & Germany as well as Tango & Cash's deep connections to Andrei Tarkovsky. It's a surprisingly light-hearted episode about an incredibly tough film. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: 
www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: 
twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

We’re joined by screenwriter Tom Vaughan (Winchester, Unstoppable) to discuss his picks for the 10 greatest horror screenplays ever written. From consensus classics like Dan O’Bannon’s script for Alien and Joseph Stefano’s work on Psycho, to offbeat choices like the remake of The Blob, the conversation digs into what makes for brilliant writing in a genre where the art of the screenplay often gets overlooked. Vaughan breaks down Howard Hawks' maxim that a great film is "three good scenes and no bad ones," the importance of scene work, what constitutes "cheating" in a narrative, and how to breathe life into clichés, homages and remakes. An in-depth conversation about craft and how legendary films lay their foundation before the shooting starts. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke Tom Vaughan on Twitter:
 twitter.com/tomvaughan John Cribbs on Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter:
 twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

“I don’t know where that ham came from, she thought. And I’m not going to think about it. Ever.” We’re joined by writer Steven Sheil to discuss a book of his own selecting: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s The Blank Wall. Sheil is the screenwriter and director of Mum & Dad, Dead Mine and Unmade as well as the co-curator of The Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham. Holding’s “domestic noir” provided the basis for 2001’s The Deep End starring Tilda Swinton and Max Ophüls’ The Reckless Moment - it’s the story of an average housewife who finds herself wrapped up in manslaughter, blackmail & all manner of mayhem seemingly at odds with her gentle, genteel character. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke Steven Sheil on Twitter:
 twitter.com/SSheil John Cribbs on Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter:
 twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

In Part Two of our look at “James Bond in the 80's" the focus shifts to the unjustly-maligned Timothy Dalton films that wrapped up the decade. We welcome back John Arminio to discuss the real-life inspirations for The Living Daylights, why a more humorless tone was rejected by audiences with the Dalton films but celebrated in the Daniel Craig era, why it was for the best that Sam Neil wasn’t cast as 007 (despite his aces work in Reilly, Ace of Spies) and how the ultimate Cold War military icon faced the end of the Cold War. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon:
 www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

On this episode, hosts Christopher Funderburg & John Cribbs are joined by Lisi Russell to discuss her husband Ken Russell’s BBC biopic of Richard Strauss, The Dance of the Seven Veils. The controversial film, suppressed since its premiere in 1970, recently screened for the public for the first time in five decades. Russell’s angry and uncompromising film mixes a Monty Python-esque sense of satire with a harsh critique of cultural institutions across the spectrum for a depiction of Strauss that absolutely refuses to forgive the influential composer for his strained and tense collaboration with the ruling Nazi party. The conversation explores whether this is a fair portrayal of Strauss (who lost family in the holocaust), how the film may serve as an auto-critique of Russell himself, the slippery nature of campy comedy, and the ways in which an artist may take a intransigent position in their artwork as a way of exploring the most difficult aspects of an ambiguous situation. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter:
 twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter: 
twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

In this episode, we take a look at a double-bill of classic Florida pulp fiction: John D. MacDonald’s Darker Than Amber (the seventh novel in his Travis McGee series) and Charles Willeford’s Miami Blues (the first novel in his Hoke Moseley series). We’re joined by director and "Mr. Miami" Bill Teck to discuss the novels, the sense his Cuban heritage gives him of the the state’s history, the changes in crime between the 1967 publication of Amber and Blues in 1984 as well as the nuances of Floridalia ranging from Miami Dade Community College to Granny Feelgood’s to depressing top-sider bars in Fort Lauderdale. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter :
twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Cribbs on Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.

From crossbow bolt-ruined dives to detective-dispatching poison-tipped butterflies, the final run of Roger Moore as Commander James Bond was infused with the thrilling drive of 1980's action cinema. We welcome back John Arminio to tackle this transitional era of the 007 franchise: Moore's last three movies (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill) as well as the rival Bond film Never Say Never Again, starring Sean Connery and released by Warner Brothers to go head-to-head with Eon's long-running franchise. In this episode of our film-by-film examination of the entire Bond series, you'll learn the identity of Arminio's favorite henchman, the nickname of Patick Macnee's jockey father, why Kevin McClory's cash-grab of a competing Bond movie was a blessing in disguise and much more! This is Part One of "James Bond in the 80's." Part Two will deal with the Timothy Dalton-starring films that wrapped up the decade. The Pink Smoke site:
 www.thepinksmoke.com Support our Patreon: 
www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: 
twitter.com/thepinksmoke John Arminio on Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuasarSniffer John Cribbs on Twitter:
 twitter.com/TheLastMachine Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas”

Hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg welcome Flixwise: Cananda host Martin Kessler to the program to discuss the hardships of being a god, psychedelic science-fiction, translations of Faust done by pseudo-arachnids & whether the spider spinning its web in the bottom of a mug it can't escape experiences a sense of hopelessness. The only possible contexts for these subjects: Philip K. Dick. In this episode they look at one of Dick's more overlooked novels, Galactic Pot-Healer, the story of a depressed craftsman offered the chance to redeem his life by a mysterious creature known as "the Glimmung" - or "Dwight L. Glimmung" when it calls into radio shows. The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/thepinksmoke The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke Martin Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine Christopher Funderburg on Twitter: twitter.com/CFunderburg Intro & outro music by Marcus Pinn of Pinnland Empire.