Drop your shorts and bend over, Mr. Babar.
Oh, no, really, we don't need to. I. We don't
want to do that. Say, you know, my kidneys feel a lot better in this
position. Maybe it's just that I'm not doing any calisthenics. You know, if I did
some sit ups in the morning or bent over like this, I'd probably feel 100%
Moon River.
Thank you, Doc. You ever serve time? Breathe easy.
Breathe easy. You know, I was surprised that
Alan was able to get that policy. I know there's a history of cancer in
the family. There is? Yeah, as a matter of fact.
You using the whole fist, Doc? Just relax.
Yeah, I saw Alan the other day. He's looking a little peaked. I don't
know, I think he's lost weight. Are you sure he's all right? I can't discuss
another patient. You know that. Well,
I don't find anything wrong with you. Well,
sure. It's not for a lack of looking.
It's 2 Dads 1 movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged
dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Brianna.
Hello, everybody. It's another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.
And I'm Nick. And today we're talking about the Chevy Chase vehicle Tonight,
Fletch. This movie came out in 1985,
and according to recent, fairly recent interviews with Chevy
Chase, it's his favorite movie he ever made. Okay. And the dude
made a lot of movies, so certainly saying something, but he's notoriously
positive. He was probably just saying that, right? I think the funny part about it
is, like, very much in line with the ego. Egomaniacal personality
that we know Chevy Chase to have. He loves Fletch because it's the movie that
most allowed him to be him. Yeah. Yeah. And we will go through exactly
how that manifested itself in this next hour or so.
Talking to you folks about Fletch. So this was my pick.
This is a movie that I know I'd seen, just. I'm not
gonna say hundreds, that's. That's wrong. But dozens of times even, you know,
probably before high school even. This was. My parents were both big
Chevy Chase fans, especially my dad. And Fletch was a favorite movie of his.
So I think we had it on VHS. We had it on LaserDisc. It was
on TV pretty often in the late 80s. And so it was just something that
I watched a ton of times over the Years, you know, there's nothing in it
that, that a kid kind of shouldn't be, you know, exposed to necessarily.
Nothing too crazy anyway. And yeah, this was one that I watched just a ton
when I was younger and it really just stuck with me over the years.
Yeah, this is one that I definitely loved. I saw it early, my dad
was a fan of it and I think and think showed it to my brother
and I. This is also one though, in kind of recent
years it was one of those difficult finds on. It wasn't
available streaming for a long time. Like it was kind of, kind of tough to
track down for a bit. So then I became interested in that. So that kind
of renewed and I watched it again a few years ago.
But yeah, great. Like Chevy Chase in his prime, kind of doing
what he does best. I was a little surprised this was pg. Just kind
of knowing the themes of it. It's not really like a PG theme type movie
because it's about corruption and drug dealing and all this kind of stuff. But yeah,
I mean, it doesn't really have to be too dirty to accomplish that.
I think that, you know, if the PG13 rating existed at this point, so if,
if the MPA had wanted to give it, you know, a slightly higher rating than
that, I think it could. The fact of the matter is like, you know,
for the most part there's like, what, like one person actually gets shot. A lot
of people get threatened with guns and like one person gets shot, you see a
couple people get beat up. There's no nudity. I don't know that anybody even curses
that much. I really didn't notice much. Certainly not as much as in Spaceballs.
And that was Right. So, you know, I think that this was just the bar
or the, you know, the bar that was set at the time by the MPAA
was like, if you're not, you know, showing us a lot of gory bloody violence,
you're not showing us nudity and sex scenes and you're not swearing a ton.
Why, why would we call this anything but pg? Even though, as you say,
it is a very like mature themed story and setting
and very much something that like, you know, I feel like as a kid I
probably stuff either went over my head or I asked my parents, what does that
mean? What's heroin? Yeah, like, why would that cop drop that thing there?
What? Like, you know. But yeah, yeah, this. Yeah,
I like this one a lot though. I'm looking forward to having this chat here.
Very cool. Let's run into the facts on Fletch, the movie, as we've just
mentioned, rated PG. It was released on May 31, 1985. So this was like
a Memorial Day weekend gig, you know, or movie. Running time
of 98 minutes. Directed by Michael Richie, written by Andrew Bergman.
From the novel by Gregory McDonald. There was actually a series of novels about the
character Irwin M. Fletcher by Gregory McDonald, starring Chevy
Chase. I tried writing. I tried looking and think, should I say also Tim Matheson,
also Joe Don Baker? I mean, I guess I could have, but really, this is
a Chevy Chase movie. It doesn't star anyone else. Yeah.
If we're playing $20,000 Pyramid and you're looking across from me saying Tim Matheson,
I'm not going to know what you're talking about. Not going to be the one
that it goes for. Scores. Rotten Tomatoes. Huge score.
79% big, big critical success.
IMDb a 6.9. And I have a theory about this. It's quite
a bit lower, obviously, than the Ro. Tomatoes. And I bet that if we had
checked that IMDb score 10 years ago, it would be significantly higher.
7273. It's taking a hit because of what we know about Chevy
as a person. We really know now more than ever since, you know, since I
think the show Community aired and the folks from that show have been open
about talking about working with Chase. He is a complete piece of shit. And it
is real hard to root for Chevy Chase knowing what we know about him as
a person. So I have a feeling some of the IMDb rating being at 6.9
came more recently. I don't know that for sure. That's just a theory. Yeah.
No award wins, no. No notable nominations for it.
A budget of just $8 million, you know, which. Yeah. There's nothing really in
this movie other than some location shooting that should have cost all that much money.
It's like one reasonably good car chase. Right? I don't know. You know, that would
be. That's probably. I think, like probably a quarter of the budget went to that
car chase on the freeway. But it took in almost $60 million
at the box office. Seven and a half times what it cost. So a huge
success, a huge hit for Chevy Chase. In the prime of.
This is just 10 years after he was on SNL and, you know, had done
a ton of great movies at this point and would do more, but this was.
This was like a really. A big height for him. Oh, yeah. In his career.
How do we start off here? How do we meet Fletch? Well, I Think that
we got to start off even before we meet Fletch and point out that I
think, in my opinion, this movie has the most underrated
song made for the movie of the 80s.
Got a star there. Yeah, seriously. It's called Bit by
Bit. I don't remember the artist's name. It shows up a few times in the
movie. Yeah, Fantastic theme. And then I noticed a name pop up as we're watching
the opening credits. The opening credits start just white text on black as the song
plays. We don't get anything else. We just get some credits, obviously, Chevy Chase and
so forth and so on. All these people. But one name popped up and I
had to look it up because it said music by Harold Faltermeier. And I was
like, God, that name sounds familiar. Harold Faltermeier. So I looked it up
and this becomes very clear if you listen to the movie as
there's a. There's the theme song, Bit by Bit that mentions Fletch in the lyrics.
There is a theme, an instrumental score theme that
repeats over and over again and bears a striking resemblance to
Beverly Hills Cop. And as it turns out, Harold Faltamar. The reason I know his
name is that in, you know, 1999 on Napster, I downloaded
the Axel F theme from Beverly Hills and he was attributed as the artist.
All right. He scored. Not only did he score Fletch,
but Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop 2, but also the Running man and Tango
and Cash. This guy had a run in the late 80s of just being the
synth oriented music composer for movies. If that was the look you
were. The sound you were going for in the late 80s, you called Harold Harold.
The man with the golden synth. Now, since then, I believe, I'm just guessing
based on his IMDb numbers, he looks maybe of German nationality because a lot of
the stuff he's done since has been German language work and music videos.
And he goes where the synth goes, right? I guess that must be it,
you know, because the Germans love David Hasselhoff. And I think that's. Maybe Harold Faltamar
falls into the same category. But yeah, so, so fantastic music to
start off, right. We get this great song, we get intro to the character through
the music. I will say before so before it even
starts, I wrote this down. One thing we. I would have loved an
animated Fletch intro. Sort of a Christmas vacation style.
Like the way that so many movies of that era had a bit of an
animation at the beginning. I thought that might have been fun. That fun. But we
didn't know who Fletch was yet? So he wasn't like. Yeah. So we, we meet
Fletch on the beach and he introduces himself. His name is Irwin Fletcher. He goes
by Fletch. He writes a. An investigative column in the.
He says in a, in an LA paper. They don't name the paper. Let's just
figure it's probably the LA Times under the name Jane Doe, which I think is,
is, is clever. Right. And he is investigating drug running on
the beaches of la. These beaches look way more
up than the ones in Point Break. So in just a few years, the LA
beaches would clean up at least a little. It would appear they had to build
those. Exactly. So. But yeah,
so he's there and the. One of the first people that he runs into,
obviously somebody he knows and that we see him talk to, is Fat Sam,
played by the very recently late George. Went.
George. RIP George. As we're recording this, George went past just yesterday
and that's a super bummer. But he is in this movie as Fat Sam the
drug dealer sitting on the beach. He sits there, he doesn't have shit. He gets
up, he has shit. Where's it come from? Sand, as Creasy tells us, seems unlikely,
though. Yeah. Fletch, I think it's in his voiceover
at the beginning when he's talking about, you know, I'm trying
to. Looking at the drug dealing. I've been trying to find out who's behind it.
I don't shower much. Yeah. So I want to mention this. The first. I'm going
to mention this because. Or this is the first example of it, I think.
So the way this movie was made is the director,
Michael Richie and the screenwriter Andrew Bergman were on set. Obviously the director's on set,
but the screenwriters on set as well. And every time, the way they would do
this is where they would go, okay, Chevy, we're going to shoot this scene first
time through. You just do it as written. After that, if you want to.
If you want to ad lib some stuff, let's do that. Right. So Chase would
do every single one of these conversations with people multiple times.
And most. If you are hearing him say a line that
is funny but also feels like it's kind of absurd or
just a crazy thing to say. Chevy Chase ad libbed that almost every
time. And so one of the first ones is, yeah, I don't shower much.
That was not in the screenplay. Very quickly after he
meets. So like, let's keep going into the plot. But basically he talks to
Fat Sam he doesn't have anything, just no drugs to sell him. He meets with
his buddy Creasy Chris, one of the other sort of druggies on the beach,
and he says, hey, he's got nothing. Do you know where it comes from?
So he's trying to figure out where it comes from. Right. As he goes off
to wander, I'm guessing home, he's underneath, like the boardwalk or something, and he's stopped
by a man in a suit played by Tim Matheson. This is Alan Stanwyck.
This is our first, you know, involvement with Alan Stanwyck. And basically Alan says,
I need you to come. I need to talk to you. You basically. And I'll
give you $1,000 to come talk to me. And the exchange back and
forth between them contains several of these sort of little Chevy Chase ad
libs of like, you know, like, you got the wrong gal or something like that.
You know, it's like. And. And it's a very kind of funny little exchange between
them. But. But Stanwick does convince Fletch to come with him.
Yeah. And Stanwick, what, he's going to pay him a
thousand dollars to come to his house to have an additional conversation. Right.
And. And Fletch's commentary throughout that he gets to Stanwick's
house, which is obviously this, like, really fancy place, and he's,
oh, what a coincidence. I came this close to buying this place.
One thing that was funny, they're walking in the living room past the
fireplace, which on the mantle has various framed. It's like a wedding photo
and diplomas. And Fletch just looks at that. He says, oh,
that's a good idea. I had to frame mine. Yeah, there's a couple more even
just in between those two things you just mentioned. He goes, oh, came this close
to buying this place until I heard Hopalong Cassidy killed himself here. Yeah, bow and
arrow. Very weird. So that was one of the. And then when they first walk
into that study or whatever with the framed, he goes, oh, I love.
I see you've renovated the garage. And it's just like these little throwaway lines
and they're all. Again, they're almost all of those just Chase doing those.
That's good to know. He did a hell of a job with that. Absolutely.
He's just incredibly quick witted. And I always thought,
well, they made the character quick witted, but really, it's obviously this was Chase really
firing on all cylinders and being allowed to sort of just do his thing and.
Yeah, it's super good. I will mention too, because we aren't going
to get too far into the plot before we, like, point out some of these
things that happen. Stanwyck asks his name, and he tells him his
name is Ted Nugent. Yes. So I don't know if you did this, but I
wrote down all the names. Oh, we gotta see if our lists match up here.
All right, so in order, I have Ted Nugent. Okay.
Should we alternate? Yeah, go ahead. Arnold Babar. Yes. Dr.
Rosenpenis. Dr. Rosen. Rosen. Dr. Rosen. John Coct.
Right. Mr. Poon. He just says frida's boss at
that point. I didn't write down Frida's boss. That's fair. I didn't write that one
down. I did write it, but Igor Stravinsky. Yes. Right. And then I think he
says, Fletch. F. Fletch, that's right. Yep. And then Gordon Liddy. And then
another one. No name, but he says he's the smog patrol. Okay, Right. And then
Don Corleone. Don Corleone. And then one of the best ones,
Harry S. Truman, even says to the. Guy, like, my parents were big
fans, big fans of the President. I just love the idea that just
you can create the first and last name of your kid. You can sure
change. And little things, too. Like when he. When he does use the Don Corleone
alias, he talks about his sons, Mike. And Freddie or something, he references the Godfather,
for sure. And then the other two I had down were just Jane Doe,
which is his room. And then he introduces himself as Alan Stanwyck at a
certain point. Oh, fair enough. Okay. That's really funny that you. I.
And I did this kind of thinking, like, I don't contribute much to this podcast.
I'm going to do this. And then here you are with the list and better
handwriting with more comprehensive. Sorry.
So. So back at Stanwyck's house, the. The purpose
of the meeting is Stanwyck basically says, I want you to murder me.
I'm going to pay you $50,000. I've discovered I have some kind of cancer
that's. That's going to lead to a very quick and very painful demise.
I don't want to be around for that. Yeah. Bone cancer is the worst kind.
Yeah. Yeah. So he. He's explaining to
Fletch the way it's going to work. You know, I'm going to leave this door
open. You're going to come in here. You should wear rubber. Rubber gloves. Do you
own rubber gloves? And Fletch says, I rent them. I have a lease with an
Option to buy. Yep. Again. And then he says.
Stanley says all these doors will be unlocked. Would they normally be unlocked?
Fletch asks, yeah, yes and no. Sometimes the staff usually
forgets. And he says, yeah, I have the same kind of trouble with my help.
Yes. I did think here, though, that interesting. An interesting breakdown
in Stanwyck's plan, though, in this case. Is he. So to his.
He does not know that Fletch is Jane Doe. He does not know that Fletch
is a journalist. Right. He doesn't even know that he's called Fletch at this point.
He's still going by Mr. Nugent with Alan Stanwyck. He thinks he's
a druggie, a junkie from the beach. Right. That nobody will miss. I mean,
he literally says this, like. Like, nobody will miss you if you go missing for
a year. So, like, this will work out great. Do you have a passport?
Why would he expect a junkie on the beach to have a passport? Was that
more common to have passports back in the 80s? I feel like these days it's
not common for an American to just have a passport. No, my wife lost her
passport and it's been destroying her life for the last year trying to get it
replaced. So, yeah, I don't know how the Fletch character would. Would have
that, but, hey. Well, this is the funny part. I feel like Fletch would have
a passport. Well, I don't see how Stanwyck thinks the druggie, Ted Nugent.
Exactly. That doesn't make any sense. But whatever. Small, small thing.
So. So Fletch agrees. Okay, it's gonna happen Thursday.
I'll come. I'll kill you. You know, Great, let's do this.
So of course, in his mind, he's like, this is a hell of an interesting
story. I gotta find out more about this guy. So he heads back and he
heads to work. He heads to his newsroom. This is the first time we meet
Geena Davis, whose character's name is Larry. For some reason, I'm not quite sure if
that's true. Tyler, Larry. Yeah. We got some interesting names for the. Female characters going
on a bit lately, but. Yeah, but also this Geena Davis, by the way,
gorgeous. Just really one of the best. Best she's ever looked on screen.
Very pretty and very fun little role for her. She's obviously very into
Fletch. There's like a little bit of, you know, sor. That sexual tension going on,
and it's just a great character for her. But, yeah, so they have to,
you know, he help. Has her help him look up stuff on Alan Stanwick.
Looking at micro fiche. That's right. Which is micro. So one of
the best things. I love a fish. And I do love this line too,
when his boss's editor asks him, you know, like, do you can do the story?
So, oh, well, you know, have you found the source? Well, that's a gray area.
How gray? Charcoal?
Because I'm not even sure how to answer that now. Gray is supposed to be
the middle. Is charcoal more gray or less gray? I'm not really sure, but,
yeah, that was very funny. Fletch's first move is to try
to. Oh, I think he sees a picture of Stanwick with a
doctor. He says, I wonder if that's his doctor. If this guy told me he
had cancer, I'm gonna go investigate that. Right. He wants to find out, is this
legit? Does the person actually have cancer? Is this potentially something that's real?
So he heads to the doctor's office,
and it gets. He's basically getting a checkup from Stanwyck's doctor
and kind of trying to, you know, suss some information out of him. And the
guy's really not giving up too much. It's a really great exchange because there's a.
Of stuff that Fletch says to try to be generic that the guy kind
of calls him on for details, but he is able to weasel his way through,
you know, this and that, and this is. And he gives him a rectal exam,
which is obviously very. Something that Fletch didn't really want to have happen, which clear.
Hey, you know, if you've had one, it's not like they're walking the park.
But I love. At the very end, the doctor says, well, Mr. Babar, I can't
seem to find anything wrong with you. He says, not for trying, not for lack
of looking. Yes. The doctor catches him on something where Fletch
is referring to another person. I don't know if it's like, how do you know
Alan? And he's like, oh, it's a shame what happened to so and so.
And then he's like. He's like, yeah. The Fletch is like, yeah, these things happen
so fast. He's like, ah, he was dying for years. Yeah. But, you know,
the end was fast. He was in intensive care for two months. Yeah. Not that
the very end, when he. Actually went, like, that was sudden. Like, the. The doctor
is. He's the guy in the jerk that is trying to assassinate Navon
R. Johnson, where he Picks the random name out of the phone book. That's right.
Sounds like a typical bastard. So it's good to see that guy. More stuff.
Yeah. So after the doctor's visit. Doesn't really
bear a ton of fruit. Although it does sound clear that the. The doctor
was surprised to hear, like, that there was cancer in the family. Like, you know,
there weren't any clues that would lead Fletch to believe necessarily one way or another
yet. But he needs to keep digging. So he goes to another part of this
hospital, clinic, whatever, and he.
Over the loudspeaker there is a call
to a doctor. And I don't remember the full name, but it definitely started with
Rosen. And he walks up to the directory of doctors on the wall, and I
wrote those down. Oh, what do we have there? So all the names of the
doctors on the wall on the directory are Rosenauer, Rosenbach,
Rosenbaum, Rosenberg, Rosenstone, Rosenfield,
Rosendahl, Rosen, Geld, Rosenschweig, Rosenkel,
Rosenfeld, Rosen, Will, Rosen, Veld,
Rosenthal, Rosenblatt, and Rosenkunz. So when
he is asked his name, you know, the nurse is like, oh, doctor, doctor.
And he's like, Dr. Rosenpenis. Dr. Rosen, Rosen. Dr. Rosen.
Like, he just, you know, he figures he's close enough. Right. He's so slick with
that stuff. And he.
Yeah. So he's posing as a doctor and he's. He's trying to get into the
records room. But as he's on his way in there, there's the, the doc,
the real Dr. Mid surgery. And I think it's a corner or something. It must
be. I think they're talking about a dead body autopsy. Yeah. And. And, oh,
here, give me a hand with this. So Fletch obviously is unequipped
for this. He's asked to hold a spleen, largest.
Spleen you ever seen. And he ends up fainting.
So then he's on the couch there in the records room, kind of comes
to. Yeah, yeah. And the nurse asks him if he needs anything. And one of
my favorite lines from him in the whole movie is, do you have the Beatles
White Album? Nevermind. I'll just have a glass of hot fat and bring me the
head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there. And it's just like the most nonsensical.
And again, these were Chase ad libs. Just the most nonsensical stuff.
And the nurses clearly does not understand what's going on. Yeah. And that it's so
there's so much stuff that you. You don't catch every
Time. And I just. I love it because he's just rapid fire with these little
quips. Yeah, yeah, really funny. He goes
in, let's see, is he asking the. The people
in the records room? He's trying to find the file for Alan Stanwick. He finds
it because she goes. So he has nurse to leave the. You know, could you
give me. I'm hyperventilating. Could you give me a paper bag? And so she leaves.
So he starts hunting around, right? And he finds the file and is basically looking
through it. The nurse kind of catches him, but, you know, she thinks he's a
doctor. So she's just like, hey, can I help you? Like, find what you're looking
for? And, you know, basically, as of he realizes
that as far as the hospital is concerned, as far as the medical, you know,
file is concerned, Alan said, was not have cancer. Doesn't have cancer of any kind.
So this just got way more weird, way more interesting than it was, because now
it's like, well, why? Clearly this guy wants me to kill him. But it doesn't.
But what the hell is going on here? Right? It really amps that up quite
a bit. And I think Fletch tells the nurse, they said he had melanoma
or carcinoma. Some kind of a noma. Some kind of a noma.
So the next. In the next place he's going to look is at Alan
Stanwyck's country club, right? So he goes to the country club.
He's hoping to meet up with the wife,
Gail Stanwyck, to, like, talk to her a little bit. We are briefly introduced
before as he's walking by to a pair of characters. Well, really a single character
that's just the worst. The sort of Daryl of
Soul Glow fame. For this movie, Mr. Underhill is just a real piece
of work. And, you know, telling the waiter, oh, I'm not done
yet. And he takes one more bite of food, there, now I'm done. And,
you know, I bet you're expecting a tip, like a real classic shitty rich white
guy stuff. So, you know, screw Mr. Underhill. We'll get back to that.
But, yeah, so she. He ends up meeting her on the tennis court.
I don't know if he puts his order in
first. Oh, right, yes, that's right. The waiter comes up to him. Yeah. So basically,
Fletch says, you know, I'll have, you know, these two drinks, two steak sandwiches.
We got another double sandwich order, baby. Yes. Yeah. Steak sandwich
and steak sandwich. Just the way that Angelo in point break orders two Meatballs.
Exactly. Perfect. This is the double sandwich. Maybe Angela was making a reference to
Fletch at the time. Could have been. Could have been other LA detective work.
Work. Yeah. So, and then what he tells the waiter is,
I'm with the Underhills. That's right. Charge it to the Underhills. And he always makes
sure every time he. He orders something on the Under Hills tab, you make sure
that the weights tip for yourself. Yeah, give him like $30, which in 1985,
that's a massive amount of money for a tip. Oh, yeah, 30 bucks.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah, so he does that, which is
great. So basically what's happened is we've understood now that Gail
Stanwyck was Gail Boyd and his, you know, her father runs
Boyd Aviation, which Stanwick works for.
Fletch is now going to continue to kind of dig into. Like, well, what's the
deal with Stanwyck? What's the idea here? So he goes to Boyd Aviation and speaks
to Gail's father, who's the chairman of the board of Boyd Aviation, about,
like an SEC investigation. Right. And another throwaway line in
this pun where it's kind of like, you know, I don't either. The guy's like,
I don't know why, you know, anybody over there at the SEC is interested in
Alan Stanwyck. And he says it's probably that pedder ass Hanrahan.
I don't know, like, what a bizarre throwaway.
But yeah, he's asked what kind of a name is Poon?
And he says, Comanche Indian.
Yeah, like, that's. So it's. Yeah, he. I think everywhere
he. He says every time he gives a funky name, if they ask what kind
of name is that, he gives the most bizarre answers. Like, you know, it's like,
well, my. My mother was Polish and my father, you know, whatever. It's just like
ridiculous. But, yeah, so, so, but he doesn't. He doesn't get a
ton of info, except he does find out that. That. That Gail took her
own shares in Boyd Aviation and sold them to buy a three million dollar
ranch in Utah. I'm pretty sure in 1985 you could
have bought the state of Utah for three million dollars. So that sounds like a
huge ranch. But anyway, that happened and he now knows that. And so then he
is able to ask the secretary out in the hallway for the name of Allen's
real estate agent out in Utah. So he's getting little bits of info,
gathering little info as he goes, doing. Doing the standard, you know,
good Investigative journalist kind of thing, which is working out for him.
He's. Yeah, I mean, he's. He's really good at doing this, and he's
given. Not much to start with. Like you said, the first meeting with Stanwyck's
doctor, I mean, there was no smoking gun anywhere. I think he was just kind
of like, it's too weird that this guy wants me to kill him. So I
got to keep going after this. This would be weird even if he was.
Even if he had bone cancer. Right. I mean, that's the thing, is that even
if. If Stanwyck's story is totally legit
and there's nothing funky going on about it, it's still weird
as hell, and it's still something he wants to dig into, and that makes a
lot of sense. But as he's finding out, like, okay, it doesn't have cancer.
Okay, it sounds like, you know, he doesn't own any shares of Boyd Aviation,
which, by the way, dude's a vice president at the company. How does he not
have some kind of equity as part of his compensation package? I don't understand.
But anyway, the point is, apparently Alan owns none of the company
himself. Right. Gail has all the money, you know, so it's like. So it's letting
us know now that, you know, this very rich guy, Alan Stanwyck, maybe isn't.
Isn't a very rich. He's married to a very rich person. Exactly right.
He married into a wealthy family. He himself maybe not so much. And that,
you know, that can be motive for a lot of things. Yeah. But now it's
time for Fletch to head home. He needs to take a break,
you know, before going back to the beach to kind of get back on that
story. But as he pulls up to his apartment, he's, you know, he mentions
seeing the dark red Oldsmobile of his. Of his ex wife's lawyer,
played by George Weiner of Spaceball's fame. He was Colonel
Sanders in Spaceball's great character actor from this era. Yeah,
I know. I'd seen him around. Yeah. And the lawyer's waiting for him
on the fire escape because he knows that Fletch isn't going to go in through
the front door because he's trying to duck him. And he needs, you know,
900 something dollars in alimony. I don't know
how did Fletch get himself in that situation unless he had a
big year in his year of divorce. He doesn't seem like he has a stray
900 bucks a month for a no kids, marriage. Yeah, I mean, I guess.
Look, it's possible that the kind of work he does as a writer, the pay
comes in spits and for. Yeah. Fits and spurts, you know, like. Yeah.
And so I think that maybe that's part of it. We also don't know how
many months he's behind. Right. Well, he said. He said a month. Oh, d say,
well, unless that's true, he didn't because he just said, I owe 900 something
dollars. Here's a thousand. Apply the rest to the next month. Yeah, we don't know
if it's 900amonth or if it's accumulated. So yeah, could have built up over time,
but. But regardless, he. Yeah, he has to talk
to this. To his ex wife's lawyer and sort of deal with this need to
thankfully does have the cash to stand with games. Was able to kind of get
him off his back. I love it too. At the end he says, yeah,
apply the rest of the next month. And he says, Keep 10 for yourself.
Get yourself a nice piece of ass. Also, this is the first
of two references in the movie to the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes that we get,
which is such a time capsule of that time period. Ed McMahon's
going to make you a millionaire. That was dream back then they just show up
to your house with a giant check. Yep. Fletch's apartment,
he had this, you know, kind of all LA Lakers everywhere. He had this
contraption that I don't fully understand. So he had a mini hoop on the wall,
right. And then the ball for that hoop was sitting on some kind of holder
where he would pull a string that would release the ball. So it's like,
look at this time saving way to get my basketball. But then once you're shooting,
it doesn't go back in there. It's not attached to anything. So good for him
just making a little like mini Rube Goldberg machine just for his own amusement.
Well, I do love that. It's like the way that all is set up is
where the ball is held on the wall is close to the hoop,
but it is also just beyond the fingertips of the massive wall mural of
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, you know, doing a fingertip roll layup into the basket. So it's
a very cool, you know, mural when it's all. When the ball is there and
everything. But it does seem a little over the top for any kind of.
It's not exactly utilitarian. No, no, it's a vanity ball
released thing. So Fletch kind of takes like a little nap
on his bed. And there's a kind of a daydream sequence where it's
the Lakers playing. And then Fletch is one of the players on the lakers who
is 6 foot 5, 6 foot 9, with the afro,
the big Afro. So him and there Chick Hearn, the Lakers announcer announcing
it, Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I just want to bring this up.
He has cameos in a lot of. Good stuff, a lot of movies. I.
Maybe some theme months we can do like Kareem Abdul Jabarch
or something, because he's in, I mean,
airplane. Kareem Abdul Jabbari. Yeah.
Airplane Troop Beverly Hills, which is a
favorite of my wife and daughter. Yeah. Basketball.
Yes. And. And most importantly, the Academy Award winning Slam Dunk Earnest.
And that's just in the 80s and 90s. I don't think I've ever heard of
Slam Dunk Ernest. I watched a lot of the Ernest movies. But I wonder if
Jim Varney similarly had a lawyer going after him for alimony,
because some of those earnest decisions are a bit questionable. Oh, man,
that's good. We'll get to Earnest in season, what, eight or nine?
Yeah, definitely down the road a bit. But eventually we at least got to do
goes to camp someday. All right, so, yeah, so he daydreams
about playing for the Lakers. Who could blame him? Obviously a lot of fun.
But now it's time to continue our investigation. We're off to lovely,
beautiful pro. Oh, no way are we. Oh. So back at the
boardwalk, I think, briefly. Okay.
And what he sees there, the reason that's important is his friend.
Oh, gummy, gummy. Yeah. Yeah. So he's basically chased.
That's right. Beaten by the cops. Fletch goes up and does
the classic violent thing towards the cops and says, hey,
stop beating this guy up. Right. So then they start beating him up. Yeah.
They throw him in the car and take off. Fletch throws a rock
through the back of the windshield of the cop car. They don't even stop.
They don't come after him. Right. So that makes him think like. Like, all right,
real cops would have come after me for that because they already have the guy
in their car. Yeah, exactly. So he's not going to escape. Right. So that was
definitely odd. And I think he commented on how weird
it was that they didn't come after him. So he didn't see that as a
regular, like, standard police action. No. His buddy Chris is like, oh, you're lucky.
He's like, no, that's not luck. Yeah, that would have been. Also did you notice
where in the windshield, the back window, the hole appears that the rock
supposedly went through. It would have crushed that cop right in the back of the
head. Like it's directly behind the head of the cop in the back seat.
So clearly that it's a movie magic there. But yeah.
So now it is time for. For Fletch to head off to Provo,
Utah and go investigate Jim Swarthout, who is the real
estate agent that sold Alan Stanwyck and Gail Stanwick their three million dollar ranch.
That's the whole. That's the information he has that he's going off of. Yep.
And Jim Swarthout is played by the.
The in tavern owner from Deadwood.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Very kind of. Of slimy character in
that. He's a good. He's. When you can't afford William H. Macy,
this is who you come. He's the poor man's William H. Macy. He's the cooler
for the cooler, you know. That's right, exactly. So, yeah. So in
Fletch, when he's on the plane, he's trying to record a voice memo to himself
in a mini tape recorder and accidentally hits play. And it's basically sound
of two people having sex and then a woman's voice saying, you're not recording this,
are you? So we see how good a guy Fletches.
Oh, yeah. So he gets to Utah, he gets to the address where Jim
Swarthout is, or no, sorry, at the hotel. He calls him and he. And he
says, like, oh, I'm looking for a piece of real estate. New Allen, you know,
whatever fake voice. I'm sure he gives one of his names at that point.
I think that might have been Igor Stravinsky. But, you know, he finds
out basically that the guy is going out for the evening. And this was an
interesting thing to me because I did not put two and two together on this
right away that the guy doesn't have like an office. His office is his home.
So it was important. Not just that it was like the end of the day.
And though nobody was there, he needed to know that he would be gone.
Right? So he does find out, okay, the guy's gonna be out for the evening.
So I'm gonna go snoop around his place, which looks like a
state penitentiary. Like it has these massive chain link fences all
around, you know, and at first I'm like, why would a real estate office have
this kind of security? And realizing, of course, as he's running through the house in
just a bit that it's obviously the man's home as well. So there's that.
But still just like, what is with this security system around this house?
Yeah, it's. It's crazy. And. And guarded by Dobermans,
which is the most 80s breed of dog, I think. Absolutely. That was like the
fashionable guard dog. Yes, exactly. The classic kind of,
frankly, when you want a evil dog. Yeah, that was. Your evil dog was the
Doberman pinscher. Thousand percent. Until miniature breeds came out. I think everyone was on board.
And then you see a miniature pincher. You're like,
so Fletch, he's trying to get into this house.
I thought this was interesting. You know, they have those games sometimes
where it's a. Just a single screenshot from a film and you have to guess
what it is for trivia. There's a scene where Fletch is on the roof of
this house, kind of leaning down and you can see Christmas lights on this house.
And like, oh, that's the scene to use for that game. If you really want
to fuck people over. That would be hard. So is maybe Chevy's first
on screen appearance with Christmas lights. Lights on a roof. There you go. To be
reprised four years later. The gateway. Gateway to Christmas vacation.
He's inside. He gets inside the place and the dog is still going crazy,
right? Just absolute nuts outside the window. And it's very funny. He's looking through a
filing cabinet and then just kind of very quietly looks over to the dog and
he goes sit through the window. So he
finds a file on Allen's purchase, but discovers that it was just a
$3,000 like single acre or something. It was just not a ranch. It was not.
There's no, you know, building whatever. He only spent three grand, so he was very
surprised. But he takes pictures of this information, decides he's going to go ahead and
go. At which point the dog decides that he's not done with Fletch yet.
He jumps through the plate glass window into the house
and is now chasing Chevy through the house and.
And you know, nearly biting him. But he's able. Fletch is able to get out
of the house. He's able to get into his car.
At which point the dog has now jumped onto the hood and is like barking
and snarling and drooling. I mean, he's looking menacing as fuck. And just like whatever,
you know, Fletch takes a picture and then to distract the dog says,
look, defenseless babies. And the dog goes.
And a full on like, scooby Doo, huh? As it looks over and
Fletch is able to drive off. Yeah. So he escapes Utah and then Fletcher.
Just a quick trip to Utah. Yeah. Maybe about the most fun you can have
in a 12 hour trip to Utah. And he comes
home to his apartment and there's a couple cops waiting for him.
That's right. One of whom I think is Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince.
No. Is it. I don't know. He's in there. I saw him in the
credits and I thought that that might be where he was. But we'll have
to. We'll have to get our research department. Right, exactly. Get the producer on that.
No, but I did think this was a good example of this in the scene
of, like, how ballsy Fletch is because these guys are coming
at him. He's still, he's still with them, right? Dropping one liners and quips and
whatnot. It's pretty crazy. The, the cops are basically, you know,
kind of roughing him up and throw him up against the wall. They're like,
oh, what do we have here? And then he, the cop reaches into his own
pocket, takes out a bag of, you know, what looks like heroin or coke or
whatever, throws it on the ground. I think Fletch says, I'm no lawyer, but I
do believe that's a violation of my rights. So it's nice.
He's still adversarial with the cops, but I think he's pretty, pretty scared at this
point. I don't think he is yet. I think this is still a point where
he still is looking at this like, I am a journalist. I frankly am a
white man. This is not, like, dangerous for me. They're going to take me down.
They'll talk to me. They're gonna let me go. Like, there's not going to be
anything. I don't think he's, like, worried yet. Yeah, at this point,
you know, that changes in a bit. But, like, at this point, he's screwing with
him because he feels like they're not going to do anything, really. He can get
his way out of it, basically. Yeah. Yeah. So Fletch is at the, at the
police station and the two detectives that roughed him up bring him to the chief.
By the way, looked, you were correct that the, the one he called Shamu is
indeed. It is indeed Uncle Phil from Fresh
Prince of Bel Air. But yeah. So it brings me to the chief, and the
chief initially kind of tries to like, sweet talk him a little bit. Like,
hey, you know, your, your paper Called. They wanted us to comment on this
article that you're going to publish, right? You can't publish this article. I've got undercover
cops here. We're going to bust that up, man. We're, you know, help us out
here. He really tries to, like, play to him. At which point Fletch is like,
well, I think some of your guys are the ones doing it. And that's when
he gets pissed off, because the chief realizes Fletch does know what's going on and
that he's, you know, like, he's gonna screw it up for them, obviously, and they
can't have that. So we take him down to the holding cell, and he points
a gun at him, and Fletch is like, what are you gonna do? He's gonna
shoot me in a cell. That's not something you can do. He goes, oh,
no, no, no. I'll shoot you. And then I'll take this knife, I'll stab myself
in the arm a couple times, put it in your dead hand, and it'll be
self defense. And he goes, we used to do it all the time, but,
you know, no, yeah, not so much anymore, but I'll make an exception. That kind
of thing. It's just like. Again. So that's when. Now Fletch is scared,
like, legit now. He's like, okay, well, this guy not only, you know, obviously physically
could kill me. He's got a gun to my head. He's got a plan on
how to, like, make this be a problem, you know, not be a problem for
himself. And. And that's a real problem. So he agrees. Oh, you're beach.
I'll stay off. Stay away. Not gonna. Not gonna continue the article. It's all good.
So that's when he decides that he'll shift gears a little bit and
kind of dig some more into this Stanwyck story. And so he goes to
the hangar at Boyd Aviation and is
talking to the mechanics, one of whom,
the sort of smaller, skinnier guy, is one of the racist
cowboys from Blazing Saddles who tries to get all of the guys working on
the. The railway to sing slave songs or whatever. That guy.
And then the other one I thought was the.
Was in Dumb and Dumber as sort of like the hitman that is
chasing Lloyd and Harry because they have. They have the suitcase full of money
or whatever, like the kidnappers in that movie. And it's
not. But it is. That actor. The actor who played this mechanic and the actor
from Dumb are brothers. Oh, no way. So they don't work the same. I wasn't
that far off looking up something and realizing I'm wrong, but I'm not. Not that
wrong. Exactly. Yeah. That's good. So it was the voice. I'm like, man, that voice
sounds so familiar. Oh, it sounds like that guy that, you know in Dumb and
Dumber Harry and Lloyd Poison with the, like, jalapenos or whatever. He, like, dies.
Whatever. Nope, it's his brother. So. But anyway, so, yeah,
so this is a great scene too, where he's talking about, you know,
trying to get information about, well, where does Allan go? Where does Stanwick go in
this plane? And they say, oh, he goes back and forth to Utah all the
time. But he spends enough gas or uses enough gas, he could go back.
You go to South America and back. Yeah, right. Which is like. We all know
it's the 80s. It's a movie about drugs, right? South America,
that's where the drugs are coming from. That's all South America is. And he does.
He does a great job of not quite tipping
that. He doesn't know anything about the plane that's trying to bullshit. You know,
just enough. And I think he gets out of there just in time when these
guys are like, I don't know what he's asking him. Take a look at this
part in the plane. And he looks up there and he's like, actually, it's down
here. I'm just trying to get the bird's eye view. That was a good
look for Fletch. And he made a comment about spending 49 cents on some novelty
teeth for. His costume, which we'll hear he later expenses to his boss.
But yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, he does that. And this is the, you know,
I'll need, you know, quarter antifreeze and some ball bearings. What do you need ball
bearings for? Oh, come on. Ball bearings these days? Don't you guys know anything?
So he can not only bullshit, but when he gets caught in his bullshit,
he bullshits his way back out of it. So, yeah, good stuff. So he's
back at the country club now, and before he
goes to see Gail, he asks where Gail is, and the guy says, oh,
oh, she's in the cabana. He's like, oh, yeah, cabana six. Oh, no,
cabana number one. He gets so far by just saying the wrong thing and knowing
that everyone has an inclination to correct him. To be fair, it is cabana.
Oh, cabana. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't want to mess up. That is very funny
how they do it. Cabana six. No, cabana one. And he says, okay,
well, before I go over there, let's order some food, right? So why don't we
get two orders of caviar because it's very expensive. So only give me two orders
of caviar, two bottles of Dom Perignon, and very 80s rich guy dish.
Lobster Thermidor. Thermidor. How is. I love it. He says,
how is the Lobster thermidor? The way it goes. Oh, I recommend it, sir.
And of course, charge it to the Underhills. Yes. And put it. Put a
nice tip down for yourself. Right. Make sure you get your own thing there.
He gets to the cabana, and Gail
had just been coming out of the shower, and she answers the door. She's in
a towel, and Fletch says, can I borrow that towel? My car just hit a
water buffalo. That's another woman. Chevy. Chevy himself.
Yep, Chevy gonna chev. So he's
kind of trying to explain to her what he's discovered a little
bit. Right. And. And he's showing her the pictures and the
photos that he took of the files when he was at the realtor's place in
Utah. And he said, says, if this was at all legible, you'd see what I.
Meant because it's like the flash just washed out the entire.
I relate to that so much. You would not believe the number of people
I. It's a side note, I'm not a professional podcaster. I am a tax accountant,
and people send me documents for their tax returns and will very often take
Fletch level photographs of very important legal documents that I then
have to decipher. So I'm with you here, Fletch. If this was at all legible,
you'd see what I mean. Meant nice. Yeah. Mr. Underhill is at
his table now, so it's kind of showing he's receiving the bill for his lunch
and $400 for lunch, and he's told that,
you know, well, they're in cabana one, you go. It's Gail Stanwick's
guest, and he is just furiously pounding on the door. The most impatient person I've
ever seen. Oh, my God. Such a dick. Even when he's, you know, he's being
wronged, obviously, he's still a dick for sure for him.
So, yeah, ordering excess food on the Underhills is never.
Not. Not funny for sure. But yeah. So basically, you know,
yeah, Fletch lays out everything that Gail, you know, lays out everything to Gail
that he's learned so far, you know, that, like, that Alan asked him to kill
him and told him he had cancer. And he doesn't. And you know that he
didn't buy $3 million worth of a ranch in Utah. He bought $3,000 worth of
scrub brush or whatever he says. And there's a moment here
where it doesn't literally come back immediately or. Or explicitly,
but the fact that, you know, Gail is able to size him up pretty quickly
and notice he's basically the same build, and so he borrows one
of Alan's suits. It's never made quite clear why he needs to put on a
suit to sneak out the window of the cabana when Mr. Underhill is really the
only one who would give a crap about. I don't know. But. But she gives
him one of Alan's suits. Right. And like you said, it's important that they talk
about that now and just. To set it up later. But in the moment,
it's felt kind of like, why would he need to do that? But it's important
that we know now. Not only is Fletch, you know, basically the
same build as Stanwyck, he now has one of his suits that comes back later.
Yep, yep. And he follows Allan to the point where he sees
Allan get into a car to talk to the chief of police. Right. And so
now he knows it's in one way or another, Stanwick and the chief are working
together, which is obviously part. You know, he's putting it together. Right. He knows about
Stanwick spending enough gas in his plane to go to
South America. He knows that the chief is pushing drugs on the beach. Like,
some of these pieces are starting to come together. So. But he decides to go
back to his house, and he's going to do the same thing he did before.
We sort of like, climbs up the. The fire escape in the back. But as
he does gets ready to do that, he sees there are several police cruisers in
the parking garage under his apartment. Yeah. And they see him. And so now
we start this. This chase, but he very quickly ditches his
car. Yes. And he gets into. And it's so funny, too, because it's.
This kid is clearly hot wiring this car. Like, I mean, he's not putting a
key in. He's clearly messing with it. But Chevy, you know, Fletch jumps
in and. And basically steals the kid, the car the kid is trying to steal
in order to have this. This chase through the freeways
of la. Right. And he. And he says that he's part of the smog patrol.
Right? Yeah. I gotta check the admissions Gotta get it up to 90 to check
the emissions. And then we're treated to a great chase scene in this
convertible. It's like a. Like a what, a beige, like mg?
Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Like Alfa Romeo or something? Yeah, just a.
Cool. You know. You know that it's fast by looking at it. The song.
There was a song, get out of Town that was playing. Not a bad song
for a chase scene there. 80S chase scene song. Yeah.
He makes a lot of cop cars crash. It's not a Blues Brothers level,
but there's a good amount of like self inflicted cop car crashes here.
Yeah. They're chasing him to a motorcycle. Like, one of the cop cars
seems to go off the road completely of its own volition. Yeah. And flip.
And then the motorcycle cops jumps off of his motorcycle as it
flies through the air. There's definitely some weirdness in all that. And I do love.
The whole time Fletch is like talking to this kid and sort of trying to
convince him that everything's fine. You know, it's not the cops chasing us. It's all
these. My buddies. Police escort. Yeah, it's our escort. Whatever. And he
says something like, oh, there's Fred. As he like goes. Right. And when he pulls
up next to the motorcycle, goes, hey, Freddy, how's the herpes? Yeah.
And the kid tells Fletch. He's like, oh, am I in trouble?
Right, right. For. For what? He's like, for stealing this car.
And then, you know, Fletch is able to get away and he goes into a
restaurant or hotel, right? He basically. He goes to a hotel and runs through.
And there is like. He goes through, like the back entrance, through the kitchen.
Kitchen entrance. It's like a hotel or a banquet hall. I mean, something. Because there's
a big banquet happening at the time. And that is, you know,
I'm not sure what organization. Looks kind of like an Elks Lodge kind of idea.
Or maybe a VFW or something like that. Right. And they are honoring.
I can't remember the first name. Fred Dorf. Dorfman. Fred Dorfman,
who is the brother of. Because they mention a bunch of
his family in the. As Chevy or as Fletch is making his way through
the room, the announcer, the emcee of the event, is mentioning all the people that
are close to Fred and including his brother Kent.
And of course, Kent Dorfman is one of the fraternity
brothers in Animal House. He's like. He's like one of the two pledges.
He's like the fat one, I think, or something like that. But it's a reference
to Animal House, basically. All right. Which is. We have some crossover universes here lately
with the movies we've talked about. This was a. This is a. The other thing.
The other connection to Animal House the movie has is, of course, Tim Atheson played
Otter, one of the main characters in Animal House. Chevy Chase read
for that role and did not get it and instead did Caddyshack that year.
So, you know, which worked out. Worked out for everybody, but just an interesting
sort of. You know, Matheson and Chase really were built so similarly that they were
going for the same roles back in the early 80s. So.
And he ends up, you know, he's kind of caught because the
cops are creeping into the room, but they don't want to upset the whole thing.
Right. And. And he can see that. So he kind of knows what the limitations
of the cops are at this point. Like, he's clearly caught.
And what Fletch does is. Is he stands up and jumps in
to give a speech before they introduce Fred Dorfman. And he's, you know,
just going on and on and making up all this funny shit. It's kind of
the opposite of Richard Kimball approaching the other
doctor at that convention where they're getting pulled to the side. So I got a
lot of vibe. That kind of vibe. And the very smart thing Fletch does at
the end is say, hey, we got a lot of law enforcement here. You know,
why don't you give him. Pat him on the back, give him a hug.
And so he's able to buy himself enough time to get out of there.
Yeah. And he is able to escape. And I think the next
spot we end up at, he is at the airport looking into the plane ticket.
Right. He wants to find out if Stanwyck really did get a plane ticket,
you know, for the next day. One thing I noticed is that the name Stanwyck
is spelled differently on that plane reservation than any other time in the movie,
for whatever reason. It's S, T, A, N, W, Y, C, K.
Okay. There's no C in it at any other point in the movie, but they.
Must have used my notes, because I think I have it spelled five different times
here. When he's talking to the. The ticket agent
at the airport, just trying to get information, she says, oh, you know,
there's a Kavanaugh sitting next to you. He's like, is that Morris or Pierre?
Right. She's like, sally. It's Sally Ann Kavanaugh.
It's like, oh, darn it. You bought the ticket for her. Like, so she is,
again, getting a lot of information. Yeah. But clearly, like, people just should not
talk to this guy. They're all giving away too much info. He's like, sally and
Kavanaugh. She's like, well, you bought the ticket for. He's like, I don't want to
sit next to her. It doesn't mean I want her sitting next to me,
does it? So he's got to check out Sally Kavanaugh's
house. Now he's like, this is a. A person of interest.
And he gets to her house and basically sees it's been ransacked.
It looks like somebody left there in a hurry. Yeah. And. And there's not much
there at the house. And there's a weird thing in the scene. He goes into
Kavanaugh's house. House doors open. Your doors unlocks. He just walks in.
Oh, another Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes envelope in the mailbox. And he
lights a cigarette. He doesn't smoke any other. I don't understand that.
I don't really get. Is that just the director saying, I need him something for
him to do? I don't know. Because he doesn't use, like, the cigarette. The lit
cigarette doesn't come into play anywhere. Like, it's a very strange choice. I don't know
if there was like a. A deleted scene somewhere that would have used that
or explained it, but. Yeah. He apparently smokes a cigarette while investigating a house that
he really should not be confident is empty. Right. It's an interesting way to
announce your presence, I guess, by. By smoking a cigarette and making
the whole place smell bad. But whatever. And. And then he's accosted by a very
upset looking man. Oh, boy. With a gun when he's upstairs. Yeah.
Very, very stupid man. Yes. Very, very stupid
man. So again, it seems like he's kind of screwed. Yeah.
This guy knows he's not supposed to be there. Fletch knows that. He knows he's
not supposed to be there. He's not going to talk his way out of it.
And the way that he ultimately gets out of this situation is,
well, if you're gonna shoot me, you should tie your shoelaces first. Oh, no.
He said, call the cops. Go ahead and call the cops. But before you do.
Right. You should tie your shoelaces. And. Always works. It always
works. Worked for ash. Evil in army of Darkness. That's right.
So he kicks him in the nuts. Yep. Good comedy. And. Yeah. And he Gets
out of there. He does get out of there. He does get the back of
his car window blown out by the shotgun at the end of us. It's a
second exploding car window in. The movie that
if you're like, yeah, this movie seems like it was sponsored by Safelight
or something. They just want to see windows just going through hell.
So he then goes to. He's got one of these in. I don't think we
mentioned specifically, but. But Sally and Kevin lives in Provo. We're back in Provo.
So he has another stop to make in Provo, which is to go see Marvin
and Velma Stanwick, Alan's parents. Now, one thing I don't
think we mentioned earlier. So, Gail, when Alan. Excuse me. When Fletch was
talking to Gail about Alan, he asked if, you know, have you. Do you know
his parents? And she said, no, he hasn't talked to them in years. So I've
never met them. So basically, Gail just does, you know,
thinks that his parents are basically estranged. Right? So when Fletch shows up, he tells
Mr. Stanwyck, Melvin Stanwyck, that he is Harry S. Truman.
Very funny. He starts talking about, like, insurance policy and kind of just trying to
get some information and whatnot. And, you know, he says, so when was the last
time you talked to or when was the last time you saw Alan? Whenever they
were, like, oh, about three days ago or something. I mean, it's like. And he's,
you know, flabbergasted. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, he comes up here, you know,
a couple times a month or something like that. Right? And. And he susses out
from these two that Alan is married to Sally Ann Kavanaugh. Yeah, That's. That's who
his wife is. And so that's bad, right?
I mean, this certainly doesn't make Al again. One more thing Alan's been lying about,
right? That's a very bad thing. Stanwick's dad says something about,
my wife makes the most unusual lemonade. Doesn't say what
about is unusual. Fletch takes a sip. He spits it right back into the cup.
I'm wondering if there's, like, no sugar in it or something. You know, it's like
straight lemon juice. Like. And they're showing
him photos and everything, right? And then they get into the old people excited to
show you photos mode. And they bust out all these other pictures. Like, you want
to see pictures of the reception? He says, no, the. Thanks, I'm trying to quit.
It's like, yet another. What. What the fuck, man? So that's it
for flight. I mean, one critique I would have is jumping back and forth between
Utah and California. There's not. They're not showing necessarily like the graphic
of the US map with the. Right, yeah. The plane flying. So now Fletch
is back at the boardwalk, right? Back in la. But he can't really be himself
there. No. Right. So he's in disguise. And I wrote it down as roller skating
pajama Jesus. Jesus. He's just looking like,
just great. Like the perfect guy to be going down the beach boardwalk
there and he's talking to. To Gummy and, and Fat Sam
and letting them know. Basically he finds out from Fat Sam,
who he thought was maybe a higher figure in this whole organization, that Fat Sam's
like, no, like the cops basically busted me and I have to do this for
free. And all I get is free heroin, right? Yeah, I get free junk out
of it. Gummy's kind of the same way. He's just like, man, they're just.
They make me do this. Like, I don't want to do this, but they make
me do this by the quick. He is disguised very much like the Guru
Ram Das. It's a. I was going to say Ram Das, but I didn't want
to get the name wrong very much with. That, with that sort of the ball,
the little patch of hair in the front that isn't fully bald for sure.
But yeah, basically Fletch plays the prisoner's dilemma with Gummy and Sam and convinces them
both that the other one is turn states evidence, so they should as well.
And sure enough, they both kind of go along with him and end up back
in, back in his. Back in the newsroom. Basically takes
them to the, to the newspaper and says, hey, you know, you got, you got
to watch out for these guys. They're going to be. They're going to be witnesses.
You know, they need to. To get protected by, you know, they need to turn
state's evidence, like whatever. And so, you know, that sort of figured out
he's going to be able to run the story. He's got the information. He does.
Ask his, his editor. Hold the last. I'm going to give you the last two
paragraphs after ten o' clock tonight. Yeah. And we learn in just a minute that
there is an element of that that will get automatically sent out out if he
is not around at 10pm Right. Let's get the dead man switch. Exactly. So he
shows up at the Stanwyck mansion, which, by the way, I Want to mention we
mentioned the Godfather earlier. This is the man who in the Godfather had the,
the horse head in the bed. This is his house. Same exact house. Oh,
okay. So it is, it is a, it was a set piece from the Godfather
as well. But anyway, he shows up baller ass choice to
show up in Stanwick's suit. Just love that. Like he may be the only suit
he owns at this point, but it's still, still fantastic. He shows up and sure
enough, Stanwick's there waiting for him, dressed much like Fletch. He's got
the, the Lakers jersey, although, you know, noticed very clean. Obviously just purchased.
Yeah, you know, Lakers jersey, the sport coat, the jeans, the whole deal. So he
looks like Fletch. And this is not that Fletch is at all surprised. He knew
to expect this. But sure enough, the whole plot was Stanwick would kill him,
burn him in the car, in the trunk of the car, the similar
build, you know, everything else would kind of go. And until they got around to
dental records, they would think that it would was Alan being dead. And by then
he'd be in a non extradition country in South America with his wife Sally ann,
so. And $3 million of Gail Stanwyck's money. That's right.
That's the plot. So he had the plan. Rather he had the plan.
He and the Fletch comments on the fact. He said.
Oh, your wife said we had roughly the same build from the waist up.
Yeah. Something your wife told me while we were in bed together. Yes.
Do they in real life? I want to look up Tim Mathison because I almost
feel like they're not shown like standing next to each other. And Chevy Chase is
unusually tall. There aren't a lot of actors who are that high. Yeah, I know.
Tim Mathen is not. Tim Matheson is not a short man, that's for sure.
But I think you're right. I think they probably don't put the two of them
directly next to each other on screen because it would be why that, that little
plot point that needs to be there. I have a feeling that when the Fletch
character was written about in the novel, he was not written as a. A six
foot five. Right. Giant, you know, so. But yeah, so, so there's that.
So basically Gail is there as well. Gail and Fletch confront Alan
together and you know, they know everything. You're not going to get away with it,
blah, blah, blah. He points out to them, I was willing to kill one person
tonight. What makes you think I won't Kill, too. I. You know, I still got
plane tickets and money, and I can just go, you know. But luckily for them,
the police chief shows up and he doesn't like. He doesn't like what
he hears from Stanwyck about running off to South America. He's like, right, because he
has some money with Stanwyck as well. So I think that the 3 million from
Gail is not the only money that Stanwyck is running away with. Exactly. System.
About $800,000 I staked you with. Right. So the idea being he was supposed
to take that 800 grand down to South America to buy more drugs and bring
it back for distribution. And, yeah, that's. That's a real problem.
So there's a bit of a scuffle between the two of them, and the chief
shoot Stanwyck. Honestly, based on my extensive watching
of movies over the years, does not look like a kill shot to me.
It looks like he gets shot in the stomach. I've seen Reservoir Dogs. You might.
It might be painful, but, you know, you shouldn't die from that. But whatever.
It may have gone all the way through, which is another way you get shot
and not get hurt by it. That's true. Say, oh, it went all the way
through. That's right. Exactly. But Stanwick's down. We finally. Dead Fletch has
the bright idea to turn the. The gas for the
fireplace on. And just as Jo. I can't remember the
character's name, the chief, Joe Don Baker, is going to shoot the two of them.
He throws a Zippo lighter into the fireplace, and just a fireball explodes in
the chief's face. And Gail and Fletcher, able to get away and get real
cops to show up and arrest. Arrest the chief and.
And kind of just. They're good, sir. Yeah. And.
And I think Fletch, I mean, at this point, he can't
really go back to his life, too, because I'm sure that the network that involved
the chief and Stanwyck didn't end with them. So there's. There's certainly people who are
part of that conspiracy that weren't served justice. So I think it
would be a dumb idea for Fletch to stick around town. That's interesting. So he
and he and Gail end up going to Rio together after
the publication of this article by Jane Doe. Yeah, that's actually funny.
I hadn't considered that angle. I thought they were just like, there's these two plane
tickets. Why the hell wouldn't we take them? But, yeah, no, definitely laying low a
Bit letting the heat die down after something like that probably makes a lot of
sense. And. Yeah. Any other cops who were in on the
game, in on the. On the drug dealing, they no longer have
that avenue for cash. They're probably pretty pissed at Fletch. Yeah. So, yeah, probably not
super safe for him to be around LA these days
for a little while, at least. And then Gail gets to live
every woman's fantasy, which is to be stuck somewhere with
a guy who's just trying to explain a sport to you that you don't give
a fuck about. Fletch is just. It kind of ends with him trying to explain
basketball Tour on the beach, which I. I thought was
great because it's like. Yeah. It's not all paradise, honey. You're gonna have to listen
to a lot of. From him. Yeah. And then the end of the movie,
we get that great song bit by bit. Once again. Yeah.
Fantastic theme song. Like I said, one of the most underrated songs written for
a movie from the 80s, for sure. It's a good one. It's a good one.
So, yeah, that's. That's. That's Fletch, man. The story of Fletch.
I mean, a lot happened. I feel like the end kind of wrapped
up quicker than. I don't know, it all tied.
Wrapped everything into a neat little bow pretty quickly at the end, I mean,
I think. And I don't know what the source material is like. That's right.
I actually. I've never read the novel, so, Yeah, I don't know exactly how it
ends. I don't know how. How much the movie walks, you know, the exact line
of the novel's plot or if it goes away from it. One thing I do
know is that when they did the sequel, French Fletch Lives, which I have not
seen, came out in 89, it was not another one of the Fletch novels
the way that, like, James Bond movies, okay, were. You know, they started with Ian
Fleming's novels. It was just a unique new story written by the screenwriter.
So. So I don't know. Season 5 A Game of Thrones. Yeah. A little bit
of. Yeah. A little too much David and D.B. but, yeah. So I
don't know. Like, I feel like usually we're pretty. You know, we speak pretty positively
of the movies that sort of, like, end and don't. We don't need more crap
or anything. Oh, no. But I do think one. The key is really, is that
one, once the chief went down and Stanwick was dead,
there's nothing Else left, like, you know what I mean? It really is done.
And I think that, yeah, the sort of getting them out of town thing is
maybe just a way to have a nice shot on the beach before the very
end. It makes me think a little bit of the movie, the Money Pit that
takes place at the very beginning and very ending. Have some scenes, like, in Italy
for no good reason other than like, these people got to go to Italy or
whatever. It's just kind of like got some. Money left in the budget. Exactly.
Let's go to Lake Como or the beaches and Rio. Yeah.
So this was my pick. I want you to go ahead and give your thoughts
first about. About Fletcher and the rating you're giving. It, you know,
like this in the previous movie. I feel like this is a good example of
one of the better comedy stars of the era doing what he does best.
Absolutely. This was definitely a let Chevy Cook kind of movie, and it paid
off. As we're talking through this during the podcast,
most of our favorite lines were things that you revealed earlier.
Most likely things that Chevy Chase just ad lib. Exactly. So I don't know how
this would have worked. If you put in. I don't. Somebody put in Ackroyd here
or something like that. It would have been different. Right. I thought
that there wasn't a lot that was super dated. I mean, obviously it took place
in this time, but there wasn't a lot that you wouldn't understand. Not having the
context of 1985 kept to, like under
a minute 40, which is a good runtime for a film.
I. I had a lot of laughs. I enjoyed it, I think. Think it.
I don't know if it was clunky or if I just wasn't paying enough attention,
but it seemed like tying Stanwyck and the cop corruption
together at the end was a little like, oh, and also this.
But it's a movie and I was entertained the whole time.
I'm gonna give it a three out of five. I think it was very enjoyable.
I think there were parts that maybe dragged a little,
but not a lot. I think Chevy Chase was good and all he's getting from
me is a Thunder 3. That's totally reasonable. Yeah, I think. I think they did
a decent job tying Stanwyck and the police chief together, I think, but it was
not super overt. It was definitely little bits. Right. It was like the comment about
using enough gas in the plane to go to South American back. It was little
things where they just meet briefly for a moment, you know, all this kind of
stuff even, you know, as it turns out, even the fact that the reason
Stanwick was at the beach looking for a patsy for this plan of his was
because he was familiar with the fact that that was the drug beach where the
cops were. Were pushing drugs and stuff. So, you know, I feel like it all
tied up together pretty well from, you know, for me. I do think this,
you know, this movie, to me, very much holds up in a lot of ways.
It's very funny that the, the little lines, the little throwaway lines that,
that Chase does as Fletch, I think are. Are mostly hilarious and wonderful and
really are the most memorable part of the movie. This one gets a four out
of five for me. That puts us, you know, at a seven out of ten,
which is just, you know, a. Gets just, just right. And we just gave Coming
to America seven out of ten as well, collectively. And, and I think that's.
That's pretty accurate and pretty good. So, you know, that was Fletch. We're. We're doing
seven out of 10 and had a lot of fun talking about Fletch and.
Yeah. Nick, why don't you tell us what we're going to watch next week?
All right. Well, we've done a couple comedies in a row. I'm going to bring
us back into the world of, of serious business and action.
And we are going to the year 1991 when this
movie was. Was made. Something that I feel like is super relevant
in the culture. There's going to be a lot of references and a lot of
things that we all. You might not even think about, like, oh, where did that
come from? Like things that get quoted all the time. And this is 1991.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, TERMINATOR Motherfucking two. Yes.
I love this movie so much. I cannot wait. This is not going to be
a one hour podcast. We might push it to like an hour 20 because there's
a lot to go through. But I cannot wait to talk about this. Yeah,
so many good moments, just so many good sequences. The characters
are so good. Like Linda Hamilton and Jason Patrick are also fantastic in it.
The whole stuff with the, with Dyson and, and his, you know,
work on Cyberdyne. So there's just so much. This movie is great. The soundtrack,
you know, the Guns and Roses heavy soundtrack is fantastic. Beautiful. Yeah. Cannot wait.
Excellent choice. Thank you. Also for, you know, sort of really, you know,
know, popping the bubble for us on, on the huge action stars
of this era. Right. So, you know, we. We've covered some of the comedy folks.
And, you know, we've seen, you know, Kevin Bacon in a bit of an actiony
role or whatever, but Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is one of the big dogs of the
era. Oh, yeah. And our first time that we'll be doing an Arnie film on
the podcast. So very cool. Definitely. Looking forward to T2 next week,
folks. If you're listening and you like the podcast, go ahead and go over to
Apple, go over to Spotify, give us a five star review because that's what helps
people find the podcast and helps us know that we're doing, like, okay. And if
you think we're doing okay or you think we're not doing okay, you can send
us an email at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number
one. So this has been Fletch. This has been 2Dads1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. Thank you all so much for listening and we'll catch
you next time. Thank you.