You Must Remember This on AV Club's Podmass! / May 12, 2014 by Karina Longworth

One of the reasons why I started this podcast is because, as a podcast consumer, I feel like there’s never enough to listen to. One of the resources I use regularly to find new fodder for my addiction is the AV Club's weekly feature Podmass, which evaluates each week’s “best podcasts,” usually breaking down the new output from the big, mostly comedy oriented podcasts (Marc Maron’s WTF, Julie Klausner's How Was Your Week), and also citing a new (or new to them) podcast as being worthy of checking out. This week, to my pleasant surprise, they gave the “New” slot to You Must Remember This!

They even gave us blurbs! We are “well worth a listen for anyone with even a passing interest in cultural history!” And, “every episode is packed with fascinating trivia!” And they praise my “deep pathos for what it means to be a person, not just a star, in Hollywood.” !!!

What’s funny, is that last week, after I published the Val Lewton episode, I thought, “Huh. Is it time to email Podmass and ask them to pay attention to me?” And I decided that no, it was not time, because I still consider the podcast to be in “beta.” I think it gets better with each and every episode, but right now technically it’s maybe 80 percent of what I want it to be, and in terms of storytelling, only a little bit further along. So I decided that I would wait a few weeks, maybe until after the fifth episode, at which point I might even have a real logo. Oh well! I’m happy for the incentive to get better faster.

And with that, back to work on episode 4…

You Must Remember This #3: Happy 110th Birthday, Val Lewton! / May 7, 2014 by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

A Very Special Halloween Episode! The writer-producer Val Lewton produced and ghost-wrote 11 films in just three years as head of the horror unit at RKO, many of which — Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie, The Curse of the Cat People,The Body Snatcher — were huge hits, helping to keep the troubled studio afloat in the early 1940s, and becoming influential genre film classics. Lewton died super young, but he crammed an enormous amount of life into his 46 years. Before establishing his unique style of horror at RKO, he was a publicist and a terrible journalist; he published at least a dozen books (including at least two porno novels, one of which he was very proud of), and through his career-making apprenticeship with David O. Selznick, collaborated with Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and countless other classical Hollywood luminaries. Today — which would have been Lewton’s 110th birthday, if not for his untimely death in 1951 — we take a look back at his life and career, break down his groundbreaking aesthetic, and ask and answer an incredibly reductive question: did Hollywood kill Val Lewton?

SHOW NOTES!

Bibliography:

Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career, by Edmund G. Bansak

Icons of Grief, by Alexander Nemerov

Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror, by Joel E. Siegel

Music:

Excerpts from the scores of Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Bedlam, The Body Snatcher and The Seventh Victim, performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Bride of Frankenstein theme, performed by the Cincinatti Pops Orchestra

"Cat People (Putting out fire)" by David Bowie

Film clips:

Cat People

I Walked With a Zombie

Bedlam

The Seventh Victim

You Must Remember This Episode 2: Frank Sinatra in Outer Space / April 16, 2014 by Karina Longworth

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

Welcome to the second episode of You Must Remember This, the podcast devoted to exploring the secret and or/forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. Today, we look back to 1979, when — while the music world was full of punk and post-disco coke rock, and the movie world was making the transition from the “New Hollywood” of the ’70s into the blockbuster age — Frank Sinatra recorded Trilogy: Past, Present and Future, a triple album with one disc each devoted to big band standards (“The Past”); covers from “the rock era” including Billy Joel and Beatles songs and also “Theme from New York, New York” (“The Present”); and, most amazingly, a 40 minute song cycle about life, love, death and visiting outer space (“The Future”). We’ll take a look at how and why “The Future” was made, and theorize as to why it’s fallen into the dustbin of pop cultural history.

Show Notes

Songs

Tracks from Trilogy: Past, Present and Future, performed by Frank Sinatra:

“Let’s Face The Music and Dance”

“Theme from New York New York”

“Something”

“What Time Does the Next Miracle Leave?”

“World War None!”

“The Future”

“The Future (Continued)”

“The Future (Conclusion)”

“Before the Music Ends”