Episode 16.5: The Hunt for Red October
Added 2021-09-21 21:58:10 +0000 UTCAlright, you know it, we know it. We need to pay tribute to our dear Old Man Connery and see off the Cold War in the form of watching an actual good movie, the Hunt for Red October.
Join us as we discuss Tim Curry's russian accent, a criminally young Alec Baldwin, and at the end, the reason the end of the cold war felt like the end of history at the time, and some musings on how modern wars never get movies where they are treated with the same reverence that the Cold War did.
We got our wonderful producer Nate on this one,
you can find him on twitter at
https://www.twitter.com/inthesedeserts
and follow his podcast Hell of a Way to Die, a leftist millitary podcast by and for veterans at https://www.twitter.com/hellofaway
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Find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond
Comments
My parents had a friend of a friend who was a retired submariner. He told a story about being recalled to service during the 80s because they were doing a goodwill mission to Russia, part of detante I guess. They wanted as many people with security clearance as possible on this ship to just keep their eyes open because this was their first look behind the iron curtain and the active service personnel I guess were to busy actually running the ship to do spy shit. They gave him a Lt commander's uniform because they thought it was a nicely inconspicuous middle rank that nobody would take any notice of. One day a Russian officer sidles up to him and says "you must have some real rank congestion in your navy, I've never seen so many LT CMDRs on one ship in my life!"
Damien Tonkin
2024-02-17 13:04:27 +0000 UTCWhile I agree with your larger point I take issue with the idea that the Soviet union was "trying something new" given that under lenin and post breschnev was de dacto the same system as post magna carta England: a de facto feudalist oligarchy, and between stalin and breschnev was just a return to tsarist monarchy. Leftist governments in written history have never existed because, as liam would no doubt comment, there is a strong incentive for a small group of people who have power at the expense of others to want to keep it. Which if anything we should take as a roadmap to how future leftism MUST be implemented, as a direct democracy eith universal participation
deathbysamurai
2024-02-13 15:41:26 +0000 UTCOh my god, PLEASE do Spooks. Even just an episode or two.
Josh Brandt
2024-01-09 03:15:33 +0000 UTCI thought I was the only person who'd seen Medicine Man. Not his finest hour
Eric Magnuson
2022-03-13 04:43:41 +0000 UTCPoint of order: when Boradin gets shot, Loganov was aiming at Ramius first -- Boradin spots him at the last second, pushes Ramius clear and takes the bullet for him.
Devin Faux
2021-11-14 04:25:05 +0000 UTCI just want to check - you guys know that the line about "revolution every now and again" is cribbing Thomas Jefferson, right? " I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." Letter to James Madison, 1/30/1787 It went unmentioned in the episode but that's very much this movie doing an ideology. Also, the word that they switch languages on is the word "Armageddon" - the word is the same in Russian and English.
Corporal Burpfart
2021-11-09 00:40:02 +0000 UTCThat was more WWII than cold war tho
Genevieve R
2021-10-29 04:19:21 +0000 UTCBased off the tour I took at the Manitowoc Wisconsin Maritime museum, submariners were some of the most relaxed places in the navy decorum wise almost as a perk because submarines are death traps
Genevieve R
2021-10-29 04:19:02 +0000 UTCSpeaking of good old man Connery films would you guys ever consider doing a show on Outland? It's an alienesque Sci fi film where he plays a marshall on a mining colony.
Joanna Vetulani
2021-10-05 18:04:07 +0000 UTCI mean this affectionately but Nate is the single most podcast-sounding motherfucker ever
Arthur
2021-10-01 09:41:58 +0000 UTCi just love the scene at the end when the russian ambassador goes to ask the NSA about the alpha and he's just like "andrei, you lost ANOTHER submarine?"
Pedro Bento
2021-09-28 17:43:29 +0000 UTCof course that was hardly an innovation of the film, but a feature of carre's work
Christine Pizan
2021-09-27 22:44:37 +0000 UTCglad nate brought up the 2011 tinker tailer cos you should totally do that, it does the cold war as an amoral game with no one above each other, very interestingly imo
Christine Pizan
2021-09-27 22:43:55 +0000 UTCNana Visitor as Colonel Anastasia Komananov was the best bit of that episode.
Dave Blanchard
2021-09-25 23:25:19 +0000 UTCIf we have to say goodbye to Old Man Sean commentary, I am glad you three selected a good film to end the gag. I was worried that we would have to say farewell to SC with that white savior POS Medicine Man. Although, you have to admit. The hairpiece in Medicine Man is magnificent.
Dave Blanchard
2021-09-25 20:16:31 +0000 UTCIf the 90's Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy movies can be considered a trilogy then you all have effectively broken the trend of starting a series on the second movie.
James Craft
2021-09-24 07:55:05 +0000 UTCWait does Abi actually speak Russian or did she practice that line? Because I was impressed
sol
2021-09-24 04:09:26 +0000 UTCI love the ending commentary on war movies and how we don't really have them anymore. I think that's by and large correct. I do think that Michael Mann had his antennae in the air with Black Hat along these lines, though, in that the Chinese military in that movie is portrayed fairly evenly as a competent force responding to a major cyber-attack on a nuclear installation. Don't get me wrong, though, Black Hat has serious issues in terms of structure (the theatrical release is all sorts of fucked up in terms of what happens when) and having Chris Hemsworth do a ridiculous American accent when he should have stuck with his Aussie accent.
Brian Taulbee
2021-09-23 19:04:11 +0000 UTCIt absolutely slaps. As an American, I saw that and was like, "Oh, THAT'S what a good national anthem sounds like. Not our bullshit anthem that nobody can actually sing because it requires a four-octave range."
Brian Taulbee
2021-09-23 18:59:35 +0000 UTCconfessional: 10yo me watching the scene where the red october crew sing the nat’l anthem of the USSR was probably the first step in my journey to becoming a commie 🖤
Laura
2021-09-23 18:30:35 +0000 UTCYou should do The Blue Max from 1966. Similar vibes to early Bond movies, and it’s got one connection to the Bond franchise, which is Ursula Andress, the very first Bond girl. Some highlights from this movie are: intense class tension, the old school imperial German kind; two WW1 fighter pilots fighting each other to cuck their boss; and the overall theme of the movie centering around a guy doing whatever it takes to win Herman Goering’s medal from the First World War.
Theo Bender
2021-09-23 04:42:18 +0000 UTCThese cold opens have been SO GOOD
Jack Holmes
2021-09-22 22:15:00 +0000 UTCActually sad the final theme wasn't the chiptune version of the USSR national anthem from the hunt for red october gameboy game 😔
Claudia
2021-09-22 20:45:37 +0000 UTCDoor-guy actually has one of my favorite little quotes from the whole movie. "When I was 12, I helped my daddy build a bomb shelter in our basement because some fool parked a dozen warheads ninety miles off the coast of Florida. This thing could park a couple HUNDRED warheads off Washington and New York, and no-one would know anything about it until it was all over."
Brian Taulbee
2021-09-22 20:33:06 +0000 UTCI’m cool with this idea, but I would prefer 3 episodes on “The Highlander.”
John Harwood
2021-09-22 18:05:56 +0000 UTCthis episode made me join the patreon. curse you, dirty commies!
haxxi fexx
2021-09-22 17:35:34 +0000 UTCWorth noting: One of the ways the USAF teaches Instrument Rating flying is literally sticking you in an airplane where only the trainer can see out, you have to navigate and fly blind using only the instruments as a trainee
Stephen Kraus
2021-09-22 15:58:07 +0000 UTCOh shit the Russians have The Doors, Jim Morrison is a Commie!
Stephen Kraus
2021-09-22 15:42:11 +0000 UTCI’m so happy Yinz decided to watch this move! Have you seen Dr. Strangelove? I have no idea how it’s related to 007, just a good time!
Eric Adams (German)
2021-09-22 15:08:00 +0000 UTCOh this opens up the possibility of a FANTASTIC bonus Connery episode. Y'all need to do what is quasi-cannononically considered to be Bond in retirement. I'm speaking of course of the Nic Cage masterpiece The Rock.
The New Jankee Workshop
2021-09-22 14:37:03 +0000 UTCThis was absolutely amazing. Also, a lot of Tom Clancy’s books were ghostwritten by a guy I unfortunately know personally, Steve Piecznik. He is worth a bit of a deep dive on, given his lib-to-fash ideological trajectory, Cuban-American-Jewish strangeness (the Godfather 2 kind), his B-movie producing career, and—yes, seriously—he produces his neo-Nazi YouTube videos with “a round American woman in Montana.”
John Harwood
2021-09-22 14:09:21 +0000 UTCthere's been a dearth of movie and tv adaptations recently of that other famous spy writer, Le Carré. So you could do a 'tinker tailor soldier spy' (the old alec guinness tv series OR the 2011 movie adaptation), or the short tv series 'the night manager' with tom hiddleston as a bonus episode.
praxis and allies
2021-09-22 13:23:17 +0000 UTCFun fact: In the moment where Jack Ryan and Ramius meet on the October and do the whole "You speak Russian?" thing, in the original shooting, Connery spoke that line aloud in English. The "nu par Ruski" sounding thing was ADR'd in post-production because that A: Sounds vaugely Russian to an English audience and B: Matched Connery's lip movements. I learned this when I tried to repeat this line to a friend of mine who actually spoke Russain and she just looked at me funny. XD
Rhiannon M
2021-09-22 12:54:59 +0000 UTCthere's yet another Kathryn Bigelow connection here, because she directed K-19!
Ignatius
2021-09-22 11:55:38 +0000 UTC1) Gates McFadden is definitely responsible for my redhead fetish, and possibly responsible for my preference for women being older than I am. 2) Any chance of getting official English for the cold opening Russian jokes?
Upthorn
2021-09-22 10:26:16 +0000 UTCAlso you get Michael Dorn visibly enjoying the hell out of being allowed to act with his actual face rather than all the prosthetics
Rufus Dean
2021-09-22 09:52:41 +0000 UTCOk Abi's couple of star trek mentions have just unlocked a memory I didn't realise I still had. Deep space nine had multiple james bond style episodes where they all play out a retro bond story in virtual reality, which would be worth watching for KJB if only for the fact that you get to see Siddig El Fadil/Alexander Siddig playing bond and realising how much posh middle eastern bond would have absolutely rocked
Rufus Dean
2021-09-22 09:48:17 +0000 UTCOne of my fav movies I'm hyped for you to destroy it
Ryin
2021-09-22 05:54:19 +0000 UTCHaving learned that Devon did not recognize young Alec Baldwin I must suggest y'all add 1994's The Shadow to the bonus list. Based on comics/radio serial character The Shadow is a hero with super powers, but it's definitely got more spy vibes than Black Widow, for what that's worth. Along the same lines, Billy Zane vehicle The Phantom should probably be on the bonus list as well.
Andrew T. Wilson
2021-09-22 03:31:52 +0000 UTC"Tom clancy looked like the boomer wojak" (Googles tom clancy as I have not seen this man's face) Oh my god
Void WL
2021-09-22 03:24:30 +0000 UTCfirst time on this whole damn podcast that I've actually seen the movie you're talking about
Mo Haworth
2021-09-22 00:09:19 +0000 UTCCan't wait for this, it's one of my favorite movies with lots to talk about I'm sure.
David Alexander
2021-09-21 23:59:35 +0000 UTCCold air fall down
Lay-Tex-Lips
2021-09-21 23:23:25 +0000 UTCwhat did abigail say at the beginning
FlawlessNirvana
2021-09-21 23:07:05 +0000 UTCThat Saboteur reference hit me out of nowhere. Good shit.
Olivia Young
2021-09-21 22:54:14 +0000 UTCI hope you gals and dev know that this is genuinely the highlight of my week, and I just got a new job doing something I love, so I’m not doing too badly either. Every fuckin week, you bring out a fuckin banger to have a joint with and just chill to. Absolute legends, I like that podcasters are ard now.
Pat Lee Nichols
2021-09-21 22:49:23 +0000 UTC
