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0:32

Just brown. Hi.

0:34

I'm detective Mark Douglas, LAPD

0:38

Nice job in bank.

0:40

The usual stuff. You know, I'm a flight

0:42

attendant for Cabo Way.

0:43

Can I help out here? Who's

0:46

this? Sorry. This is special agent,

0:48

Randy Nickelhead, without call it, tobacco and firearms.

0:50

Sure. Let may I see someone do?

0:52

Yeah. Shoot. I

0:54

started asking myself what the movie needed.

0:57

And who Jackie was?

0:59

Do

0:59

I have a choice?

1:01

She's the smartest person in the story.

1:04

Absolutely. And

1:06

she can handle

1:07

anything. And

1:09

then I just said out loud myself.

1:12

I just said, well,

1:13

that sounds like Pam Greer.

1:28

Hey,

1:28

Ben here. We have some terrific bonus

1:30

episodes this season, starting with more

1:32

from my interview with Quentin Tarantino. Quentin,

1:35

of course, is one of the most popular

1:37

filmmakers in the world, a

1:39

real cinema and a true movie

1:41

expert. We talked about Jackie

1:43

Brown, exploitation cinema, and

1:45

Quentin's first memories of Pam Greet.

1:47

Enjoy.

1:58

The

2:00

first time I saw her and the first movie,

2:04

were the same night.

2:05

It was nineteen seventy two

2:08

and

2:08

I was ten years old.

2:11

And I was staying with my grandmother at the time

2:13

who lived in East LA. She lived in Montebello. And

2:16

there was this new movie that had TV spots

2:18

for it all over television and every

2:20

ten year old kid in the world wanted to see this movie.

2:23

And that movie was the doberman gang.

2:25

I don't know. Bank robbers to teach a bunch of dobermans

2:28

how to rob a bank. It no way,

2:30

as a kid, you can watch that TV spot and

2:32

not I have to see the doberman. Gotta

2:34

go. Doberman gang. Six

2:37

savage Dolby's with a thirst for

2:39

cold cash that leaves back. So my

2:41

brother was gonna take me out to the movies

2:43

there. And she goes, what do you

2:45

wanna go see? I wanna see the doberman gang.

2:47

So she goes and takes me to the doberman gang.

2:49

Now it just happens to be playing at, like, the

2:52

theater that's closest to her, which was My

2:54

favorite theater in my entire life was

2:56

a theater called The Garmar that was in Montobello,

2:58

California. And so we go to the Garmar,

3:01

So we sit down to see the doberman gang.

3:04

Before the

3:06

doberman gang starts, there's

3:08

a series of trailers.

3:11

And one of the trailers is for

3:13

the big birdcage. Meet

3:16

the girls of the big birdcage. And

3:19

slave to every cruel women

3:21

desire of a ruthless madman.

3:24

So watch the doberman game.

3:26

Their

3:27

co feature that

3:29

played all over town was

3:31

a Filipino movie called The Twilight

3:33

People. Which was

3:35

the famous Filipino director, Eddie Romero,

3:38

which was he had kind of

3:40

done a version of this story a

3:42

few times, but this was his biggest version of it.

3:44

It was sort of a Filipino version

3:46

of the island to Doctor Moreau. Chest

3:48

TCM tears involved

3:51

from from In that

3:53

movie, Pam Greer was in it playing

3:55

the Panther Girl. And

3:57

you see the twilight people. The thing you remember

3:59

is the Panther

3:59

Girl.

4:02

You had a good grandmother. Yeah. It sure was

4:04

cool. Yeah. And then the third time I saw a Panther,

4:06

this is all just already Los Angeles kind of

4:08

stuff. Alright. The third time I saw Pam

4:10

Greer was because the big was

4:13

about to come out and she

4:15

was making appearance on

4:18

television. She was making an appearance

4:20

at the Olympic auditorium during

4:22

the local roller derby game. Alright? With

4:24

the LA Thunderbirds. She joined

4:28

the commentators. She talked

4:30

about the big birdcage coming out and it

4:32

was she had the big olafro and

4:34

she was really, oh, hey, I I

4:36

remember her. That's the girl from

4:38

the trailer. So you watched and

4:40

you saw her on the broadcast? Yeah. I watched her on, like,

4:42

the local broadcast on channel five. Yeah.

4:44

The way you tell that story would indicate

4:47

that she made an impression. Yeah. She made a big

4:49

impression. And then it was just like a series

4:51

of, you know, one TV spot for another,

4:53

you know, first coffee, then bucktown, then foxy

4:55

brown, then sheep a baby, then Friday fast. You know, it

4:57

was just like it's it's like a black mama white mama. I set the

4:59

trailers for all of them. They blanketed

5:01

the local television with those trailers.

5:03

Bam, greener. That one

5:05

chick hit squad, who green

5:07

doo as covered,

5:08

is that to do a job

5:10

on them. I'd like you to think about

5:12

if if there's a way to answer this one as a ten

5:14

year old, eleven year old boys, these

5:16

things come out And then also now as

5:18

a movie director, what makes her stand

5:20

out on screen?

5:23

Well, that's interesting. Well, there's almost two different

5:25

aspects. I mean, It's

5:27

one thing to watch the

5:29

movie coffee, and

5:31

respond to her performance, and respond to the

5:33

story, and respond to her journey.

5:35

The TCM rest of her starring vehicles aren't the

5:37

greatest in the world, but coffee is so great.

5:39

It makes up for all the rest of them.

5:41

Coffee just works. What's almost

5:43

interesting talking about from a perspective of

5:45

a ten, eleven, twelve year old

5:48

is

5:49

I wasn't seeing the movies. I was

5:51

just seeing this image of Pampers

5:54

and what this image represented as far

5:56

as these TV spots and these

5:58

posters and these newspaper advertisements

5:59

projected was

6:03

as this beautiful

6:05

black woman with a beautiful round

6:08

afro, with a sawed off shotgun,

6:10

that was just kicking

6:14

ass. You know, just like a

6:16

full on, no holds

6:18

barred action

6:20

hero and the thing about it was

6:23

there wasn't a white equivalent to that.

6:25

Raquel Walsh would do an action movie

6:27

from time to time, but

6:30

she wasn't like coffee. Alright. She's

6:32

not blowing guys heads off with a saw drop shotgun.

6:35

The poster isn't just her, you know,

6:37

with a big weapon. Actually,

6:40

the Penn TCM TV spots were more action packed

6:42

than the Jim Brown TV spots, and they were

6:44

pretty action packed. The bad is one

6:46

shit. It's blocked. That ever a

6:48

good

6:48

town. Coffee.

6:53

Even

6:53

before I got to know who the woman was

6:55

and got to know who she was as an act and even

6:57

got to appreciate the stories. If

6:59

you just compile it with the TV spots

7:01

and the movie posters and the one sheets

7:03

and the soundtrack albums and the newspaper

7:05

advertisements, it was this

7:07

image of Pam in what

7:09

always looked like a bikini some degree

7:11

or another with that big afro and a

7:13

sawed off shotgun. So

7:15

I saw a lot of r rated movies at that

7:17

time, but you still had to kind of talk your parents into

7:19

doing it, or they had or had to be something they

7:22

wanted to see. I don't think coffee was

7:24

necessarily something my mom necessarily wanted

7:26

to see. But around

7:28

seventy seven

7:30

seventy eight living in the South Bay area, and

7:32

I started going to this theater in Carson

7:34

called the Carson Twin Cinema. And one of the thing about

7:36

the Carson Twin Cinema is it showed, you know, it showed

7:38

all the export movies week that they came

7:40

out and usually the big the big

7:42

a movies the week they left town.

7:45

But one of the things that they knew

7:47

is that there were certain titles that they could

7:49

just book, and then everyone would show

7:51

up. So, you know, even though the movie came

7:53

out in, like, seventy two or whatever, it was

7:55

TCM three. Seventy three. Yeah. Seventy three. You

7:57

know, it's like seventy seven, and

8:00

they're booking coffee with the

8:02

Mac as a double feature. And

8:05

it was especially on a double feature

8:07

with the Mac. That was one of my favorite

8:09

double features of all time. That was one of my

8:11

favorite times ever going TCM a

8:13

movie. And it was one of those

8:15

weird situations where it was like,

8:18

I'd built this movie up in my mind a lot

8:20

because of the impactful TV

8:22

spots and the enticing poster,

8:24

you were in a position to have it disappoint

8:26

you. Yeah. And there's very

8:28

few movies that could have as impactful a

8:30

poster, an impactful a trailer, and then

8:32

have you sit on it with anticipation.

8:34

A little boys in anticipation

8:37

for six or seven years.

8:40

And then Have no worries that

8:42

the movie will absolutely deliver when you

8:44

actually do watch it. Well, that's

8:46

coffee. It

8:47

just delivers. It

8:48

III don't wanna go too crazy

8:51

on the idea that coffee is

8:53

a great movie. There's a lot of

8:55

It's very amateurish and Jackill

8:58

was exactly where he belonged, alright, when it

9:00

came to making movies. I do

9:02

think that coffee is one of the most

9:04

entertaining movies ever made.

9:06

It's one of the funnest revenge movies ever

9:08

made. It's just entertaining.

9:12

So you wanna play with knives.

9:15

Well, you picked the wrong player. It's

9:17

it's a blast. The hell is going

9:19

on here? It's funny. It has a thing about a lot of

9:21

the other Jack Hill movies has where

9:23

it's like there's a lot of laughs in

9:25

it. And

9:26

there's you're

9:27

having a bit of an internal struggle while you're

9:30

watching it in the first twenty, thirty minutes,

9:32

but the laughs. So you're like, Okay. Am I laughing

9:34

at the movie or am I

9:36

laughing with the movie? And I

9:38

suspect most audiences might think they were

9:40

laughing at the movie. But

9:42

then it story starts working. You

9:45

start caring about the

9:47

pamper character. And about

9:49

midway through, you're like, No.

9:51

No.

9:51

No. No. IIII think I'm laughing with the

9:53

movie. No. No. No. Oh, and and I actually that

9:55

was supposed to be funny. No. No. This is

9:57

supposed to no. This is actually

9:59

genuinely

9:59

witty. This is not rizable. This is

10:02

generally witty. And then

10:04

just the

10:05

way it rolls everything into everything else.

10:07

Alright. In that whole last twenty TCM. The

10:10

rampage she goes on is just so

10:12

cinematically effective. It's just so

10:14

exciting.

10:15

And

10:17

you just you're in love with her. You

10:19

love her. She can do no wrong.

10:22

You are so rooting for her. And

10:24

so was the audience. And just

10:26

like just cheered. Just Cheered.

10:29

yeah

10:29

Like, at every high moment she had

10:32

in that whole last twenty minutes.

10:34

Coffee, baby. I'm glad

10:36

to see you. I

10:38

knew they were everybody gonna do it. Oh,

10:40

I ain't here because they didn't try a

10:42

lover. Why

10:42

don't you just let me have TCM thing?

10:45

No. Let

10:46

me jump then because you're the perfect person

10:48

to ask. You know, I agree lately. This

10:50

is how you Right. There's this hesitancy in

10:52

the beginning -- Mhmm. -- whether it's the first twenty, twenty five

10:55

minutes and you're not right. You don't

10:57

quite know what you're reacting to.

10:59

Right. And so is it authentic? And then you buy in

11:01

at some point. I don't know when that moment is, but all

11:03

of a sudden you realize that you're into it and

11:05

you care. It is hard

11:07

to know how much you are

11:09

allowed to enjoy black

11:11

exploitation films sometimes. And

11:13

you have seemed like you've figured

11:15

it out. Well, I'd never get mad. I'd

11:17

never I'd never get mad. I just

11:19

suspect I suspect you Yeah. Maybe you

11:21

maybe you wrestle a little less. I mean, I

11:23

didn't wrestle with that.

11:26

So how should we look at them? How should

11:28

thoughtful America look at these movies?

11:30

In the case of coffee in

11:32

particular, there's two ways in it. I don't think you have to have

11:34

any qualms about this whatsoever. Pamgriller

11:37

is to one degree or another as

11:39

far as where I'm coming from. Is

11:41

she's a bit of, you know, she's

11:43

sort of like the Marlena Dietrich

11:45

of the seventies. On one hand, they don't have

11:47

anything to do with each other, but she's always been the

11:49

closest equivalent. That I

11:51

come up with, when it comes to a superstar

11:53

persona of an actress that carries you know,

11:55

again, especially if you're talking about the Joseph on

11:57

Starburger movies, one after another, after another,

11:59

after another.

11:59

So you're watching the movie that officially

12:02

starts that. That

12:03

starts this entertaining and exciting

12:05

persona. But also, I

12:07

think along with Rolling Thunder, it's

12:10

the best revenge o matic movie

12:12

ever made. There's never been

12:15

it shouldn't work as good as it

12:17

does, but it does. And it's just It's

12:19

just so damn

12:21

entertaining at the end when she wipes these

12:23

cats out. Violence has

12:25

never been presented on

12:27

one hand serious but with just such

12:29

a giggle without it

12:32

being stupid and without it

12:34

turning into camp. And

12:35

I don't think coffee falls into

12:38

camp. But then the other thing about the black

12:40

exploitation stuff is, yeah, it's got the great music and the

12:42

great clothes and King George looks

12:44

fantastic and is It is a a pimple

12:46

leisure wear, and the afros, and the

12:48

cat legs, and, you know, they hang out of the

12:50

total experience at the very beginning, which

12:52

was the big black nightclub in Los Angeles.

12:54

The time. What what's not TCM love? Okay.

13:13

Coming up on the plot thickens. I wanted

13:15

to sound like a pamper movie. I wanted to have

13:17

a pamper open credit sequence. I

13:19

want the poster to reflect a pamper

13:21

poster.

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sixty five twenty two. To

14:30

the extent that

14:30

there was controversy about black exploitation films

14:32

as we moved out of them, did that

14:34

held pam back a little bit?

14:37

At the end of the day, I think it stopped her for getting her

14:39

rightful props as

14:42

as a bankable actress because

14:44

it was easy to marginalize the black

14:46

exploitation actor. As well that this

14:48

is this thing. They're not trying for

14:50

a crossover. They it was just it was an easy way

14:52

to marginalize them. Should

14:54

have been given credit as, no, this is the major actress

14:56

that when you put her name on a poster, people go

14:58

and see it all over America and

15:00

sometimes all over the world. And she was

15:02

never given that proper respect. It was stuck

15:04

out. She's the star of this genre. When the

15:06

genre peters out, that's it for her. Now

15:08

she just stuck being an actress. So

15:11

then let's jump forward then. How did you meet her? When did

15:13

you see her in person for the first time? Oh,

15:15

the first time I met her was when she came

15:17

into audition for pulp

15:19

fiction. For what role? She was auditioning for the

15:21

role that Rosanna Cat ended up playing. Well,

15:23

the song went wild and key

15:24

with a shot. I don't know. Stop bothering

15:26

me. This what are you looking for? That guy's

15:28

gonna die in our garbage. You're never gonna find

15:30

anything else. I'm going to partake on this video.

15:32

And it was one of those things

15:34

where it was I didn't think she

15:36

was gonna get it, but

15:38

she

15:38

could have gotten it. You know? You thought

15:40

right that you knew And there's a little casting director.

15:42

Let's see if she'll she's available to come

15:44

in. But

15:45

I didn't think it was necessarily work out, but

15:47

I just wanted to meet her. I

15:49

wanted to meet her, and then we would have the scene and I

15:51

would have the fond of hearing TCM Pamper's to

15:53

say my lines. Because she

15:55

walks in the room and

15:58

back then, I don't do this

15:59

anymore. But back then when I would make

16:02

a movie my

16:03

office would just be completely decorated

16:06

with movie posters on every inch

16:08

of the walls and video

16:11

store standis and it just every

16:13

POP is like a boy's bedroom. Alright?

16:15

Every every time I started a new

16:17

office for a movie, And Pam had some

16:19

of the best posters, so there was, like, a

16:21

ton of Pam grip posters all over the office.

16:23

But so you didn't put him in because Pam was

16:25

coming in. I know that was a thing. So Pam came in

16:27

there and she's you know,

16:29

she came walking in and I'm

16:31

like acting like a geek over

16:33

here's Queen Greer. Alright.

16:35

It's just to enter the building. And I all

16:37

hail the queen. And then she goes,

16:39

okay. So tell me, did

16:41

you put

16:41

all these posters up? Because you

16:43

knew I was coming in. And I

16:46

go, actually, I almost took them

16:48

down because I knew you

16:50

were coming. And

16:53

that's why I had her sign a bunch of them before

16:55

she left. Take

16:57

me to the moment that or you think of her when

16:59

you read rum punch. Well, it's interesting. Okay.

17:01

So the movie came about because

17:04

I had read the galleys of rum

17:06

punch before it actually got

17:08

published. They sent me the

17:10

galleys. And I read it. And I

17:12

kind of made it a movie in my

17:14

mind, but I still was had to do pulp fiction and

17:16

everything. So I yeah.

17:17

I just put it away. That was that. I

17:19

figured somebody else would do it. And then they didn't. And

17:22

then it became a situation after

17:24

pulp fiction. When we

17:25

were gonna have some access to

17:27

of the upper lender books and one of them might be rum

17:30

punch. And so I brought

17:32

up to

17:32

another director I knew that there was

17:34

this cool project that I might be involved

17:36

in, maybe they would like to read the book and

17:39

consider it. And that director

17:41

said, yes. And then for whatever reason,

17:43

I decide Well, let me read the book

17:45

again before I give it to them so I can,

17:47

like, jog my memory about

17:49

everything. And I read

17:51

it again And then the thing is as I

17:53

read it, like that movie that popped into my head

17:55

about two years earlier just

17:57

came back all of a sudden. It was just right there

17:59

as if it had just been sitting in

18:01

a room. And I realized I thought, hey, I think this is

18:03

what I wanna do next. And so I didn't

18:05

give it to that person to decide to do

18:07

it. So now I read it a

18:09

third time Yeah, thinking

18:10

about how I would make it. And in

18:13

the

18:13

book, the character's not called Jackie Brown. Her

18:15

name is Jackie Birch, and she's

18:18

a white lady who's, you know, how old she's

18:20

supposed to be TCM one, forty seven,

18:23

whatever. So I'm

18:23

reading it, and now

18:25

I'm making it in now now I'm actually actively trying

18:27

to make it in a movie into my mind. And

18:29

I'm like, okay. Well, who could be

18:32

Jackie Birch? And so I'm thinking of the different because

18:34

she's blonde in this in this story. thinking of

18:36

some of the different blonde actresses that

18:38

could fit around This is a grown up role. Yeah.

18:40

It's a grown up role. And

18:42

so and naturally, you can imagine

18:44

some of the four or five. I probably thought about it. I was

18:46

thinking about them. And and

18:49

then I started asking

18:50

myself what the movie needed and

18:53

who Jackie

18:54

was. And I

18:56

go,

18:56

well, she's a

18:59

woman

18:59

on the late side of forties TCM

19:02

She's an absolute knockout, but she's on a late side

19:04

of her forties, and she looks like it, but in

19:06

a good way. It just makes

19:08

you look adult, makes you

19:10

look formidable.

19:12

And she's the smartest

19:14

person in the story. Absolutely.

19:16

And she can

19:18

handle anything.

19:20

And then I just said out loud

19:22

to myself. I just said,

19:24

well, that sounds

19:25

like Pam Greer. And

19:27

then once I started thinking

19:30

of it as a Pam

19:31

Greer movie, as

19:34

a

19:34

black exploitation

19:35

movie, and not just a black exploitation movie,

19:37

but a TCM Greer movie.

19:40

But not coming from a nineteen

19:42

seventy two, seventy three, seventy

19:44

four, black exploitation feeling, but coming

19:46

from a real person. Situation.

19:49

This is the nineties, and

19:51

this is real. And the music can

19:54

be Wawa. You

19:56

know, and and my bad guy can be flamboyance and

19:59

everything, but this takes place

19:59

in a real world. And I

20:01

even like the idea of

20:04

even Jackie Brown. she's not coffee,

20:06

but the idea that, like, a

20:08

coffee or a foxy brown has lived

20:11

a life. And this is the

20:13

life she's and the life she's lived has led

20:15

her to this. And now we're picking up the

20:17

story twenty years later. So

20:19

I imagine pretty much close to the

20:21

time you say Pam Greer to yourself.

20:23

Do you also think

20:25

Jackie Brown? Yeah.

20:26

Yeah. Oh, immediately. And then and I thought well, it

20:28

was like the next thought. Alright. You know, and

20:30

then the idea will Foxy Brown, Jackie Brown. Well,

20:32

TCM gonna make it a black exploitation thing. I'm gonna

20:35

make it sound like I wanted to sound like

20:37

a pamper movie. I wanted to have a pamper

20:39

opening credit sequence. I want the poster

20:41

to reflect TCM pamper poster.

20:43

Okay.

20:43

Ready? Everybody's settle and

20:46

action. Pam,

20:47

Greet, is Jackie

20:51

Brown. Pam, Greet, is.

20:54

Jackie Brown. Pamela Greer

20:57

is. Jackie Brown.

21:00

She

21:00

tells this story of seeing you while

21:02

she's driving and you're in

21:04

Hollywood talking to somebody on the sidewalk.

21:07

What she with her boyfriend at the time and

21:09

I knew him too. And so she stopped, hey, Quentin,

21:11

how are you doing? You know? And so

21:13

we're talking, and I'm I'm writing

21:15

this for her, but I haven't told her about

21:17

it.

21:18

And she's I go, so how's

21:20

everything going? She goes, oh, everything's going great. And

21:22

I go, hey, look, got this

21:24

thing that I'm writing for

21:25

you. I think think it's gonna

21:27

be really exciting for you. Think you're gonna find it really

21:29

special. Because, well, I'm doing good stuff now.

21:31

I'm in, like, I've got a good part in

21:34

Mars attacks. I've got a good part

21:36

in escape from LA. I'm working

21:38

with John Carpenter, Tim Burton, and I'm just

21:40

like fuck

21:41

all that shit. That

21:45

TCM shit. Wait till you see what

21:47

I got for you.

21:49

She's okay. We'll see.

21:52

Alright. And I still like, few months more to go on the script.

21:54

Alright? Don't give her any clue whatsoever. I

21:56

don't touch. She has no idea this she

21:59

has no

22:00

no idea.

22:01

This is coming down

22:02

the pike. None whatsoever.

22:06

And then so finally,

22:08

I finish it. And

22:10

I call her

22:11

up and go, okay. So Pam, I finished finally

22:13

that script that I was telling you about. So I wanna

22:15

send it to you. So, yeah, give me your address. And so,

22:17

she gives me your address. I don't

22:19

even send it federal express. I send it,

22:21

like, with stamps and put it, drop it

22:23

in a mailbox. And

22:26

she gets it and opens it

22:28

up. It's called Jackie Brown, and then there's

22:30

the only thing there's no

22:33

letter, no nothing.

22:35

Just to post it on the

22:37

script that says, look

22:40

at Jackie.

22:42

the And

22:44

And so she reads it.

22:46

Alright? And then, like, I call her up, like,

22:48

three days later or something like that. And

22:50

she goes, okay. So what

22:52

part are you thinking about me for? I go, didn't you read

22:55

the post it?

22:55

It said, look at Jackie. Who

22:57

do you think? think Well,

23:00

you

23:00

mean, Jackie Brown? Whoa,

23:03

how many other Jackies are there in

23:05

the script? Yes, Jackie Brown.

23:07

Well, I didn't

23:08

think you meant the fucking lead. How

23:10

did I go, well, you course. It's I'm

23:12

can't you don't recognize yourself on the page,

23:14

maybe I'm wrong. She, no. No. No.

23:16

No. No. I I seem I just didn't think. I'm

23:19

sorry. I thought maybe Melanie, I don't know.

23:21

Because she's, well,

23:21

I didn't know what you were doing.

23:25

Your

23:25

story aligns very similarly

23:27

to her version of the story, except she

23:29

says it was a lot longer than three days because

23:31

she didn't open it for a while. Yeah. And

23:33

she had TCM pay the postage due.

23:36

Like, there was, like, it and it was something crazy.

23:39

Like, it was thirty nine

23:41

cents short. Yeah. When

23:44

you were finished with the script, were you

23:46

anxiously waiting to hear from her, did you think there's

23:48

no way she's not gonna Oh, I knew she was gonna do it.

23:50

No. I was I was anxiously waiting because

23:52

I've been, you know, this had been this

23:54

little private present that I've been

23:56

writing for Pam for, like,

23:58

three or four months. And so,

23:59

yeah, you know, I was

24:02

happy. It

24:02

was present day. And she was gonna open it

24:04

up, and I was gonna hear what she had to say.

24:07

Then you how long before

24:09

you get to work, where you start production? I think

24:10

by the time I send her the script, we had

24:13

already opened offices and everything. So it's like,

24:15

yeah, within a few months. In this

24:16

strange scenario where she says, I don't know.

24:18

I don't really see myself in there. Does

24:20

the movie go forward? Or is it just like,

24:22

no. This Jackie Brown was really written for

24:25

Bambourilla. There's No.

24:26

III was very committed to it at that point in

24:28

time. I wouldn't have do that. I wouldn't I wouldn't have

24:30

just I wouldn't put it away. But

24:32

you got the

24:32

actor you want. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. And

24:35

and how was she as an

24:37

actress? Missus, she had not done any kind

24:39

of role with this much depth, this

24:41

much range, this much completeness as

24:44

a person. But to answer your

24:46

question, okay, she was terrific.

24:48

Pam was a very seasoned performer

24:50

by the time that I work with her. You know,

24:52

she'd been working for twenty years straight.

24:54

And even, you know, you know, people talk, oh,

24:56

too bad. She, you know, didn't stay a star at a

24:58

certain point. She worked all the goddamn

25:01

time. I mean, she worked all And

25:03

so she became a very, very seasoned performer. But

25:05

if you look at the wealth of

25:07

roles that she did, whether it's on

25:09

Miami vice or in class

25:12

of nineteen ninety nine or

25:14

these different kind of movies that she

25:16

would do. She didn't do a whole

25:18

lot of scenes. That's just her sitting around talking

25:21

like the Simba Max Cherry at the

25:23

breakfast table. Right. You know, that's

25:25

not the kind of things that she

25:27

did. Wow. Flowing

25:29

over seven million miles and I've been waiting on

25:31

people for twenty years.

25:33

And after

25:34

my bus, the best job I could get was

25:36

with cop or wear, which the worst job you could

25:38

get in this industry. You know,

25:41

I make sixteen thousand a year plus

25:43

retirement benefits that ain't worth a damn.

25:46

And with this arrest

25:48

hanging over my head, man, I'm scared.

25:51

And if I lose this job, I gotta start

25:53

all over again, and I got nothing to start

25:56

over with. Are we stuck with whatever I

25:58

can get?

26:06

More from my

26:06

conversation with Tarantino, after

26:10

the break, I think

26:11

it was a little over influenced by the hellish

26:13

and lambs at a key and I had actually

26:15

just gone to a key and bought one or two

26:17

of them. I go, wow, these are amazing. Alright? And

26:19

so I go out and get like five

26:21

other ones.

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the So what

27:26

kind of directing

27:28

did she need to

27:31

respond? And sort

27:32

of become the actress that you needed to be for

27:34

that part. You know, frankly, at the end of the day,

27:36

I think it's just, you know, slow down. We've got time to

27:38

do the scene. Right? You don't have to rush.

27:40

We don't have to do this. We have to do it. We're fine. Just take

27:42

your time. Okay. Let's try it this

27:45

way. Let's try

27:45

it that way. Don't worry about trying

27:47

to get to it too fast. Let's just just

27:49

talk and let's see what happens. You know, and

27:51

then they do the scene a couple of times and you give

27:53

them a little bit more direction about

27:56

something they could be thinking about or whatever, and then it

27:58

just kinda just

27:59

that

27:59

develops. Ever been tempted. What?

28:02

But one of these is my pocket.

28:05

Mhmm. I did. I'd

28:07

have to give one to you one night.

28:09

Of course. She really is surrounded in that movie

28:11

by actors. You said, you know, I was

28:13

instantly caught when you said slow

28:15

down

28:15

because, I mean,

28:17

Robert Forster,

28:18

Sam

28:19

Jackson, Robert

28:20

DeNiro, they're

28:22

all slow -- Right. --

28:23

in the best -- Yeah. -- possible

28:25

way. Right? Yeah. They're not well, yeah,

28:28

they know they're in movies and they know that there was

28:30

a TCM, but they don't

28:32

think that their job is simply to tell the

28:35

story. And they think their

28:37

job is to bring character. And

28:39

the characters don't know the story.

28:41

But if you act in exploitation movies

28:43

for thirty years, that's not your job. Your job is

28:45

to tell the story. Your job is to be

28:47

the bad guy. Your job is to be the cool guy. Your job

28:49

is to be the sexy girl. Your

28:52

job is to be the the goofy sidekick.

28:55

And

28:55

you're telling the story constantly every

28:57

time you open your mouth.

28:59

And you're also timed working with

29:02

directors that don't understand what good

29:04

acting is. So they want you to yell the lines.

29:06

They want they want that vein on your

29:08

forehead to pop out when you're

29:10

screaming this or that and the other, and they want you

29:12

to push it. Push it. Push it.

29:14

Because to them, that's good acting.

29:16

But

29:16

that's not good acting. But you do

29:18

it for twenty years, and then all of a sudden

29:20

that is acting.

29:21

Now, that's not Pam. I'm not saying,

29:24

but but that is a problem that

29:26

happens when actors have been doing exploitation

29:28

movies for twenty years. Right. When you're doing

29:30

movies in the Philippines, shot in

29:32

four weeks. Yeah. Right. I like

29:34

those movies, but, yes, I just like

29:36

Apple. Right. But the

29:38

moment to moment work suffers.

29:40

Let's find it as we

29:42

do it. Aspect is not there.

29:45

Yeah. Is

29:48

that what

29:50

I think it is? What

29:52

do you think it is? I

29:54

think it's a gun. From what you thought right

29:56

now, take your hands from around

29:59

my

29:59

throat. What the hell's wrong with you,

30:02

Jackie. The fuck up, and don't you

30:04

loop. So that's seen

30:05

before withordell and the

30:07

gun. Mhmm. And that gun is sort

30:10

of she talked about that how the manner in

30:12

which you shot at the angle of her body

30:14

so that we never see -- Yeah. Yeah. --

30:16

that she takes the gun out of the purse. Yeah.

30:18

Yeah. That was actually well, that was a thing. That was I

30:20

think it was a little over influenced by the

30:23

hellhound at a Kia. Alright.

30:25

Because I had actually I think just gone

30:27

to a Kia and bought, like, like,

30:29

bought one or two of them. I go, wow. These are

30:31

amazing. Alright? And so I go out and get, like,

30:33

five other ones. And then I

30:35

was walking around the apartment staging out the

30:37

scene, and I just kept doing it with the halogen. And

30:39

I was like, these are awesome. It's

30:42

like having a light board, alright, for your

30:44

movie. And one of the

30:46

things about I was really into the realism of Jackie Brown. And

30:48

so one of the things that was important to me that even

30:50

when we found the apartment that Jackie Brown

30:52

lived in, I knew how much Jackie

30:54

Brown made a year.

30:56

So Jackie had to be able to afford that

30:58

apartment or I wouldn't have shot

31:00

there. So to find an apartment she could afford that would be big

31:02

enough to actually put a crew in there. It was

31:04

not easy, but we did. But, you know,

31:07

those those halogen lamps were pretty cheap. So it was like,

31:09

that made sense that that would be what Jackie would

31:11

have. And so then we just

31:13

hooked TCM up with movie lighting. So

31:15

Ordell could just be turning them down, and she could be turning

31:17

them up, and Ordell turns them down again.

31:20

And, you know, we

31:22

told her to sit over here, stand over there, so,

31:24

like, the light would hit her screwdriver

31:27

in a big way, and so the orange would kinda, like,

31:29

come out and just yeah. That was the first time I'd ever

31:31

did a scene at all with the lights off and it I I loved it.

31:34

Any surprises from

31:36

Pam that you didn't expect when

31:38

she shows up and starts to work?

31:41

I don't know if there was any super big

31:43

surprises, but at the same time though, like, I'm still

31:45

kinda starting my career. So I'm a it's only my

31:47

third movie. So, like, indirectly has far more

31:49

experience on a set than I do. And

31:51

she was a joy. She was a very good actress.

31:53

I thought she was perfect for the character. She got

31:55

along with everybody. Terrificly. Everybody on

31:57

the crew loved her. Everybody in the

31:59

movie loved her. And she was a real leading

32:01

lady. She knew that this was a good opportunity for TCM.

32:04

she was tickled painting. She was can

32:06

I go home early? No. She didn't wanna go home early. She didn't want

32:08

this thing to ever fucking end. Alright. She

32:10

was having a ball. And and

32:12

she appreciated it. And she knew

32:14

to lead. There's a thing about when you cast a lead

32:17

actor. There is a there's a thing about a lead actor. They

32:19

need to lead. They need to lead by example. They

32:21

are the lead of the film. They kinda you

32:23

know, they're sort of like the director a

32:25

little bit. They need to set up an example

32:27

what they do matters. Yeah. What they do really

32:29

matters and they need to kind of help lead this

32:31

production. They need to give it a

32:33

true north. To everybody on the crew,

32:35

and everybody involved in the movie. And

32:37

she offered that with her

32:39

sincerity, with her

32:41

charming personality, her gratefulness, and

32:43

then also the entire crew watched

32:46

her rise to to some

32:48

wonderful heights that I think Pam was even

32:50

surprised that she you're taking a hell of a chance,

32:52

kid. No. Really? If he

32:54

finds

32:54

it, I'll say mister Walker put it in there.

32:55

And I didn't know anything about it, like the

32:58

Coke. Oh, then you're out. You

33:00

get nothing? Yeah. But I'm not in jail, at

33:02

least I tried. So

33:04

why

33:04

wasn't TCM Greer a

33:06

bigger star? Why isn't you a

33:08

bigger star

33:10

now? Pam is kind

33:12

of a legend, you know. She's doing alright.

33:14

I mean, like, oh, no. She's definitely doing alright. Yeah.

33:16

She you know, she's a working actress, and she's

33:18

been a working actress. For a very, very,

33:21

very. Like, I do think that

33:23

Hollywood was a bit contemptuous about

33:25

the black exploitation craze even

33:27

though they part token it. You know, MGM released a bunch of movies, and

33:29

Warner Bros released a bunch of movies. But when

33:31

it sort of ran its course,

33:33

they couldn't be done with it fast enough

33:35

almost. And I think that's just very

33:37

very short sighted when it comes

33:39

to Hollywood, when it comes TCM, like, the way

33:41

they made a star of Pam. You know?

33:44

And AIP could've kept on casting her and

33:46

stuff. Maybe it didn't have to be slightly less

33:48

exploitation y. But, you know, She was a

33:50

star. She was TCM she she was a star. Like

33:52

Raquel Walsh was a star. And I

33:54

think she should have been traded that

33:55

way. What's how would you assess

33:58

her legacy? Well, it's actually

33:59

interesting

33:59

because if you had asked me

34:02

that in ninety seven

34:05

when I was doing Jackie Brown,

34:07

it would have been all about those early years, you

34:09

know, the foxy brown and the coffee and

34:11

then what she meant to me and what she meant

34:13

to culture and she what she meant to

34:16

the zeikai and like I

34:18

said, those posters and those album covers and all that stuff.

34:20

But since then,

34:21

PAMA's

34:23

actually survived that

34:26

aspect of her legacy and has

34:28

proven to be a very terrific actress and has

34:30

worked with a lot of really, really good people and it

34:32

just is like when she was on

34:34

the l word, you know, I watched every

34:36

episode of that. She was just this

34:38

fantastic character. And, you know,

34:40

to some degree or another, you could almost

34:42

say that Pam's Triumph

34:44

has been,

34:44

to some degree, outliving

34:47

her super cool, super

34:49

sexy, black exploitation

34:52

persona and has just become this fantastic actress

34:54

that has had a forty year career,

34:57

if not

34:58

longer. Yeah, I don't think

35:00

she gets there without Jackie Brown. Yeah. I

35:02

put her on a good road. I put her on a

35:04

good road. And she

35:05

proceeded to keep driving down that road from that

35:08

point on.

35:16

Thanks for listening. If

35:18

you're enjoying the plot thickens, why not

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