Repo Man (1984)

My name is Alex Cox, and I am the director and writer of Repo Man. And my name is Vicki Thomas. I'm the casting director. And I'm Michael Nesmith. I was the executive producer. My name is Cy Richardson. I was Light and the guy who did Bad Man. It's Juicy Bananas. My name is Xander Schloss. I am a PA and the late Fox Harris' driver-turned-actor. I play Kevin. I'm Del Zamora, and I played Lagarto Rodriguez, the older... and funnier looking Rodriguez brother. The one with the hairnet. Right. Fox Harris, who is the first character that we see in the film. Is no longer with us. Is no longer with us. But I met Fox Harris when I and Nancy Richardson, the editor, were guards or caretakers at the actor's studio in Los Angeles. And the actors really didn't like us, and they would eat our food, and we'd put a padlock on the refrigerator, and they broke the padlock to steal our food. And the only actor who would speak to either of us was Fox Harris. And so before Repo Man was even conceived, I'd formed this very, very favorable opinion of this guy Fox. He seemed really nice. And then when we were casting the film, Harry Dean Stanton said, there's an actor that you need to meet, because the only guy who can play this role is a guy called Fox. Except for this one thing. Fox didn't know how to drive. No, that's right. He couldn't drive a car, and he showed up on the set and took off and drove it right into a bridge. He almost showed up at the gas station. He hit a gas pump. Well, subsequently, me and... He and I became really great friends because we'd do these long drives from the desert. You obviously were driving. Yeah. It was great. He'd take me into bars down on Santa Monica Boulevard and he'd say, this is my friend Alexander. He's an actor and we're in a big film together. He was just making stuff up. And he pulls his tooth out at the, what, midway through the... Oh, brother. Yeah. Yeah. That was, I really wanted to cut that scene. Until now, of course, but now it looks like it's a stroke of genius. You know who the runner-up for Fox's part was? Lance Hendrickson. Lance Hendrickson, that's right. Yeah. Number two. And Lance and Fox had been friends, but had a falling out over a restaurant bill. I remember Lance telling me that. He didn't think they could both be in the film together because of this restaurant incident. There's Varnum Honey, my motorcycle mechanic. riding bob richardson's motor guzzi and i'm doubling fox and now now robbie muller is shooting the original part of repo man with fox in the car varnum behind because this opening sequence is a composite of two different days of shooting the first shot by robbie muller who did this shot and the second day done months later by bob richardson He was driving the Moto Guzzi. You were driving my BMW motorcycle. That's right. Do you remember? You had that? That's right. I rode your BMW down from Carmel. And then it fell over in the parking lot. It was an absolutely tragic day. Oh, it was traumatic. I came over and my mirrors were crunched. Well, okay. I guess that's the price of the movie. It wasn't near as traumatic as when the Malibu got stolen. That was bad. We'll get to that, won't we? Well, this is that car. It is. Because when we started shooting, we only had one of these Chevy Malibus. Yes, and I kept saying, don't rent the picture car. Buy them. Let's buy three. Yeah, but we only ended up getting one. And the Teamsters suggested to me that I should, since I didn't have a car, I should drive that car to the set every day. And this went on for about a day and a half, and then the car vanished. came in and wrote, where's the Malibu on the wall of the repo office? The smoking boots, that's left over from Time Rider. That's a joke from Time Rider borrowed for Repo Man. In New York, they put that on the poster. That's right. And in England, yeah. Yeah, that was the British poster too. And there goes Alex. Ah, generic cans. Generic line of food. This particular scene was shot the day after my 21st birthday. How nice! So it's like a present for you. Uh-huh, it's a little present. Little boy. But you didn't, originally you were scheduled to play this part, weren't you, Xander? But then I had a crisis of confidence. Yeah, I think it was strictly business. You guys had negotiated a deal with Chris Penn the same day that you hired me. And subsequently, because Chris had a bigger name than I, I was out, he was in. And nobody really knows it, but I can remember Vicky and I sitting on the curb downtown, and I was bawling like a baby about it. I think you'd gone all the way with the mohawk, see? Yeah. I'm looking at the haircut, I'm thinking, this is a truncated mohawk. This is a mohawk that does not quite have the guts to be a mohawk. Am I right or wrong about this? It's what I call a pose hawk. A pose hawk. And the reason being... Had you done it, we would have followed you into the sea. Now that didn't hurt. This is Luis Contreras. And Luis kept telling Alexander that he was going to hurt him in the scene. And that's Charles Hopkins. He used to be my boss at UCLA Film Archive. Here we go. boom that did hurt that hurt that put a bruise on on my ribs even though i was wearing a protective girdle about the size of a cantaloupe well louis told me that he says he wants to be an actor i'm gonna initiate him yeah dick rude dick rude with a sid vicious t-shirt and in the background miguel sandoval prescience and the circle jerks playing and they're listening to the circle jerks later up here who, by the way, when I met them on the set, they were totally disinterested in me. I said, hi, I'm Xander. I play Kevin the Nerd. And they said, so? But I later on ended up joining the band and playing with them for about 12 years. There's Jennifer Bogleman. You're still in the Cycle Jacks, aren't you? Well, yeah, you could say so. You know, we keep breaking up and having reunions, and now we're all kind of getting on in years, so... geriatric punk rockers. So the circle's not quite round. That's right. Not a lot of jerking going on either. Is it Jennifer Balgobin? Jennifer Balgobin, who we saw a couple of weeks ago and looks today exactly as she did in 1983. She does look great. Miguel Sandoval, who doesn't look exactly like Miguel Sandoval. That's when he had hair, right? This is the guy from The Clear and Present Danger with the baseball bat. The drug lord. Or if you stay at his house in Los Angeles, he's actually the drug landlord. And here you come, Xander. I love this scene. This is your mom's house, right? This is Kevin's? Well, if you look closely on the other dresser, not the one with the lamp, you can see a picture of me as a little boy. I just love that. Nobody's supposed to be up here. It's my parents' room. We had lots of improvisations, too, of you being pushed in the pool and stuff like that. We did voiceover, didn't we? I'm supposed to be the host, guys. Yeah, joke's a joke, but I'm supposed to be the host here. We were waiting the shot so you could get the lights to go off. Do you remember that? That's right. And the guy who had to turn the lights off was called Mr. Knickerbocker. Do you remember? Well, I remember you waiting to get the lights off. Did they go off? Yeah. Okay, when did they go off? Just have to wait because it's just only... There they go! Oh, no! Cut. That was very, very close. And there was a guy from Washington Irving called Mr. Knickerbocker, and he was the guy who had the power to turn off the lights on the bridge. Here comes one of the most hateful, vulgar lines in the movies, which is also one of the funniest. And there's Vicky's car. That was your car? No, is that my car? Yeah. The blue Impala was your car? Yeah, we used your car. Oh, my God. We used my car initially to cast this movie at UCLA Film School. That's right. I auditioned in that car at UCLA. My Chevy Impala was on a soundstage at UCLA Film School, and Biff Yeager was the very first actor. We read for the film. And I came with my girlfriend in separate cars, and she thought Alex was the strangest guy she'd ever met, and she left. Well, Alex had orange hair at the time, didn't he? Yeah, I had a punk rock girlfriend and she made me do things with my head. Oh, no. No, no. That couldn't be your car because I went and picked that car up when I was a PA. My car was green. It was a different. And I remember driving at 110 miles per hour down Highland Avenue. What? Oh, yeah. You guys didn't know it. I was driving that thing like a maniac. So here we have Harry Dean Stanton. Here's Harry Dean. Any thoughts on Harry Dean? That's right. Well, Harry Dean, who... I had that note, didn't I? That thing that you found, that memo. What was the look? The cross between a Western and a cadaver? He has that Old West slash cadaver look. Western movie star. This is what a friend of mine told me at the time. This weekend I went to a party and met Harry Dean Stanton. Even before I knew who he was, I thought, this man must play Bud. He is just like Varnum, the motorcycle mechanic. He has that great remnant of the old west slash cadaver look. That's great. Well said. You called me up. You were all excited about Harry Dean. This guy's a repo man. He's actually a repo. Now, when this guy falls. I'm doing his voice right here. You are. Yeah, we did it out of the parking lot. That's right. In the back of the office. And Debbie Diaz does the voice inside. Right. Yeah. Now let's talk a little bit about this guy's hand. That had to hurt. He got hurt. He got hurt. Not good. We really didn't care, though, did we? But he didn't lose his thumb. Well, hey, life of a repo man. I mean, his thumb stayed on. Intense. Because I remember there was a story about a thumb later, wasn't there? Yeah, that wasn't his thumb. But that wasn't his. Somebody lost their thumb, and later they sued the production, and nobody knew about it. I still have it. Why didn't you bring it back? It cost us thousands. Now, you know, I've seen that scene replicated in other movies where there's a cross or a crucifix or a Virgin Mary, and they throw it out. Now, here we've got the... the little dangly pine tree, which was the only sponsor that you got for the film, besides Ralph's Markets. Ralph's Supermarkets donated some generic goods, including beer, and the Car Freshener Corporation donated about a hundred of these little Christmas trees without scent, so that we wouldn't have to smell them. That was our special effects, right? That was our entire special effects budget. And this hut was built by J. Ray Fox and Linda Burbank, this whole office. It was just an empty lot. There were no cars. There was nothing there. Now, that's the part I read for. That's the part you read for originally, isn't it? Right. And six months later, you called me and told me that you had good news and bad news. You said the bad news was that I wasn't going to get that part. And my heart hit the floor. And so the good news, I was getting one of the Repo Man parts, and we were all going to get paid. So great. I had one of those phone calls, too. It was the first time I met Al was at UCLA. And then eight months later, we were going to shoot it again as a student film. As a student film, yeah. Five months later, you called. And I was actually getting ready to open a play. And you said, we're going to do it. And I was like, oh, great. So we're on the weekends at UCLA with him. He goes, no, we're getting paid. It's going to be a SAG movie and the whole Universal. He's interested. And I was like, wow. Couldn't believe it. Universal's interested, they're not interested. They're interested again. What is their problem? You know what the funny thing, speaking about the music of Repo Man, was that it seems like that was one of the first compilation of soundtracks of bands, actual bands, instead of just a composer. You know, the only other thing I can think of that's analogous to that would be Easy Rider. Because remember the Easy Rider album was a great compilation album, and very of that time. But wasn't it on the basis of the sales of the album that they renewed interest in theatrical release of the film? I think so. Of what? It did help, didn't it? Of what? Of Repo Man. It did give a certain push to some sort of, at least a video distribution, didn't it? Well, yeah. I mean, the whole thing with Universal was very strange. I don't know if you guys talk about Universal's on again, off again. I was, of course, in the dead center of that. And... the people that we sold the movie to, that I sold, well, we actually didn't sell the movie. What we had to do is what in the business is called a negative pickup, which means I had to finance the film and then they would agree to buy it once it was done, which means that if it didn't come out, I was just basically on the hook for it. But so when I said I would go ahead and finance the film, then they started looking at all the ancillary benefits and all the stuff that would come out of it. And part of it, of course, was they were thinking about the music. But in the middle of the whole thing, everybody, who was interested in the film left. And a whole new regime came in, none of whom cared a whit, a toss about the music. So it was tough going. Alex, take these people through these, this big character introduction scene. Now that's- Well that, the Venetta McGee, who from last, seen in a wonderful Spaghetti Western called The Big Silence. Sy Richardson just came in and that line that you said, somebody piss on the floor again, was a voiceover line afterwards that you had wanted to say and so we squeezed it in. This is Tracy Walter. The magic Tracy. Who Michael had used previously in Time Rider along with Miguel Sandoval. Right. And what Tracy's telling Otto here is that these little Christmas trees show up in every car that gets repossessed, which according to repo men, they really do. And there's one on the windshield, the wind visor. There's one on Barnum's. Now, who was playing Plechner? Oh, Richard Ferangi, very, very good actor. Richard Ferangi, very underrated, not seen enough. He did a lot of Lumet stuff, didn't he? Sidney Lumet films. There's Susan Barnes. Susan Barnes and David Chung. And the other repo man, the head of the repo office, is Tom Finnegan. Tom Finnegan, right. Tom Finnegan was who? Tom Finnegan was Bud? He's Oli, the guy who sits behind the desk. Agent Ironhand. She has some great legs. Yeah. See, now here was your first little peek into your conspiracy theorist mind, Alex, because you have her say, some people just explode. Isn't it her that says it just then? Yes, that's right. That's right. Some people just blow up. Yeah. That was Steve Mattson and Biff Jaeger. Steve is a natural blonde, but Biff had to dye his hair for the car. There you are, Xander with Emilio. And we wanted to give Biff a part because he had read when it was going to be a student film for Harry Dean's part. And he actually would have been very good, Biff. And our student film, he probably would have been Bud. He would have been Bud, wouldn't he? There's one of the great memorable lines from Repo Man, there's room to move as a fry cook. Which was actually, there was a chapter in a book recently devoted to that particular line about our generation and how we just... We're overeducated and don't have the motivation to really get into a career. But hey, if you're assistant manager, you could be manager in two years. Or 10 years. Whose idea was the Cooley hat? Yeah, I was going to say, it looks like a Sam Fuller movie. Absolute stroke of genius. That was Emilio Frisson, his actor moment. The coolie hat? That's the city bus. And where did you get that bus? I don't know. It must have been Dave Schaefer, the transportation captain. Extraordinary. Good bus. Yeah, it's a great bus, isn't it? And there's Emilio, who was introduced to us by our friend Mary Kornhauser. That's right. Because I tried to knock on his manager's office, Dolores Robinson. She wouldn't give me the time of day. We finally got Emilio through a friend. She still won't give me the time of day. Sorry. The Reverend Larry. Who's the preacher? Jonathan. No, no. Jonathan's on the couch. We tried to get Reverend Gene Scott. That's right. We tried to get Reverend Gene Scott, didn't we? That would have been fabulous. And I think we made contact. Yeah. And I can't exactly. I think he just turned us down. Did he? I can't quite remember. I think, yeah, he must have, mustn't he? But our man did a creditable. Yes. A creditable version. Here's that food. People would always laugh when they saw that thing with food written on it. Oh, well, it's hilarious. What was that? Is that corned beef hash? What is that? I think it's corned beef hash. Spam. That right there. Couldn't enjoy it anymore. Classic. You know, this film has some of the most quotable lines. Oh, for days. You know, I've been working with some younger people that are just getting into film now, and A lot of people say that this film was the absolute inspiration that made them want to be filmmakers. I hear that. What are some of the lines that you hear people quote? Oh, God, a lot of people say, let's go get sushi and not pay. Let's go do some crimes. Let's go do some crimes. Ordinary people spend their lives getting out of trouble. Repo Man spends his life getting into trouble. Life of a Repo Man is intense. Yes, there's so many quotable lines in the film. None of those are quotable on me. The ones I remember is, that don't mean he was a homo, Miller. John Wayne was a fag. That's a big quotable. Yes, he was too, you boys. All of this was told to me as truth. The John Wayne story was told to me by a guy called Swaddy who had a company called Arrow Glass and Mirror in Venice. And Swaddy assured me that he had gone to John Wayne's house in Brentwood to install two-way mirrors and that John Wayne came to the door in a dress. Must be true, right? You may be indebted to Swatty for the story, but we are forever indebted to Tracy Walter for the delivery of that line. That line. That came out of his line. It was magic. John Wayne was a fake. He was, boys. I installed two hangers in his pad in Bentley. Everybody tries to do it. He comes to the door in a dress. Nobody does it like Tracy. I know, it's great. But Tracy, you know, also the other thing that Tracy had was that the more you drive, the less intelligent you are. Very good. That was a great line. And he actually made that into sort of a franchise because that character was then on like commercials for the yellow pages yes endlessly would appear on tv and some variation on that yeah on that character and there's a lot of like really catchy catchphrases in there too this is a good scene for catchphrases too what's going on between when bud's explaining the code of the repo man the repo code yeah And Harry did a good thing here because originally that was in two different scenes. And what Harry did was he sort of combined the elements of the repo code into one continuous speech. And then we couldn't use, remember we wanted to use rum and coke? That song, Rum and Coke. Rum and Coca-Cola, that's right. Rum and Coca-Cola, but because they were snorting Crank or whatever. They didn't want it. And then it was interesting because when we did the television version of Repo Man, they had cut out so many bits of the film, including this scene, that the film was only like about 55 minutes long. And so then they tried to shoot some new insert shots to bulk it out a bit. And so in the end, we got drawn in to redo the... The clean-up television version? That's my sister there and Jorge Martinez, who you hired that night. The ordinary people. Harry Dean does a great thing here in moving from this scene to the package store scene. He really maintains this edgy crank up right there. He's still chewing the inside of his lips and everything. He's very, very consistent. His rap through here is very funny. Have a nice day, or night. Day, day, night. Day, night, what's the difference? He's a crankhead. And there's your first lattice of coincidence, correct? Yes, yes. It's developing all the time. You've had the Christmas tree already. This is a shot by Bob Richardson, which people often say to me is one of the great Robbie Mueller shots in the film.

introducing the Rodriguez brothers. And this is the introduction of the Rodriguez brothers. Actually, there was a scene of them earlier with my dog, Chivo, where he was explaining who they were, but they don't realize. Oh, no, that's in there. That's still in there, but it comes as a flashback. Right. But this scene's interesting also because this really does sort of anticipate a lot of what Robbie did in To Live and Die in L.A. You know, all of this neighborhood. All the stuff in the L.A. River. All the L.A. River, and then they drive the wrong way on the freeway. It's a very exciting sequence, but it's all sort of It has the feeling of this sequence. Man, I'll say it's a cool car. That was a great car. What was that, a 1960 Falcon? Yeah. There was a 64 Ford Falcon. There were two of them. Was that it? Yeah. Sweet piece. And we had duplicates of that, didn't we? Yes. Yes, thank God. By that time, we'd learned our lesson. Yeah, one was the floor and the floor, and the other was an automatic. Now, could you translate that line for us, Del? Oh, the to fuck your wife line? Yes. He asks me where I'm going in Spanish, and I tell him to fuck your wife. That's very good. That's a great shot. That's a shot by Tom Richmond. Tom Richmond is up on the bridge covering that from another angle. That's great. Great shot. Very good stunt driving by Bobby Ellis. Very good. Bobby Ellis, an outstanding, outstanding player. Outstanding teamster and outstanding... Here it comes. Here comes the... Signature line. Wow, that was intense. Three poor man's always intense. All right. Yes, Harry Dean. Right in there with it's going to be a bumpy night. Cops and robbers. Real life car chases. I had such a hassle with Harry Dean because I wanted him to jump out and get his feet wet. And we had all kind of extra shoes and socks prepared for him, but he would never put his feet in the water. Of course you don't know. You know, I eventually ended up laying in that river as a lighting stand-in on a science fiction shortly after this film was done. And it was basically I was instructed by Del, if you want to be an actor, you have to do everything. That includes lighting, stand-in, whatever you have to do. Sandbag, whatever it takes. So I was a lighting stand-in on a science fiction, and in that last scene where I show up on the gurney, that was an actual infection that I got in my eye. As a result of lying in the L.A. River. Yeah, and all the malathion that they were spraying all over the place. Hey, but you earned your dues. You really paid him. I did. No, he paid even worse. There was worse yet to come. There's my dog. There's Chivo. There's Joe. And also Eddie Velez. And Eddie Velez. Eddie Velez, the other Rodriguez brother, Dave Schaefer, the Teamster captain, and the late Chivo. And the late Chivo. This here, that's a Juicy Bananas song. That's the group that I was in. And Sue Kill. Good gag. You pull this one a lot? Only on the women. And she's called Mrs. Magruder because Betsy Magruder was the first assistant director, outstanding first assistant director on Repo Man. I love the way she said, we're back. LAUGHTER That was before mace or pepper spray was really big. But I love this. He just gets left by light. Light just leaves him. He's on the case. Yeah. And wasn't another scene that Emilio and Cy were doing, that was the basis for the lyrics of Badman? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. His whole, guess how many ties I got. That's right, right. Yeah, because we had these long monologues that we'd use as audition pieces, including that one. The Tracy. The one of Tracy about flying saucers and the one of Sy about the suits and ties. You know, I mean, to talk about memorable lines, how about that line at the end of the tune? You know, how can you tell your woman really loves you? How can you tell, Sy? Oh, I need somebody... if she'd fuck your dog. Moving on. That's love, I have to say. I don't know. We use that as an alternative. Here's Todd Darling. There's Todd Darling, who's directing this documentary. And his son, who now is much taller than Todd, I think. Heath sure doesn't look the same. I mean, Todd's son. He's grown up. Slightly. I love this song, too. Great music. Here's Olivia Barish. and they're driving to the tune of Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole. Yeah, and I actually introduced you to her. I'll take credit for that one. Really? I had just worked on a movie where I was... With Olivia. I was a stand-in, and she was the only one. It was called The Young Landlords, and she was the only one that was kind to me. The rest of the stars were so rude to me. And that's like Fox Harris, you see, and it works. If you're kind, always be nice to a strange bearded gentleman that you meet in a smoking room in Europe because you may turn out to be the king of Sweden. Very well said, Alex. That's happened to me like I can't remember how many times. I didn't know there were that many kings of Sweden. Well, you should never insult anybody unintentionally. Who's this woman? She's an English lady. Well, yes. Her name is Helen. Helen Markham? No, no, no, no, no, no. No? She's great. She's also, you can see she's impromptu here. She's totally ad-libbing. You might be right. She might be, huh? Oh, she was saying, you pick it up. Markham sounds familiar. You pick it up. And then she's in another scene later. Yeah, and then she's in the hospital later on when they... Complaining about the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, and Olivia was great. I had worked with her, and like I told you, I said, I think she's right for that thing. She was. It's perfect. What's that? It's a repossessor. They take back cars from dildos that don't pay their bills. Dildos. Now, what did that line end up being in the TV version? Flip you. Oh, yeah. Melon farmer flip you. But in the TV version, it was so short that we actually included some scenes that weren't in the feature. There's the one where Harry Dean smashes a telephone box with a hammer. That's a great scene. And there's one with Jack McAnally where they steal his car while he's shaving. Now, those are condoms filled with water. And with grass skirts. And with grass skirts. Designed by J. Ray Fox and Linda Burbank. Those are the aliens. That's another memorable line. Laugh away, fuck face. That's another line that people quoted. This is like the first film about Roswell, New Mexico, isn't it? I mean, there must have been about 50. Alex, it's the first film about anything. Just about anything! All this was taboo. Nobody was dealing with any of this stuff. It scared me to death. I'd gone to Roswell, New Mexico. I was so interested in the idea that there'd been these aliens there on this Air Force base and stuff. And I went there, and Waddell was from Roswell, New Mexico. I'm born in Roswell, so it was really funny that I ended up in this movie. We actually put in, I had lived in Roswell, New Mexico in another scene, actually. But you just get there, and there was absolutely nothing there. In those days, there was no museum, there was no souvenir shop. It was very disappointing. There's still not much in. No aliens. Well, I actually went back there for the 50th anniversary of the UFO crash and spent a week in Roswell, New Mexico. Wow, what did you do for a week there? Well, we were actually trying to sell my girlfriend's brother... did the aliens for the film Communion. And we had these aliens in the back of the truck that we brought there and we were trying to sell them. I'm sure you sold them, right? You sold them all. Not there. I mean, the museum at Roswell wants to install one of his pieces, but they want it for free. Of course, everybody wants something for free. Well, when you go to the museum now, the woman looks like an alien. The woman that when you come in and she goes, hello, welcome to the Roswell UFO Museum. Well, if I was a town like Roswell looking for an industrial base, I'd dress everybody up like aliens too. Yeah, they won't embrace it. They won't embrace it. Turn it into Roswell land. They will not embrace it. Some of the friendliest people I've ever met were in Roswell, though. Oh, I thought you were going to say some of the friendliest people you ever met were aliens. Oh, yeah. A week of world news. There it is. Another first. You saw it here first. Good hat. That's a beautiful hat, isn't it? Great hat. What is that, a pork pie? Yes. Is that what that's called? Yeah. Oh, here we go. He's really getting initiated into the repo, man. All right. I like the fact that the Slim Jim makes the car alarm go off inside. It doesn't make them bat an eye. I know. I know. Yeah, you're wonderful on this side. Beautiful. That was my first scene. My very first day. This is the first thing you did? Yeah, first thing I did. That's great. So calm. Because you have to break the steering wheel column, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. But, like, it's very methodical.

Si's a real cool cat in real life, too. Well, this is my film to try. I had quit acting for two years and did nothing but go to school. So when I came back to this film, it was Si Richardson's doing his thing. I had to find my place in this industry. And my place was supposed to be a black Humphrey Bogart. Oh, yeah. That's the inspiration. So the first thing you do is steal a Camaro. That's what I would do. Yeah. Oh, here comes a great line. And there they go. And how long did that take? 60 seconds. Wow, that's beautiful. This is my favorite scene. Yeah, it's one of the best scenes. We've got a little homage to Robbie Muller here in Kings of the Road, the glasses. The glasses, yeah. I love this, the tape. How many times you light the cigarette, Si? Because you weren't really smoking. Right. I love this line. Managing a pop group ain't no job for a man. Those are words to live by as a musician. People love this. I love this. They love this. They get run over and they, oh! My nephew got in a fight in Chicago in the movies about that. Why? Because they said I was stupid for throwing the money out the car. Oh, that's too much. But that's the point of the whole movie. The whole movie is constantly searching for something. Dianetics, the science of matter over mind. But whenever they get it, they just don't know what it is. They don't want it anyway, really. What's funny is the Dianetics people actually like that. That's funny. They get the joke. I talked to them about it a couple times. Now, Al, this scene started... I think I'd ask you to write some monologues for the actors coming in to use as audition pieces. And it wasn't in the film. No. And then it was so great. Everybody reacted to it so well that you put it in the movie. It's the heartbeat of the movie. It's my favorite scene. I think you're right. It's the heartbeat of the movie. This is it, the lattice of coincidence scene. The Mayans invented television. Plate of shrimp. And the car is really a time machine. It's all right. And if you look real closely, there I am over to the side, bawling to Vicki about... It was actually that night. But you know, that's a really nice shot too, just that nice two shot there, and the wide shot also when it goes wide is really nice. We were very lucky, we were extremely lucky that we got Robbie Muller, because at that time he hadn't shot, I think he'd shot one other American film, hadn't he? If that, that was it. And we were shocked when he called. He said he'd do it, yeah. because The American Friend was such a perfect film. I think we were shocked he even responded, Alex. I think that was what we were shocked at. And in fact, you know what that was? Because I had actually said to you, Michael, that I was thinking of using another guy. I won't say who it was, but he was like a New York-based cameraman. And we looked at a little bit of something he'd shot, and you said, I don't know about this guy. Why don't you think if you could have anybody that you want, who would you like to have be the DP? And that was when I thought of Robbie Muller. That's a nice shot there, too. That's just beautiful. It's amazing. Sometimes you just call them up. People are afraid to call. They just call you up and just say, will you come do this? That's the way I did a thing for a guy that called me up to score a movie. I said, sure. He fainted. That was before he heard the score or after? No, after he heard the score. Alex, how long did it take you to write this, or what were the circumstances writing this? It was what you said. I wrote the speech for Cy and the speech for Tracy as audition speeches. Right. And we included part of Cy's speech in the film and part of it on the song, and most of Tracy's in this scene. And you just... It was just like what goes on inside their heads. What goes on in Light's head, what goes on in Miller's head. It's a great way to do it because I very rarely run into anyone who does that, who will write a piece that's really not going to be in the movie. Because then the actors want it to be in the movie. Because it's a great scene for them. They know. Yeah. I thought because you had me read every Reaper Man character one day because no one showed up and I just stayed and read with everyone. I thought I had did this. I didn't do anything. I was just there. Yeah. Yeah, when you auditioned us, you had us play several, audition for several, several scenes. I remember I was Ponker and one of the Repo Man and the other brother. Harry Dean's great here too. Who's shooting this, Alex? This is Robbie, but he's shooting from a camera car. So it's a bit distancing, isn't it? You sort of feel that maybe the camera feels a bit too far away. Yeah, but look at the way the film looks. Look at that blue cast on everything and the dirt on the... Look at that shot. It's great, isn't it? It's one of my favorite scenes. That one and the one with Cy and the car in back, those two staggered cars. That's very nice. Very memorable. Now it's about right here that you decide not to shoot the end that you had written, right? Around about this time, one of the producers, Jonathan Wax, and Martin Turner, who was the still photographer... came up with an idea that Miller had become a much more important character during the development of the film than he had been at the outset. And that in some way he should be connected to the conclusion. And so they together came up with the idea that the car, that everything that was said about the car was actually true. It was a flying machine, it was a time machine, it could do anything. And that Miller was the only person who could harness that power because of his innocence. Well, it's a splendid notion. Of course, my little exec's heart starts to beat faint because here you have a scene with them getting set for the revolution, which I now know is never going to pay off in the movie. I have people keep saying, well, what were they doing up there with the guns and the beret? Well, that was something that just never actually happened. That's right, because among the alternative endings of Repo Man, there was one where the... The car exploded. It really did have an atomic bomb in it and it exploded and destroyed Los Angeles. Yeah, from the valley. Valley first. Yeah, the valley first. And then there was the ending, the revolutionary ending, where Otto gets lured into Central America and becomes a revolutionary. Same way he got lured into being a repo. Yeah. There was a line there in that last scene that I remember a lot of people quoting, which is that Manos Rodriguez don't approve of drugs. I've heard that one a lot. Usually as people are smoking pot. Yes. Hey, that's one of those things, Xander, that you were trying to sell. Yeah. That's the receptionist at the Roswell Museum. Yeah. Welcome to Roswell. I'm at work, Otto. That got a big laugh to that. I'm at work. We actually shot a lot more in the Flying Saucer HQ, didn't we? You know, Emilio did this a lot off camera as well. For some reason, he liked to run around in his briefs a lot. Remember that? Always nice and clean, though. Yeah, no skid marks there. Oh. Whoa. You did get a graduate degree in Repo Man, didn't you, Zane? Here's the scene you were talking about. Yeah. And the reverse. Oh, that right there. That's beautiful. And that's what I call a split diopter on the lens. So it's got two focal points. It's got one on Cy and one on Harry Dean. It's vertical, right? But you'll see his hand will go out of focus. Look at the lighting on Cy and the lighting on Harry Dean. Yeah. Very, very good. Cy, did you ever think about getting a roach clip? No. But it's great. You can see that he's got it lit there at the last second. But the nice thing about that scene, not to go film school on you here, but the nice thing about that scene is that you have the juxtaposition of the two points of view. You've got Light, who's rough and tumble, and you've got Harry Dean, who's living this phony code. And you have it rendered filmically there, so you can really see it. One's front. very organic, the other one's back and sort of in this blue, misty, non-vague life. Yeah, that was another quotable line. I don't allow any commies in my car, nor Christians either. I've heard that one. Yeah, yeah. I like that because it shows he's his own sort of man. And here's Al. There's Al in a cameo. Yep. There I am. And here's Fox as he's about to shear off the gas pump. Yeah, oh boy. Just before he hits the pump. Definitely a second take. Yeah, that was a second take. Put it back on. Because by this time, the drivers had found and prepared an identical car to the missing Malibu, hadn't they? Yes. And then the old one was found again. In Riverside. Found, yes. Mysteriously, miraculously found. Miraculously found. And so we had two, which is just as well, because then one of them was completely destroyed in the gas pump collision. Oh, there's Harry Pace. That's an actor called Con Covert. Where? That's right. Whose face we saw in the Screen Actors Guild catalog. Where, where, where? Of Academy Players Directory. They're plastered on, see it right there? Oh, I see it on the posters. On the posters, good. Harry Pace for City Controller. What was that about? Why were you doing that? It was part of the latticework of coincidence because Harry Pace and Happy Face are the same thing. And he's wearing a Happy Face badge. Why did I even ask? And we paid him a day's salary. That's right. To use his picture. Yeah, we said, don't even show up. Just let us use your picture. Let us use your 8x10. And he did. Con covert. Del, who's doing your costuming? Is this coming off of the set or are you coming to work? No, no, this was actually the wardrobe. Theda de Ramos. Theda did a great job. Good costumes. I wish I had that jacket. Good look. Yeah. The wife beaters and the hairnet. It would be great. And that jacket would still fit me now. Yeah. And there's me and Zandy and Zandy's sister Abby. That's right. Co-writer of Sid and Nancy. Co-writer of Sid and Nancy. The Untouchables. The Untouchables. Who were a mod. band in Los Angeles at the time. They still are. Still are. Oh, yeah. And here's the great Helen Martin. Recently passed away. Yeah, the late Helen Martin. She was great. Wonderful in this scene, too. She was 90 years old. Not when she made this. No. She was 90 years old when she died earlier this year. I'll see if I can borrow some money from somewhere. That's terrific. Starting cut and comes to Harlem. Hero ain't nothing but a sandwich. Rage in Harlem. Beverly Hills Cop 3. And Bullworth. And Bullworth, yeah. That's right, Bullworth. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which you cast. You cast in Bullworth. That's a very nice scene. I love it when they're beating Emilio up and you can hear the dialogue. This one's for Keith Moon. That's funny. If you listen real hard, you can hear him saying, this one's for Keith Moon. Mike, is that their Who fans? Yeah. Mod, I mean. Are the Untouchables still around playing? Sure, yeah. The gigs keep getting smaller and smaller, and they keep getting bigger and bigger. But the lead singer's not with them anymore, right? Oh, I don't know. It's like the Circle Jerks and Menudo, you know, they just keep replacing. Yeah, it was terrific. That was hilarious. That thing wouldn't close up. Yeah, yeah. And this is one of these film mistakes where if you look at the back wheels of the car, they're clearly on the ground, right? Yet another wall busted by the director. Torn down. Funny. More illusions shattered. I know.

It's a good piece of writing, actually, the fact that it's on JAX. Really came from nowhere. I know. We must have either forgotten it was supposed to be on JAX or thought it up at the last minute, because... This is his first solo repo? Yeah. But it shows, too, that he wasn't... Because he keeps trying to start it, also. I think you were creating it at the moment, though.

to be wild. Isn't that funny? Because at one point we were going to have Dennis Hopper be the repo man, weren't we? We weren't, so we heard some disturbing news about his state of his condition. Yeah, that's right, because Dennis wasn't recovered. He wasn't recovered yet, so we... Oh, I know what it was. No, I'll tell you what happened. In fact, he decided to go and do another film. He went and did a film, and apparently he drove the director insane. And the director ended up living in a baseball dugout in the valley. Do you remember? But I thought he was in like a sanitarium. Well, not a sanitarium, but a hospital or something. He ran out naked in front of a car and almost got hit. And that's when we decided maybe it's not so good to go with Dennis. What about Tracy here doing the Native American chant? head bandage. And Ferranji. Is he doing that? Yeah, Ferranji. This is Ferranji's scene. Don't you ever say shut up to me! Shut up. Fuck you! You little scumbag! Don't you ever tell me to shut up! Oh, God. This is the wildest group of people. I love that stuff, too. Great. It was about this time in the shooting you started to realize it. you had something going on. I mean, just the thing was bigger than you, it was bigger than me. It was just rolling. Alex is in the backseat in this. Playing the aliens. Yeah, he's actually on a headset listening to the scene from on the backseat. I love this. I love your moves here, Tell. The way you do this whole thing is so perfect when that car vanishes. There's a plate of shrimp on the wall there. You'll probably see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Advertisement. And then the La Piñon says, Reagan enters Nicaragua or something like that. It's got something to tell. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Reagan intra Nicaragua. It's there. Yeah, play the shrimp luncheon special. And in fact, the guy, there's Bobby Ellis. Yeah, there is. Number one teamster in... And I had to call time here because it was a working phone booth and it would start... Because the scene was too long. So as I'm talking on the phone, I'm listening to time. Yeah. There's Miguel. LAUGHTER Fox and McTaggart Pharmaceutical Company. Because J. Ray Fox was J. Ray Fox and Linda Burbank's previous name was McTaggart. What are they humming there? Valkyrie. Right, right, right, I forgot. And that was meant as a little homage to Clockwork Orange to show you that they're not really as bad as... No, I mean, it's really hot. Very nice of you, Al. Yeah, it's kind of like a mix between Apocalypse Now and Clockwork Orange. Exactly. Exactly. exactly what it is. We laid Venetta's lines in on the post also about the hot, the car being hot, et cetera. That's where I put it in the Roswell, New Mexico town. He's still doing much right of the Valkyries. Dick Rude's stunt. Oh, you know that hurt. Planned or non-planned? This right here, Del. He sort of planned it, I think. So good, so good, so good right there. You look... into the pocket. Alex always insists that his actors do all their own stunts. Remember Eddie was mad because there was garbage on the ground? Oh, he didn't think there should be garbage. Yeah, he says, garbage, I don't like this garbage when I come out. Now, this is the scene you throw it in there. You told me the day before, you said, Si, I got this idea. I said, what is it? I'll tell you tomorrow. The next day I walk in, you tell me to do this. I said, okay, whatever. Well, by this point, I was sort of thinking that your character should have more stuff to do. Yeah. You know, that we should see more of that guy. Another great shot. Great set up there. I love the depth of that scene. Yes. Pedro by the oil refineries. Now, this argument also, if you remember, I went across, we were doing it looping, and it was myself, and then I went across to Holiday Hell Spa, found two Latinas, and we brought them in, paid them 50 bucks, and they actually were doing that argument with me inside the house. Great. Wasn't this house used, again, in the film Scarface? It looks similar to that. I think that it's almost exactly the same shot, yeah. That's right. So they took from you, Al. Well, I mean, it's quite a favorite shot, I think. Another repo first. But I suspect this has been used a lot, this location, because it's so picturesque. And San Pedro's popular with filmmakers, isn't it? You notice the glass break before we hit the shooting. Right. A little mistake. Bullets traveling faster than the speed of sound. The audience love this scene, boy. They're just laughing. Yeah, it is funny. When you pull up here, you don't expect a scythe to come up and do what he does. And you know, that's my car. That is your car, yeah. That's my car. Oh, this is great. It's funny. Still on the job, white boy. Get in the car! Get in the car! That's great. It's when he knows that he's not ready for this people life. He thought he was tough. Yeah, that's one of the best ones. This seemed too great. Crazy light. I mean, he can't just shoot into people's houses. Sure he can. I mean, when he shot the guy. What if it did? Well, I don't know. I mean, that's pretty severe. Jesus Christ! Hey, blanks get the job done, too. You guys are all out to fucking lunch. Get in. Let's get out of here. Get in the car. That's what downtown Los Angeles used to look like.

Is it you? This is Layla. Are you using a scrambler? I can't hear you. I'm using a scrambler. Oh, fuck. Look out! What? That was a pretty good stunt. That was a very good stunt by... Oh, first use of airbags in a film. That's right. Rick Barker was the stunt guy. Rick Barker, yeah. Yeah. Rick Barker, who then was Gary Oldman's stunt double on Sid and Nancy, who went to Nicaragua with him on Walker. Ed Pansulo driving the passenger in the CIA car. Ed Pansulo, this actor, was the roommate of Mark Lewis, the actual repo man with whom I drove around. Fascinating, eh? Very. And this is shot at UCLA? This is all shot in the, yeah, in the master control, TV master control at UCLA. And I remember the UCLA police came and thought they were going to shut us down because they had never seen so many, you know, normally it's a student film, you don't have all these trucks and everything around and they have all these trucks around and then when we showed them the permit, they walked away really sad. Well, I had my student card because I'd enrolled at UCLA to get to, so we could have access to the Master Control. Now, this was originally gonna be, um... ...birthday, but we couldn't... You have to pay for the rights to the song, Happy Birthday. Yeah, but this is it. This is it. Why, he says. I wanna talk about guts. Go to your face, kid. What's up, dude? It doesn't matter. Oh, yes, it does. Why don't you do something, Pletcher? Aren't you a cop or something? Marlene, I'm on my coffee break. Man, Marlene, repo man goes in alone. Just like John Wayne. Damn right, just like John Wayne. What's wrong with that? Greatest American that ever lived. John Wayne was a fag. Yes! What? John Wayne was a fag. The hell he was! He was too, you boys. I installed two-way mirrors in his bed. This is going to be terrible for the people listening to this DVD because all they're going to hear is us cackling and watching the John Wayne sequence. That doesn't mean he was a homo, Miller. Oh, I thought that was Ferrangi that said that line, but it wasn't. It was... Oh, yeah, Ferrangi says greatest American that ever lived. Yeah. Yeah, it's Oli that says he likes to watch this. Yeah. Remember, you were supposed to, in the script, you were supposed to get a cigar behind the ear. He does actually have a cigar, but he doesn't actually stamp it on his head. Yeah, he's supposed to stamp out lit cigar on his ear. Is that like a Repo thing? Well, that's actually in the Repo Man song. Using my head for a trash can. That's right. It's interesting that Iggy Pop actually had read the script before he wrote the song and had actually incorporated bits of it into the lyrics. Pretty good. Yeah, yeah. That was nicely directed, too, Alex. You had that floating camera through there. That's right. It was all handheld, wasn't it? Robbie did a lot of handheld. Yeah. A lot of handheld. In that sequence. Check this out. They go to see Mr. Humphreys. Poor guy. And who's that in the background? By the Christmas tree. Well, it happens to be me decorating Mr. Humphrey's Christmas tree. What's that about, Xander? Oh, I don't know. Just probably groveling for my job. But are you in your pajamas? Yeah, yeah. Why would you be in your pajamas at Mr. Humphrey's house? Well, you know, I never understood that. Slumber party. Oh, it's a sleepover. You know, I think you were trying to insinuate something about my character. Well, you know, it's funny. You were also prophetic there on TV. It's Rebel Basis in Acapulco. Right. Well, it's not quite Acapulco, but it is Chiapas. Oh, that's interesting. It was Acapulco, too, isn't it? Because they attacked Acapulco last year. Circle Jerk. So here we are in Circle Jerk. And he checks his gun. Yeah, that was just previous before I joined the band. Chuck Biscuits is in the band at this point, isn't he? And Earl the Giant was playing the bass. I love this club. This club doesn't exist anymore. It's on Sunset Boulevard, this club. Did it exist? We didn't build this? I thought we built this. No, the X existed with the little stalagmites. Yeah, with the stalactites and everything. The gum that sticks to her hand. You hated the hand, right? Well, I always thought the hand looked a bit more like she was wearing a glove made of aluminum foil. Which is what it is. A funny thing. I was thinking we could have something a little more robotic. Dick's big scene here. Yeah. Now all I can see is Jennifer's gum sticking to the hand. And the butyl nitrate is also generic. That's right. The butyl nitrate, which was a popular drug on the scene at that time, which is anti-knock fluid for diesel engines. Oh, God. See, it's a generic fetal nitrate. A metal hand. Can we feel it? You see, she's supposed to have a robot hand, you know, and that's not quite a robot hand. The budget didn't quite allow for that. Wow. Wow. She's talented. So is he in his own way. His character's definitely metamorphosed already there quite a bit. But that's the thing about Otto is he's a really blank page. He never actually takes any action. Right. But he's endlessly influenced by events and so he can, without changing his appearance in any way, he goes from being a punk rocker to a businessman and he could have ended up a revolutionary. or a time machine pilot or anything because he has no personality. This scene is a mixture of mostly shot by Robbie Muller and a second unit that we did with Bob Richardson because we'd killed Miguel Sandoval in a different way. Dick Roode had shot him with a bow and arrow. And the scene didn't work so well that we didn't think we were gonna use it. And Dennis Dolan, who was the editor, said, I really think you've got to pay off the death of Archie because otherwise there's something missing here. And it was really Dennis that came up with the idea that we would do this whole new ending to this scene where they open the trunk the whole way and Archie gets it. Yeah, well, at this point you were searching for this ending and you kind of didn't know what you were shooting, so it was all starting to get magic. You can almost see the stars. Oh, shut up. He's got to open it. Fox is great then. You can almost see the stars. Oh. Knowing what he's putting them into. Yeah, yeah. And years later, like about a couple of years ago, I had a call. I was at Peter McCarthy's office in Venice, and I had a call there from a guy who said that he was the inventor of the neutron bomb. And he really was. It's a guy called Sam Cohen. and who was like a contemporary of Oppenheimer and Edward Teller and all these people. And he just called me up and I've been out and had lunch with this chap. He's like 72 years old. Is he a fan of the movie? Yeah. His favorite films are Dr. Strangelove and Repo Man. And he's really proud of the neutron bomb. He says he got a medal from the Pope for designing it. Oh, very interesting guy. There goes Archie. There goes Arch. So long, Arch. There's the boots. And here's some quotable lines. Come on, Duke. Let's go do those crimes. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go get sushi and not pay. And so this is the Third Street Bridge. No, not bridge, but it's sort of an overpass over the freeway. Closed down. It's great if you look real closely, you can see Alex is driving the car. Driving the car. Really, yeah. Well, it's always either me or Bobby Ellis. But you look nothing like Fox Harris. No, I look nothing like Fox Harris at all. It was just so soft, though, you could get away with it. The sheriff hats are hilarious. Well, in fact, they were going to be Dodgers hats originally because they've all gone out with baseball bats. But then the Dodgers wouldn't let us use their hats. I brought the real repo man in to talk to him, Quentin, and he had the sheriff hats and the jackets that he would use when he repo cars. So Quentin Gutierrez loaned us those hats. Funnily enough, at the same time as we made this film, Penny Spears made Suburbia. And there are lots of little similarities. There's a point at which the executive producer of Suburbia appears on a television within the frame, right about where Michael does in Repo Man. There's a guy who's a murderer. He kills a little kid in the car, and he's wearing a Dodgers baseball cap. And all these little things happen that sort of have something to do with Repo Man. Similar mindsets, you and... Or coming out of the same scene, the same kind of preoccupations, yeah. And that's the automatic falcon that got hit. Not the one on the floor. Great driving, Del.

I mean, I know the car chases seem a little bit lame, but I imagine this is what car chases would be more likely to be, because you'd brake your car pretty quickly. Sure, you would brake your car doing all that stuff. And this was an intense scene. Harry Dean had a real bat. It was a real controversy, remember? He was supposed to have a rubber bat, and he wouldn't do it with a rubber bat. And so everybody was mad at him, but I was cool with it. And then, this is a real bat, he comes swinging at me. He swings at him, then he swings at me, but it was cut out there. Well, and I switched bats on him. I gave him a plastic bat when he wasn't looking. Yeah, and he was so mad. He was not happy about that. He was so mad, and it was so hilarious, too, because he wouldn't do it, because you had done that to him, he wouldn't do it again unless he had the real bat. And I remember he even hit the Ford Falcon with the bat. He whacked the Falcon with a big dent in the hood of the Falcon. And I remember he was even telling Peter, look at the shit I gotta go through. But what he didn't know was that Robbie Muller had come to me after the first take and said, listen, Alex, on that last take, I felt the wind of a real baseball bat going past my face. And I'm not gonna shoot this scene anymore if they have real baseball bats. So I had to sort of get into it with Harry Dean just to get the bat kind of switched. Well, it was strange the way the whole thing happened. The way the whole thing happened, though, was that it was an impasse. it was like you weren't going to give him the bat and everything. He was struggling, just ridiculous, like two bald guys fighting over a wig. If I recall, even after one of the takes, you went to grab it, and then he went, and then you both ended up on the ground, and then all of a sudden here comes Alex up with the bat. I think it was hard. I mean, I think Harry really likes to do what he wants to do, you know, and it was difficult for him because when we did this film, Harry was like 58 and I was 29, so... I think that's Michael on screen there. Isn't that you, Michael? It's a scene from Elephant Parts. Oh, yeah. It looks like it, actually. You can kind of see that. Yeah. Yeah, that's me doing, I think, Art Remnants. So I think it was hard for Harry because of that, because I was like half his age. I'd never directed anything that he would have seen except student film, you know, and he'd like, he would say, you know, I worked with the greatest directors of all time, like Francis Ford Coppola, Monty Hellman, you know why they're great? And I'd go, no, why? Because they let me do exactly what I want! I gotta remember that one. I remember we was at an impasse and And he said, well, let's do the scene. And he wasn't going to be in it, right? And I go, come on, bud. And the character, come on, bud, do the scene. He goes, well, he won't let me be in it. And then somehow we worked it out, and then we continued shooting. But I remember. We got it resolved. I think Harry just went and did it with a plastic bat. They're winos. They don't have any money. They'd be bums if they did. You want out? Yeah, this is one. What's the matter with you? Do you like your job anymore? Not happy in your job? I mean, I feel like we're not communicating anymore. By this time, I'm loving this character because he's getting very complete. Yeah. And I like that you got Otto going into the full apoplexy of fear. He's turned angry and afraid. And there's a tear in Harry's eye. Yeah. There's a tear in his eye. Very good. Yeah. Alex, Otto can't do anything, and Bud can't connect. Hey, there's my couch. Yeah, there's... I wondered what happened. And here's part of the conspiracy situation here. Right. But I always tell people, sometimes when they can't control environments, if you remember, as he keeps walking, one of the homeless people kept pointing to the car. because he had seen the rehearsal. But it's totally fine. In fact, I remember you said, don't worry about it, it's fine. Oh, we gave him a Repo Man hat to wear. So there you see him, he's pointing. So instead of trying to control your environment, just going with it sometimes really works. You don't really see that it's a Repo Man cap, but it's completely postmodern, yeah, because it's one of the extras. It's saying, okay, well, now you're going to go over there. That's right. It's probably cool. Now, never thought of Repo Man as a postmodern film. It's really postmodern. It's really, really postmodern. Now, what is this stuff that comes out of his mouth, Alex? I know it's supposed to be puke, but... It's vegetable soup. It's normally vegetable soup, isn't it? Yes, it was vegetable soup. I remember him getting ready to do this scene. Chunky vegetable, though. Oh, yeah. All throw-ups got corn in it. Of course you have to have a cob of corn every day. Well, he's really running his ass off here, too. I remember he had to run to catch that corn to be there at the perfect timing. And once he gets in the car, the lining is just, oh, wow. Really, that Robbie Lula is... Well, again, you see here, you're staying very consistent. The car stops and picks him up. Yeah. He doesn't chase it down. I like that. Yeah. And now he gets into it, and of course... This is actually my favorite scene in the film. It's beautiful. Look at the line. It's just beautiful. I just loved Fox, and I was rooting for him the whole way. Not at all. Yeah, we worked with Fox four times. Did you cast him? I had him in four films. Did you cast him in anything else? Yeah, I'm sure I did. I can't remember offhand right now. Because in Sid and Nancy, he's the porter in the Chelsea Hotel. That's right. In Straight to Hell, he's a lounge, a cabaret singer. He's not in Walker, right? And he's in Walker too, but he has a very small part as a lawyer in the trial scene at the beginning when Ed Harris is on trial. Everybody could stand 100 chest x-rays a year. They ought to have to. When they cancelled the project, it almost did me in. One day my mind was a little burst. The next day, nothing. Swept away. I'll show them. I had a lobotomy in the end. Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies? Not at all. A friend of mine had one. And I remember in the audition with Fox also, Dick Root, he had a broken wrist, if you remember in the audition. He told us, be careful with him because he has a broken wrist. And the first thing Dick Root does is go over there and just body slam him. And you could see him go, like he really hurt, but then he just kept going. I just thought, wow, this guy's great. That's amazing. I particularly like any script that has the word pernicious in it. Pernicious is a good... It's a good word. It's a good word. It's a really good choice to make him tight close-ups like this. Really nice. What kind of car is your... It's interesting how it almost all plays inside the car, isn't it? There's only one exterior. Everything else is just on the two of them. Why don't you let me drive? What do you mean? You're shooting these as long singles. It's not double-covered, is it? No, it's just two singles, isn't it? It's just one shot of Otto, one shot of J. Frank. The two hemispheres are fundamentally at odds. Hemispheres. Hemispheres. You know, it's strange. Oh, no, we never go outside the car, do we? We stay inside the car the whole time until he's dead. Until he's dead, right. So I was in very good hands with Robbie because he had instinctive... All his instinctive ideas were right about the way it should look. I remember the first night of dailies. The first image that came up, everyone literally went... Ooh, ah, you know, because it was so beautiful. And we were so startled at realizing we were making a movie and that Robbie Mueller was shooting it and he was shooting it, you know, great. Yeah. And that was the scene where the lights went out on the bridge, wasn't it? I think it was that scene. I think it was that scene. It was really beautiful. Mr. Knickerbocker. That was a great thing also about doing this movie, just all the shooting in downtown L.A., East L.A., nothing really you'd think that L.A. didn't exist. west of Broadway. That's right. And I really love that about the movie. Now, Michael, in this next scene, didn't you invite your friend Jimmy Buffett down to the set? Jimmy Buffett's in the next, yeah, he plays one of the men in black. Wasting away in Margaritaville. That's right. Oh, it's not this scene, but it's when they're... It's coming up. But it's coming up. I was working with Jimmy trying to do Margaritaville as a movie, and you never get... Never get the conceit to gel. It was either not neoclassic or postmodern. But fried pies is postmodern. It was just a drink. Fried pies is very postmodern. Well, I like that. Oh, yes. The party at Miller's. I never figured out who my wife was. And you took out a great line when I asked for those hot dogs. You know what? I think I know why. I think your wife was the transvestite. Oh, okay. Who is the transvestite? I can't tell. The one on the left, right? In the background, I think. They're all standing behind. The one in the blue. What does that say about me that I can't tell the difference? It says you should go back over and get in your pajamas and put on Christmas tree. I'm scared. But, you know, that's one thing also we were saying earlier is that a lot of people, when I go around and I'm working, when they find out that I was in Repo Man, it's almost like a whole court. The people just love this movie, and a lot of young filmmakers are very influenced by it. Still has a lot of juice. There you go. Yeah. For being made in 1983. Ah, well, Easy Rider was made in 1968. That's right. And it's still got a lot of juice. And Midnight Cowboy. Well, the 80s were pretty vapid times, though, if you think about it. So something about the 80s surviving. So you want to talk about it? Talk about what, kid? No, there was a moment, though, in American films when there was that period from back about 68 to 70, two or 73 when some really good films got made. And Harry Dean was in most of them. Cool Hand Luke. Well, that was a major watershed in American film. But I have to say that with all that, Repo Man was a seminal film. This started something that had not happened before, Easy Rider notwithstanding. This was an entirely different genre of movie, an entirely different way of thinking, a different way of writing, a different way of doing characters. It was... It's a real jewel in your crown, Alex. You're so kind. Well, it's true. It's true. I think there's a lot here. It's a lot of substance in this film. It's also funny as hell. Yeah. Funny is important. Funny is the reason it works. If this wasn't funny, there would be nothing to redeem it. And Luis Contreras is in the scene again. That was another one. He had brought him in to audition for one of the Rodriguez brothers. Another lattice of coincidence. Yeah. I also like, I'm just... There's Luis. I just love the way he looks. He's a security guard. That's like a typical... Uh-oh. Great. This is where you need security against the security guards. The sea starts it. That's great. Yeah, yeah. I remember they were worried about the rating or it being too bloody, so you had to use it where it hit the ketchup bottle so that there were red... Oh, that's right. To justify all the blood, we had to show the ketchup being broken first. Right. Yeah. Sounds like a conversation I might have been having. Yes, probably. That was very realistic. I wanted to get it past the MPAA. We needed to get it to the theaters. Not that we did. Not that we did. Not that we ever got it. But it was a good idea to hit the ketchup, though. It was. It was a good idea to hit that ketchup and get that red everywhere. That's a great line. She's a great character. She really is. And she survives. Yes, she lives. She's one of the few people not to get killed. I've never survived one of your films, Alex. That's right. I've always been killed. Yeah. But I do come back to life on the gurney. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. There's more to come, isn't there? This is a great scene also, this piece of the scene here. The white suburban punk scene. People laugh so much in this scene. And nobody knows that that's Alex actually doing his last breath. The... Very well done, Al. Disgusting. Still doing it, sounds like to me. I know a life of crime led me to this society. Here comes one of the most memorable lines of the movie. You're just a white suburban punk. I blame society. But it still hurts. Society made me what I am. It's so archetype. Society made me. You're a white suburban punk, just like me. But it still hurts. Tasty O's. Tasty O's right behind him. Here we go. Listen to this. Is that you, Al? You gonna be all right? You're gonna be all right, he tells him. I know. You're gonna be all right is a really great thing to say. Well, maybe not. Yeah, he does say maybe not. Oh, God. Tasty O's and cornflakes and... This is the Jimmy Buffett sequence. That was him. Where is he? Where's Jimmy? He's right there with the camera. We're setting him on fire. We're setting him on fire. I'm approaching the bench. I just love the way you did the hail for the last scene as well. It's like, you can see this line of hail falling down and it's falling down nowhere else in the scene. It's just as if there were two guys on a plank. On a long plank. With a bucket of ice. That's exactly what it was. What's Ferranji talking about? Chicken man. He's got his whole thing about stay out of the limelight, kid. Yes. You know, why don't you just be a chicken man on a farm? Which is just something Ferranji came up with, you know. Oh. Yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, Vanetta, give it to him. She's tough. She's done some actions. Not the face. Yeah, not the face. That was good. I think that was actually... Not my face! That was Steve Hansen. Very funny guy, Steve Hansen. Vanilla's great here. She's a boy. It's like, uh-oh, don't mess with her. No, she's the first female African-American to do a scene with a superstar. Really? Who was it? Agus Sankson. Oh, a love scene. Well, Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Plechner gets his comeuppance. He gets his comeuppance. Where did you come up with the name Plechner? I actually was pulled over once by two cops, and they had identity tags that obviously weren't their real name. They just, like, put them on, and one of them was called Peichner. And somehow, and I just put it in the script, and somehow the spelling, oh, Richard Ferrangi thought it was Plechner. And I just thought Pletschner sounds better than Peitschner anyway. But it was obviously because of their ethnicity, they obviously weren't called Peitschner and O'Reilly, you know. And so it was, they just obviously were wearing false ID, these cops, you know, so you can't report them. So that was interesting. So here we come in, the Rodriguez brothers come in and to rescue me, I remember the only thing Amelia was worried about was that I would drop in. But this is based on those experiments they would do with people where they would pretend to be torturing people in experiments and pump up the juice and stuff like that. And they found that nine out of ten people will just keep on turning up the electricity until the alleged subject is dead. And there were experiments done at universities with actors pretending that they were being given electric shocks. Wow. That's a good fireman's carry, Del. Yeah, Del. See, he didn't need to worry. Yeah, I mean, he only weighed about 140 pounds then. I said, don't worry, I won't drop you. Emilio was very happy that night, too, because he got to parade around with his jockey shorts on. This is another thing that you allowed us to do, Alex, which is you gave us a lot of latitude to come up with things. And we would discuss things. For example, when they ripped the car in the Orange Banks, and this here, too. Like the great directors. Like the great directors. Let them do whatever they want. And there she is again. The English lady. No, no, it wasn't. The great directors let Harry Dean do whatever he wants. And that's Wally Cronin, my neighbor. Wally Cronin and Manona Wally. Married to Bob Richardson. And a lot of people like this line also that I tell them. Oh, yeah. Out of order. Ha! You're awful, Del. This is all before Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hasta La Vista, and that kind of stuff. Another first. So what I want to know is what's happened to Kevin? Well, I believe what you told me, Al, was that... When they came to beat up Mr. Humphreys, I was dragged behind the repo car on chains and subsequently died. There's the tree. What I don't understand is how I came back to life. I obviously think you didn't expire. You were only injured. And here's where she's saying, they run into your trash on the corner and they won't pick it up. She's on a major tangent.

That's great. He's catatonic till he hears what's on the television. Yeah. And there's the happy face badge, a very important element. Eddie loved this scene. That was a moment of heartfelt... Yeah, there was a little slight almost sincerity. Eddie always reminded me, I get to shoot the guns. yeah he did a good job there's the rebel larry again chevy malibu and that's what gets him going but you know at this point alex yes The movie is now decidedly non-linear. It has gone a little non-linear. No, this scene is great because it's gone non-linear. That's very charitably put, Michael. Watch Emilio and Vinetta in the back. Rick Barker, the stunt coordinator, told me, drive the hell out of it, and he didn't tell them. So when you watch the camera mount, they are seriously afraid. He didn't realize that I was going to do that because we were supposed to do it slow and crank the camera down. I remember. Yeah, yeah, we're slipping along. We're out of postmodern now. Where are we, Michael? Home, there goes Eddie. Yeah, we're non-linear big time. Now watch them in the back seat. They're really like, they're not, hey, this is not what we're supposed to be doing. We're not supposed to be going this fast. Yeah. There's Agent Rogers. Great. They did hit the clutch. If you know that was real. Love the chicken sounds. Yeah. Where's the Malibu? Where's the Malibu? Because I don't know. I mean, I don't have it. Marlene doesn't have it. You and your crazy friends don't have it. Put it back on that slab. Give him some more shots. Where the fuck is he? Now, this guy burned his face with this. His face got a little burned from this. It was real tear gas, right? Yeah. Real tear gas. And you didn't tell him you were going to do it, did you? No, we didn't tell him we were going to do it. Now, now, guys. It's all real. You're going to have some 12-year-old doing that. Don't try this at home. Don't try this at home. Or this. That was real glass. And there's the Rodriguez brothers. They leave. They leave the story at that point. Right. We don't need them anymore. We'll just, I don't know. We'll go on our nonlinear way. They went, they were, and then they went over there? That's right. Alex, whatever did happen to the Rodriguez brothers? They went to Central America to carry on version two of the film. Okay. There's the shot you're talking about. The buckets of ice. Where... And the voice on the soundtrack talking about the reign of Tiny Cubes of Ice is Adam Dubov. Oh, yes, Adam. A film director who did a very good film called The Unlovable. And this is also way before CG or composites or any kind of effects. You've actually painted the car green. The car's been painted with this reflective substance that they use for traffic signs. Yeah, and it was like... like $600 a bucket, put it on there. That paint job goes like $6,000. Oh my God. 11 years of re-pulling cars and what have I got? Shit. Bud, listen to me. The art of negotiation. And I do know a lot of people, by the way, that came to live in that part of LA, south of downtown Los Angeles, from this movie. They were looking for all these locations. Really? Very strange. One of my friends who I ended up making friends with, he still lives there. Hmm. Well, caution them away from like pirate movies and things like that. Yeah, yeah, we don't want that. Al, do you want to talk about asking Muhammad Ali to... Oh, yes! This was the day. We tried to get this for a couple of days somewhere else, hadn't we? And we'd been fogged in and hadn't been able to film this sequence. Right. It was supposed to be up in Lancaster or something. Yeah, or up in the hills. And so we'd come back to Los Angeles to shoot it in the repo yard. And the day that Vicky and I were due to go downtown to shoot, we were in Venice or Santa Monica and we heard that Muhammad Ali was at Gold's Gym, the old Gold's Gym on Main Street. And so we went there and we saw Muhammad Ali and we said, would you like to be in our film? And we were going to have him get out of the helicopter along with the bishop and the chief rabbi and all these other guys. And not even he would be able to approach the car. It would be too... The power of the car would be too great, even for Mohammed. And so we proposed this to him, didn't we? And he listened. He listened very nicely. He said it was very interesting, you know. Well done, Victoria. Many declined, but... Also very nicely. But we tried. But you know, it worked out well because you had not only the two producers of the film, but the executive producer come up and, you know... Yep, yep. The religious garb. Yes, Peter is dressed as the... as the cardinal of Los Angeles. Here comes the producers. And so it's really, really hilarious also because Bud's kind of exit scenes there is he gives, last time he wants a beer and he says, no cigarette. Oh, good. I had to do that. That was me. I was one of those guys too. I was one of those. I was one of those guys. Here's the diuretics thing. But now, come on, you often see people on fire in films, but how often do you see them get put out with fire extinguishers? I particularly like that they got put out. I love, now you've got Tracy now coming back to sort of help us out because the thing otherwise is going to unroll like seven balls of yarn. And in fact, their whole religious theme is kind of coming, coalescing here with... Yes. Now, if you did that nowadays, I'm not sure that some of the people... Oh, did you see Dogma? Here he comes. Here he comes. Smiling beatifically. Yeah. And you know what? The light looks really good on him, too. That green light, it looks great on him. Here comes one of my favorite lines. What about our relationship? Fuck that. I don't know. The spirituality is coming through stronger and stronger. It is. Well, I mean, you know, the movie, you never get the movie you shoot. You always get the movie that it is. Yeah. Great shot. Great shot. Cover of a book right there. And I think that that's a Bob Richardson shot as well. This one here? Not that one, but the one of Cy and the threesome. This is great. He looks great in that. That right there. Yeah. Good, good, good composition. Everything is good there. What about our relationship?

I really like the whole score of this last sequence. It's quite a long, it's just called Real Ten or something, isn't it? Yeah, Real Ten was good, but it was used a lot throughout the movie. It was really nice. But it also sounds like, you know, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley at some of their strangest moments. I don't know if you've ever heard them, but they actually have songs that sound like this. Chuck Berry has something with, like, Hawaiian thing going on with it. It sounds like this. Pineapples. What did this mean, Al? This is a cosmic bop apocalypse. It's a time machine. He's right. It's a time machine. It's a time machine. So Miller was... They're going back in time. He was right all along. Wow. But they first have to travel at the speed of light before they can go back in time, so... So you get to explain all this stuff now. You're sitting in a theater. I've seen a lot of shots. Bob did that, didn't he? Yes, this is all shot by Bob Richardson from a helicopter. There's even commercials that totally rip this off. I saw a commercial the other day where it's totally just like this. The flying car. Flying through downtown L.A. and kind of doing the really weird turns like this. This is intense. Life of a repo man is always intense.

It's insane. Yeah, it's now finally over the side. It is now finally over the side. So, okay, Alex, here we are, DVD, new technologies, button it up for us now. What do we have to say now? I really wanted to say I'm sorry that the first interstate bank got taken over by Wells Fargo because it's a much better bank. That's hilarious. That's all I have to say. Hey, look, he was Michael Sandoval. He was Michael Sandoval in those days. And this is our homage to Kiss Me Deadly with the backward credit sequence. Dorothy Bartlett is the name of the English dustbin lady. Dorothy Bartlett. Jonathan Hooger. That's right, I remember. Where are some of these? And there's Jimmy. Wait, Jimmy Buffett was listed as a repo wife? No, no, no. No, it was going backwards. Oh, that's right. See, I'm not even paying attention. I got thrown for a second. You knew the genesis. You didn't know the reality. Well, that's the way life is, isn't it? Thank you. Dolores Deluxe was the nurse. Rodney Bingenheimer was in the film. I forgot. Was Rodney Bingenheimer at the door? Yes. Checking in the gun? Rodney Bingenheimer, he's standing in the bar. There's my sister. Well, Harry Wildchuck was the special effects guy on Time Rider. Yeah, well, we must. I mean, there's several Time Rider people in the film. Yeah, there's a bunch of Time Rider stuff in here, actually. I haven't heard this Iggy Pop song in a long time. No, it's a good song, isn't it? It is a good song. I like this song. so when we had the we had the premiere it was at the Venice which it doesn't even exist anymore the Venice International Theater the Venice the Fox Venice yeah there's Rowdy Harrington who became a director John LaFia another director John LaFia became a director Amy Ness is a producer Debbie Diaz a writer I heard about her recently Debbie Diaz works all the time Michael Chinich great casting director Harry Gittes Harry Gittes producer Tom Boyd he was the guy who went yeah Tom is good. He's a good guy. Yeah. Abby Wall, video coordinator. Tom Muska, producer and writer of Stand and Deliver. Ramon Menendez will show up here if he hasn't yet. Ramon's mother appeared earlier, actually, making tortillas, even though she doesn't really know how to do it. She's from Cuba. There's Tom Richmond. All the additional camera men on this. Bob Richardson, Tom Richmond, beautiful. Good work, those guys. There's Ramon, future director, writer, was our prop master. Bob Dawson, great titles guy. Oh, brilliant titles. The plugs, Tito La Riva. Brilliant soundtrack by La Riva Hostello. And here's that soundtrack. Here's the punk rock soundtrack. Very good soundtrack. I'd love for MCA to put this back up. I don't have it. And you know, we were lucky in one way about the whole Universal connection because we were able to have like a Louis Armstrong thing in there and the Andrews sisters because they had the MCA catalog. Right. And so in that small way, we actually did get some benefit from that connection. This is Alex Cox saying goodbye. Thank you very much for buying this DVD. Goodbye. Bye. I'm not saying goodbye. Yeah, Repo Man. That's good enough.