Just when you thought the Video Archives Podcast was out, it gets pulled back in! Quentin, Roger & Gala follow podcast favorite George C. Scott for one final job in Richard Fleischer’s The Last Run. Then they take a trip to the Wild West for the irrepressible Western parody Rustlers’ Rhapsody, before revisiting Star Wars through the lens of mid-century comedy legend Jack Benny (yes, really) in The Jet Benny Show. I’ve got film facts and movie posters galore in today’s Counter Talk, so let’s put pedal to the metal…
The tagline of The Last Run is “In the tradition of Hemingway and Bogart,” and George C. Scott, fresh off the success of Patton, was very forthright about looking for a Bogart-type role to play next, which he found in Alan Sharp’s weighty crime script. Quentin and Roger dig into the details of a fraught production that saw original director John Huston replaced by Fleischer, and original female lead Tina Aumont replaced by Trish Van Devere, who would marry Scott a year after The Last Run’s release and co-star in many more films with him.
Was this casting complicated by the fact that Scott’s wife at the time, Colleen Dewhurst, also starred in the film, playing a prostitute with a heart of gold? Considering Scott and Dewhurst wouldn’t divorce until well after The Last Run’s release, I imagine there were some tricky days on set!