"Cloak & Dagger" (1984) with Ben Carpenter

Tim Williams: In 1984, the line between imagination and reality was about to be blurred. For young Davey Osborne, life was a series of tabletop RPGs and a high score chase on his Atari. But everything changed when a dying man handed him a top secret game cartridge called Cloak and Dagger. Featuring a performance by Henry Thomas that proved ET was no fluke, this flick wasn't your typical kids movie. It was a gritty high stakes game of cat and mouse. where the game over screen could be permanent. So grab your walkie talkies, hide your Atari 5200 cartridges and fill up your water gun with red dye as Ben Carpenter and I discuss Cloak and Dagger from 1984 on this episode of the 80s flick flashback podcast. Welcome in everybody. So glad to have you here on the show. I'm your host, Tim Williams. I can't go on a mission this dangerous all by myself. I need a partner who knows how to navigate the technical specs of a spy thriller. and also has the heart of an 80s classic. Please welcome back to the show, the one, the only Ben Carpenter. How you doing, Ben?

Ben Carpenter: I'm doing great and I'm ready to back you up as we go on this mission together.

Tim Williams: Yeah. I'm not saying that you're the, you know, my sidekick, but, ⁓ I love the line that she, that she says. She's like, ⁓ why do hang with Davy? He's the only guy I know that's not boring. So, ⁓ so I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that for you, but it's like, and I just, I love that line. Yeah. That's not, that's right. It's not that boring. So yeah, we're talking about cloak and dagger, which ⁓ is like childhood staple. ⁓ we're going to talk about it. I love this movie so much.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah I'm one of many guys you know that isn't boring. How about that? Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: This is gonna be a fun one to talk about. So let's jump right in. So Ben, you know how we do it. When did you see Cloak and Dagger for the very first time?

Ben Carpenter: ⁓ been over 40 years and honestly, I haven't seen in the interim. So ⁓ I know that's ⁓ something cover in the next question. Yes. But I don't honestly remember. I feel like I saw it in the theater, ⁓ but I feel ⁓ also like I saw it dozens of more times on So

Tim Williams: Hehehehehe Yeah. Next question. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: That's probably what I remember the most is watching it every time it came on HBO.

Tim Williams: I remember seeing this one in the theater. I think it was like it was either in the summer because I think it came out in the summertime. Yeah, I do remember that. So it was either like during the day, my mom took me and a friend to go see it. I don't remember if my mom watched it with us or if she just took us, but it was either. I remember it being during the day because I remember going some like to a McDonald's or something after the movie was over, but.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: ⁓ so I know I saw it in the theater, but like you, it played had to be every day, multiple times a day on HBO as a kid. I saw it so many times. So, so, so many times, but amazingly, ⁓ it kind became that movie that just kind of disappeared after a while. Like it doesn't, it doesn't show up in a lot of, ⁓ you know, they don't play it on TV anymore. I don't see it on, you know, I was able to find a Blu-ray copy, but I had to really search for it.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: ⁓ but it's not one, like, I don't remember having this on VHS. I don't remember having it on DVD. It just wasn't one those movies that just kind of stayed in mind or pop culture of, of the decades that followed. But ⁓ this, this movie is tied to my childhood. Like I can't imagine thinking about the eighties without thinking about this movie for sure. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: right? Yeah. Same here. it's weird that it's so sort of ingrained in both of us because I mentioned it to a few people that I was going to be recording this episode with you and they really didn't remember it at all. yeah, and to me, well, to be fair, I didn't remember the movie.

Tim Williams: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Wow, which is crazy.

Ben Carpenter: I just remembered loving it. remembered the title and I remembered that I loved that movie when I was a kid.

Tim Williams: Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, well, I guess you already answered the question. So you haven't seen it since you watched it back as a kid. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: you No, no, I hadn't seen it and ⁓ watched it last night for the first time in 40 years. And ⁓ it was weird because it was a very strange experience. know, I've I've rewatched a lot of movies for this podcast, doing the episodes with you over the last couple of years. And all of them have been movies that

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: Most of them have been movies that I've seen every now and then or have seen bits and pieces of over the years. Some of them, like on Golden Pond, I hadn't seen in a long time, but I still remembered what the movie was about. I remembered scenes from it. It was almost like I had my memory wiped on this. For some reason, I remembered I loved this movie and I remembered nothing else about it. I knew Henry Thomas and Dabney Coleman were in it.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. bright. Right. Mm-hmm. That was about it. Right.

Ben Carpenter: and that it was a spy thing and that was it. And so, but as I started watching it, you know, just everything like, ⁓ yeah, ⁓ yeah, set in San Antonio and I was, you know, ⁓ yeah, there was a scene at the Alamo, I remember that now, like, you know, like I just started, it was really cool, because it just, everything sort of flowed back into me as I was watching it and felt like a kid again, so.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like hearing an old song on the radio. I haven't heard in like 30 years and like, it takes you right back to when whatever memory you have associated with it. Yeah. Yeah. I, I can't remember how I saw this probably 10 years ago. I don't know if it was on a streamer for a, or for a brief moment or, know, when I was thinking about starting the podcast, ⁓ and was thinking about movies of my childhood, I might've found it on YouTube and watch like a rough, you know, ⁓ a rough, not rough cup.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: copy but like a non HD version of it. But and I remember like I think at that point was kind of like you was like I remembered loving the movie. I remember Dabney Coleman. I remembered Henry Thomas but I didn't remember exactly all you know that much about it until I started until I watched it again and I was like oh wow yeah I kind of you know the same thing like the things oh I think this is coming up but When it got to the end, was like, I don't remember this at all. I remembered his like, spoiler alert, when he thinks it's Jack Flack coming out of the flames, like that's his dad. Like I remembered that scene, but had totally forgot like they end up at the airport. Like when they started going there, like, this ends at the airport. anyway, ⁓ so yeah, it was, but I remember that. But so I watched it then. And then when I got the Blu-ray a couple of last year,

Ben Carpenter: You

Tim Williams: I was like, I have to go and I had to watch it again. Like I had been wanting to watch it again since watching it 10 years ago. So, so I watched it last year and then I watched it again ⁓ today. So, ⁓ so I've seen it a couple of times in the last 40 years, but, ⁓ yeah, a lot of fun.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. My son watched it with me last night. He said he wasn't going to. We talked about it at dinner and he was like, nah, I don't think so. But then I started watching it and he came out and sat with me and watched it. ⁓ I think he was interested in it as as sort of an 80s relic, know, just looking at, I mean.

Tim Williams: Okay, yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah.

Ben Carpenter: my God, the scene at the airport at the end and just like how much airports have changed since then. looks, yeah. So he was interested in it. I don't think he loved it, but you know, he's in his twenties. He's not being exposed to it for the first time in that, ⁓ you know, nine or 10 years old or whatever I was when it came out. That's...

Tim Williams: hahahaha Whew, yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: That's what really sort of, that's why it made such a big impression on me, I'm sure.

Tim Williams: ⁓ for sure. Yeah, same. Same here. All right. Well, we've got the nostalgia flowing. Now it's time to see how much of the behind the scenes data you've already downloaded. We're heading into our new trivia segment. I don't know if you've done this with us before. Have you done a trivia segment with us? This might be this. This is new. So this is new for this year. I call it Risky Quizness. That's my little title for this. So. So I've got a few facts and a few fabrications pulled from the production files. Your job is to tell me what's true.

Ben Carpenter: No, I don't think I have. ⁓ I see what you did there. Okay.

Tim Williams: And what's false? Are you ready to lock in your answers? Yeah. So, ⁓ so instead of like doing a deep dive, like the behind the scenes, like pre-production, I decided to put it into two or false. So usually if I have more than one co-host, they kind of work as a team, but it's just you, but I think, I think you'll do okay. So I've got, I actually have, I have three questions and I have a bonus question. So first time having a bonus question, but just see why. So here we go. Number one, risky quizness. Here we go.

Ben Carpenter: Okay, sure sure. Hmm, I know. Okay.

Tim Williams: The Cloak and Dagger game featured in the film was actually real Atari 5200 game that was released in stores months before the movie hit theaters. True or false?

Ben Carpenter: I actually know from looking that up yesterday because, well, I'll just say I know that's false. But I felt like I remembered playing the game. And it was one of those things, know, the Mandela effect kind of thing. like, did I really remember playing the game or did I just watch the movie so much that I felt like I remembered playing the game?

Tim Williams: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right, right. Hahaha. Mm-hmm. If you feel like you played it, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: I do feel and I looked it up and it wasn't ever released on the 5200, although that was in the works for a while. They never actually released it. ⁓ But it was released. It was an arcade game. so maybe I remember playing the arcade game. If I came across it, it said it was kind of rare. ⁓ But.

Tim Williams: Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: You know, if I'm sure if I ever saw the arcade game, I was there playing it. So, yeah.

Tim Williams: ⁓ for sure. Yeah. I don't think it ever popped up anywhere where I got to play it. ⁓ but it did say, yeah, it was an arcade game already. They were planning for the Atari 5200 version. It was already a modified version of a pre-existing game called agent X. And that's when I thought maybe a friend of mine or somebody I knew had the agent X games, even watching it today, I was like, I kind of feel like it seems somewhat familiar of, you know, the guy trying to move around the circles of the cases or whatever. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: Hmm Mm-hmm. Right.

Tim Williams: But yeah, but it was the home version was never released due to the public. I mean, released to the public due to the video game crash of 1983, which I think we talked about on a previous episode about how I don't know that was, I'm not with you, but one of the episodes I think we talked about how Atari figured, Atari didn't patent their games. Was that it?

Ben Carpenter: I don't know. I'm familiar with like the ET game that was I guess around that time. Yeah. ⁓ But no, I'm not really familiar with it. I don't remember there being a crash. I do remember, you know, the 5200 didn't really do as well as the 2600.

Tim Williams: I didn't, I didn't do this research. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest bomb. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because even when he's playing with that joystick, was like, I don't remember that joystick at all. Like that's not the Atari that I played. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember. So my Atari story is my mom. I remember her calling us at home or she was out Christmas shopping. ⁓ And I think basically asked my dad, could she buy the Atari game for Christmas? And that, you know, that was a big amount of money.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, no, I never had that. just stuck with my 2600. That was good enough for me.

Tim Williams: but she obviously found somewhere where it was a good deal. And so she bought it for quote unquote my dad. It was supposed to be his game system. But of course me and my sister took over it, but it came with Space Invaders. That was the game that it came with. And we played it so much that after a couple of years, you couldn't see the little dots coming down from the ships. So you could never tell if they were going to hit you or not. we just, we couldn't eventually we just stopped playing. I think my sister kept trying to play like just.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm Yeah. Hahaha

Tim Williams: trying to move and just if it happens, it happens, but you would just be going back and forth and you would just die because you couldn't see the dots falling. So, yeah, so we talk about that a lot, but yeah, I think it was something about how like Atari thought they had owned the market. And then I think the other, like the cheaper versions of games were able to be able to be able to be played on the Atari and they were taking, like they were making them cheaper.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay.

Tim Williams: And people were not buying the Atari games because there were so much more expensive. And I remember that we had more of the off-brand games than we had of the, cause I remember Frogger was the big Atari game and we had a game called freeway, which was basically the same game, but it was a chicken crossing the road instead of Frogger jumping across the lily pads. So yeah. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Hmm. Right. Now I remember Sears had like their own version. Is that what it was? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tim Williams: Yeah, I think so. It might have been. It might have been. but yeah. All right. So you got number one, right? Good job. Number two, here we go. The climax of the film takes place at the historic Alamo, but the production was forced to build a replica because the city wouldn't let them film an action sequence at the real landmark.

Ben Carpenter: Yay. Hmm. That one I don't know, but it sounds plausible, so I'll say true. ⁓

Tim Williams: true or false. Sorry, got that one wrong. So it's false. did, they filmed on location in San Antonio, but the big finale actually takes place at the San Antonio International Airport. However, many other scenes were shot at the famous Riverwalk and the Tower of the Americas. So yeah, they did film at the Alamo, which I thought was, you know, pretty impressive, but they're not there very long. So obviously they didn't have much time to film there. And I think I'd read somewhere else, like they had to film after hours, like they wouldn't allow them to take away from the tourist time. So. So yes, they had to work around its schedule. All right, number three, see if you can, here's your chance to get two out of three. Henry Thomas was cast in the film after Steven Spielberg personally recommended him to director Richard Franklin following their work together on E.T. the extraterrestrial.

Ben Carpenter: Okay. Yeah. Again, that sounds pretty plausible. We've had two falses, so I think I'm going to go true on this one again.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. And you would be correct. Yes. Spielberg was so impressed with Henry's emotional range that he helped champion him for the role of Davy, knowing the kid could actually carry a movie on his shoulders. And I think, I think he did a great job. so. All right. So I'm going to say that you won that round because you got two out of three. So. Yep. I do have a bonus question. So we'll see how well you know this one. This one is a toughie.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. I do too. Yeah, two out of three, that's, yeah. Okay.

Tim Williams: Cloak and Dagger is a remake of a suspenseful 1940s movie.

Ben Carpenter: I think I saw that it was based loosely on a short story that was from a long time, it was from, you a few decades before, but I don't know if it was... Sure, we'll go true.

Tim Williams: OK, you would have won either way. It's kind of a trick question. It's true and it's false. So ⁓ Richard Franklin was actually asked to do a ⁓ remake of the movie The Window, which was released in 1949, which is based on Cornel Woolrich's short story, The Boy Cried Murder, which Universal on the rights to. However, when Henry Thomas was cast, he wanted to add he needed a different element. And so he.

Ben Carpenter: Okay. Mm.

Tim Williams: He basically morphed the plot into Cloak and Dagger. So it is somewhat of a remake, but it's kind of more like loosely based on the original story. But he added his whole idea of having Jack Flack being like the imaginary friend. That's what kind of separated it from the others. But fun fact, the story has actually been adapted three other times. The first time was called The Window, which I heard was like basically a remake of Rear Window.

Ben Carpenter: Right. ⁓ Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: but with a kid instead of an adult. Then it was the boy cried murder. And then the last one was eyewitness, which came out in 1970. So kind of a somewhat familiar story.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Williams: So good job. All right. All right. So let us know listeners and viewers how you did on the trivia. Send us a message on social media. You can leave us a comment right here in YouTube if you're watching us on YouTube. So all right. Well, let's talk about the cast. We kind of talked about already. Of course, we talk about Henry Thomas as Davey. I will say Osborne, even though I think Dabney Coleman says Osborne. He said like a weird way once I was like, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Well, thank you. ⁓ Yeah, with his Texas accent. Yeah.

Tim Williams: So he began his career as a child actor and had the lead role of course as Elliot in the film E.T. The Extraterrestrial. He had other roles in other films including Frog Dreaming in 86, Valmont in 89, Fire in the Sky in 93, are three movies that I know nothing about, but he came back in 94 with Legends of the Fall, Suicide Kings in 1997, All the Pretty Horses in 2000. He appears in Gangs of New York in 2002 and Dear John in 2010. he was.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, I was telling my son, we were talking about Henry Thomas after and how he was in, you know, a few movies towards the beginning of the 80s that were big. mean, E.T. obviously, especially. And then I felt like he just sort of disappeared for a few decades. And then recently I've seen him in some of the Netflix series that ⁓

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Mike Flanagan, I think is the director's name, who does those. Yeah, yeah. some of those have been really good, I think. And he's always in, he's just sort of one of his go-to actors.

Tim Williams: Mm hmm. Yeah. Like horror suspense movies. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. think he's still, mean, see him pop up in like the nineties. I was like, ⁓ man, it looks kind of like the kid from ET. it's like, ⁓ that is the kid from ET, just grown up. So, Very good. So, and then of course, Dabney Coleman is Jack Flack and Hal Osborne. We've talked about him on other movies, including Nine to Five, which we've covered on Golden Pond. Of course, Ben and I covered.

Ben Carpenter: Mm hmm. Right.

Tim Williams: He was also in Tootsie in 1982, War Games in 83, and You've Got Mail in 1998. Dabney Coleman is by far one of my favorite actors from the 80s. He's just one of the, you and this being one where he kind of gets to play two different characters was a lot of fun. of seeing him, you know, kind of being the action hero, the rough and tough guy, and then also kind of being the dad who's in the military, but seems to have kind of a softer side. He's Eastern, but...

Ben Carpenter: Right. Yeah. Hmm.

Tim Williams: you see the dad, you know, moments. So, yeah, really good.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Yeah, my son, again, was totally unfamiliar with Dabney Coleman. ⁓ I mean, I think maybe he recognized him when he saw it, but he didn't recognize the name when he was asking me about the movie before he decided to watch it with me. And I said Dabney Coleman was kind of like Jon Hamm. He just he turned up in comedies. He turned up in dramas. He just turned up a lot in a lot of different things and was all and is always just good.

Tim Williams: Right. Right. Right. Right. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: at whatever he's doing, he's always fun to watch. So, yeah.

Tim Williams: Yeah, I think Nicholas has mentioned before, it's like he's one of those actors where ⁓ he's always good even in a bad movie. Like even if the movie is bad, he's gonna be great in it. And I think that's true. Not that he did a lot of bad movies, but I think anything I've seen him in, he is definitely one of the highlights of the movie for sure. So he did say in a 2012 interview,

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: He thought, this is his quote, I thought the movie was a great idea. I didn't get along with the director, but it was great working with that little kid, Henry Thomas. What a great kid and a great actor. I'll tell you though, it's amazing how many people have come up to me and said something to me about that film. That happens to me two or three times a year. It's always either a father saying, I saw that movie with my son or a son saying, I saw it with my dad. But then they say, seeing that movie was very important in my life. And that's always very nice to hear. That was worth sharing, which I think is.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: is good. So, and I can say like, once again, I think it resonates with me because my dad being in the military, I, you know, understood that. Of course, my mom was still living. So that wasn't, you know, didn't have that part, having, you know, having him see his father figure or seeing his father as a hero figure or having that transition from having that imaginary friend of this hero and then realizing it's really, you know, it's really his dad. His dad is his real hero. I think that

Ben Carpenter: Right.

Tim Williams: I don't think I understood that at that time, but it definitely resonated with me as I grew older. And I probably had a little bit more appreciation for my dad after seeing the movie. So kind of hate that I didn't see it with him when I think about it. I'm sure we watched it together when it was on HBO, but seeing in the theater with him, didn't have that experience.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah. Yeah, I for some reason I feel like as I started watching it, I was like, ⁓ yeah, his dad is never around. His dad's always traveling or something. And that really wasn't the case. His dad just had a job. know, it wasn't that unusual a situation other than the fact that, you know, he had lost his mother. as ⁓ Dabney Coleman's father character says early on that, you know, he's

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. No. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: having a hard time dealing with that. But ⁓ yeah, mean, obviously that's the heart of the movie is that father-son relationship and...

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. ⁓ for sure. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: from the viewpoint of a child sort of seeing their dad as both things, know, wishing your dad was around more, wishing you had a stronger connection with your dad, but also seeing your dad as sort of this invincible action hero. ⁓ So, yeah, yeah, really interesting.

Tim Williams: Yeah, yeah. I will move down with the cast. We've got Michael Murphy as Rice. He was the I guess the main guy chasing after them. He had roles in the films such as MASH in 1970, The Year of Living Dangerously in 83, Salvador in 86, Batman Returns in 92, X-Men The Last Stand in 2006, and Fall in 2014, among other. He's been in a bunch of stuff. Like I definitely recognized him even being a little bit younger in this movie. yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: And then a name I would not recognize, Christina Negra as Kim Gardner, which was his friend, sidekick, I guess you would say. Her other film role, she was a voice in the Sword and the Sorcerer animated movie. She was also in Twilight Zone, the movie, but she was mostly known for TV shows like Mr. Belvedere, Mr. Belvedere, Out of This World, and the TV version of Harry and the Hendersons, which didn't last very long, but yeah. I think she had a...

Ben Carpenter: Mm.

Tim Williams: Her recurring role was on Out of This World, which I remember watching. I think it came out like Saturday afternoons as a kid. I know if you remember that one.

Ben Carpenter: I remember the title. don't remember. I don't think I watched it really, but

Tim Williams: Yeah. It was ⁓ a syndicated show. It was like that one and Small Wonder. Small Wonder was a little girl that was a robot, but Out of This World was like the mother. ⁓ Basically the daughter was the offspring of her mother's fling with an alien. So she was part alien, but didn't know that and was like starting to come to realize that she was an alien anyway. don't, you know, it's probably a bad description, but that's kind of what I, and like.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Mm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay.

Tim Williams: Haven't seen an episode in probably 30 years. That's kind of what I remembered. I do remember, I remember watching both of those shows as a kid. Like I said, I think it came on Saturday mornings after the cartoons went off or like early Saturday afternoons. It was like one those that came on once a week, but yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Mm. Yeah.

Tim Williams: And then I will kind of talk about these two together. Jeanette Nolan and John McIntyre, which are the elderly couple that ⁓ when we get into ⁓ iconic scenes, I'm going to talk about them a little bit. So Jeanette was her film debut was Lady Macbeth opposite director actor Orson Welles, who we just talked about in our Transformers episode, but his version of Macbeth in 1948. Her final film role was as Tom Booker, ⁓ Robert Redford's mother. Ellen Booker in The Horse Whisperer 1998. She made more than 300 television appearances, including episode roles in Perry Mason, I Spy, MacGyver, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a regular on The Richard Boone Show and The Virginian. She actually received four Emmy nominations. And then John McIntyre was her husband. He won the role of Christopher Hale in 1961 after wagon train series star Ward Bond died and succeeded the late Charles Bickford in The Virginian in 1962. ⁓ His deep, dusty, resonant voice was utilized often for narratives and documentaries. He and his long-time wife, actress Jeanette Nolan, mentioned, became the Aussie Davis and Ruby Dee of the Sagebrush set, appearing together as quintessential frontier couple for decades and decades. They were married for 56 years until John's death of emphysema in 1991.

Ben Carpenter: Hmm. Wow. Yeah, they were both, ⁓ I recognized them ⁓ or I remembered them as soon as I saw them from this. But I feel like I remembered them. I mean, they looked familiar. looked like the kind, I mean, I feel like I've seen other things with them in it over the years. ⁓ But yeah, they sort of lend a, I mean, they're

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: you see them and they just look sort of old Hollywood. ⁓ It's sort of like when, and I'm not surprised to learn that they were married in real life. I didn't know that, but they kind of a Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronin kind of vibe from them. I mean, it could have been them playing those roles just as easily. yeah.

Tim Williams: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, ⁓ yeah, for sure, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, they seem like a natural married grandma and grandpa type couple for sure. So. All right. We'll get a few more here. ⁓ He's William Forsythe, but here he ⁓ was credited as Bill Forsythe. He's best known for his material of tough guy, criminal characters and starred in films such as Once Upon a Time in America in 84.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Right.

Tim Williams: Raising Arizona at 87 another favorite of mine, Dick Tracy in 1990, The Rock in 1996, Blue Streak in 99, The Devil's Rejects in 2005. He also played recurring characters in TV series such as Boardwalk Empire in 2010 and Justified also in 2010. But yeah, I remember when I rewatched this a couple of years ago and he popped up, I was like, oh my gosh, that's I'm like, I know that guy like, but I couldn't couldn't think of his name, but he would look very different. So.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he did look different in this. I don't know, I feel like if I didn't see his name in the credits, I would have just, it would have driven me nuts, like looking at him like, who is that? He looks so familiar. But ⁓ yeah, obviously, Raising Arizona is one of my all time favorites too. Have you done an episode on Raising Arizona? Okay, if you do it without me, I'm done with you. So whenever you do Raising Arizona, we're doing that one.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yes, yes. I haven't. on... I'll go ahead and... Yeah. I'll definitely add you to the list. That's one, another one that I have. It's on the list. It's one of those, it's on the list. Like I've got to do it and it just keeps, you know, it keeps missing the calendar. But yeah, but yeah. And I bought that on Blu-ray last year as well, because I hadn't seen it in long time. But yeah. ⁓ so fun.

Ben Carpenter: Right. But William Forsythe is the one who asks, do these balloons blow up into funny shapes? To which the reply is no, unless and around is funny. This is one of my favorite lines.

Tim Williams: Hahaha. Yeah, so good. Yeah, him and John Goodman is that that was a. That movie is just great. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. Last one I'm going to mention Robert Duquois, I'm going to pull this. How you say his last name is Lieutenant Fleming, the police officer that brings Davy home and then shows up back up again at the end. He's best known for his roles as King George in the 1973 film Coffee starring Pam Greer. He was also in Robert Altman's film Nashville, as well as Sergeant Warren Reed.

Ben Carpenter: Okay.

Tim Williams: in RoboCop in 1987 and its sequel RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3. He's also known for the voice Pablo Robertson on the cartoon series Harlem Globetrotters from 1970 to 1973. another one of those that guys I knew him from RoboCop for sure. That's what I definitely recognized him from. So. Two guys I did not cover is the kind of the henchmen or the know, the heavies.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah,

Tim Williams: They didn't, they're very much that guys. Like there wasn't a lot I could find about them on, ⁓ IMDB or Wikipedia, but, ⁓ they've both been in a lot of different things. The, ⁓ the guy with the mustache, the bigger guy, I knew he had to been in a bunch of like beer commercials, but he was also a former football player, which is probably why I'm recognizing beer commercials, but he was also the brother of Rick Rozanowicz, I think who was in Roxanne.

Ben Carpenter: Alright. Right.

Tim Williams: Top Gun, he's done a few more. yeah, that's his brother. but yeah. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Okay. I didn't realize. Yeah. Yeah, that was an odd choice, an odd costuming choice to have him in a sweatsuit the whole time. It's not very menacing. And I wonder if the actor was just like, no, I'm doing it in my, if he was like John Fetterman, you know, in the Senate, if he's like, no, I'm just wearing my sweatsuit.

Tim Williams: No, no. Right, It's like I'm an athlete. got to be, to have my stretchy pants on. yeah. And then who was not listed in the credits or that I saw when I was doing my notes before I rewatched movie, but a blink and you miss it cameo of the late great Louis Anderson as one of the cab drivers or whatever on the street corner. I was like,

Ben Carpenter: You He was in the credits of the version I watched. Maybe they added him later, but it said ⁓ cab driver number two or something like that. Louis Anderson, yeah.

Tim Williams: Okay. What were you saying? I didn't like, I Oh, is that what it was? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I watched the end credits on this one. Like I normally do, but like when I was going through my, you know, I pull up the cast on like Wikipedia and IMDB and he wasn't, you know, in that main cast. So it's probably why I didn't think about it. But, uh, but I would think even with Wikipedia, they would mention like, and a special cameo appearance by Louie, but you know, that was before anybody knew really knew who Louie Anderson was. You know, he has, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Right. Yeah. Yeah, it just has one line. I don't even remember what it is. It's like, man, get out of here, kid, or something. It's just like, ⁓ Right.

Tim Williams: Yeah, you got, yeah, it's like, it's gonna be 20 bucks. He's like, I don't have 20 bucks, you know, so I get out of here, kid, you bother me. So, yeah, so I think of Louis Anderson's cameos like this and coming to America. that's where I remember, you know, seeing Louis Anderson kind of the first time, All right, anybody else from the cast that might have overlooked or somebody you wanted to mention or did we cover them all? Okay, good deal. All right, well, let's jump into iconic.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. I think you covered it pretty well.

Tim Williams: favorite scenes. So I know you hadn't seen it in long time, but even now after you're watching it, so if someone said to you now, cloak and dagger, what's the first scene that pops in your head? It might be more than one. think I have a few.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, yeah, I was just, I just sort of got into the flow of it. I mean, I guess the Riverwalk chases ⁓ were something that, ⁓ you know, once I saw it, I really remembered that. ⁓ And then, yeah, the stuff with the plane at the end, ⁓ definitely. ⁓

Tim Williams: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: not, you know, that I remember that and ⁓ yeah, so I mean it. To me too, ⁓ sort of the scenes just of the kids hanging out in the game shop. ⁓ I feel like when I was a kid, like that's probably a big part of why I loved the movie because that's where I like to be too. Like I never got really into Dungeons and Dragons, but I, a little bit like I bought a few of the...

Tim Williams: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ No, I didn't either. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: sets and kind of tried to get into it for a little while. And you know, you can see a rack of just the Dungeons and Dragons in the background and all like that that that game shop just looks like where, you know, nine year old Ben would have wanted to be. So, yeah.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, I don't think we had it. I don't remember them having a shop like that anywhere close to me where I lived when this movie came out. So thinking that a shop like that existed, we like said, we went to Sears and bought our Atari games. We went to like, you know, the whatever kind of local mall store would have a few on hand. But like watching it today and like there's that whole rack of like just a whole line of different types of Atari games was like.

Ben Carpenter: Mm.

Tim Williams: As a kid, I've been like, where is that store at? Because I need to look at every single one that they have, you know. So yeah, for sure. Yeah, for me, like I said, I mentioned already the silhouette of Jack Black kind of morphing into his dad at the end coming from the flames. definitely, that's a scene that I vaguely, or not vaguely, I distinctly remember from seeing it as a kid. The scene that freaked me out as a kid and I still, it doesn't freak me out now, but I...

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: I think about that when I see it now is when he mentions that, you know, the, person they're looking for has is missing two fingers or only has three fingers. And even though it's an error, what I noticed today, she takes the glove off before he says it, but then it shows her taking the glove off again for the closeup where it reveals that she's the one they're looking for. So, ⁓ but I think like as it, once again, twists were not something that as a nine, 10 year old kid, I would have thought about, but that's big twist. like, especially as a kid,

Ben Carpenter: Mmm. Right.

Tim Williams: this old elderly couple befriends you, those are people you're going to trust. Like for them to turn out to be the real spies was like, that was such a big twist for a kid's mind to wrap his head around. Like I can't trust my grandparents anymore. Like don't trust the old people. What's going, what's happening? Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Right. What if my grandparents are secretly spies, know, double agents?

Tim Williams: Right, right. So that scene I definitely remember. And then I remember the scene where Jack Flag gets shot, you know, even though it's kind of like his... They make him where he's kind of like half invisible, like almost like a hologram in that one scene. And then he comes back full. I was like, don't know why they chose to do it that way, unless it was like showing that he was starting to fade from Davy. Like he's not as real as he thought he was for a moment.

Ben Carpenter: Mm. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't really figure out why. Right. Yeah.

Tim Williams: So I didn't get a chance. was like, I may rewatch it with the commentary and find out for sure. Cause the DVD copy I have has the commentary with the screenwriter, Tom Holland, not Spider-Man, Tom Holland, the other Tom Holland. So.

Ben Carpenter: I Right. Yeah. Right. That would be weird because he would have probably not even, yeah, I'm sure he wasn't born yet when this came out.

Tim Williams: No, not even close. Yeah. But one thing about that scene that I know when I watched it on like once again, when I watched it on Blu-ray the first time, the much higher definition, I know if it was for you, but Jack Flax wearing that like all leather gray suit kind of, you know, pants and jacket. But there's like you can see the like little holes in different spots on his suit. And I don't know, like for some reason, it just automatically caught my attention. Like it's because everything's cut. It has like lines.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: for like the layers, but you just see like these little bitty small holes. And I was like, before it happened, I was like, I think that's where he starts bleeding. Cause I remembered that, you know, how they start talking and begins to start bleeding. And those are little blood packets. When he starts to bleed, you can see it kind of outline the, the, ⁓ the round piece where it's like, they're almost like little pellets that they had in there. They were probably, you know, yeah, squibs, whatever. Yeah. But it's so funny, like as a kid and watch, you know, watching an old

Ben Carpenter: ⁓ right. Squibs or whatever they call them. Yeah.

Tim Williams: you know, TV, we wouldn't be able to see it that clean. But like now with high definition, you know, you kind of see those things. But once again, I still love it because practical effects. I'm always a fan of the practical effects. So, but yeah, yeah. Yeah. So those are, those are kind of like my iconic scenes, but yeah. What about favorite scenes? Any scenes that you just like really enjoyed? Like I think you mentioned, I'll mention mine is like the.

Ben Carpenter: ⁓ absolutely. Yeah.

Tim Williams: the whole chase or the boat scene in San Antonio. Like that was just a fun, great sequence ⁓ that I really liked for sure.

Ben Carpenter: And, and, and as I said, I've totally forgotten about this movie over the years. ⁓ and, at least the plot of it. And, know, a few years ago, we went to San Antonio and we, we took that boat tour. Like we went, we, yeah. And I, it didn't cross my mind. ⁓ this is out of, this is what they did in Cloak and Dagger. But watching it last night, I was like, ⁓ yeah, that's, you know, that's how it goes. You know, it's still, it's still that way. You get on a little.

Tim Williams: Ahem. Mm-hmm. ⁓ really? ⁓ Cloak and nigger. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: You get on a raft and it's about a 20, 30 minute tour, just like he says. you know, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, ⁓ having visited San Antonio, was it's. It's it's a cool city and it's cool to see it sort of portrayed in a in movie like that. And ⁓ I always like that when when a movie is sort of.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: set in a place and you feel like you get to explore that place through the movie. Rather than it just being in some, you know, in LA, you know, just because that's where they filmed it. So, well, let's just make it in LA or whatever. ⁓ You know, a lot of times a lot of stuff is filmed around here in Atlanta where we live and and but a lot of times it's not really supposed to be Atlanta. I like it when it's supposed to be Atlanta because then it's, you know, but anyway.

Tim Williams: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, for sure. Yeah. Mm hmm. Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Right. Exactly. Yeah. That, that landmark makes sense because it's in Atlanta. Yeah. Same thing. Like I, I, I, I was told, cause I would think I was too young to remember that we did a family trip to San Antonio when I was very little, but I don't have any memory of it. There's pictures of me as like a little kid out at the Alamo, no recollection. So my only

Ben Carpenter: Right, right. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: My only memories of the Alamo are from this and Pee-wee's big adventure. that's, yeah, there's no basement in Alamo yet.

Ben Carpenter: Right. You know there's no basement at the Alamo.

Tim Williams: And I know not to, ⁓ not to leave your camera bag in the middle of the floor, ⁓ or run out the door with it. yeah. ⁓ yeah. Any other scenes? mean, like there's so many great scenes. I mean, it's just a fun movie from beginning, beginning to end. ⁓ it really, the pacing is really good. Like it really, it, it, it really moves really well. It doesn't drag in any, any places. And, ⁓ I did watch a little bit of one of the documentaries on the Blu ray where they were talking to the screenwriter. Tom Holland and talking about in creating the thriller. He's like, ⁓ one of the things you really want to do is like when you're writing a thriller is you have to take away all the safe spaces. So we're talking about how, when the bad guys are coming into his home, like that's a safe space, like, and you have to build that intensity where you as the audience feel like there's nowhere for this kid to go. Like there is no out and even like getting on the plane, like once that plane starts moving, how are you going to get out? Which I thought was, you know, once again, very smart. So very good.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, even taking away safe people like the elderly couple, you think they're safe and then they're not, right. ⁓

Tim Williams: Very good screenwriter. Yes, yeah, the grandparents. Yeah, exactly. Right, right. Yeah. And you kill all the people he trusts like the Bill Forsythe character. ⁓ I can't think of his name now off the of my head, but that was in the game shop. Like him getting killed was like another big like, ⁓ my gosh, they killed somebody in the movie. ⁓ another move, another scene that I remember like, I say traumatizing me, but like watching it in the movie as a kid thinking like, why they really did that is when Henry Thomas shoots the bad guy. Like, you know, you usually see the kid being saved by someone else that kills the bad guy, but in this instance, and then he has that whole confrontation was like, you did it, you made me kill him. He's like, you know, it would have been self-defense, but rational thoughts that a kid would think like, didn't want to do that. Why did you make me do that? You know, which I thought, you know, once again, just, it's just a, well, it's a great movie. I'm gonna say it a million times. It's such a good movie.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Well, you know, here's the thing. Like I've said several times, I didn't have any memory of this. I knew that I loved it in the early 80s when I was a kid. And then I knew that it just sort of, like you said, it went away. That it's not talked about, it's not available anywhere, it's not in the culture at all, really, like a lot of other movies from the early 80s are.

Tim Williams: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right, right. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: And so I sort of, I sat down to watch it, I was prepared for it to be bad. Like I thought, you know, probably there's a reason that nobody talks about it, but.

Tim Williams: Yeah. It's gotta be problematic in some way, right? Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Right. But I was surprised. It's not bad at all. It's actually, it's, you know, there's probably, if you examine the plot, I'm sure you can find some, a lot of holes. It's not like, it's, the spy thriller aspect of it is really only sort of told enough for a kid to go along with it, you know?

Tim Williams: Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: But which is all they, you know, it's a kid's movie basically. But yeah, I thought it was well-made and well-written, well-acted, maybe with a couple of exceptions, but pretty well-acted for the most part. yeah, I enjoyed it. So, and...

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Overall, yeah. Yeah.

Ben Carpenter: I don't really understand why it's not at least a little more sort of still in our pop culture atmosphere. ⁓ Why has it seemingly disappeared so much? I'm not sure. Maybe it's just because everybody thinks of Henry Thomas as the ET kid. And really, this is the only other, I can't think of anything else.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: You mentioned a couple things, but I had never heard of ⁓ that he was in in the early 80s. It was really ET and this that were, think this was, well, I know you'll get to it that I don't know how this did at the box office at the time, but.

Tim Williams: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get there. I'll just say there was another movie that he did probably right around the same maybe like a year or two later called The Quest. And I see it pop up in some of my 80s groups that I remember seeing. I don't remember anything like you. I remember seeing it as a kid and liking it, but I don't know anything about it. But it was one that we like we saw on VHS that we either checked out at the library or rented as a kid.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah.

Tim Williams: So I'm gonna have to find that one and rewatch it and figure out what that was about. But I remember like when they, when they, they've been showing like the, the cover, the VHS card, like I, I know I saw that movie, but I don't remember anything about it. it's, but it's Henry Thomas ⁓ is the banker. And looks just like he'd maybe a year or two older than he does in this movie. So I'll have to go back and find that one and, and, and see if, you know, why that one's coming up, why that one's coming up in my eighties groups and not cloak and dagger, but we're going to make it.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Right. There were even, yeah, I was just thinking that there were even some special effects in this movie that were pretty impressive. I mean, especially for the time, but when Jack Flack and ⁓ Davey are crossing the street, they like cross the street in traffic. Now these days it would just be, those are CG cars, but

Tim Williams: Change it up. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

Ben Carpenter: in 1983 or whenever they shot this. No, those weren't CG cars. did, I mean, and they look like they're zipping right past Henry Thomas. So I'm, I meant to go back and watch that again and try to figure out, okay, how did they shoot that without, you know, yeah, putting someone in real ⁓ danger, but.

Tim Williams: No. Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Really hurting anybody, Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. One thing I was going to say when we talked about being set in San Francisco, it wasn't in my notes, but I think when I was doing research for this before, because it weird doing the research for this because like, feel like I've done research on this before. So I don't know if at some point a couple of years ago, I was going to do an episode and didn't get, it didn't pan out, but I'd already started doing research on it. But I want to say like one of the reasons it was filmed in San Antonio is because that's where Henry Thomas lived or that's where it's hometown. So.

Ben Carpenter: It is. I did see that,

Tim Williams: Yeah, so his family wanted him to film something local and not be far away, especially after the success of ET, you know, becoming much more famous. They wanted to kind of keep him close to home. So once again, worked, like you just said, worked to the advantage of the movie, putting it in a city that doesn't get a lot of, you know, ⁓ doesn't get a lot of film locations there.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. I believe I read that Dabney Coleman is originally from Austin too. And so that's just right down the road too.

Tim Williams: I know he's from, yeah, I think so. Oh yeah, yeah, he probably loved being in Texas for that shoot as well. So. All right, let's jump into some trivia. Maybe think about some other scenes as we go. But I mentioned Tom Holland a couple of times here. So he also wrote a movie called Scream for Help that came out in 1984. It was a financial release, not well received. But these were the final screenplays that were produced. Prior to him becoming a director with 1985's Fright Night, which we talked about last year, all three films feature the same basic plot. A kid discovers their life is in danger, but no one will believe them. And Tom Holland talked about that where he had act before he got the writing job for this, he was actually pitching Fright Night to get made and nobody wanted to make the movie. And so he got some of that idea of like, here's a kid in danger. He needs somebody that he trusts that kind of believes him. So, yeah, so that that kind of morphed those two things together, which kind of makes sense when you look at it now. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: Hmm. Yeah. I was not on that Fright Night episode. That's another one that I haven't seen in a long time, but I remember it as being really good. Yeah.

Tim Williams: Mm hmm. ⁓ yeah. It is. Yeah. Yep. That's one of those that works. It's not quite a comedy, though, even though it has some comic elements in it. So it doesn't lean too much into the comedy, but it's it's really well, really well done. And once again, a ton of taking the typical horror story and giving it some different nuances that make it that set it apart, which I think is why it did so well. So and good performances, good writing talked about. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: I did like this little trivia nugget. Several times the cloak and dagger game cartridge is referred to as quote unquote a tape. This may have been due to the screenwriter's unfamiliarity with video games at the time. Many home computers could load games and programs from cassette tapes, but not Atari or other home game consoles, which all use solid state cartridges. Primarily, however, was because of the game cartridges resemblance to an eight track audio tape cartridge.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah.

Tim Williams: which would still have been familiar objects to audiences in 1985, I mean 1984, at that time, not only the writers, but the public in general, often called game cartridges tapes.

Ben Carpenter: Yes, yeah, ⁓ that's how I remembered it when I started hearing them refer to, they kept calling it a tape. I was like, yeah, we did. People called them tapes. Right.

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Yeah. But we yeah, but we knew tape like cassette tapes are so common. That's what we we thought about. So ⁓ yeah. And honestly, for me, like computer, I didn't really know about computers and gaming, like playing games on computers until well after we had Atari's. So I'm not even thinking about, you know, back then it was the floppy disk that you bought that had the games on them or whatever. So. Or my friend had. ⁓

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: Family Feud on this computer. just, was the greatest thing to be able to play Family Feud on the computer.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, my computer game, my go-to computer game was, I think it was called Zork.

Tim Williams: That sounds like a game,

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, it was like a, it was a text game. It said, you know, you are in this room, blah, blah. What do you do? And you would, Yeah, I loved that game. Yeah.

Tim Williams: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I remember those games. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Then my last little trivia nugget here, the invisible bomber project plans contained within the secret game cartridge strongly resembles the United States Air Force, SR-71 Blackbird, not known to the general public at the time of the film's release. It was designed to be a stealth aircraft and indeed sprung from a secret Air Force project. to produce a supersonic stealth bomber. As it was fielded, the SR-71 ended up as a stealth reconnaissance platform. The invisible bomber plans in the film include a reference to a forward-looking infrared pod or FLIR, which now is well known as a component of military attack craft. At the time of the filming, however, it would have been something considered futuristic. which I thought was pretty cool. when the plan's coming out, like, oh, that's definitely the stealth bomber. But back then we...

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a blackbird. ⁓

Tim Williams: We wouldn't have known that's what that was. That was completely unknown to us.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: All well, let's talk about box office to start wrapping it up here. In the United States, the movie was released in a limited release on a double bill with The Last Starfighter. It released on July 13th as a double feature. And then a month later, on August 10th, it was then re-released separately. When it was re-released, it opened at number seven at the weekend box office being surpassed by Red Dawn, which debuted at number one. So. I think it did. don't have, I don't have the box office numbers here, but I think it did. Okay. It wasn't quite, of course it wasn't the quite the monster hit as ET was, but I think it was a moderate success, which once again, maybe why. Well, we can't, you can't use that excuse. Why didn't it didn't catch on because we have movies that didn't that bombed at the box office that are still live on today as being cult classics. So, uh, but, but yeah.

Ben Carpenter: I didn't know. I don't think I don't remember ever going to see a double feature. Maybe we did once or twice, but that's a good pairing. This and the last Starfighter. Yeah, I mean, they both kind of fits, so that's not too surprising.

Tim Williams: Mm-mm. Yeah, ⁓ for sure, yeah. I mean, yeah. I definitely saw both of these movies. I can't remember if I saw Last TIE Fighter in the theater, but both. Yeah, but yeah, but that would be a fun, know, now that have both of them together, it might be a fun like Saturday afternoon just to kind of watch them both back to back and have some fun with that.

Ben Carpenter: I do remember, I know I saw that one in the theater. I do remember that one. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: All right, now it's time to take a look at how well this 80s flick holds up today. It's the rewatchability nostalgia meter. It's our way of measuring how enjoyable a movie is for repeat viewings along with the waves of nostalgia it brings. Here's how it works. It's a one to 10 scale. Any number between one and 10 will do, but here are a few parameters to help you decide. At the bottom of the meter is a number one, which basically means I saw it once and that was enough. In the middle at a number five is a good rewatch every couple of years. And at the top, the highly coveted number 10, which means it's highly rewatchable and full of nostalgia. So Ben, I gave you the question, where does Cloak and Dagger rank on the rewatchability nostalgia meter for you?

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, that's kind of, it's kind of hard to think about it in those terms, having not seen it for so long. Yeah. But then seeing it and, you know, really enjoying it and, and having it ⁓ sort of surprise me that it was as good as it was. So, ⁓ and, and, you know, I felt it.

Tim Williams: seen it in 40 years. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben Carpenter: I felt a ton of nostalgia watching it and it was enhanced by the fact that it was nostalgia that I didn't really remember until I saw it. So, I mean, just based on watching it last night, mean, like I'd say nine, but you know, will I watch it again and again? Probably not. So ⁓ let's say let's say ⁓

Tim Williams: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Seven, all things considered.

Tim Williams: Okay, Seven is a good place. I am actually going to give it a nine because it is one that, you know, now that I've watched it a couple of times in last 10 years, now that I own it, like I said, I watched it probably not even six months ago when we watched it again today and still enjoyed it. You know, I'm sure it's not one that I'm going to have to watch. You you don't want to watch it too often because then you kind of loses some of the suspense of it. But it is a highly enjoyable movie.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: Definitely worth a rewatch and recommend if you haven't seen it in a long time. And we've kind of stirred your nostalgic, nostalgia for you. Definitely find it. Like I said, I was able to find, I said it was a 4K and Blu-ray combo. I don't have a 4K player, so I didn't see it in 4K. So I don't know what the transfer looks like on that. But, and then Ben was able to run it on Apple. yeah, yeah.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it looked it looked ⁓ great there too. I guess it was probably the same transfer that they used and it looked good.

Tim Williams: Yeah, definitely go back and check it out. but yeah, so seven is good. Nine, that's where I'm going to, I'm going to put it pretty high. That's one of the highest rankings I've given to a movie. I think since we started doing the ⁓ rewatchability and nostalgia meter. So, but I stand by it. It's a nine. But let us know where you think Cloak and Dagger ranks on the rewatchability and nostalgia meter for you. can send us an email.

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm.

Tim Williams: Let us know on social media or leave us a comment right here in the comments on YouTube.

Ben Carpenter: I respect your rating of a nine, even I gave it a seven. Yeah, honestly, it felt like a nine when I was watching it. So, yeah.

Tim Williams: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's once again, I think it just it's one of those rare movies that it just it holds it because I think because it holds up so well, it's definitely 80s. It's got 80s essence to it. The outfits, the cars, you know, the lack of technology, the lack of security at the airport, as you mentioned before. So but but still holds up story wise and emotion wise that it said the the father son dynamic is really the heart of the movie. And think why?

Ben Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Right, yeah.

Tim Williams: it holds up as well as it does.

Ben Carpenter: Mm.

Tim Williams: All right, Benoit, thank you for jumping on this episode with me. I'm glad to have you as always. So look forward to some more episodes here coming up over the next couple of months.

Ben Carpenter: Yeah, well I look forward to those as well and it's always fun and this one was particularly fun for me. So I appreciate you having me on and ⁓ spurring me to re-watch this because I'm glad I did.

Tim Williams: Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. So all right. That's a wrap on another trip to the greatest decade of cinema. If we sparked a memory or helps you rediscover a classic today, please head over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five star review. It truly helps the show reach more fans like you to make sure you're always on in the loop for our next deep dive. Hit that follower subscribe button right now. If you want to help keep the show running, consider becoming a partner at buymeacoffee.com. And for more 80s goodness, our digital headquarters is always open. at 80sflickflashback.com. And while you're there, check out our T public store for original designs and movie inspired merch that'll have you looking like an 80s icon. I just released some new designs based on naked gun and airplane and major league. So go check out those designs when you get a chance. Thank you so much, Ben, for joining. Thank you all for listening for 80s Flick Flashback. I'm Tim Williams. Jack Flack always escapes.