The Stinking Pause Podcast

Welcome to Bundanyabba. The beer is cold, the welcome is warm, and leaving may prove surprisingly difficult.

This time on Stinking Pause, Scott, Paul and Charlie are joined by Maurice in Melbourne and Kerry in America for a trip into the heat, dust and rapidly collapsing good intentions of Ted Kotcheff's extraordinary 1971 drama Wake in Fright.

Gary Bond stars as John Grant, a young schoolteacher who becomes stranded in the remote Australian mining town of Bundanyabba after missing his train. All he needs to do is survive one night and continue his journey the following morning. Unfortunately, this simple plan fails to account for gambling, endless glasses of beer and the local determination to ensure that no visitor remains sober enough to remember where the railway station is.

What follows is a brutal and increasingly nightmarish descent into violence, humiliation and male camaraderie at its most aggressively hospitable. Bleak, unsettling and occasionally very funny in ways that leave you feeling slightly guilty, Wake in Fright remains one of Australian cinema's most powerful and unforgettable films.

Between the two halves of our review, we celebrate the life and career of Donald Pleasence, the wonderfully distinctive British actor whose performance as the cheerfully dishevelled Doc Tydon gives the film much of its uneasy fascination. Pleasence could suggest menace, vulnerability and imminent psychological collapse with little more than a glance and a carefully raised eyebrow.

Then, having spent quite enough time contemplating isolation, alcohol and the fragile veneer of civilisation, we move on to our latest Celluloid Stinker.

The Thing with Two Heads stars Ray Milland and Roosevelt Grier as two men forced to share one body following a medical experiment that should probably have been stopped during the planning meeting.
One great film, one remarkable actor, two heads and enough questionable decision-making to fill several hospital negligence forms.
It can only be Stinking Pause.
 
This and previous episodes available at: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/stinkingpause as well as your podcatcher of choice.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @stinkingpause
Send your thoughts and your feedback to thestinkingpausepodcast@gmail.com
 
#WakeInFright #DonaldPleasence #TheThingWithTwoHeads #AustralianCinema #CultCinema #ClassicFilm #BadMovies #FilmPodcast #MoviePodcast #StinkingPause
 
Coming soon....our next episode:

Episode 207 - The Fisher King (1991), Terry Gilliam, Flesh Gordon (1974)


A quest for redemption, a salute to cinematic stubbornness, and a Sex Ray pointed directly at good taste.
 

In this episode of Stinking Pause, Scott and Antony head into the gloriously strange, tender and occasionally unhinged world of The Fisher King, Terry Gilliam's 1991 tale of guilt, grief, romance, fantasy and Robin Williams doing the sort of work that reminds you he could break your heart as easily as make you laugh. Jeff Bridges is on beautifully rumpled form too, as a man trying to crawl back from the wreckage of his own ego, which is always good podcast territory, especially when medieval visions start wandering through modern New York.
 

 
The episode also takes a lovingly chaotic wander through the career of Terry Gilliam, from the cut-out lunacy of Monty Python to the battle-scarred brilliance of Brazil, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Twelve Monkeys and the almost biblically cursed journey of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Floods, studio rows, injuries, lost productions, legal wrangles, and still he kept tilting at windmills.
 

 
And then, because this is Stinking Pause and standards must be lowered before the credits roll, the Celluloid Stinker is Flesh Gordon, the 1974 adult sci-fi parody that somehow combines a Sex Ray, planet Porno, deeply questionable character names and genuinely impressive special effects. 
 
A heartfelt, funny and slightly filthy episode about imagination, obsession, redemption and the noble art of watching things you probably should not admit to watching.
 
This and previous episodes available at: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/stinkingpause as well as your podcatcher of choice.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @stinkingpause
Send your thoughts and your feedback to thestinkingpausepodcast@gmail.com
 
#StinkingPause #TheFisherKing #TerryGilliam #RobinWilliams #JeffBridges #FilmPodcast #CultCinema #FleshGordon #MoviePodcast #CelluloidStinkers
 
Coming soon - our next episode:

"They're saying Sonny Hayes isn't a has-been. He's a never-was."
The Stinking Pause Podcast - reviewing movies since 2013. Some good...some not so good.
 
In the latest episode of The Stinking Pause Podcast, we buckle up for a slightly unhinged trip through speed, spectacle and sheer cinematic nonsense.

First up, we dive into F1: The Movie, a modern racing picture built on big-screen gloss, high-stakes drama and the sort of intense thousand-yard stares that suggest the next corner may decide the fate of civilisation. Joining the conversation is Paul, a man whose taste in films remains as selective and unpredictable as ever, though this time we may just have found a subject close enough to his heart to keep the grumbling to a manageable level.

From there, we take a wider look at Hollywood's long love affair with motor racing movies, from the swagger and danger of the classic era to the polished pressure-cooker world of more modern racing dramas. It's a lively run through the films that turned fast cars, fragile egos and split-second decisions into some of cinema's most reliable crowd-pleasers.

And then, because no episode of The Stinking Pause Podcast would be complete without a sharp turn into deeply questionable territory, we head into Celluloid Stinkers country with The Wild Women of Wongo. It's bizarre, baffling and exactly the sort of film that leaves you wondering who thought any of it was a good idea.
Fast cars, old Hollywood, Paul being Paul, and one gloriously ropey slice of nonsense. In other words, business as usual.
 
This and previous episodes available at: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/stinkingpause as well as your podcatcher of choice.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @stinkingpause
Send your thoughts and your feedback to thestinkingpausepodcast@gmail.com
 
Coming soon - our next episode:

The Fisher King (1991)

"What you say, Paper Champion? I'm gonna beat you like a dog, a dog, you hear me!"
 
The Stinking Pause Podcast - reviewing movies since 2013. Some good...some not so good.
 
We are back with a bit of a revamp for this episode.
Rocky III - Scott is joined by Antony from the Film Gold podcast to chat aboout Stallone, Hulk Hogan and Clubber Lang
The Balboa Legacy - in which Scott takes a look at the history of the greatest sporting movie franchise in history
1982 - One of the finest years in Hollywood. Not only Rocky III, but The Thing, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Tron, The Wrath of Khan, Tootsie and many more.
Celluloid Stinkers - a new series looking at some of the best worst movies of all time. And what better place to start than the legendary Plan Nine from Outer Space?
Reel Britannia Recommends - Scott is joined by his friends and co hosts of the Reel Britannia podcast with their pick of the best movies coming up on Talking Pictures TV - the nation's favourite archive TV and movie channel.
All this, plus a few words from Mr David Niven!
 
This and previous episodes available at: https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/stinkingpause as well as your podcatcher of choice.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @stinkingpause
Send your thoughts and your feedback to thestinkingpausepodcast@gmail.com
 
Coming soon - our next episode:
F1 - The Movie (2025)

Episode 204 - Southern Comfort (1981)
"I got news for you. He's nuts. I mean really fuckin' nuts."

Join Scott and Antony as as they take a deep dive into Walter Hill's 1981 atmospheric survival thriller, Southern Comfort. Often hailed as a gripping allegory for the Vietnam War set against the claustrophobic backdrop of the Louisiana bayou, this gritty masterpiece remains a masterclass in escalating tension and primal paranoia.

Set in the winter of 1973, the film follows a squad of Louisiana Army National Guardsmen embarking on a routine weekend training exercise in the deep swamp. Armed mostly with blanks and an overwhelming sense of unearned arrogance, these part-time soldiers view the treacherous environment as little more than a playground. However, their weekend excursion quickly spirals into a nightmare when they "borrow" a few canoes belonging to the local Cajun trappers. A foolish decision by one guardsman to fire blank rounds at the returning locals triggers a deadly misunderstanding. The Cajuns return fire with live ammunition, instantly killing the squad leader and plunging the remaining men into a desperate fight for survival.

Lost, disorganized, and surrounded by an environment they do not understand, the guardsmen find themselves hunted by a phantom enemy. The swamp itself becomes a character—an inescapable, misty labyrinth that strips away their military discipline and civilized facades. As the men are picked off one by one, internal fractures, paranoia, and sheer terror tear the squad apart from the inside out.

Join us as we dissect every muddy, tension-soaked layer of Southern Comfort. From Ry Cooder's haunting slide-guitar score to the stellar performances of Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe, we explore the film's themes of American hubris, the horrors of guerrilla warfare, and the dark instinct to survive.