The Remains of the Day (1993 Movie)

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Fetch the Smelling Salts, I'm Alice.

[00:00:13] And I'm Kim and this is our podcast all about historical dramas from movies and TV shows

[00:00:18] and mini series from everywhere and all around the world.

[00:00:22] And this week we are back in England where I live.

[00:00:26] This is probably one of the most English-y of English-British period dramas.

[00:00:31] Oh it's so English-y but I love it.

[00:00:33] I love it.

[00:00:34] And we are doing Remains of the Day.

[00:00:38] This is our second Merchant Ivory joint that we're talking about.

[00:00:43] Before we get started can I just tell you something?

[00:00:46] So I realized today that I am a bad parent.

[00:00:51] Can I tell you why?

[00:00:53] We got a message from our nursery, both of our kids are in nursery currently and we

[00:00:59] got a message on our nursery's app this evening from the nursery manager saying that don't

[00:01:07] be alarmed but some of the children today were able to escape.

[00:01:12] How?

[00:01:13] How are the children able to escape?

[00:01:16] I don't know.

[00:01:18] I'm imagining it was like a great escape kind of situation.

[00:01:22] I know that it took some doing because there were several barriers, like points of being

[00:01:28] stopped.

[00:01:29] Like a Shawshank redemption and someone was digging a hole and shaking his leg to get

[00:01:34] the soil out.

[00:01:35] Yeah, there was definitely digging involved.

[00:01:37] I'm guessing that it took weeks.

[00:01:40] Okay.

[00:01:41] Now I don't know but I don't know because my child wasn't involved.

[00:01:45] Yeah, I was going to say.

[00:01:47] So there were four kids who escaped the nursery and Alice Jr. was not one of them

[00:01:51] and the first and only reaction I had when I saw this message was, thank God it wasn't

[00:01:59] my kid.

[00:02:00] Yeah, obviously.

[00:02:01] And also a little bit of like, lol, I wonder who great escaped but it was much more serious

[00:02:07] than that and now we have a parenting WhatsApp group and it's blowing up with people saying

[00:02:12] that this is a really serious situation and they were all terrified and I feel really

[00:02:18] bad and I think I might be a bad person and a bad parent because I only cared that my kid

[00:02:26] wasn't the one who was going to escape.

[00:02:27] Well no, you're a parent.

[00:02:28] Like digging.

[00:02:29] That's all that I was going to say.

[00:02:30] As you know as Alice Jr.'s godmother, all I cared was was he there?

[00:02:36] No, great.

[00:02:37] Okay, all is fine.

[00:02:38] I mean he can get the low down, he can get the scoop from everybody else when he

[00:02:40] goes back and he can find out what happened but I don't want him involved in this.

[00:02:45] Now I know that seems unrelated to the film that we're discussing because it is but I think

[00:02:50] we can connect it somehow.

[00:02:53] There is, ah at the end of the film which we'll get to there is an element of escaping

[00:02:59] and longing to escape.

[00:03:00] There you go.

[00:03:01] Yeah, so we'll bring it back.

[00:03:02] We'll bring it all back.

[00:03:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:03:04] Speaking of tangential connections, I have something to say.

[00:03:10] I am very proud of myself because you know I'm pretty sucky at having themed

[00:03:15] drinks right?

[00:03:16] Sometimes I do it sometimes I don't but today I'm drinking wine from, yes where?

[00:03:22] Oxford?

[00:03:23] Mm-mm.

[00:03:24] Austria.

[00:03:25] Okay.

[00:03:26] And oh wait, wait, wait, wait.

[00:03:29] Austria, do you know who is Austrian?

[00:03:32] No, I don't know who is Austrian.

[00:03:35] Hitler was Austrian.

[00:03:37] Okay.

[00:03:38] And Hitler doesn't directly feature in this movie.

[00:03:43] He is not a character in this film.

[00:03:44] He is not a direct character but there is a strong element.

[00:03:48] He's off, he's off, off, off camera.

[00:03:51] He's off camera, somewhere.

[00:03:52] Yeah, he's there.

[00:03:53] He features very strongly.

[00:03:54] There we go people.

[00:03:55] We are doing a war movie but what I love about this movie is that it doesn't directly

[00:04:03] engage you know it's not like war battle scenes in your face things because those

[00:04:08] things really upset me so I don't really like watching war movies like that.

[00:04:14] I do understand the importance of the place that they play and the part that they play

[00:04:18] and stuff but I personally do not enjoy them.

[00:04:22] You're more of an imitation game than a saving private Ryan.

[00:04:25] Yes.

[00:04:26] And a fan.

[00:04:27] Exactly, it's more like the behind the scenes things which are like how war affects

[00:04:31] people.

[00:04:32] Yeah.

[00:04:33] You know?

[00:04:34] Yeah.

[00:04:35] So I'm interested in that.

[00:04:36] It makes me really sad but I can deal with that level of sadness.

[00:04:41] There is definitely a subgenre of period dramas in which you have overeducated, very wealthy

[00:04:49] British people who are engaging in the war in a very non-direct way maybe by helping

[00:04:59] the allies maybe in this case not so much by helping the allies.

[00:05:04] Exactly.

[00:05:05] Okay.

[00:05:06] Should we get into the summary and then we can stop alluding to things and then we can just

[00:05:12] get into it.

[00:05:13] All right.

[00:05:14] Remains of the day, a merchandise re-film from 1993.

[00:05:18] So the film centers around Darlington Hall in Oxfordshire and the lives of Mr. Stevens,

[00:05:24] the butler played by Anthony Hopkins, Ms. Keaton the housekeeper played by Emma Thompson

[00:05:31] and Lord Darlington played by James Fox.

[00:05:34] The action of the film goes back and forth in time between the mid-30s when Darlington

[00:05:40] Hall is in its heyday and Lord Darlington is a key player in European international affairs

[00:05:47] and the late 1950s when Lord Darlington has died and the much reduced Darlington Hall

[00:05:53] has been purchased by American retired congressman Mr. Lewis.

[00:05:58] So I'm going to be going back and forth.

[00:06:01] Oh and Lewis is played by Christopher Reed.

[00:06:04] Oh, beautiful.

[00:06:05] That's heartbreaking.

[00:06:06] And he plays at some points in the film, he plays older and that makes me sad because

[00:06:11] it reminds us of what we were robbed of.

[00:06:14] In the 1950s, aging butler Mr. Stevens has received a letter from Mrs. Ben who was formerly

[00:06:21] Ms. Kenton when she was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall.

[00:06:25] I'm going to call her Mrs. Ben when she's in the 50s and Ms. Kenton when she's

[00:06:31] in the 30s.

[00:06:32] She's basically the only woman character we're going to talk about so hopefully it won't

[00:06:37] be confusing.

[00:06:38] In the letter Mrs. Ben says she was sorry to hear that Lord Darlington had died and

[00:06:44] she was relieved to know that Darlington Hall had been purchased by Mr. Lewis whom

[00:06:48] she recalls had been a guest there in 1935.

[00:06:53] She also tells Mr. Stevens that she has left her husband Mr. Ben and I wasn't

[00:06:58] too clear on this but it sounds like she left him for the first time, for the second

[00:07:03] time.

[00:07:05] And she's staying at her friend's boarding house in Clevedon in the West Country.

[00:07:10] At the urging of his new employer Mr. Lewis, Mr. Stevens decides to go visit Mrs. Ben

[00:07:15] in the West Country and Mr. Lewis insists that he take the car an old Daimler.

[00:07:22] Mr. Stevens' idea is to ask Mrs. Ben to return to Darlington Hall to be the housekeeper again.

[00:07:29] As Mr. Stevens embarks on his trip we hear more narration of his letters to Mrs. Ben and

[00:07:34] we dive into the past.

[00:07:37] On the day she arrived at Darlington Hall in 1935 Lord Darlington was entertaining some

[00:07:42] friends for a hunt and Mr. Stevens recalls it's perhaps the last day he ever saw

[00:07:47] his Lord happy.

[00:07:49] Back then she was Ms. Kenton and she was taken on as housekeeper because the former housekeeper

[00:07:54] had run off with the underbutler.

[00:07:57] And to replace the underbutler, Stevens hired his own father who used to be the butler

[00:08:02] at another great house.

[00:08:04] Mr. Stevens and Ms. Kenton seem to start out as enemies.

[00:08:09] He underestimates her because of her age and he's a bit sanctimonious.

[00:08:14] He goes on a bit about the dignity of one's position and that grates on her.

[00:08:20] Soon after they're both hired Ms. Kenton notices that Mr. Stevens Sr aka Daddy Stevens is forgetful

[00:08:28] and Mr. Stevens often has to cover for him but he refuses to admit that he's covering

[00:08:34] for him which really takes Ms. Kenton off.

[00:08:37] They get that whole scene where she's insisting that Nicknack was replaced in the wrong place.

[00:08:45] Look at the Chinaman!

[00:08:47] The Chinaman, yes.

[00:08:48] Everyone is preparing for a very important conference that is set to take place at Darlington

[00:08:53] with powerful Englishmen as well as delegates coming from France, Germany and America to

[00:08:59] discuss peace in the post-war period.

[00:09:03] As Lord Darlington and his rich pals are discussing the visit, Dad Stevens comes along with a big

[00:09:10] tray of silver tea things and he trips over some flagstones and he falls and he cuts his

[00:09:17] head on the way down.

[00:09:19] After this incident, Lord Darlington tells Stevens that his dad can't be around the

[00:09:23] foreign delegates because the conference is too important so Dad Stevens is demoted

[00:09:29] to like a roving duster and mopper with like a heart.

[00:09:34] Sorry.

[00:09:35] And that apron, how dare you?

[00:09:37] That broke my heart.

[00:09:38] I know.

[00:09:39] He was taking it so seriously too.

[00:09:41] He's like, this is my mop.

[00:09:43] I'll get that dirt.

[00:09:44] He's like, I'm going to polish those doorknobs.

[00:09:47] Oh yeah.

[00:09:48] My life depended on it.

[00:09:49] Now Lord Darlington also confides in Stevens that he's been determined to lend Germany

[00:09:55] a helping hand ever since he served in the Great War because he had a friend on the other

[00:10:00] side and he felt that the Treaty of Versailles was so unfair that it caused his friend's

[00:10:06] death by suicide.

[00:10:09] And we start to sympathize with him.

[00:10:11] We think these are noble motivations.

[00:10:14] You don't seem like a dick.

[00:10:17] Also at exactly 34 minutes and 57 seconds, we get a pheasant sighting.

[00:10:22] But it's not great because it's like a truck full of dead pheasants because they're all going

[00:10:27] to get roasted.

[00:10:30] People on our Instagram have been sending me pictures and videos of pheasants sometimes

[00:10:35] and that makes me so happy.

[00:10:37] Please continue to do that.

[00:10:39] Also throwback to something I've mentioned on a previous episode, which is that I won't

[00:10:44] eat pheasant because the one time I ate it when I was working at that place in

[00:10:50] Oxford, I bit down on some shots.

[00:10:52] I got a shot and chipped my tooth.

[00:10:54] Pheasants' revenge.

[00:10:55] There was a Gossved Park episode, which actually is kind of relevant in a way to this.

[00:11:01] If you think about the whole upstairs downstairs.

[00:11:03] Yeah, we can definitely discuss that.

[00:11:06] The conference arrives and so do the delegates including Congressman Lewis and a French delegate

[00:11:11] who is suffering from terrible blisters on his feet.

[00:11:14] So this conference is starting and in the midst of all that, we also learned that

[00:11:19] Lord Darlington's godson who is named Cardinal, played by Hugh Grant, he is getting married and

[00:11:27] he's the secretary at the conference.

[00:11:30] And Lord Darlington asks Stevens to take this opportunity to explain the facts of life

[00:11:37] to him before he gets married because he feels that he won't have time.

[00:11:44] Yeah, and he somehow thinks that this 20-something year old man has never had sex before?

[00:11:51] I mean, I believe that based on the conversation that actually happened between Cardinal and Stevens.

[00:11:58] Well, the conversation happens because Stevens just doesn't know how to get to the point.

[00:12:03] Like, I mean, I don't blame Cardinal for kind of really thinking that Stevens was

[00:12:07] really talking about the actual birds and the actual bees and nature.

[00:12:12] The glories of nature.

[00:12:13] What is this scene?

[00:12:15] Why is the scene in this film?

[00:12:17] It's kind of like just to...

[00:12:18] Well, okay.

[00:12:20] I'm not complaining.

[00:12:21] It's wonderful.

[00:12:22] I mean, obviously there's a little bit of comment relief, but then there's also,

[00:12:25] I guess it's all coming together to show you the kind of person Stevens is, right?

[00:12:30] That's the thing.

[00:12:31] He cannot get to the point that he cannot cross this bridge.

[00:12:36] He can't just get to it, you know?

[00:12:38] He gets really near to something, but he can't take that final step.

[00:12:44] Sorry, I'm gonna go on about this later, but yeah.

[00:12:47] Okay, so after that beautiful conversation, we're at the conference and there's a lot of chat

[00:12:54] about re-arming the Germans and allowing them to do military things, which is a bit sus.

[00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:01] And the same day, this first day of the conference,

[00:13:04] Dad Stevens is taken ill when he's pushing his cleaning cart.

[00:13:08] The doctor comes to see him and the doctor's very helpful diagnosis is,

[00:13:13] he's not so good.

[00:13:14] Yeah, that's it.

[00:13:15] He doesn't tell baby Stevens like what to do to help his dad or anything.

[00:13:19] He just goes, yep, sorry, not great.

[00:13:21] It's not so good.

[00:13:22] It's like, okay, now what?

[00:13:24] Like he's in bed lying on his back.

[00:13:27] I think that's all anyone can do.

[00:13:28] He's got his blankets tucked up to his chin.

[00:13:31] He's there.

[00:13:32] He's dying ready.

[00:13:34] Period drama death pose.

[00:13:35] He's clearly dying because he's very old and has lived a hard life of work.

[00:13:42] The conference goes on and on the last day of the conference, Dad Stevens is on his deathbed

[00:13:48] and he calls Mr. Stevens to him and tells him,

[00:13:52] I fell out of love with your mother when I found her carrying on,

[00:13:56] but you're a good son and I hope I've been a good father to you.

[00:14:02] Now when Keith and I watched this, he said that he thought that Daddy Stevens was confessing

[00:14:08] that he wasn't Stevens's real father.

[00:14:10] Oh.

[00:14:12] I didn't quite get that.

[00:14:14] I suppose it's possible.

[00:14:15] But I was more focused on the fact that Stevens could not reply to this whatsoever.

[00:14:24] He just said he was busy and he had work to be carrying on with

[00:14:27] and that they would talk in the morning.

[00:14:29] I think knowing full well that they would not talk in the morning.

[00:14:32] That's what I was focused on too, the interactions between them rather than what was actually said.

[00:14:37] The two Stevens were very similar and they were bonding on being this like Stoic butlers, you know?

[00:14:44] Stoic butler duo.

[00:14:46] Exactly, we call each other Mr. Stevens.

[00:14:48] Mr. Stevens, yes, yes, you know?

[00:14:51] But now even Daddy Stevens is breaking that Stoic butler kind of facade.

[00:14:57] It's not facade but you know what I mean?

[00:14:59] He's given it the old human tribe.

[00:15:03] At that evening's dinner, the delegate from Germany says that they desire only peace and

[00:15:09] France seems on board and calls Germany a good old friend.

[00:15:14] But the American delegate Mr. Lewis is more suspicious and warns Lord Darlington and

[00:15:19] the other men present, you need professionals to run your affairs because you're all

[00:15:25] amateurs and you're totally out of touch with reality.

[00:15:28] Where's the lie?

[00:15:30] Miss Kenton pulls Mr. Stevens out during this dinner and tells him that his dad has passed

[00:15:37] away and because he can't step away from the dining room, she offers to go and close

[00:15:45] his eyes.

[00:15:46] And when Lord Darlington later asks Stevens if he's all right, he says, a little tired

[00:15:53] perhaps.

[00:15:54] Like he can't or he won't, right?

[00:15:56] That's the thing.

[00:15:57] He keeps hiding behind these duties.

[00:16:01] And he says that his father would have wanted him to return to work.

[00:16:05] That might have been true but it also doesn't seem to matter.

[00:16:10] It's not the point.

[00:16:12] In the 1950s, Mr. Stevens is on his road trip and he stops at a shop to get some

[00:16:17] post from Mrs. Ben.

[00:16:19] And when he and the shopkeeper strike up a conversation and the shopkeeper questions

[00:16:24] him, he denies ever knowing Lord Darlington, which is a little bit shocking considering

[00:16:30] his proposed loyalty.

[00:16:33] Reading Mrs. Ben's letter takes us right back to the past and the ramifications

[00:16:37] of the conference.

[00:16:38] In the 1930s, two young German women come to work as servants at Darlington Hall

[00:16:45] and it's evident that their Jewish refugees send away by their parents to escape

[00:16:49] Nazi persecution.

[00:16:51] Lord Darlington also invites an unpleasant man called Sir Jeffrey who brings along some

[00:16:57] black shirts and his valet, Mr. Ben, who is played by Tim Piggotsmith, who I don't

[00:17:05] know if you clocked this, plays Mr. Hale in North and South.

[00:17:10] I didn't know.

[00:17:11] Nope, nope.

[00:17:12] Not clocked at all.

[00:17:14] This is Mr. Hale, 10 years younger.

[00:17:17] Oh wow.

[00:17:19] And he and Miss Kenton evidently know each other.

[00:17:22] Sir Jeffrey has a really gross love of fascists and it has nothing to do with the Treaty

[00:17:29] of Versailles being unfair.

[00:17:31] He just really likes them.

[00:17:34] Lord Darlington then reads some Nazi shit in a Nazi book and he decides to sack his

[00:17:43] Jewish refugee mates.

[00:17:45] So in case you're wondering, the book that Lord Darlington is reading from is called

[00:17:52] The Foundations of the 19th Century by some asshole called Houston Stewart Chamberlain

[00:17:59] and we can already tell it's a bullshit book, promotes racism, anti-Semitism and was just

[00:18:07] part of the Nazi talking points at the time.

[00:18:11] But it works on him, so it convinces him to dismiss his two maids and Mr. Stephens tries

[00:18:16] to advocate for them saying that they're good workers and they're very clean and everything

[00:18:21] and he likes them but there's nothing he can really do.

[00:18:25] Miss Kenton is outraged to hear this and she says it will be a sin if they're dismissed

[00:18:30] because they might get deported back to Germany and she says she'll quit if they

[00:18:36] leave but in the end they're dismissed and she doesn't quit because she says that

[00:18:40] she has nowhere to go and she's a coward.

[00:18:43] Stephens seems to want to comfort her and says that she's extremely important to the house.

[00:18:52] So close.

[00:18:53] In the 1950s, Stephens runs out of petrol and he has to walk to a nearby pub where he

[00:18:59] spends the night.

[00:19:00] Everyone there is quite impressed to hear that he met Mr. Churchill and Mr. Eden in

[00:19:06] his unofficial role in foreign affairs in the early 1930s and in the morning a man

[00:19:12] called Dr. Carlisle offers to give him lift to get petrol.

[00:19:15] Along the way, Dr. Carlisle asks Stephens if he's a man servant.

[00:19:21] He says he's the butler at Darlington Hall and Dr. Carlisle says wasn't there a

[00:19:25] Lord Darlington involved in all of that appeasement business that got us into

[00:19:29] the war?

[00:19:31] He's alluding to the fact that he was among those who tried to make a deal

[00:19:34] with Hitler and then after the war he tried to sue a newspaper for libel when

[00:19:39] they said that he was a Nazi sympathizer and he lost the libel suit.

[00:19:43] Stephens denies knowing him at first but then admits that he did and Lord

[00:19:49] Darlington was a good man who just got taken in.

[00:19:52] Stephens never states his own opinion on Nazis or appeasement or anything but

[00:19:57] he says that he made his own mistake and he's trying to set it right.

[00:20:01] Now Stephens is back on the road and we're back in his memory,

[00:20:05] edging closer to the start of World War II.

[00:20:08] We see a scene in which one of Lord Darlington's friends makes a point of

[00:20:12] humiliating Stephens by asking him these complicated foreign policy questions

[00:20:18] in front of a room of chuckling men sitting around smoking cigars.

[00:20:22] And all Stephens can say is I'm sorry sir,

[00:20:26] I am unable to be of assistance in this matter.

[00:20:29] I get seen man, oh my god.

[00:20:32] It's like such built fucking douchebags.

[00:20:35] So mad.

[00:20:37] Like anyone even someone who studies politics could answer a question like that on the spot.

[00:20:44] You know what I think it's infuriating.

[00:20:45] Exactly, no it's like they knew.

[00:20:47] They knew they were putting it on the spot right?

[00:20:50] I hate this, I've seen this happen in real life.

[00:20:52] Like that's why I hate this.

[00:20:54] Yeah I mean that's why I hated it so much.

[00:20:56] Yeah.

[00:20:57] So one upshot is Lord Darlington is finally starting to realize his friends are gaping

[00:21:01] bum holes and he decides he wants to try to get his Jewish maids back to Darlington.

[00:21:09] But Stephens says that at the time they were dismissed he tried to get them a job somewhere

[00:21:13] else but he could only get a job for one of them and they didn't want to be separated.

[00:21:18] So he doesn't know what happened to them.

[00:21:20] Stephens talks to Miss Kenton about it and says he was very distressed about

[00:21:24] them being dismissed in the first place but she says she had no idea that he felt that way

[00:21:30] because he always hides his feelings.

[00:21:33] Later Miss Kenton finds Stephens reading a book that he won't show to her and so they

[00:21:39] flirt about it very intensely as she tries to pry it off of him and when she finally

[00:21:45] does and they're very close to each other's faces, she finds it's a sentimental old

[00:21:52] love story.

[00:21:54] There one of the maids gives her notice because she's going off to marry Charlie, the

[00:21:59] footman.

[00:22:00] Miss Kenton advises her against it because she's seen so many young women get married quickly,

[00:22:07] leave service and then regret it I guess because they're poor and their husbands

[00:22:12] are bums.

[00:22:13] Yep.

[00:22:14] Despite this on her very next day off Miss Kenton goes out with Mr. Ben, the valet

[00:22:21] or he was a valet but he left his Nazi loving employer because Nazis bother him and he says

[00:22:29] he doesn't want to go back to service at all.

[00:22:32] He wants to set up a boarding house in his hometown of Clevedon in the West country.

[00:22:37] We find out that Miss Kenton's name is Sally, well Sarah but Sally for short and

[00:22:43] the two of them have a little make out session and then she cycles home tipsy

[00:22:50] in the rain.

[00:22:51] I think it's a universal oxfrog experience.

[00:22:53] Oh yeah I know it's like yep.

[00:22:55] The old snot in cycle.

[00:22:58] A couple weeks later two big things are going down at Darlington on the same night.

[00:23:03] So first before going out on her night off Miss Kenton tells Stevens that Mr. Ben has

[00:23:09] asked her to marry him and she's thinking about it.

[00:23:13] The second thing Lord Darlington is having a highly secret meeting which is actually

[00:23:19] with the prime minister himself, the one before Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and another

[00:23:25] guy who I actually didn't write down.

[00:23:27] So it's Neville Chamberlain, another guy and the German ambassador and to make things

[00:23:34] more stressful Cardinals shows up snooping around to see what kind of mess his godfather

[00:23:40] has gotten himself into.

[00:23:42] While the meeting is going on Miss Kenton comes home from her night out and tells

[00:23:47] Stevens that she's accepted Mr. Ben's proposal of marriage and she's upset that he won't

[00:23:53] react with anything more than a polite congratulations so she starts to seriously needle him saying

[00:24:02] stuff like she and Mr. Ben like to make fun of him and it doesn't seem to work.

[00:24:08] He laughs it off but then later when Cardinal asks him if he's okay he says again

[00:24:16] a little tired perhaps.

[00:24:18] Cardinal admits that he got a tip off about this meeting and he's there trying to scoop

[00:24:22] a news story.

[00:24:24] He also pleads with Stevens to see that Lord Darlington has been a pawn and is being duped

[00:24:31] into supporting Nazis and that they have to stop him before he makes a terrible mistake.

[00:24:37] But Stevens throughout all of this he can't even, like he cannot care about Nazis or

[00:24:44] what's happening with Lord Darlington or the Prime Minister.

[00:24:48] We can see that on his face and we know why.

[00:24:51] Although at the same time, I don't know so I mean yes at that very moment you can argue

[00:24:58] that Miss Kenton is mine but also if the Miss Kenton thing hadn't happened that night

[00:25:05] his reaction would have still been the same.

[00:25:08] You know he's just incapable and that's the thing I feel so much for this character

[00:25:12] because he's incapable of allowing himself to have his own opinions, to feel,

[00:25:21] to do anything autonomously in a sense.

[00:25:24] I think you're absolutely right but also in that moment I was reading something else on his face

[00:25:31] that said to me I can't even.

[00:25:34] No yeah and it's true no no no I mean and that's one of the things I've

[00:25:38] that he had just been super saturated with these expectations to express emotions that he absolutely

[00:25:44] could not. It's one thing to be confronted with questions about Lord Darlington.

[00:25:53] He's kind of used to that and he's used to batting those away but to have that encounter

[00:26:00] with the person he clearly has deep feelings for put those two together I think it was

[00:26:06] absolutely too much for him we were watching him be completely overwhelmed.

[00:26:11] Yeah and Anthony Hopkins such an amazing actor and that's absolutely amazing.

[00:26:16] The fact that he could convey that and have so little changed his countenance it was amazing.

[00:26:22] It actually reminded me I mean in a weird way about how so

[00:26:27] sorry just sidebar right I love sounds of the lambs is one of my favorite movies.

[00:26:31] I've never seen it. Oh my god it's so fucking good.

[00:26:34] Okay that's not quite true I saw a lot of it when I was about nine at my cousin's house

[00:26:42] but I don't remember very much. So good anyway Anthony Hopkins is absolutely amazing in that

[00:26:49] and this is one scene I mean just for that scene alone right he deserved the Oscar which

[00:26:55] I think he won you know he's animal like he's basically all restrained right he's restrained

[00:27:00] and there's even a mask on his face and it's just his eyes and his voice and he could convey so much

[00:27:08] with literally just half his face and his voice and that scene with him and he and he

[00:27:15] ran in this movie and it reminded me of that you know they're just like he was saying so little

[00:27:21] and being so irish like he was restraining himself physically but so much was coming out of him.

[00:27:29] Absolutely amazing. Not to go on too far of a tangent but I love him paired with Emma Thompson

[00:27:36] and the other film that I'm familiar with the other merchant ivory film that I'm familiar with

[00:27:41] aside from Room With You View is Howard's End in which they play a married couple

[00:27:47] and I love them together so much because her face is such the opposite she has such an

[00:27:54] expressive face you can read her face really really well and so her emotions are very much

[00:28:01] projected outward she wears her heart on her sleeve and he's so good at containing but not

[00:28:09] being able to contain because he's spilling over in such a way that the audience can see what he's

[00:28:15] feeling so I love that pairing. Okay back to this whole love-lorn mess. Miss Kenton so Miss

[00:28:22] Kenton tries to apologize but Stevens is too busy picking out some wine and after going down to the

[00:28:30] wine cellar and breaking a bottle of 1913 red wine he comes back up and he hears Miss Kenton sobbing

[00:28:39] he tiptoes into her room and tells her something that he wanted to tell her for some time

[00:28:47] that the alcove outside the breakfast room has not been dusted and at this point we're all screaming

[00:28:54] yeah I definitely yelled at the TV at this point. Heath was watching with me again and we both were

[00:29:01] just like what is wrong with you? We decided that he has chronic British butleritis. Not even

[00:29:10] British butleritis is okay this is me yes TMI you know having had my fair share of dealing with butlers

[00:29:19] yeah oh yeah you know all the butlers all the butlers yeah my fair share of dating British men

[00:29:25] who are absolutely incapable of dealing with emotions I was just oh to use the words of the

[00:29:34] kids these days triggered I was yelling at the TV so much I was like oh my god go for therapy man Jesus

[00:29:42] did any of these men ever tell you that you needed to dust your alcove? Sure he did

[00:29:52] okay so this ends our time in the past and presumably Miss Kenton left shortly thereafter

[00:30:00] and we're back in the 1950s 20 years after the events of that night back at the boarding

[00:30:06] house Mrs. Ben is trying to leave to go meet Mr. Stevens when her estranged husband Mr. Ben

[00:30:14] he comes to talk to her he says that her daughter is pregnant and he wants her back

[00:30:20] whatever yeah he's very unlikeable with his mustache and I think maybe that's just because

[00:30:27] we kind of know he's a loser and she's left him for reasons that are probably very good but

[00:30:32] also he looks a lot like Mr. Hale from nursing cells I really hate that character

[00:30:39] finally Mrs. Ben and Mr. Stevens meet at a lovely hotel restaurant we hear from Mr. Stevens

[00:30:46] how broken Lord Darlington was after losing his libel suit against the newspaper that called him

[00:30:52] a Nazi sympathizer we also learned that Cardinal was killed in the war which is really gutting

[00:30:58] I hated that and the way in which he said it too you know it was kind of like he just reduced that

[00:31:03] it's just so sad that this one aristocratic character right was trying to treat Stevens

[00:31:10] as like a human being you know and be like come come have a drink with me and all these things

[00:31:15] more than that Cardinal thought they were friends yeah you know he was like oh I'm so looking forward

[00:31:20] to continuing our little nature conversation blah blah blah and then that's all he says about

[00:31:25] he's like oh yeah he's dead or he got killed and that's it was like this one half a sentence you know

[00:31:32] that reminded me so much of just seeing other people talk about deaths in the war

[00:31:38] as a buried trauma thing as well yeah kind of read the national trauma in that sentence

[00:31:44] oh yes he died in the war and just as Stevens is about to ask her to be the housekeeper

[00:31:51] at Darlington again she says that she would have considered going back into service but now that she

[00:31:58] knows she's going to be a grandmother she won't leave the west country she admits that she wonders

[00:32:03] sometimes if leaving Darlington Hall was a terrible mistake and Mr. Stevens says that he supposes we

[00:32:10] all have these thoughts from time to time and so they walk along the pier and he takes her to

[00:32:16] the bus stop in the rain and he tells her to please enjoy these years of her life with her family

[00:32:25] and then apologizes for being so personal as she boards the bus they say goodbye

[00:32:32] and she cries as it drives off and I cried too yes and he just you know and all he does is just

[00:32:39] he looks at her you like dips his little hat or something and oh my god the most emotionally

[00:32:46] charged hat tip oh so heartbreaking back at Darlington Hall everything is being made ready for

[00:32:54] Mr. Lewis in the arrival of his wife he seems like a nice guy at least while he and Stevens are

[00:33:01] chatting in the dining room a pigeon gets in and the two of them shoe it out a big window

[00:33:07] the camera flies away with the pigeon giving us a final view of Darlington Hall as the film ends

[00:33:14] our body's crying no beautiful movie oh I loved it thank you for prompting me to watch another

[00:33:21] merchandise re-film that I hadn't seen before I can't believe that took me so long to see it

[00:33:26] me too I'd known about this this right I mean I knew that it was from the book it's from a book

[00:33:32] by Ishiguro I developed never-ending book and I always wanted to watch the movie it was always on

[00:33:38] my list of things to watch and I can't believe I hadn't watched it till like two weeks ago I was

[00:33:43] thinking back to like why do I love this movie so much is this whole like super imposing of

[00:33:50] the private versus a very public and political backdrop you know that's there it is very present

[00:33:59] I mean this whole thing is literally about you know the lead up to the war right with the peaceman

[00:34:04] the war which isn't shown and then then you kind of get to post war you know and the characters are

[00:34:11] very much involved in it I mean these are key characters right I mean the prime minister comes

[00:34:15] in and this is whole thing about the aristocrats and how they're essentially still trying to

[00:34:21] run the country yeah towards the end of their time and all of these things are all very very

[00:34:27] real public social things issues are happening you know and then on top of it this very personal

[00:34:37] yet so it's meant to be personal but the thing is you never get to see what's actually

[00:34:43] actually going on in Stevens' mind right because he never expresses it you kind of infer

[00:34:49] it through the great genius of Anthony Hopkins you know yeah what do they call it um the middross

[00:34:56] like the reading the white space around the text yeah yeah and and yeah I just thought it was just

[00:35:03] done so bloody well and it was all I think this is that's the thing it's all about spaces

[00:35:08] you know this is my sorry my literary mind is thinking right you think about even the timeline

[00:35:13] right it's like okay in the 30s and then there's that liberate blank space of the war

[00:35:19] you know and that empty space is so filled because you know what happened and then comes the post war

[00:35:26] period and it's kind of like the the strength and the potency I guess of these spaces

[00:35:33] we are what is what is left unsaid uh yeah so I don't know I just got to me I love that as well

[00:35:40] and it's something I really love about period dramas where you can have something as big and

[00:35:45] epic as events that shape the fate of the whole world but at the same time we have what we're

[00:35:53] more concerned about really which is the fate of some one person's whole world yeah or two people's

[00:36:00] whole world and that one person with this very small life this very small world is still

[00:36:10] a universe unto themselves that we love and care about yeah and who just

[00:36:17] fucks shit up constantly for himself okay okay right before we get to the serious bit so let's

[00:36:24] just have a little bit of a break it's gonna say a few things and a bit of trivia so the movie

[00:36:34] was great nominated for eight academy awards best picture best director best actor best actress

[00:36:41] best screenplay adapted from another medium best original music score best costume design and best

[00:36:46] art direction set decoration but it didn't win anything and what apparently it was because

[00:36:53] it was up against things like shindles list oh so you know that's how it goes right you know

[00:36:58] it's great the movie as it is how can you compete so didn't win any of these eight

[00:37:05] oscar nominations bits of stuff about the actors and today hopkins i think they and even the filmmakers

[00:37:14] right they were all worried that they didn't have any experience of how a country house is run

[00:37:20] you know and this is carking back to our glossford park episode right this whole upstairs

[00:37:25] downstairs you know what is all the intricacies of the downstairs right all yeah i remember us

[00:37:31] talking about how julian fellows did this intensive research about how a country house like this was

[00:37:38] run and everybody's role yeah exactly so what they did was they hired this man called siril

[00:37:47] dickman who served for 50 years at barkingham palace the ultimate country house yeah right so

[00:37:56] yeah so he was the retired steward grinellis berth II and then he also brought in others who were

[00:38:03] experienced in doing things the right way and they educated filmmakers and anthony hopkins

[00:38:11] on how to play these roles and i thought that was pretty cool so the part of miss kenton could have

[00:38:19] been played by meryl streep wow yeah um i'm glad i mean i love meryl streep but i'm glad she didn't

[00:38:28] play it me too this needed to be emma thompson i think definitely i mean i don't know how true

[00:38:36] this fact that i read is it says that basically there was a larger budget and then the budget was

[00:38:43] slashed and that's part of the reason why meryl streep went through again not sure but any case

[00:38:50] she wasn't it it was emma thompson and we love her for it but i also read get this

[00:38:58] john cleese of a monty python was offered the role of james stevens of stevens can you not

[00:39:08] not lord darlington no stevens john cleese john cleese 40 towers john cleese

[00:39:15] john cleese from the bureau of silly walks exactly yeah it was going to be

[00:39:20] was going to be mr stevens the butler in remains of the day yes but because apparently there was

[00:39:26] this whole thing where herald pinter wrote the original screenplay was it meant to be more of a

[00:39:32] company it was meant to be that it was a bit to be more yeah there's more humor and then after that

[00:39:37] when all the humorous bits were taken out john cleese withdrew i mean which makes sense right

[00:39:41] can you bloody imagine him doing this role i mean it would have been a career shift but i

[00:39:47] can understand why he decided to pass it up yeah also i like to think that the one thing they

[00:39:53] kept in the script from all of the humor was just that conversation between stevens and cargnell

[00:40:04] about the birds and the bees what if they just forgot to delete it and then everyone just thought it

[00:40:11] was part of the final draft on purpose even though it was always an accident so they just left it

[00:40:16] in and now it's just this like scene that that sticks out and is really confusing but also beautiful

[00:40:22] and we need it it's so good okay here's another fact because we both love pristopher wreath so apparently

[00:40:29] his son will read that that this india hometown in bedford new york this local movie theater

[00:40:38] is going through this rebrand and they reached out said they wanted to screen a film of his choice

[00:40:44] of his father and then he said sure but we're not going to do superman we're going to do

[00:40:51] remains of the day yeah so he said that his father was so proud of his role in the movie

[00:40:57] because he got to show a different side of himself i mean it's not he wasn't proud of superman he was

[00:41:02] but this was a very different and very important role for him and i just thought that was so sweet

[00:41:07] right so and he was really good in this role and i know i've already mentioned this but

[00:41:17] it really pains me to remember that we could have seen so many more rich roles from him as he aged

[00:41:24] yeah so i've never read the book right but apparently in the screenplay they conflated two

[00:41:30] characters into one so the character jack louis that chris wary plays it's actually a composite

[00:41:38] of two different people so there was the senator jack louis and then there was another guy

[00:41:47] called faraday who bought the another american guy who bought the dsd so i didn't get it i would i

[00:41:53] you'd i get it that's just like you know might as well you gotta give christopher reave the biggest

[00:41:58] role you can't and you can't have two americans i know this movie that's too many americans exactly

[00:42:03] it's much an ivory baby so there we go that's my that's my little fun bits i did a lot of well

[00:42:11] reading about appeasement world war two and stuff but it's so hard and stressful to try to like

[00:42:19] squeeze everything what are you talking about just explain to me in the next five minutes

[00:42:26] everything that led up to the second world war great world war one happened

[00:42:31] journey was playing for it 3d of a cyrus was signed journey germany was screwed

[00:42:39] they weren't happy hitler started you know the hitler was rising england and france

[00:42:49] hitler's rising kim takes a kim takes a swig of her austrian wine all right so but no but seriously

[00:42:56] so what was happening was okay so we're talking about this is the fourth world war one pre-world

[00:43:02] war two right so countries like france and britain especially decided to take this strategy known as

[00:43:09] appeasement which can be defined as a strategy of diplomatic concessions aimed at placating or

[00:43:16] buying off a potential aggressor so this is designed to achieve international security you know so that

[00:43:22] was what the basically we're trying to appease hitler and to avoid world war two so in in the

[00:43:29] international relations community would we call this the giving up your lunch money strategy yeah

[00:43:38] exactly they were like oh no more than you're like come let me buy you lunch okay yeah you know

[00:43:44] it was like hey hey bro hey hitler come let's all have lunch together it's cool it's cool i got it

[00:43:50] i got it you know you don't have to pay you're part of the crew yeah you know and we don't invade

[00:43:57] members of the crew no we don't but so they're all these strong feelings right there was this whole

[00:44:03] you know okay the world war one was the worst thing right that's ever happened they saw the atrocities

[00:44:08] of world world war one they were like right never again never again all these countries

[00:44:13] were also not militarily ready for another war you know and great depression also had happened

[00:44:21] many british people actually believe that they didn't blame germany for being pissed off from the

[00:44:27] defeat the other side you know and it really crippled it crippled germany a lot and they're like

[00:44:34] yeah maybe it's a bit too much so all that was happening then you have prime minister neville

[00:44:42] chamberlin like actually going up and budding up to hitler the Munich agreement saying yeah yeah

[00:44:48] hey everything's cool you know and he kind of like he believed that hitler really wasn't going to do

[00:44:52] anything you know it was like right we'll let them retake part of the ryan land which they

[00:44:57] were so weren't supposed to do everything is fine it's okay it's okay and i remember that part

[00:45:03] where some rich english dudes are talking about him invading Czechoslovakia and they're like

[00:45:09] well you can't really blame them for just invading their own backyard exactly they were kind of seeing

[00:45:15] how far it would go and obviously we all know what happened right hitler was like yep screw you guys

[00:45:22] i'm just gonna go invade Poland boom start war but what i'm interested in and what this movie

[00:45:28] focuses on is the role of not so much the politicians themselves but the everyday aristocrats

[00:45:36] you know and let me know your common garden variety english aristocrat yeah i was like what the hell

[00:45:43] kind of what conference are they having you know what i mean it's like i do invite people to my house

[00:45:49] and call it a conference you know you should well well clearly Alice you and i are having a

[00:45:53] conference in a week and a half because i'm going all the way to Edinburgh i'm really looking forward

[00:45:58] to our podcasting conference are you gonna be serving pheasant no you know i don't eat

[00:46:03] pheasant and you know why i can't believe you're bringing this up i i think we should also maybe

[00:46:10] discuss some global politics so yeah yeah and feel like we actually can make some headway in it but

[00:46:17] that's the thing though it wasn't just them talking right that there was a scary part of it it's

[00:46:21] not just a bunch of people going hey let's all come for this fancy as dinner and drink wine

[00:46:27] and talk about shit and call it a conference i mean they actually had some sort of sway and

[00:46:35] they had representatives from the countries in action like actually there to represent those

[00:46:42] countries and then bring some kind of message back yeah and that was to people in real power yeah

[00:46:48] but that was the scariest thing and what was happening was so a lot of the british aristocrats

[00:46:54] were sympathizing with fascism in general because they kind of saw it as an alternative to their fears

[00:47:04] of communism socialism democracy that was happening that was going to bring the aristocrats down

[00:47:11] and in that horrible scene right where that that bully of a dickhead mr mr. Darlington's friend

[00:47:17] right was trying to quiz Stevens right to prove that the common man is uninformed

[00:47:22] exactly yeah so that was that's pretty much what was happening you're like see you see you know

[00:47:27] these people don't know what the hell they're doing we need to take charge where better to the

[00:47:31] point where Stevens also in a way kind of internalizes it right and then i can't remember

[00:47:37] who he was having a conversation with was it miss Kenton or maybe not where he's saying that

[00:47:42] you know they are our betters not just in like social hierarchy but also our intellectual

[00:47:49] betters our moral betters yeah and this whole entrenchment of the class system and the idea

[00:47:57] that these people know better and they believe they know better this whole thing with the

[00:48:01] aristocrats and their involvement in the war well in appeasement and in fascism was interesting

[00:48:09] because you have links between the british royal family and aristocrats in germany as well in real

[00:48:17] life of course yeah the british family and and the german royal family were intermarrying for

[00:48:25] generations yeah so in 1933 the guy who abdicated right he said of the nazi regime quote it's the

[00:48:38] only thing to do we will have to come to it we are in great danger from communists too you know

[00:48:43] and he was like cozying up to them so i should probably tell you my sources some of them which we

[00:48:50] will put in our show notes there was a couple of articles from the guardian one was a book review

[00:48:57] called appeasing hitler and another one was an article also about the guardian because you know

[00:49:04] i'm a left-wing guardian reading person obviously what what was it that that's

[00:49:10] suella about brabberman calls us what tofu eating something something guardian reading

[00:49:18] walkeratis yep that's me so yeah so yeah that makes this sound fashionable i know right i'm a

[00:49:25] walkerati so there we go so a couple articles from the guardian an article from history extra

[00:49:32] was our dear friend wikipedia why not as well as the wayback machine in the internet archive

[00:49:38] so these are some of the things which i have helped to educate me so there was this angler german duke

[00:49:46] of coberg he was constantly moving between britain and germany and kind of doing exactly that you

[00:49:53] know he was like passing messages around and essentially using this country house of his sister

[00:49:59] for meetings with british politicians and his sister was married to the brother of queen

[00:50:06] mary so you can see all of these connections going on and then again i already referenced king

[00:50:13] adbert later duke of winza and his political leanings which is kind of like interestingly

[00:50:21] alluded to in one of the episodes of the crown so after he advocated right and then we have george

[00:50:29] the sixth and his wife george the sixth coming through the throne apparently hitler was trying

[00:50:35] to you know cozy up to them as well in a sense but obviously when war happened they had no choice

[00:50:44] but to step back even though george the fifth did support chamberlain's appeasement policy

[00:50:51] you know when war happened i mean yeah and chape what's the space church hill i'm not

[00:50:57] necessarily a fan of church hill we won't go into that but he was anti-appeasement yeah

[00:51:04] this does not mean to say that he was an anti-alot about other bad things as in but again we're not

[00:51:10] going to go into that you can dislike nazis and still be a dick exactly yeah you know so

[00:51:19] he was not happy with it and he was like yep told you so this happened so yeah so there was just

[00:51:27] what i have to say about aristocrats and fascism apologies in advance if this is a little bit of a

[00:51:35] rant but we're talking about how all of these wealthy men got together and decided that they

[00:51:43] could influence the politics of the day and it's all just make believe but it had a real

[00:51:51] effect on people's lives so the movie is depicting how one actually kind of nice guy

[00:51:58] with noble intentions gets duped by this game of pretend and gets roped into supporting nazis

[00:52:09] but at the same time we have this other equally important story i think about how Stevens

[00:52:16] as someone who's in service who is a servant is also being duped by this great lie complicated

[00:52:27] by the english aristocracy that he is doing something that is somehow noble and dignified

[00:52:36] for him to completely deny himself and empty himself and make himself devoid of his own humanity

[00:52:46] in the service of the aristocracy and that is the thing that i think breaks my heart

[00:52:56] almost as much as watching their the hands of Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins separate

[00:53:03] as she's driven away by that bus and since you talked about Cyril Dickman there was a quote from

[00:53:11] Cyril Dickman when he was talking about being a butler what it means to be a butler kind of

[00:53:17] capturing the essence of that he said there's nothing to being a butler really when you're in

[00:53:24] the room it should be even more empty wow and that line really did something to me

[00:53:31] because i think Anthony Hopkins embodied that in a way we saw that he was the quintessential butler

[00:53:39] he did such an amazing job but in a way he broke through that because he's reaching us

[00:53:48] on the other side of the screen so we're seeing that really he is filled with emotion he is

[00:53:57] filled to the brim with so much humanity there's so much Stevens in there it reminds me and i'm

[00:54:05] telling on myself a little bit but you know in Star Trek Vulcans are known for being

[00:54:12] emotionless and logical but really we learn that in truth they're full of emotion they get

[00:54:21] full of rage and they just learn to stamp it down and that reminds me of Stevens

[00:54:28] but in a much more tragic way because it's real and human and this is what people had to do

[00:54:36] and that was magnified for me a bit because and like in the film i wasn't really sure because

[00:54:43] i don't know that much about servants lives i didn't know could they have had a relationship

[00:54:52] the the implication in the film is that people get married and then they leave service and then

[00:54:59] they don't have the same income they don't have the same status they don't have good lives

[00:55:05] but i found out later that actually butlers could marry housekeepers and it wasn't that on common

[00:55:14] and we see this in Downton Abbey oh yeah yeah when the butler and the housekeeper eventually get

[00:55:21] married in a later season so there's aside from his own pathological self-denial and service of Lord

[00:55:31] Darlington there there's nothing wrong with him wanting to marry the housekeeper he could have

[00:55:39] done it yeah yeah yeah for sure they could they could have been a little housekeeper butler duo

[00:55:44] like i said part of me wonders you know to what extent he uses these artificial strictures right

[00:55:52] around him as a way to go oh well oh no i couldn't possibly well i can't i can't marry her anyway

[00:56:01] because it's against the rules so that seems to be something to hide behind and i was curious to

[00:56:08] you know so you know the book scene right the book scene so i was watching it and then i was like oh my

[00:56:14] god what is it what is it is it is it is it mind camp is it something horrible is he a nazi you know

[00:56:21] yeah like we're gonna learn that all along he actually has been a nazi sympathizer yeah that's

[00:56:26] why he loves Lord Darlington yeah and it was like it's a romance novel and you're just like what

[00:56:32] but then i was trying to like reconcile that with him right why would of all the books that he has access

[00:56:41] to right presumably maybe borrowed this from Lord Darlington's library of all the books why would

[00:56:47] he choose that you know i mean like you would think that he would be reading something from

[00:56:51] the greek stoic so you know cissor or whatever right about this is for you know for his emotional

[00:56:57] education because that's the that's the real him yeah yeah mr stevens is a falcon

[00:57:05] yeah but he's full of passion there's so much to impact in this film and i also wonder if he

[00:57:13] just thought that at that point he couldn't be in a romantic relationship because in reality

[00:57:19] what if he doesn't know about the birds and the bees no and he's afraid or ashamed of that

[00:57:25] there must be a lot of fear involved in changing your life so much that you let someone into it

[00:57:32] in such an intimate way when you never have before yeah hell i love this character i love them both

[00:57:39] i want them to be together and happy but instead we get this beautiful beautiful movie

[00:57:45] and i wish i could say more like snarky or funny things about it but i really can't

[00:57:52] i have i have an award oh great okay you want to give it all right give it so completely not

[00:58:00] in keeping with any of our discussion of this film so far i would like to award

[00:58:06] remains of the day with the award of best bobblehead where did you notice that what they call the

[00:58:17] chinamen oh the statue which is almost a meter tall it's this very big porcelain or stone

[00:58:28] statue of a man in some kind of historic chinese dress it took me a minute to realize

[00:58:37] that in several scenes its head moves its head is detached and it does a little wavy

[00:58:43] bobbly thing and i don't understand why and it's creepy i love it so much brilliant where did it come

[00:58:51] from amazing it's the best bobblehead it's the only bobblehead i've ever seen in a period drama

[00:58:57] i'm gonna have to look out for them now but i don't think anyone's gonna top that oh well

[00:59:04] you've definitely topped my award my award was something we already covered which is most

[00:59:10] awkward discussion of sex in a period drama absolutely and i love that it ended in hu grant

[00:59:20] talking about how much he loves and that got me thinking of ru paul and how you know like fish

[00:59:29] fishy and stuff right yeah so listeners basically it's a slang for lady parts lady parts i'm telling

[00:59:41] you they did not realize that they hadn't deleted this yeah definitely right oh my god it was so good

[00:59:48] oh it's like can you imagine hu ghan trying not to laugh while having to act out the scene

[00:59:56] in all earnestness he's so earnest yeah can you imagine this scene being lifted out and presented

[01:00:05] with like no context yeah yeah we're just like what and then just you would think this movie was a

[01:00:13] comedy you really would yeah and then you watched the rest of it and you're like here's a great

[01:00:17] clip from remains of the day yeah it's ancine hopkins and hu grant having a little jolly

[01:00:22] about birds and bees and in yu rendo about fish yes i'd like to end with a little apology for my

[01:00:29] lack of eloquence in when talking about appeasement and british aristocrats fascination with fascism

[01:00:37] it's because talking about world war two and everything to do with world war two stresses me

[01:00:42] out because i know that there are so many amazing you know you have i'm not even talking about

[01:00:49] academics yeah i'm talking about regular people who are interested in the history of war okay and i have

[01:00:58] them i have like the auras around me just like frowning at me and i was like i don't know i mean

[01:01:06] i i i i i have absorbed these things but i can't like put sentences together i'm like people i'm a

[01:01:14] 19th century person i that's it okay so yeah you go go go go look at the show notes that's it

[01:01:23] i think by now people understand that we are first and foremost two kind dumb lovers of period

[01:01:31] dramas who have time enough to search the internet for things and sometimes read books yeah and

[01:01:40] present things to you and as affable away as possible yeah what's important is that everybody

[01:01:48] got a real long lecture about why rich people bad yes yes yes and and also show your emotions

[01:01:57] and go to therapy yeah oh um if rich people bad eat them with oolingam berry socks

[01:02:07] what does he say in in silence of the oh i love him love oh he's they said um so he says he says

[01:02:15] to have them with with a nice kyan see and some fava beans okay that's what he does though

[01:02:26] so can i say go and give a hug to local amateur world war two historian

[01:02:33] and then eat the rich with a nice kyan tea and some fava beans yay and the end and then please

[01:02:43] email us tell us your favorite world war two era period drama or your favorite merchant ivory

[01:02:52] you can send us an email at fetch smelling salts at gmail.com or you can hit us up on our instagram

[01:02:59] at fetch smelling salts you can also go over to buy me a coffee dot com slash fetch smelling salts

[01:03:06] and you could kick us some coins so that we can give them to helen yes thank you helen

[01:03:14] and i gotta go yeah i gotta go i'm gonna because i got a real dusty alcove to deal with it has

[01:03:21] not been tended to for some time i mean all right sure i'm just gonna finish drinking my wine

[01:03:28] who hitler why am i hitler why good night

[01:03:33] finished