A Very Terminator Christmas

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On my last trip to London, I had dinner at my favorite spot in Clerkenwell.

It's been in continuous operation for something like 150 years, which means it predates automobiles, radios, and the zipper.

I had the mangalitza loin chop and the potatoes confi.

Yum.

You need to go there.

Although, I don't know if I'm allowed to say the name.

Let's just say it starts with a Q, then a C,

and then an H.

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Christmas is one week away.

And how am I celebrating?

With restraint and circumspection.

In the Gladwell family, we do a mid-century modern Christmas.

Spare, elegant, minimalist.

Lots of the baby Jesus in a tasteful Scandinavian leather and rosewood manger.

No Santa, no reindeer, no elves.

Not so for my colleague, Ben-Nadaf Hafrey.

The Gladwells impose a dollar limit on gifts, like price controls in some socialist state.

The Nadaf Hafrees spend months thinking of what to get one another.

The Glabwos buy a tree at the last moment and would be happier if we could just move the whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine in the backyard.

Ben's family has a tree, a little model village covered in snow, and his father's vintage electric train set, plus a little metal tree with ornaments that's up year-round.

So when I told Ben that I had never watched It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned.

Then he reached out to me as the Good Samaritan did to the traveler lying bereft by the side of the road.

How could this be?

He asked me gently.

Because as you can imagine for the Nadaf Hafries, It's a Wonderful Life is a sacred text.

Then Ben told me another story about what, in his mind, is an even more important Christmas tale.

A story that he regards as the apotheosis of all Christmas movies.

A story not in a film, but of the making of a film.

Welcome to Revisionist History.

I'm Malcolm Glabwell.

Today in our show, Ben Nadaf Hafrey relays for the very first time in history the truly screwy story of the making of the oddest Christmas film of all time.

Trust me, you have never heard this story before, ever.

Nor have you ever seen the movie in question unless you're a member of the extended Nadaf Hafrey clan or were recently incarcerated in a state that limits prisoners' streaming access to obscure television movies of the 1990s.

But when you listen to what follows, you're going to ask yourself the same question I asked myself when Ben first told me this story.

How did I miss this?

Unlike Malcolm, I am a great lover of Christmas movies.

Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving's over, I'm firing up The Bishop's Wife, Miracle on 34th Street, or It's a Wonderful Life.

And then, there's my favorite Christmas movie, a little less famous.

The 1945 romantic comedy, Christmas in Connecticut.

I've watched it pretty much every year since I was little.

Barbara Stanwick plays a magazine columnist who's famous for entertaining on her grand Connecticut farm.

She's known as a great cook.

It's the end of World War II, and her magazine's publisher has an idea for a great feature.

She'll host a returning war hero for Christmas on her farm.

There's just one problem.

It's all a lie.

She doesn't live in Connecticut.

She lives in a tiny apartment in New York, and she has no clue how to cook.

My farm?

Oh, oh, yes, my farm.

Oh, my farm.

And he wants to see you right away to arrange it.

Arrange it?

Are you crazy?

Where am I going to get a farm?

I haven't even got a window box.

That's just it.

We'll have to stall him off.

You know what a stickler he is for the truth.

If he ever finds out we've been making all this up, he'll fire the both of us.

Chaos ensues.

It's a classic screwball comedy and a total delight.

But the thing I really want to tell you about in this episode is what happened after I discovered, quite by accident, that there was a remake of this favorite Christmas movie of mine.

An action-packed, star-studded, joke-filled, really very different version of the original, made for TV and directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A kind of shocking twist, if you ask me.

I mean, why would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut?

So I did what any good Christmas fiend would do.

I talked to a dozen people about something that happened 30 years ago for way too many hours to get the real story.

And I discovered in the process, what I have come to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.

I've told the story many times.

I've never told it on the record.

It's a big story.

So if you've got the time, I will tell it to you.

That's Stan Brooks.

In the early 1990s, he was an independent made-for-TV movie producer.

So I'm developing movies, and a friend of mine goes and gets the job at TNT.

And I make the very first movie for him.

TNT launched in 1988.

at the start of the cable television revolution.

Then as now, cable was expensive, but it was growing.

The whole game was trying to raise awareness to get people to sign up.

And with channels running 24-7, there was a lot of space to fill, which led to a boom in made-for-TV movies.

Stan's first film on TNT was a big success, so he got another bite at the Apple.

And he calls me, he goes, what do you want to do next?

So I said, wait, in a million years, would you ever let me do a remake from the MGM library?

Because that's what Ted owned.

And he said, Yes, just pick one.

Christmas movies always do well.

And there was one Stan loved, Christmas in Connecticut.

And I'd known the Barbara Stanley movie.

And so I said, well, this could be a good one.

It was right as Martha Stewart was exploding.

I thought, well, what if this is Martha Stewart?

What if she's on TV and has an empire and it's all fake?

And so they loved that take.

And so off we went to the races.

He got a writer to work up the script.

In television, it was great because you can get your stuff made.

This is Janet Brownell, one of the all-time great bards bards of TV movies, writer on Eloise at the Plaza, 12 Dates of Christmas, Days of Our Lives, and the uncredited rewrite of Tim Allen's The Santa Claus.

All Brownell.

She loved the original Christmas in Connecticut.

I mean, it's charming.

It's charming.

And

in fairness to me, the original draft was very close.

Janet wrote a draft of the script for Stan's remake.

And we turn it in.

And they go, this is good.

This is good.

We need a Christmas movie.

And so now I have it.

I have a nice little Christmas programmer and nothing more.

It's the middle of 1991.

In Hollywood, Janet and Stan's low-budget television movie remake isn't really the sort of thing to get people talking, but they're making progress.

He's got the old school movie star Diane Cannon cast in the lead as the Martha Stewart character and an offer out to a director.

And then one day, his phone rings.

His assistant says it's a big Hollywood agent named Lou Pitt.

Now, understand, I'm in the television movie business.

These guys are never calling me.

So if they do call me, it's never good.

And

he gets on the phone and he says, the Overdirector for your Christmas in Connecticut movie.

And I said,

well, almost.

Yeah, we may have an offer out.

He said, okay, well, if he doesn't say yes, I want you to consider my client.

And I go, okay, I'm waiting to hear the name and i go who he goes arnold schwarzenegger and i burst out laughing oh he was he was totally shocked lou pitt legendary agent to arnold schwarzeneger well that's hilarious lounge seriously is this a joke is this a joke he goes no seriously i go well i'm sure i'm schwarzeneger's not doing a christmas movie for tnt

To be clear, Arnold had just finished shooting James Cameron's epic Terminator 2.

Astilla Vista, baby.

Terminator 2 is the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a killer cyborg sent from the future to protect young John Connor from a different killer cyborg also sent from the future to kill him.

As you can imagine, such a plot necessitates a lot of elaborate production work.

It was movie making on a scale that was practically unheard of, especially in Los Angeles.

The production actually changed the course of a river to shoot high-speed chases in the extensive flood control channels of Los Angeles.

Anyways, back to Stan and Lou, the agent.

I go, Lou?

Why on earth would Arnold Schwarzenegger?

He says, well, here's why.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was 44 years old.

He had two kids.

Nobody is an action hero forever.

Maybe it was time to explore some alternatives.

And so he was kind of tired.

after T2 and he said to Lou,

I would like to direct a movie.

The directing thing was kind of out of the box out of left field.

And they said, well, okay, we'll put together a big feature act.

He goes, no, no, no.

I want low risk.

If I do a terrible job, I don't want anyone to be upset.

I don't want a big budget.

And I want it to be family friendly because I don't want anything to be controversial.

Nothing.

I just want something very simple.

And the only one that fit the bill was Christmas in Connecticut.

So I said, okay.

I'll call you if this guy passes.

And I have the phone up for us.

My part's jumping out of my, I go, what?

And I said, yeah, I'm serious.

I read it.

I think he'd like it.

So get me an offer.

Stan gets the green light from the executives at TNT.

There's some negotiating and they offer Schwarzenegger $100,000.

And then one night, Stan's phone rings.

I pick it up and I hear Sam Brooks, yes.

Please hope for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And now I'm serious.

I can see my heart beating.

And he goes, hello.

I go,

Arnold are you the guy with this Christmas script I said yes he says it's fantastic I'd love to direct I go okay he goes but I have to shoot in Los Angeles and I have to do it in these days and and he goes and I have some notes on the script I go okay can you be here in an hour and I go uh no he goes can you be on Wednesday I go yes I can be there on Wednesday He goes over for a meeting at Arnold's offices in Santa Monica

so now I'm going to this meeting on Wednesday and you walk in and there's this giant lobby and the first thing you see is the exoskeleton, the metal thing with the red eyes from

Terminator.

So there's no doubt, I mean, the posters are up on the wall, but there's no doubt when you walk in and you see this seven-foot thing, you go, oh, crap.

I know where I am.

My heart's beating.

And I go in and he's in his office, which is massive.

I mean, it's like, you know, size of a football field.

And he's on one, you walk in on this end and he's on the other end.

So you gotta walk past all the, you know, the props and stuff.

And then he's at a big, huge desk with a big, giant chair.

And behind him is a bookshelf, but with all of the Mr.

Universe awards, not film stuff, it's all his bodybuilding awards.

And I remember we were going through the script and I said, hey, I want to use the restroom.

And he

pointed to me by putting up this bicep and pointing it like this.

His bicep comes clinically.

He goes, it's Doc Wood.

And I go, it was asked just to show me your bicep.

And he goes, I have to show the, you know, the guns whenever I can.

And I really, okay.

So this guy definitely has a sense of humor about himself.

They sit down.

Arnold has notes on the script.

He wanted

more humor.

and a little more jeopardy.

And so we added in like this like sort of big action sequence at the beginning where he rescues the kid and all of a sudden janet brownell who wrote the original script for the remake is looking at a very different movie

the whole thing took this like

180 degree turn at that point it was just like

what is and stan just did not want to lose him and i'm like okay

i truly don't see this but if it gets to film green light i don't give a shit arnold wants them to get someone else to come in and punch up the script.

He wanted more humor.

And as it happened, my best friend in the world had written Commando.

Commando, the 1985 action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which the critic from the L.A.

Times referred to as a, quote, gory crowd pleaser and a glorified fireworks display.

And Arnold loved them and said, if you think you can get him to do a comedy pass.

Jeff Loeb, the friend who wrote Commando, gets hired to do the rewrite with his writing partner.

We walk in.

He's sitting on

a white couch.

Baby, it's literally the length of the biggest limousine you've ever seen in your life.

And he has his feet up on this white porcelain marble table.

He's got a big cigar in his mouth and scripts all around him.

And he doesn't say hello.

He doesn't introduce himself.

He doesn't do anything.

He just, the first thing out of his mouth is, so what have you guys been doing since Commando?

Clearly not going to the gym.

I just have to say everyone in this episode is going to do their own Schwarzenegger impression, which is good because even though we couldn't land an interview with him, I feel like he's here with us in spirit.

Anyway, they settle in and start rewriting the film Commando style.

So that's where things kind of went off the rails for me personally, because it's like, okay, this is becoming a completely different thing.

It just Schwarzeneggerized into like this thing that was bigger than life.

I mean, she just did an amazing job.

We didn't make any real big structural changes.

That's all hers.

But a dialogue pass and

go through it and try to find more of Archield's vision.

They start burning through the script.

A big job for any director is giving notes on the rewrites.

Schwarzenegger was calling in help from his director friends, including legendary comedy director Ivan Reitman, the guy who did Ghostbusters.

Everyone was working to realize Arnold's vision.

Now, you have to understand that on Commando,

he would do this all the time.

He would go, I have a great idea.

Listen, this is what I want to do.

When the guy comes at me, I want to throw a buzzsaw at him and it chops off his arm.

And then I'm going to pick up his arm and punch him in his face with his old arm.

And we would go, well, we like the buzz off art.

Can we just do the buzz off art?

So, like, our job is not to go, I think that's not going to work.

Our job is to make it work.

And it doesn't help that the next day he would say,

okay, we're doing really well.

We're really getting there.

It's really coming to where I want it to be.

So I gave it to Stephen.

And Stephen talked to me last night and he says, I have to really be careful.

And this is what I want you to do.

And again, I'm like, is Stephen the guy at the gym?

Is Stephen, who is Stephen?

And then suddenly as you go, you know, as he starts to sort of talk more, you go, he's talking about Steven Spielberg.

This was beginning to look like a train nobody would step in front of.

Back at TNT, the executives had a dim sense of what was going on.

It's not, it's not how it's done now.

Lori Posemantier, one of the TNT executives.

Whether you're famous or not as a director,

that doesn't happen to let somebody go and change things as much as we're change.

Meanwhile, they've cast the rest of the film.

Joining Diane Cannon would be Hollywood screwball legend Tony Curtis, probably best known for playing opposite Marilyn Monroe and Some Like It Hot.

Along with him would be ex-country music star Chris Christopherson.

Here's TNT's senior vice president of production at the time, Nick Lombardo.

Even when they cast it, I thought, well, that is the weirdest cast I've ever heard of.

I mean, the idea that these people fit fit together made no sense at all.

I mean, Diane Cannon and Chris Christopherson in the same frame, it makes a star is born when he's holding Barbara Streisand look organic.

So armed with one of the all-time weirdest, most stacked casts in the history of film, a comparatively small budget of $3 million, a slot on an upstart cable network, and a script based on a 1940s screwball comedy that's been punched up by two of the writers behind a big 80s blockbuster, an Austrian former bodybuilder, fresh off his repeat performance as a time-traveling cyborg, prepared to direct his first Christmas film.

You don't, as a TV movie producer, ever get near anything this hot, ever.

You just don't.

I mean, we're, we're all a little nervous about the whole thing, you know, because it's like you're playing with matches and, you know, oh, yeah, let's Arnold direct this.

You know, it's like, for us, $3 million was a lot of money.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Whatever.

It was like, oh, yeah.

He wanted to prove that he could be a director.

And everyone was about to find out whether or not he could.

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Christmas in Connecticut, the remake, began filming about two months before Christmas in Los Angeles.

Because Arnold Schwarzenegger had never before directed a feature film, though let the record show he had directed an episode of the TV show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for things to film more or less in the order they happen in the film.

There's a lot less to keep track of continuity-wise that way.

But this also posed a problem.

One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of art is figuring out how to make it your own.

The 1992 made-for-TV remake of Christmas in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead, a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid-workout routine in his mountain cabin?

If you're looking for signs that this is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the sight of Chris Christofferson as Jefferson Jones sweating after busting out some chin-ups on a beam in his cabin is your first warning.

A man on the television offers some brisk exposition while he cools down.

In the last hour, experts predict this should be the biggest storm to hit the Rockies in the last decade.

More than four feet of snow is anticipated to blanket the area in the next 48 hours.

The phone rings.

Another ranger is calling to tell Jones a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard.

He has to go out and find him.

This is the fabled action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested.

They shot the blizzard on a soundstage.

It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero, which is why he gets invited to be a guest of Elizabeth Blaines for her Christmas special in Connecticut.

It's got to look epic.

It's got to have that Arnold Schwarzenegger feeling.

Unfortunately, Terminator, this is not.

Here is Jim Wilberger, director of production.

Yeah, there's a scene where Christofferson, you know, suddenly has rescued the kid, and you see him roll down this little hill of snow, which was shot on stage,

and trying to make

more of it because there wasn't that much set for that little hill.

And, you know, and then suddenly you see all the people rush in to rescue.

You know, I mean, this was just not good blocking.

And that's just an experience.

Schwarzenegger wanted Jeopardy, but this kind of looks like a snowball fight gone awry.

Jones stumbles over a very small hill holding a child that looks like it might be a mannequin.

He's groaning and yelling, but his lips aren't moving.

So, tough start.

Luckily, though, a lot of the film is set inside Elizabeth Blaine's fake Connecticut house, where she's shooting a Christmas special in celebration of Jones.

The bulk of production happened there, So the whole crew set up at a house in South Pasadena for the real work.

This introduced Arnold to the second problem of directing, actor ego management, and the issue of his trailer.

Arnold's trailer was like a house on wheels.

It was literally like you'd look at it from the outside and you'd say, wow, that's got all kinds of pop outs and the roof went up and everything.

But when you got inside, it was literally like you had just walked into like the Greystone Mansion.

You know, it's probably almost three times as wide as a normal trailer.

And it was the length that became the issue.

Diane comes in and

she says,

why is Arnold's trailer bigger than my trailer?

Nobody's supposed to have a bigger trailer than me.

Diane Cannon was the star of the film, but she was maybe realizing that this production was all about the director.

Schwarzenegger, though, was dealing with other problems.

Namely, he had chosen one of the hardest genres for his first major directing foray.

Screwball comedy is like dancing on the head of a pin.

It thrives on chaos, but it has to be a kind of controlled chaos.

With his big personality cast, low budget, short timeline, and hastily rewritten script, Schwarzenegger had an excess of chaos and a minimum of control.

I mean, you have one somewhat disgruntled actress portraying fake Martha Stewart, and another who's a macho park ranger, but who for no apparent reason relays this backstory partway through the movie.

Actually, before I moved to Colorado, I lived in Chicago.

I grew up there.

Taught comparative literature at the University of Britain.

Really?

I got offered tenure and head of the department, and it's what I thought I wanted.

But that's being caged in by concrete and crowds for the rest of my life.

This is, I'm pretty sure, the only time in the entire film Jefferson Jones has passed as chair of the University of Chicago's comparative literature department is mentioned.

And I love Chris Christopherson, but most of the rest of his performance veers between stiff and oddly sexually charged.

When he starts smearing the pine sap on her neck.

Yeah, that it's it's it's just kind of transcendently weird.

Yeah, well, not to mention his two times he's like staring at her butt, you know,

there's an extensive shot of that.

But you can't buy that at Bloomingdale.

You're right.

So you've got two characters who really just barely hang together, and then you have to direct them in tightly choreographed, zany sequences that have got to feel plausible, yet also hilarious.

For instance, the scene with the baby.

Remember, in Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth is a total fraud.

She doesn't know how to cook.

It's not even her house in Connecticut, and she's got this fake staged family with her, including a fake baby.

She had to keep up appearances for the sake of her column.

In the original film, there's a lovely scene where she and Jefferson Jones give her fake baby a bath.

She, a supposed domestic goddess, is meant to bathe her child, which she suspiciously has no clue how to do.

He steps in and does it for her like a total pro.

It's part of why she falls in love with him.

And because it's so well executed in the original film, we believe they're falling in love in this totally implausible moment.

Soap?

Um, soap, uh, there.

Oh, Roberto, she's eating the soap.

What do I do?

I would hurt her.

They all do it.

Oh, really?

You'd make a wonderful father, Mr.

Jones.

You're not married yourself by any chance, are you?

No.

Cards are stacked against me, I guess.

Every time I meet a girl I like, it turns out she's already married.

Oh, that's too bad.

Now, this also happens in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.

Maybe we should finish up for her.

Finish up what?

A bath.

You know what?

I just had the most wonderful idea.

How would you like to bathe her?

Me.

Sure, I think it'd be fun for you.

Here.

What happens next is the greatest travesty in the history of bath time.

It's as if you gave two aliens a baby and said, give this a bath, not realizing that on the planet they're from, not only are there no babies or baths, but actually there's not even water.

What do you remember about that?

Well, some of that was improvised.

What happens is they just drench the baby in shampoo, and then they barely wash any of it out.

On the bath scale, it's two rubber duckies out of 10.

But the premise of the scene is that Jefferson Jones is crushing it.

It was pretty hilarious, I thought, and also very clumsy.

And they really gooped up the kids' hair.

My God.

I don't know.

I'm sure the Brock guy put it too much shit.

Here's some soap, sweetie.

Here's the soap.

Here's the duck.

That's the director thing.

I mean, that is a flat-out director fail.

I mean, that right.

Like, retake the scene.

100%.

And And there probably were three or four versions of that.

That's the one he chose.

You know, it's not like that was the only one.

She's sure about that.

You're awful at that for a bachelor.

You know, you sure you don't have a whole school of kids hidden somewhere.

I nursed a couple of bear clubs till their mother came back.

This is better in bear cubs.

Can you see a beauty?

It's like on SNL when the actors break and laugh.

When Elizabeth's like, I'm not sure if we got all the soap out.

And Jefferson's like, well, we didn't.

That's the true reaction.

And it must be improvised.

But then they go back back to the scripted version where Jones is doing a great job.

Most of the people on set have some kind of moment like this.

You know, the forest with the snow and the sleigh that comes along.

And there's even one shot I noticed where you can see the wheels under the sleigh.

I remember the day I was there, they were filming that scene where chaos erupts, you know, and the tree falls down and all that.

We had to do that scene quite a number of times.

It was as chaotic as the scene is, but behind the scenes it was even more so.

It's a little like opening a baloney factory for culture.

You know, it's sort of like, what's going on in there?

Nothing good.

Nothing good.

Don't ask anything.

So it was kind of hectic on set.

And yet, I think you can hear in people's voices how much they love telling this story.

Pretty much across the board, this was a happy memory for the people I spoke to.

Not least of all, because they never lost sight of just how improbable it all was.

And then, in the middle of all this, is Arnold running around going, you know,

move the camera over here.

I do this over here.

Let's go do this.

No, I think it could be 10 times funnier.

Come on.

So there's Arnold's voice, you know,

just bellowing out.

And that was the other thing that I really remember was that

while this is happening, while we're making making this little tiny movie

he is

in theaters with terminator 2

and it's doing numbers that no one has ever seen before and we were on

set

when it cross 500 million dollars but when you're standing next to the guy who's the star of that movie And his major concern is whether or not,

is it in focus?

Forehead, let's go.

The forehead thing.

You're not the first person to bring that up.

Several people mentioned to me that Arnold Schwarzenegger's favorite put-down was to call someone a forehead.

This actually made it into the movie.

When Elizabeth Blaine and Jefferson Jones get pulled over by the cops' mid-sleigh ride, the one where you can see the wheels, this happens.

Put your hands where I can see them.

You're both under arrest.

Oh, come on.

Come on, you foreheads.

Get them up.

You what?

This is actually a big part of why I love this movie.

It has a kind of free jazz improvisatory quality to it.

It's oddly self-referential and also very sweet.

It's like how you can hear in someone's voice when they're smiling.

That's how this movie feels.

Because even at the risk of himself being labeled a forehead who couldn't direct the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger was showing up every day and putting in his all.

For the film buffs in the crew, it was a dream come true just to work with him or with a legend like Tony Curtis.

You know, it was a trip to Oz that I knew was short-lived, but it was something I was gonna, you know, take in and enjoy as much as possible.

After 20 days of shooting, the film wrapped.

They had a party at Arnold Schwarzenegger's restaurant.

It was around Christmas time, and they all got sweatshirts with the name of the film on the front.

And on the back was a picture of Arnold with a Santa hat on, wearing sunglasses,

and saying something about,

I can't remember the full thing, but he used the word you forehead.

Later, Jim was kind enough to send me a photo of the sweatshirt.

It said on the back, more snow, you forehead.

There's my Schwarzenegger impression.

With the film in the can, post-production and premieres loomed.

That's after the break.

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Before we get to the premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1992 Christmas in Connecticut remake, I want to tell you about something that happened earlier this year.

Thank you all for coming.

Thank you, Mitch, for coming down from Detroit.

Yeah, thanks for having me here.

Malcolm interviewed Mitch Album live on stage at the 92nd Street Y.

Album is the best-selling author of some ungodly number of books, but he's probably most famous for Tuesdays with Maury.

He and Malcolm were there to talk about his new novel about the Holocaust, The Little Liar.

They were warming up with some Mitch backstory about his time as a musician in New York.

I tried the whole starving musician thing and I played in all the clubs around here on Monday nights.

I was backstage at this event peering out.

I hadn't read Mitch's book.

I was up to something else.

Wait, we should probably do this before we get too far afield.

On the music thing, if you've been talking so much, you will note that behind you,

there is a corg.

At this point, the audience of people who had come that night to hear the author of Tuesdays with Maury discuss the Holocaust noticed the electric piano behind him.

And we have a request that you play

one of your most famous compositions,

which

you know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about Cooking for Two from the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger 1992 made-for-TV movie Christmas in Connecticut.

Yeah.

Can you see the recognition in that?

Yes, it was my keyboard.

And yes, I had planted it there.

Mitch, no, no, this, for some reason, I have no idea.

My colleague Ben is obsessed with this and really wanted us to do this.

And I thought, how great would it be for you to sing one of our songs?

Just like, just give us a little taste.

Well, I have to tell you the story.

Tell the story.

Tell the story.

Okay.

So

after I got out of the music business, I had a college roommate who went into the movie business.

That would be Stanley M.

Brooks, executive producer of Christmas in Connecticut.

Stan and Mitch were roommates at Brandeis.

And

he knew that I was a musician, and he was making a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was a producer.

And Schwarzenegger was the director of Christmas in Connecticut, the remake.

Sounds about as good as it was, I think.

And

they needed it.

It's a song because she played.

Diane Cannon played the lead and she was a cook on TV or whatever.

So the song had to be about food and they wanted to use Harry Connick's recipe for love or something like that, but they couldn't afford it.

So Stan calls me and says, we need a song that's kind of upbeat about food for Arnold Schwarzenegger's movie.

Can you do it?

You know, I said, well, when do you need it by?

Thursday, you know.

It was Tuesday, you know.

So I...

Just went and wrote a little song and my wife is a singer, a fantastic singer.

And

I said, Honey, can you sing this song?

Because we don't have time to go find anybody else.

And he listened to it and he said, I like the one with the girl.

And that's how the song was chosen.

Yeah, yeah.

I want you to play it.

I really think you should.

So it went,

now remember, it had to be about food.

So it went,

Let's go to the kitchen.

I got something fixing appetizing and new.

Here's a clue.

We're cooking for two.

There inside the oven, something warm and loving.

Friends wouldn't laugh if they knew that it's true.

We're cooking for two.

Here's the core of the bridge.

I was a soup for one girl, leftovers every night.

Oh, but once I tasted your kisses, I was dining by candlelight.

Here's a recipe for all the world to see.

We take some me and some you, let it stew.

We're cooking for two.

I love you.

We're cooking for two.

That definitely ranks amongst one of the most embarrassing things I've ever done.

They planned to play it over the credits.

With the Mitch album closing track in hand, Christmas in Connecticut was almost ready to debut.

Most made-for-TV movies, you just put out on television, but not this one.

First of all, TV movies don't have screenings.

If we have a screening, it's like 10 people and you're in a screening room somewhere.

like this was the big theater at the dga which holds i don't know a thousand people massive screen and there's a huge red carpet and a and a press line

we had two theaters going and um they were filled when i tell you that there's never been a television movie before or since that had a press line and he's walking down working the press and like you know and i and you know the tallest person this is standards the executive producer uh-huh arnold

according to stan Ivan Reitman and James Cameron were there, along with a whole slew of Hollywood royalty.

The screening was in LA.

It was a media sensation.

Watch out, Hollywood.

There's a new director in town, and he's used to making a big impact.

That is, in front of the camera.

When you act

and you see such talented directors as I've worked with, it inspires you.

Janet Brownell, the screenwriter, was not having such a good night.

I remember sitting at the screening with my agent and I was like crying.

I mean, I was like, oh my God.

Why are you crying?

Because I get so bad, and my name is on this.

My agent was very fast to get me a drink at that point.

I just remember outside, there was kind of a Christmas-themed sort of party, and just like, I need to get out of here.

But there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.

TNT was running promos non-stop.

I love romantic comedies, so I made one myself.

Christmas in Connecticut.

It's a romantic comedy

with all the trimmings.

What in the world could possibly go wrong?

Ah!

Christmas in Connecticut, directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You have a problem with that.

A TNT exclusive premiere Monday, April 13th.

I don't know if you caught that, but the film came out in April, one week before Easter.

As one review put it, quote, don't ask me why a Christmas movie is premiering in April.

As his then-wife Maria Shriver reflected, he just does.

He's a big one on don't think about it or talk about it, do it.

And then he goes, I think we want to screen it again.

That was too much fun.

I go, okay.

I go, I'll see if I can organize it.

He goes, no, I want to screen it in Washington with my friend Jack Valenti.

So now we all fly to Washington.

And

it was a who's who of of Washington.

And it was senators and members of the cabinet.

It was a seated dinner.

And I remember my wife and I sit down.

We were working the room, so we sit last at our table.

And the guy next to me has got like a dress uniform on.

And I say, hey, Stan Brooks, I'm the producer.

And he goes, hey, Oliver North.

Oliver North of Iran-Contrafame.

The film was a big hit in the Beltway.

Suffice it to say, this made-for-television Christmas movie had an unusually big reception, but it also didn't really do much to establish Arnold Schwarzenegger as a director.

The reviews were mixed.

Well, I'm looking on IMDb right now.

It's like the rating is 4.8 out of 10.

And they're not far off.

We, nobody had any, oh my God, we're making it's a wonderful life.

I realize I've had a lot of fun with this movie.

And gun to my head, do I think it's good?

No.

But do I love it?

Obviously, yes.

Because it's so totally weird and overcommitted to its bit that it has a kind of joyfulness to it that honestly gets me in the Christmas spirit.

And at its core, like the best Christmas films, the story behind the movie is a story of love and friendship between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stan Brooks.

Two men brought together by a love of making movies.

After the film, Stan and Arnold stayed in touch.

Stan even moved into Arnold Schwarzenegger's office building.

Their kids played football together.

And even though they never made another movie together, their collaboration had one more act.

Almost 10 years to the day from when Christmas in Connecticut began shooting, Arnold Schwarzenegger became the governor of California.

At the time, there was a lot of hand-wringing over an issue called runaway production.

Lots of states had started offering tax breaks to lure films into shooting somewhere other than California.

It had become a real problem for Hollywood as an industry town.

And this was one of the crises Schwarzenegger would have to face in his new role as governor.

Now, the way people talked about his becoming governor was the same way they talked about his becoming a director.

So it only makes sense that he wanted Stan Brooks in his administration.

So when he became governor, he was in about a year and he called me and he said,

how would you like to be on the film commission?

And I said, well, that's a dumb idea.

He goes, why?

I said, well, because I don't shoot movies in California.

I said, I'm like the worst person you could put on the film commission because I take my movies out of state.

And he goes, no, that's why we want you because we want to try and pass the tax credit

stan joined the california film commission and over the next few years he was a key part of the lobbying efforts to pass the tax credits that would make it easier to film in california it was a hard fight and so i ended up making a short film a short documentary film where we interviewed some of the families that left on why

And that ended up being more powerful than any speech we could make in their office.

The first tax credits passed in 2009.

They've been renewed ever since.

So back to our original question.

Why did Arnold Schwarzenegger direct this bizarre one-off Christmas film?

I found my answer in a story Stan told me.

He says to me one night, we finished around seven or eight and he goes, well, how are you doing?

And I said, I'm going home.

He goes, he goes, Maria's making dinner.

You want to come to the house?

So, oh,

yeah.

So we both jump in our cars and we drive to Pacific Palisades.

And at that dinner, I I remember Arnold turned to me and he says, yo, guys, I don't understand why you don't do big features.

And I said, to be honest, I didn't get in the business to make big, famous movies.

I got in the business to make movies.

And I get to make two or three a year.

If I'm in the feature business, I'm lucky if I make one every other year, every three years.

I go, I'm happy with my life.

He goes, well, that's fantastic.

The story really hit home for me because I get what that's like to just love making something, Even a kind of improbably dense story about the making of the remake of a Christmas movie.

It's like Stan said, if you love making movies or anything, it's just a gift to get to make more, even if they're maybe not the best.

Especially if it's clear how much fun you had making whatever it is you're making.

So, to close,

let me just share one quote.

from the very last page of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

A passage about Scrooge after he's seen the light.

Quote:

Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them.

For he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset.

His own heart laughed.

And that was quite enough for him.

Maybe Stan and Arnold didn't make It's a Wonderful Life, but it seems to me like their own hearts were laughing.

So, from all of us here at Revisionist History, happy holidays, you foreheads.

See you in the new year.

Revisionist History is produced by me, Ben Mattif Haffrey, and Lucy Sullivan with Nina Bird Lawrence.

Our editor is Karen Shikurji.

Fact-checking on this episode by Sam Russik, a resident Schwarzenegger fan.

Original scoring by Luis Guerra.

Mastering by Jake Korski.

Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.

Special thanks to Sarah Nix, David Arnott, Linda Berman, Iris Grossman, and Scott Sassa.

I'm Ben Natifaffery.

Three,

two,

one.

We wish you

a Merry Christmas.

We wish you a Merry Christmas.

We wish you a Merry Christmas.

And

Happy

New Year.

Dreadful.

That's what I'm saying.

I could understand that.

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