Cayce Osborne joins host Emily J. Edwards to discuss the 1983 MOTV/Backdoor Pilot, TRAVIS MCGEE starring Sam Elliott! Travis, the brainchild of one of America’s best-selling authors, John D. MacDonald, is a “salvage expert” who excels in returning people’s lost valuables– for half the cost of what he recovers. In this adaptation of THE EMPTY COPPER SEA, Travis works to recoup the reputation of a friend for a low low price– with a couple of hot babes included?
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Find Cayce Online at https://cayceosborne.com/
Watch the movie on YouTube: https://youtu.be/b5ei1iA7IJ4?si=GbbYc77xit1Wv6iN
Chapters
- 00:00 Character Description and Background
- 33:26 Characterization and Storyline Issues
- 38:48 Impact on Travis McGee Franchise
- 49:12 Book Adaptation and Understanding of Locale
Transcript:
Emily Edwards (00:00.814)
Greetings, gumshoes, and welcome to another episode of Silver Screen Sleuths, the alliterative show that I totally shot myself in the foot by naming it this. this is gonna be a lovely episode because we have one of my favorite people to talk to for podcasting, guesting with me today, Casey Osborne. How the hell are you?
Cayce Osborne (00:22.126)
I’m doing pretty well. It’s summer in Wisconsin, which is the one of the only tolerable times to live in Wisconsin. So I’m doing very well.
Emily Edwards (00:29.998)
No threat of snow, just it beautiful, beautiful weather. And and you’re not yet at the point where the humidity set in, so it’s just gorgeous. It’s just gorgeous. Casey is the author of an absolutely phenomenal book called I Know What You Did. It came out shortly around the same time as my Viviana Valentine series, and that’s kind of how we connected. Casey, can you give us a little bit of a rundown about your book and
Some of your history with the text and character we’re gonna be talking about today.
Cayce Osborne (01:03.654)
Absolutely. So my book, I Know What You Did, is sort of I wouldn’t call it an amateur sleuth because she’s not even a sleuth. She’s thrown into this situation where she’s trying to hide a secret. My main character, her name is Petal. something happened in her past in Madison, Wisconsin. She moved away as soon as she possibly could. And then someone publishes a best-selling novel spilling all of her dirty secrets. and
And uses her real name in this book, even though it’s supposed to be a fictional book. so she decides the only way to figure out who is behind this author pen name, who is trying to drag her secrets into the light, she’s gotta go back to Madison, face her fears, face her past, and figure out who is who and why is all this coming out after so long. So that’s what my book is about.
Emily Edwards (01:32.266)
No
Emily Edwards (01:49.848)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (01:53.634)
And today we are here to talk about Travis McGee, which is a TV movie, I believe, right? It was made for TV, yeah. Based on the Travis McGee series by John D. McDonald. 20-some books from the 60s to the 80s, beloved main character they tried to adapt many, many times. I think there are two adaptations that made it to the screen. This will be one of them. And he’s very much a character that people really love.
Emily Edwards (01:59.404)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (02:17.366)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (02:22.786)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (02:24.162)
I found my way to Travis through my friend Tom, who was a huge Travis fan. He named his cat Travis. And I thought he must love this this guy, these books. But I thought they’re guy books. There’s gonna they’re gonna be like a sort of a womanizy main character, James Bondi, too cocky for his own good guy. And it’s not really gonna be my thing. so it took me many years to find my way to try trying the first one, and I was immediately hooked.
Emily Edwards (02:32.142)
Okay.
Emily Edwards (02:43.501)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (02:53.336)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (02:53.48)
I’ve made my way through the whole series now, and at some point I’d like to go back and reread because the writing is exquisite, it’s very poetic. you can tell that he’s got a love for Florida where these books are set and this character and you know, the turbulent times, the 60s, 70s, 80s, the changing landscapes. He addresses so many societal things that are happening, all the while crafting these beautiful crime stories with lots of heart.
Emily Edwards (03:05.89)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (03:22.54)
And y h his main character is not like detached like a James Bond type, right? He’s really like invested in what’s happening in his state with these people that he loves and he’s really a fantastic character.
Emily Edwards (03:27.533)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (03:36.108)
You know, I I I had not realized that this was a TV movie when it got put on my list of like, interesting like sleuth adaptations or like kind of private investigator movies. It’s all over the map for how you could describe Travis McGee. Like y he is, you know, he comes into money in sort of odd ways. And so you could kind of put him in amateur detective, but that’s how he makes his money by salvaging.
He uses the term he’s a human salvager, like and he’ll, you know, whatever you’ve lost, he’ll find it for you and he keeps 50%, which is like such a great way of looking at it. He could be sort of gentleman sleuthy because he, I mean, he lives on a boat in Florida. It’s weird circumstances that he’s around. But he, you know, he also takes his work very seriously. So he can be private detective. He’s just kind of all over the place. And I really loved the fact that he’s
Cayce Osborne (04:27.322)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (04:32.619)
This amorphous sort of not very focused character in the way that you have your Sam Spades, your Philip Marlowe’s, your, your, your Nick Charles’s, or even, you know, your Poix Rose and your Miss Marple. He is just really an unspecific sort of sleuth. And I it’s very, very compelling. I started reading the book that the movie.
We watched is based on, and I got two chapters, I got a couple chapters into it because I started reading it last night before this. And I was just like, I don’t want to put this down, but I’m literally falling asleep. So I have to, and I’m going to go back and finish it because it, you’re right, it is an exquisitely written book. in a way that I wasn’t really expecting for books that come out in the 1960s about dudes in Florida.
Cayce Osborne (05:07.472)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (05:21.606)
Yep. Yep, for sure. I mean you’ve got the Florida man stereotype, right? and that’s another thing. Like you were saying he doesn’t fit the mold of these classic detectives. He’s really sort of a genre buster. You know, he he breaks out of anything you might expect in this genre for a detective who has this long of a series. and he also breaks out of the sort of
Emily Edwards (05:26.591)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (05:32.94)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (05:40.513)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (05:43.985)
Florida stereotype, at least that we think of today. I don’t know what the Florida stereotypes were like back in the sixties when this started, but we certainly have, you know, the prevalent crazy news stories coming out of Florida today. And
Emily Edwards (05:47.134)
Exactly.
Emily Edwards (05:57.922)
Yeah, you can definitely see how this series gave us so many of the characters and the book series that we know now that are huge bestsellers. I mean, he’s he’s somewhat itinerant. He moves around quite a bit. So there, you know, the version of the book that I picked up had a forward from Lee Child. You can see how Reacher does kind of come out of this this sphere of like this this unanchored man. And then with the Florida aspect of it too,
It is a little bit wild. It is a little bit ridiculous. And so you can see how Carl Hyessen maybe read these and was like, you know, fishermen are s you know, because he lives in a marina on a houseboat. And you can see how that sort of unknown man sort of concept really goes into a lot of Carl Hyesen’s work, who whose work I absolutely adore.
Cayce Osborne (06:52.42)
Yes, yes. This the Travis McGee books don’t have that sort of wacky end like that’s all Carl, right? That’s his style, that’s his thing. and he’s excellent at it and it’s so much fun to read. and this is fun to read just in a different way. I mean, he’s so beloved, Travis is that his the the boat slip at the marina that actually exists is now a historical landmark in Florida. They put a plaque up and everything, yeah.
Emily Edwards (06:58.518)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (07:08.653)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (07:18.209)
my gosh, that’s that’s so cool. I like that so much. There was one other series that came to my mind while I was thinking about this. And I wrote it down, and now I have to look at my chicken scratch handwriting. obviously, Easy Rollins. There’s such an Easy Rollins connection with the not exactly taking payment. Like one of my favorite things about Easy Rollins is that he always says he does people favors. And
Cayce Osborne (07:36.484)
Cayce Osborne (07:42.139)
Uh-huh.
Cayce Osborne (07:46.746)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (07:47.874)
That sort of understanding of the power of people owing you to after you put yourself out for them. It’s like so, so involved here. And again, this these books are coming out 20, 30 years before any of those books even appear. It’s just I didn’t realize how foundational this was. So thank you so much for introducing me to him. now the the the problem is this movie.
Cayce Osborne (08:03.93)
Yeah. Of course, yeah.
Cayce Osborne (08:11.238)
All right, confetti is going to make sure no one’s attacking my house.
Emily Edwards (08:19.051)
Why we edit. And I mean, just like I love it when your dog shows up because he’s so cute. He just runs behind you, and he’s just the cutest. He’s so cute. but he’s funny, he also has the greatest name ever. I’m just gonna give him a second. But the other, but here’s the thing: he’s so great. I love
Cayce Osborne (08:22.598)
Yeah, I know a blur, a fuzzy blur going by. Betty.
Cayce Osborne (08:41.319)
Yeah. What is that?
Betty, do you want to go in the bathroom? No, he doesn’t.
Emily Edwards (08:48.811)
No, I don’t want to go in the bathroom. It can be anything from the wind to squirrel.
Cayce Osborne (08:52.806)
I don’t know what he sees outside.
All right. All right. Come on.
Emily Edwards (09:03.233)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (09:05.293)
Hold on a second.
Emily Edwards (09:06.678)
Okay, sure.
Cayce Osborne (09:08.344)
Okay, that’s enough. Come on. Thank you. You did your job. Good job. Good boy. No, no, no, no. Sorry about this.
Emily Edwards (09:17.761)
I don’t care, it’s fine. That’s what I always tell my dog too. I’m like, that is your job. You’ve done it sufficiently, but it is your job.
Cayce Osborne (09:22.552)
We’re done now. We’re good. Yeah. Okay.
Emily Edwards (09:30.061)
Okay, okay. So the movie that we are talking about came out in the early 1980s, I think it was 1983. Yes. And stars Sam Elliott. And you’re just kind of like, okay, Sam Elliott, fantastic totally wrong casting a hundred percent across the board, incorrect. but you know he’s a great actor, so we’ll see if it we’ll pull it off. The movie is it’s fine, but it’s wrong. It’s just wrong.
Cayce Osborne (09:36.982)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (09:45.668)
Yep.
Cayce Osborne (09:55.973)
Yes. I mean from the from the opening frames, I I wrote down in my notes, Sam Elliott looks like a New England sea captain. Like in that before you get to sort of the California coast, which is where they ended up filming it, and you see the Californian-ness of it in the background. I really thought I was like, are they gonna do this like in Boston Harbor or something? What is happening? He his little cat that he wears is very New Englandy to me.
Emily Edwards (10:05.237)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (10:13.689)
Yes. Yes.
Cayce Osborne (10:24.41)
I was like, this is not right. And I can I can, you know, forgive like cosmetic appearance type stuff as long as you embody, you know, the spirit. I did read that he refused to s shave his mustache. So they just let him keep it. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (10:32.14)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (10:36.62)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (10:43.489)
Surprise me because like he is known for that mustache. my gosh, confetti has something to say. But like he’s he’s so funny. I was gonna look up, is this before or after Roadhouse? This has to be okay, so it is right around the same time. Okay, so Roadhouse came out in 89.
Cayce Osborne (10:49.956)
I don’t know. He’s he’s in rare form today.
Cayce Osborne (10:59.77)
I think it’s right around the same time. Yeah.
okay.
Emily Edwards (11:06.117)
so it’s a yeah, so it’s a little bit later, but like he’s full like Sam Elliott Roadhouse kind of look to him, whatsoever. And again, like very c he’s one of my favorite actors. I love him in everything, but you are right that he looks like Quint from Jaws, like in the opening scene, and you’re just like, this is not correct.
Cayce Osborne (11:16.75)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (11:20.58)
Yeah, he does.
No. And then when you sort of figure out, okay, this is in California and and I I couldn’t figure out for about half the movie, are they trying to pretend this is Florida? ‘Cause they don’t really I don’t think they ever mention where they are, do they?
Emily Edwards (11:37.941)
They do at some point. Well, I didn’t recognize like a lot of the places where they were filming. And I thought they were just gonna try to pass off Malik Marina Del Rey and Malibu as Florida. But later on in the movie, they make a mention about sailing down to San Diego. And I was just kind of like, so they’re not pretending this is Florida any longer. I feel like for the first half.
Cayce Osborne (11:49.766)
That was my assumption too.
Cayce Osborne (11:57.519)
Okay.
Cayce Osborne (12:03.237)
Bay.
Cayce Osborne (12:06.608)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (12:06.774)
Of the script. They were just trying to be like totally different plants, but we’re gonna just like whatever it, which totally makes sense. In the eighties, they still filmed here. They don’t do that anymore. And we were allowed to pretend like California looked like everywhere. I mean, we had Murder She Wrote, where they were trying to pass off Malibu as Maine, which are entirely different and the plants are totally wrong, but that’s neither here nor there. I always loved it when they would
Cayce Osborne (12:17.956)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (12:30.094)
Okay.
Emily Edwards (12:36.472)
Flip the film so the ocean would be on the correct side. And they don’t do that much anymore. They just this did not have film flipping budget or intentions. They were just like, no, we’re gonna do whatever. But they do at some point make a mention of sailing down to San Diego. And I thought to myself, either they’re sailing around South America or they finally acknowledge that they can no longer make this look like Miami. I don’t.
Cayce Osborne (12:39.556)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (12:48.494)
No.
Emily Edwards (13:05.772)
Or like Palm Beach, which my Florida understanding is absolutely nil. So I have no idea where those cities are in relation to one another at all whatsoever.
Cayce Osborne (13:16.718)
Yeah. Yeah. That was another reason that I love these so much is that I have a very much of a soft spot for Florida. My mom spent part of her growing up years there and we vacationed there quite a bit growing up. You know, it was the easy place to go. It didn’t require a passport. It gave us some warm weather in the winter. and so I’ve I’ve been to quite a few places in Florida and and love all the varied, you know, environments that you can get from there. And the, you know, one coast is different from the other coast.
Emily Edwards (13:25.995)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (13:33.71)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (13:45.25)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (13:45.594)
Which is really interesting both in looks and weather and just personality.
Emily Edwards (13:51.969)
Yeah, yeah. That was something I definitely gathered from the book when I started reading it, because one of the main characters, Van Harden, he was mentioning that like he was on the West Coast and I realized, you meant the West Coast of Florida, not the west coast of the United States, which is like because he was doing shrimping on the west. This does not come into the movie at all. We’re just talking about the book. But he was doing shrimping on the west coast of Florida and then got
Cayce Osborne (13:56.782)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (14:12.247)
No, yeah.
Emily Edwards (14:18.028)
You know, a job skipping for a yacht essentially on the east coast of Florida again. if you don’t know anything about boats, you’re gonna have a rough time with this because Travis is supposed to live on a houseboat like MacGyver, and then in the movie they give him an absolutely stunning sailboat that no human being can actually afford.
Cayce Osborne (14:36.07)
Yeah.
Yes, I know. I know. It’s like they wanted to give him a bunch of like sail stuff to do while you know they were doing their sailing shots.
Emily Edwards (14:48.204)
Yeah.
They were like, let’s get Sam’s shirt off and see how many times we can show him pulling on ropes. And at a s and it is a viewer, you’re just like, I don’t mind it, but it’s wrong. Like this is not correct at all.
Cayce Osborne (15:04.868)
Yeah. And and this is where like it really sort of fell apart for me. There are certain things that you wanna see. Well, I’ll speak for myself, but I wanted to see an experience going into a Travis McGee movie. I you know you wanna see the boat, it’s called the Busted Flush. I believe he won it in a poker game. You wanna see his his pal Meyer, which we do get to see, and I think that part was fine. Like I have no argument with his sidekick. You wanna see his
Emily Edwards (15:11.565)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (15:20.384)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Cayce Osborne (15:31.975)
Crazy vehicle, which I think is named Miss Dolly. I can’t quite remember, but it’s like an old Rolls Royce that’s made into a convertible type thing or a pickup truck. Yeah. so we don’t get to see that. and you, you know, the thing that happens in every book is that at some point the title is in the book. Every title has a color.
Emily Edwards (15:36.247)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (15:41.196)
Yeah a pickup truck. Yeah.
No, I don’t
Emily Edwards (15:55.266)
Gotcha.
Cayce Osborne (15:58.547)
And at some point, Travis will think or say the line that is the title of the book. I do too. I I it can come off cheesy, I suppose. Let’s see. This one is the empty copper sea, is what is the book they adapted for this movie. And there was a point where he was sitting on the beach at the end with his lady and they’re talking and and she’s, you know.
Emily Edwards (16:04.972)
Which I find very charming in books, є it’s so cute.
Emily Edwards (16:13.314)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (16:16.876)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (16:21.184)
Uh-huh.
Cayce Osborne (16:24.72)
He wants her to come with him and she’s not sure she’s not ready and he’s very philosophical and I was like, This be the perfect time for him to stare out at the ocean and say something about the empty copper sea and he doesn’t do it. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (16:37.206)
He doesn’t do it. What’s I love that ending scene so much because he’s he really is very much like, I need you, like you’re you’re my gateway to like this other world that I never thought I would meet, this level of maturity that I never thought I would attain, you know. Like I I need you to basically like help me unf my life. And the girl just goes, No.
That’s so great.
Cayce Osborne (17:06.542)
Yeah. So here’s the thing about Travis, like in another writer’s hands, this ’cause Travis sleeps with a lot of ladies. I’m just gonna say. and you know, he takes him out on his boat for a cruise. He’s like, you know what you need? You need to come out with me on my boat, and we’re gonna go tool around in the Florida waters and I’ll fix you upright, you know, a little cocktail, a little sail, maybe something else, it’ll be great. so there is lots of that in there and it could easily go like the objectification route.
Emily Edwards (17:14.146)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (17:21.805)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (17:25.549)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (17:36.388)
the gross predatory route. But the thing about Travis and the thing about these books is that he always lets the ladies decide. And he falls hard a lot of the time. And it’s the ladies that leave. It’s not him. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (17:38.359)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (17:44.418)
That’s awesome.
Ha ha ha.
That’s kind of fabulous. And I feel like I see a lot of that, at least in the Reacher adaptation that they have on Amazon, where he’s he has this like up, you know, it can be frustrating at times where he’s just so purely good. But oftentimes with these private detective novels, especially the ones from the mid-century, where they’re like,
Cayce Osborne (17:57.255)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (18:05.038)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (18:14.828)
Where PTSD is an unspoken undercurrent of literally everything. These guys get really awful. And it is very comforting to at least have a handful of guys who write do-gooder not. That was a good one. A handful of guys who write these sort of like do-gooder novels kind of well, like, yeah, but he’s not that much of a terrible person.
Cayce Osborne (18:32.663)
What?
Cayce Osborne (18:40.484)
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, you know, it was the sixties and the seventies, you know. It was it was the time to to be, you know, free. so it he definitely was writing to his time period for sure. But I really like the way he treats his female characters, you know, as well as a man can, really. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (18:46.946)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (18:54.936)
Yeah, yeah.
Emily Edwards (19:00.556)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Poor confetti is like the house is under siege. I hear those voices and I can’t figure it out. Yeah. Today today not so much. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (19:09.526)
Usually I can get away with it and he quiets down, but today he’s just you know he has a lot to say about Travis.
Emily Edwards (19:20.352)
I’m trying to like I’m trying to buddy. Do you think he might be able to go into the bathroom just for a little bit? Okay, thank you.
Cayce Osborne (19:30.19)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (19:56.591)
Sorry about that. He’s like, all right, fine freedom to do what I want. Yeah, no, I was surprised at also, there’s a moment in this. So he he he gets approached by a fisherman who’s like, I got into a boat accident. The guy I was hired by fell overboard and disappeared.
Cayce Osborne (19:57.423)
No, that’s fine. I put him in the backyard for a bit.
Cayce Osborne (20:03.253)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (20:20.152)
Presumed dead. I lost my license, my you know, my captain’s license, my career is in shambles. I I can’t do anything. Who am I if I’m not a boat captain? And again, very odd sort of thing that like if you’re not from a place where there are fishermen, you really don’t understand quite like the compulsion that a lot of men have about going to sea. And it it is a real thing. and so he’s like, fine.
Cayce Osborne (20:39.366)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (20:47.434)
I will try to figure out what is happening with this dead slash missing man. And so he he sail, he sets sail on this gorgeous sailboat that would cost millions of dollars. And with Meyer, who is an economist, not an investor or anything. He’s an economist who lives like a couple boats down and who is his buddy. And I just think the conceit of having.
An economist to be your like partner in crime is such a deeply weird but wonderful way of looking at this.
Cayce Osborne (21:22.19)
Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, Travis, right, he’s a salvage expert, that’s what he calls himself. and he often has to get money back or figure out what scheme is happening. Often they’re real estate schemes or inheritance schemes or things like that. And so having a a a money guy, for lack of a better word, is a good thing to have around for him.
Emily Edwards (21:33.986)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (21:41.038)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (21:45.774)
Yeah. Yeah. It it also gives me a a lot of hearkens back to the Perry Mason novels by Earl Stanley Gardner, where like it’s not necessarily violence that’s at the heart of something. It’s like you said, it’s scheming. It’s, you know, it’s paperwork problems and
Cayce Osborne (22:06.213)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (22:07.341)
Y you normally don’t find those to be like sexy, but these are very much paperwork problems that I greatly enjoy as a nerd.
Cayce Osborne (22:15.63)
Yeah, and and somehow like it you know, if you were to explain, you know, this guy’s buying up a bunch of Florida land and he’s trying to build these condos, but the condos don’t really exist and he’s scheming people, those are the kind of things that happen. It doesn’t sound that exciting or that interesting or that, you know, sort of not noari, but like crime fiction that you can really dig into. But somehow they make it work. These characters, this writer, it works.
Emily Edwards (22:37.295)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (22:43.211)
It’s you know, and they do a really they do a decent job of it in the movie. Cause again, like the book the movie that they have, it was it it was a supposed to turn into a pilot for a lot. They wanted to turn it into a television series. And so they kind of did like a movie of the week. It’s very high budget, with Sam Elliott as as Travis. And you’re thinking to yourself, like, this is a really splashy way to sort of debut a television series. And it it
It actually just like is not compelling enough because it is for television and network television. This I think was like NBC or something. And they have to really hold back on a lot of the language around crime. You know, you have recent Oscar winner Amy Madigan as this like lounge singer. And you can tell that like they go to bed together because of course, but you know, there’s there’s very
Cayce Osborne (23:16.346)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (23:33.454)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (23:42.952)
And she makes references to drugs and co in like hard drugs, not just pot, but like cocaine. And her ex-boyfriend is in cocaine, and that’s part of the shenanigans of the dead guy, is drug trafficking. But it doesn’t get seedy enough to really have the same impact as an as the books probably did.
Cayce Osborne (23:53.083)
Right.
Cayce Osborne (23:58.758)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (24:04.782)
Yeah. I agree. yeah, like there’s that scene and where he goes into the bar where Amy Madigan is is the lounge singer and her ex-boyfriend’s there glaring at him from the bar. And I mean one thing that they do get right is that, you know, Travis goes into these places, they often happen in bars or restaurants, where he he goes in as the interloper. and he sits down and he sort of has this moment of sort of assessing the room and feeling it out before he starts to cause trouble.
Emily Edwards (24:21.696)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (24:33.581)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (24:34.982)
And so I they got that right, I think. again, like Sam Elliott has sort of this like California slash Western s t sort of swagger to him that doesn’t really work for Travis, but does work for that type of character. and I think, you know, there were some moments that I sort of in that scene and and that bar that sort of broke for me, broke the tension.
Emily Edwards (24:47.513)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (24:52.045)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (25:01.529)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (25:02.382)
You know, like the the ex boyfriend starts calling him Magoo instead of McGee to like, you know, stick it to him a little bit. And then at one point Amy Madigan and the next time he goes into the bar, she’s like angry singing at the piano, really crazy. And they sort of like stuck some flamingos in the back of the bar, like maybe it’s Florida. Like these classic flamingos in the back of the bar. So like all those little things are sort of taking me out of this sort of what’s supposed to be a really tense moment.
Emily Edwards (25:06.007)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (25:24.471)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (25:32.952)
setting up this crime, yeah.
Emily Edwards (25:33.316)
Yeah. Yeah. The the it does get cheesy you know, in the way that Miami Vice was also really cheesy where they’re they’re talking about like drug trafficking and and gangs and organized crime, but there’s because again it’s mainstream television in the nineteen eighties, they just can’t really get the heft or the grit to it. And honestly, like
Cayce Osborne (25:45.382)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (25:51.067)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (25:57.448)
HBO didn’t really exist yet at this point in time. It was only really starting to cable was only really starting to get its footing. And you realize like this really would have been much better suited. I think post crime television is much better suited for cable because you can actually get into the meat of of bad people doing bad things.
Cayce Osborne (26:18.318)
Yeah, you don’t have to neuter those like moments where it gets real you know, the life or death death situations. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (26:25.261)
Yeah. You know, the comedian Sean Mullaney in one of his first bits, he has a a one of his first specials, he has a very long bit about watching Law and Order SVU. And, you know, and he’s like the things that they say on that show are absolutely like horrific when you when you think about it. And but the odd thing is is like
Again, they don’t they only because it’s in a cop procedural, it doesn’t have the same sort of gravity, I think, as a PI or someone who’s not an official cop, kind of like going after the people who are doing these crimes. Because when it’s, you know, Olivia Benson and her badge and stuff like that, or Christopher Maloney, who’s like jacked beyond all words, you’re just like, this is the authority.
Cayce Osborne (26:53.467)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (27:01.583)
Sure.
Emily Edwards (27:14.671)
Coming to stop these bad, bad men. So no one else in New York City has to know that these bad, bad men exist. But when you do have these sort of private investigator like Travis McGee handling it, you realize that he can only protect so many people from so many different things. He’s just there. He’s mercenary. He’s in to get in and get out. And it it works well-ish.
With Sam Elliott, because he does have that cowboy swagger. He does have that sort of, I’m the lawman around here, even if I don’t have a badge, sort of authority to him. He’s so tall and s you know, and so interesting looking. He’s from Modesto. And so I I often have joked that like some of the best cowboys on screen come from Northern California. Modesto is it is a radio town a rodeo town up in in NorCal.
Cayce Osborne (27:44.334)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (27:53.989)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (27:58.587)
Mm.
Cayce Osborne (28:11.705)
Okay.
Emily Edwards (28:12.649)
And Timothy Oliphant is from Modesto, Sam Elliott’s from Modesto. There are a bunch of other guys where you’re like, you stick a 10-gallon hat on that man and sure, you got yourself a sheriff. And so I could see how he’s correct for the idea of a lawman in in some capacity, but man, it I just keep going back to it’s so wrong for Travis McKay.
Cayce Osborne (28:15.862)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (28:23.631)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (28:28.464)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (28:35.216)
Yeah. Yeah. You know, John D. McDonald doesn’t like do the like describe Travis outright. But like throughout the books you get hints. I think he’s supposed to have Irish ancestry. He’s supposed to be fairly tall, but very solid. and like, you know, blonde hair and grey eyes.
Emily Edwards (28:43.722)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (28:48.791)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (28:52.494)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (28:58.532)
That he keeps very militarily cut. And you never really find out what his background is exactly, but he definitely was in the military at some point. So he’s sort of got that like sense of justice, sort of, you know, the American, we are the world’s police, right? We’re gonna make sure nobody does anything bad. I think that stuck with him from the military. And so I think that’s what gives the character sort of his authority.
Emily Edwards (29:01.87)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (29:17.166)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (29:26.63)
and just that he can handle himself. I mean, he definitely gets injured here and there, but if he’s in a fist fight, he’s gonna be winning. That’s just the kind of guy he is. Kind of like Reacher. It’s like, you know, Raymond Reacher’s huge, but Yes, I know. but you know, at the same time, it’s like this this guy has experience, you know, he he’s been in many fights. This is not his first rodeo, and
Emily Edwards (29:26.667)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (29:32.567)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (29:38.573)
You know. He just keeps getting bigger. Like
Emily Edwards (29:51.584)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (29:54.128)
Yeah, he that he can definitely handle himself and protect whoever he thinks needs protection.
Emily Edwards (30:01.817)
Favorite detail about this. So they’re going through their investigation in California. It’s so wrong. Because again, in California, California in the 1960s is very different from California in the 1980s. In the 60s, you still have a lot of like the Manson, free love cult kind of zeitgeist going through things through things. So I feel like if they had said it in the 1960s, about when the books were written, it would have made more.
Cayce Osborne (30:08.401)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (30:18.663)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (30:29.417)
Sense at least that there would be that sense of like unmoored lawlessness. But by 1983, you already have just like it’s a corporate town by that point. You know, you have huge like movie stars. The the industry has really, really dug in. And it, you know, at that point, oil money has already come and gone. And so California had a lot less of that. We always have.
Cayce Osborne (30:42.608)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (30:56.919)
The air of being like the hippie central, where it’s like you always think that there’s people up in Laurel Canyon smoking weed and then cutting an album, and that’s like the greatest thing that’s ever happened. But by the 1980s, that was already mostly gone. It was cocaine and Michael Jackson, not you know, weed and Janice Joplin. It’s a totally different or Crosby Stills Nash and Young. It’s a totally different kind of concept to it. And so I really wish they hadn’t.
Cayce Osborne (31:16.455)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (31:23.607)
moved it to California or at least they tried to fake it for longer that it was Florida. ‘Cause i you know, nineteen eighties California, it just doesn’t ha it’s too glossy by that point. And it’s such a shame.
Cayce Osborne (31:28.591)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (31:33.767)
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It also makes sense then like why they were so vague about the place. You know, if they were gonna do California, they should have leaned in. They should have tweaked the story to fit the place. And I wonder if because this was supposed to be T V, you know, they didn’t wanna set it in the past. They wanted it to be more modern. I can see how that would have been a harder sell for T V. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (31:41.091)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Emily Edwards (31:53.826)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (31:57.711)
Definitely. Especially because I do think that they were the score for this is so bizarre. The music in the background is super weird. And I just need to look something up really quickly because I was like, the the music is so bizarre in that at times it does get very like Jan Hammer from Miami Vice, where you know, because Miami Vice came out a year after this.
Cayce Osborne (32:03.047)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (32:22.491)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (32:26.21)
And so there is some like very like pulsing electronic music at points, especially when there’s fights. But then at other times it goes into like pure, like sexy sax lounge music. And it really takes you out of the entire thing.
Cayce Osborne (32:32.006)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (32:37.616)
Yes.
Cayce Osborne (32:41.957)
Yeah. It’s a little all over the place with the tone of the music and also there are spots of narration in there that they put in, which I think, you know, was a nod to the book because the you know, the book has so much of Travis’s inner life, his musings, his opinions, his view on things. and that’s where, you know, the real poetry comes in and where you get a sense of place and you understand the character and the stakes. That’s where it all comes from.
Emily Edwards (32:49.624)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (33:10.917)
But when you have Sam Elliott reciting it over top of him like driving around California, it comes off very cheesy and it’s not consistent throughout. The nor the music nor the narration nor the tone. yeah. It’s all over the place.
Emily Edwards (33:19.024)
Yeah. No.
Emily Edwards (33:26.414)
Yeah. And and and I feel like they really just never figured out who they wanted Travis to be in this again, maybe two-hour runtime. It’s about like an hour and a half. So with commercials, it would be two hours, it would be a two-hour movie block. And they can never figure out who they want him to be throughout the entire thing because at some point Meyer comes up with a clue that this Swedish woman that they’re trying to track down.
Who never is on screen ever at any point. She’s just this mysterious Swedish woman. She left behind a couple of art prints that are worth 10 grand. And you’re thinking to yourself, like, that’s not a detail that would in any way, shape, or form make any sense to someone who’s watching this on their Barka Lounger and their lazy boy in the rec room. Or like.
Cayce Osborne (34:16.636)
Right.
Emily Edwards (34:18.87)
It narratively, you need a lot more padding around it to explain that the people that she’s involved with would know the value of these, you know, modern art prints that she left behind in her apartment. So you’re like, none of this makes any sense whatsoever.
Cayce Osborne (34:37.347)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean there are different, you know, there’s the it almost seems like several storylines stitch together, without the interconnectivity because again, the narration is choppy, you know, they’ve moved locations and so you don’t get all this, you know, all this stuff that underpinned the story in the book, they kind of had to throw out. So what they were left with was a mishmash.
Emily Edwards (34:46.288)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (35:00.079)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (35:05.132)
It’s very mishmashy, especially when you finally get to her her name is Gretel and her brother John. Her brother John is sort of played as someone who has developmental disabilities or at least a learning disability in the film.
Cayce Osborne (35:21.647)
So I think what it’s supposed to be, and again, it’s been a while since I read this particular book, but I think what it’s supposed to be is he was a fairly simple guy that developed a terrible drinking problem and then sort of damaged himself. Like he never came back from this terrible like bender he went on when his friend died. Which is the same guy who, you know, the same tying back to the very beginning. I feel like we haven’t done a great job of like explaining this a lot.
Emily Edwards (35:27.48)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (35:34.552)
Gotcha.
Emily Edwards (35:42.497)
Gotcha, this drinking binge.
Emily Edwards (35:49.23)
Not really, no. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (35:50.524)
Well it’s because there’s it’s all over the place. But so the dead guy that he lost ties back to the sea captain in the beginning who came to Travis to take the cate to take the case. That’s how we got into all of this.
Emily Edwards (35:56.581)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. Guy fell overboard. Sea captain’s like, you need to find this man. Confirmed that he actually died so I can, you know, found that I wasn’t at fault so I can actually get my sea captain license back. and so this guy that he’s off to somewhere to go and find, somewhere in Florida, somewhere in California, somewhere where there’s an ocean. And then it turns out that he’s just a scam artist who essentially married an Uch much older woman who was
financially floating a a lot of his scams. He cheated on her left, right, and center. So she’s just kind of like, To hell with him. I don’t care whatever happened to him, but I know he’s dead. And then sh he Travis tracks down John, who was Hub’s sorta or dead guy’s
Cayce Osborne (36:46.713)
He was on the boat that the guy supposedly went off of.
Emily Edwards (36:49.73)
Yes, he was on the boat, but he’s also like his assistant slash right hand man. And John’s got a hot sister. And so Travis is like, I definitely have to avenge this because your sister’s gorgeous. well that explains a lot. Love it.
Cayce Osborne (36:52.433)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (37:02.391)
And that is Sam Elliott’s real life wife.
Yes. Yeah, I believe he was her fifth husband. I think. And still. Yeah. So they’ve been together since like a few years before this movie, I think. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And she’s the one on the beach at the end who he’s like, This is it for me. I want you to come with me and, you know, live on my boat. And she’s like, hmm, I don’t
Emily Edwards (37:13.82)
huh. That’s awesome. Fifth times the charm.
Okay, that’s adorable. That makes me super happy. And s
Emily Edwards (37:33.424)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (37:36.069)
I think I need to be alone for a while. This has been a lot for me.
Emily Edwards (37:37.904)
She was like, I would rather continue living in a trailer on the beach and doing my laundry in a fifty-five gallon tub than you fix yourself by being in a relationship with me. That sounds like hell.
Cayce Osborne (37:45.603)
Yes.
Cayce Osborne (37:50.864)
Yes. Yes. I did enjoy the climax on the Dune, you know, where the final confrontation happens and you find out what happened because there’s this whole like the underlying plot is this guy that supposedly went overboard and died that, you know, ruined the sea captain’s life. Is he really dead? Some people are saying no, he ran off to Mexico and so they’ve gotta figure, you know, Travis’s job now is is he dead or is he not dead?
Emily Edwards (37:56.206)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (38:10.594)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (38:17.858)
Yeah. And it’s like
Cayce Osborne (38:18.105)
And so then we find out in the final climax on top of the dune and they’re tumbling in the sand and yeah, the lady is, you know, has a head wound and flopping over and it’s a whole thing.
Emily Edwards (38:30.052)
Sam Elliott does do good fight scene. He he is very compelling in a fight scene, which is, I imagine, one of the reasons why he was cast in this role, where they’re like, if you need someone to throw punches, let’s get a six-foot-four-inch cowboy in there. And you’re like, okay, sold. I totally get it. again, wrong in every single possible way for the book.
Cayce Osborne (38:32.463)
No.
Cayce Osborne (38:48.847)
Yeah. I read that this movie did so badly that Don Johnson had wanted to do a movie, a Travis Magee movie, and this killed it because nobody wanted to touch Travis Magee after this because it did so badly.
Emily Edwards (38:59.512)
Wow.
Emily Edwards (39:03.01)
There was a previous Travis McGee movie that came out a couple years earlier, you know, maybe about a decade earlier in the 1970s. And for some ungodly reason, they decided it should star. I’m trying I need to see if I can find his name. cause I yeah, it was it was someone, it was the guy from the birds who was
Cayce Osborne (39:22.343)
Is it Rod Steiger?
Emily Edwards (39:29.872)
he opp he starred opposite Tippy Hedron in The Birds. And you’re thinking to yourself, huh, Rod Taylor is who it star who it starred. And you’re thinking to yourself, like probably physically more similar to Travis in the books because he does have sandy hair. He, you know, clean shaven, big kind of, you know, square shouldered kind of man. And, you know, in everything he was ever in, because again
Cayce Osborne (39:38.298)
Taylor.
Cayce Osborne (39:47.548)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (39:51.365)
Yep. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (39:58.935)
In the nineteen sixties, everybody was just as tan as tan could be. So you’re like, Okay, this kind of works. And then you were like, No, it was not gonna work. Everybody hated the movie that they
Cayce Osborne (40:05.007)
Yeah. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (40:11.707)
Did I watch the opening of that movie because I was curious because I didn’t know it existed before I went and found this one. and I did like it’s got a really compelling opening, which is Travis and Meyer are on their little fishing boat, bobbing under the bridge, and a lady gets pushed over the edge with like you know, cement shoes. She goes down and Travis dives down and rescues her.
Emily Edwards (40:16.164)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (40:31.226)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (40:36.494)
Yikes.
Cayce Osborne (40:40.923)
Which is a great opening.
Emily Edwards (40:42.34)
That is a great opening. That’s a hell of a visual. And I can only imagine that it goes down from there. I love the fact that he’s in like, he looks like a beach bum in the opening where he’s he’s kind of like in jean cutoffs, and he’s just kind of like his chest is hanging out and not in a sexy way, and a very much like I’m on my ninth. Yeah, exactly. It’s very the dude from the big Lebowski.
Cayce Osborne (40:53.308)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (40:57.745)
No. But very Florida.
Cayce Osborne (41:04.887)
Yeah, yeah it is. It is.
Emily Edwards (41:10.126)
That aspect of it. Again, talk about another like great sort of crime movie that doesn’t get its crime, you know, dues. The big Lowowski is fantastic. But no, but it, I mean, it works really well. But like again, I think the switching it to Sam Elliott, who is rugged but elegant, and you know, from you know.
Cayce Osborne (41:17.561)
Yeah. People don’t think about it as a crime movie, but yeah.
Cayce Osborne (41:30.523)
Yes.
Emily Edwards (41:33.968)
Florida to California and modern California, not 60s, hedonistic California, where it’s like every everybody sh used to be doing LSD, but now, you know, they’re doing cocaine. It’s a different kind of drug, you know, it’s a different kind of world. It I feel bad because you’re watching the movie and you’re just like, it’s fine. And I feel like Travis deserves more than fine.
Cayce Osborne (41:43.398)
Okay.
Cayce Osborne (41:52.817)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (41:57.786)
Yeah. I don’t know what it is about this series that is so hard to adapt. because people have been trying to do it successfully for years. I know there was Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to star in it for a long time, was trying to get that off you know, off the ground. that never happened. I forget who the director was. I wanna say it was like Michael Mann or somebody like that.
Emily Edwards (42:03.824)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (42:12.472)
Interesting.
Mm.
Emily Edwards (42:21.344)
that would have been great.
Cayce Osborne (42:22.535)
yeah, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t it just keeps falling apart. I think Christian Bale was attached at one point. like but in the modern era they keep trying and trying and it just for whatever reason falls apart. I don’t know why.
Emily Edwards (42:30.713)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (42:35.29)
Yeah.
Cause the the screenwriter who did the tra the TV movie that we’re talking about was Sterling Siliphant, who wrote like in the heat of the night. We’re talking like huh he wrote The Towering Inferno, which is not a great movie. same thing with the Poseidon Adventure. Sterling wanted a paycheck, but you know, he’s known he has an incredible resume kind of behind him for things like that. unfortunately, this just didn’t, it just didn’t work at all. Can you
Cayce Osborne (42:45.413)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (42:52.464)
Record.
Emily Edwards (43:05.545)
Can you think of anybody who would like you would like to see kind of do the role now-ish?
Cayce Osborne (43:12.281)
It’s so hard. Like he’s just and it I think part of it is because he’s so he just lives in your head and he doesn’t have I don’t have a strong like thought. I’ve thought a lot about this and I wanted I want to give you someone and I can’t. I just don’t what about you? Do you have anybody?
Emily Edwards (43:20.209)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (43:27.332)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (43:32.058)
I mean, I’m not a huge fan of his, but I feel like Ryan Gosling’s kind of hit that point of like scruffy eff it kind of attitude to it. Again, but he doesn’t, he’s not that big. Like he’s not a tall dude. He’s maybe five, seven, five, eight. Like he’s not a huge guy. So I feel like he wouldn’t have that physical imposition about him. But I also feel like I know Travis, the character, you know, he’s
Cayce Osborne (43:40.55)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (43:55.622)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (44:00.998)
He’s ex-army or ex-military in some capacity. There’s some references to him having played football. So you expect him to be older at having that resume and at least having enough, you know, notoriety that people know to come to him, which is again not something that you build immediately, you know, in your 20s and 30s. So he’d have to be older. man, I, you know.
Cayce Osborne (44:17.339)
Yes.
Cayce Osborne (44:21.413)
Right. Yep.
Emily Edwards (44:26.339)
Gosling was the only person I could think of just because of like the the sandy haired sort of like laid back nature to it.
Cayce Osborne (44:28.389)
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Who’s who’s like a strong silent type? Like I feel like Gosling has such great like line delivery and pattern and humor. And Travis is not that. Like I’m just trying to think of who like I picture Tom Hardy is not right, but but visually I feel like that is where I want to go. but we need like the quintessentially American version of Tom Hardy, whoever that is.
Emily Edwards (44:39.344)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (44:43.185)
Stoic. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (44:50.542)
Yeah, yeah.
Emily Edwards (44:54.287)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (45:00.121)
Yeah. You know, I think there’s this real we talk about this all the time of just like there really is kind of like a dearth of movie stars right now. And you know, I feel very I feel some way about it because, you know, obviously we we talked about Knives Out a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, Daniel Craig is so good in that because I mean, horrific accent notwithstanding.
Cayce Osborne (45:08.677)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (45:25.435)
But like he has that elegance that’s required of a gentleman’s sleuth. He has that natural authority that comes to him. And I struggle with a lot of actors that are younger than that, younger than Daniel Craig, younger than Christian Bale, younger than Leonardo DiCaprio, because I don’t think they were really brought up in a place where they were expected to have any kind of authority on screen.
Cayce Osborne (45:50.225)
Sure.
Emily Edwards (45:51.012)
You know, the authority of a superhero character comes from the these special things that they can do, or Thor’s hammer or the shield or whatever. There’s no inherent authority in just them being who they are in the world. And again, you think about characters in that movie that like when they’re not special, you know, do they have authority? And you have Robert Downey Jr. Again, fantastic. Again.
Older, you know, older actor, you know, older than the guys that he that he’s opposite. I love Mark Ruffalo. I would love for Mark Ruffalo to reboot Columbo. Do I think he would be the greatest Colombo of all time? Absolutely. can I name anybody who has like a c almost like an East Coast cowboy to him whatsoever?
Cayce Osborne (46:28.405)
Cayce Osborne (46:41.253)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (46:43.607)
No. Or
Cayce Osborne (46:44.463)
Yeah, I don’t I don’t I don’t know. I may and maybe that’s why it’s been so hard. I don’t know. Just like matching the right material with the right actor.
Emily Edwards (46:50.767)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (46:54.413)
Yeah. And you know, I one thing that I do love about a lot of the rebirth of the PI or the sort of noir thing that we’ve been getting. Again, Ryan Johnson, fantastic at what he does. Shane Black’s been doing it for a long time, but they they kind of have a tendency to be comedic and glib about it, which again I love personally. I I can’t write things that aren’t funny. I always try to make people laugh, and I do think that’s a tendency.
In especially when you’re dealing in super dark crime fiction where you’re just like, so many people are getting hurt and murdered. Like I it’s a very natural, normal sort of reaction to to kind of keep it at arm’s length with a joke. again, tr I don’t think Travis should be funny. He’s very he takes things that he does very, very seriously.
Cayce Osborne (47:35.942)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (47:43.11)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the only time humor really enters in is when he’s like taunting an opponent or someone is trying to be a smart ass to him so he’s a smart ass back. You know, he’s got some good good one-liners. you know, the dialogue that is in this Travis McGee movie is very cheesy. And and I think that some of it probably does come from the book because it’s just it’s that kind of dialogue that you read on the page. Like I’m reading the big sleep right now.
Emily Edwards (47:47.877)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (47:51.843)
Yeah, yeah.
Emily Edwards (48:01.828)
It’s goofy.
Emily Edwards (48:12.346)
Mm-hmm.
Cayce Osborne (48:13.011)
And just some of that dialogue is so I don’t know what the word is, but so stylized, so retro, so of the moment and the story that it works as you’re reading it and knowing it’s, you know, taking place so long ago. But when you actually hear a person say it, especially if you’re modernizing it as they did this movie a little bit, it doesn’t work. And so I wonder if that’s part of
Emily Edwards (48:18.895)
Like stylized
Emily Edwards (48:25.649)
Mm.
Cayce Osborne (48:42.661)
I mean, if that’s part of the adaptation issues too, is that these are books that are meant to be read because they’re written. You know, there are books that you read that you fly past the writing, like it doesn’t even register the word choice, the sentence structure. It doesn’t even register. You’re just flying through the thriller or whatever it is to to get to that next twist. And that is propulsive and wonderful. But the beauty of these books is that he did care about the words and the imagery and the structure and what he’s trying to say about.
Emily Edwards (48:46.224)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (48:56.56)
Mm.
Cayce Osborne (49:12.367)
you know, the way Florida’s environment is being ruined and all of these things that, you know, what’s on the page is as important as the story. And those are really hard to adapt.
Emily Edwards (49:16.581)
Mm.
Emily Edwards (49:20.677)
Yeah, the the class Yeah and the class differential between the different people that are talking to him. You know, you again, we brought up Meyer multiple times, but he’s such an interesting character because he knows the ins and outs of so many of the schemes and the paperwork scams that we were talking about. And then when he’s speaking to Van Harder, who’s the shrimp boat captain, who’s just like his entire pitch to Travis is
I’ve lost my integrity, and I think that’s worth $20,000. And I will do anything I can in order to earn that money and pay you what I owe you for finding my integrity. And you’re just like, wow, that is an incredibly working class sort of perspective. Just like, I don’t care if I’m paying you back till the day I die for $10,000. You know, my integrity has that kind of value to it. And that kind of poetry doesn’t come across.
cross in the way that it’s being presented on screen at all, especially when Travis is sitting in a million dollar sailboat.
Cayce Osborne (50:27.879)
Yes. I mean, I can see a world where like the right screenwriter with the right director who has a s a style vision for this and the right actor, it could work. If they make it their own, if they take the the source and the spirit of it and don’t be a slave to the book, but also keep the spirit and as stylized as the book is, make the movie that in your way. I can see that working.
Emily Edwards (50:39.597)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (50:53.721)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (50:57.231)
I just don’t know if that’s ever gonna line up.
Emily Edwards (50:57.317)
Yeah. No, one of the things I was thinking is sort of like how I think one of the best things that’s happened to Superman, and I know this is gonna probably piss off someone who’s listening, is one of the best things that’s happened is they cast an American actor to play Superman. And I was not really a huge fan of Henry Campbell because I don’t know, it’s just I feel like you have to be American to understand Superman that sort of can’t you have to be the
You have to at some point in your life go to Kansas and see how flat it is and to know like what that means. And I was thinking to myself, was like, was someone who is in charge of this Travis McGee movie actually not American? And it turns out that the director is from London and he was an English director. And I’m wondering if that’s where some of the actual disconnect comes from, because you and I are going into the details of like, you need to know Florida.
You have to know the state that you’re portraying, or even know California, and to understand that California beaches are different than Florida beaches. We have entirely different water temperatures. You can’t go swimming in California. It’s freezing. Like you see people surfing in California and especially up in like Santa Barbara, and they’re always in.
wetsuits head to toe. You don’t go surfing in California in your bikinis or your you’re in just your board shorts. The ocean is really, really cold. and to not have necessarily your finger on the pulse of what it means to have that sort of subculture or that understanding of place, that could be why the movie just felt off a little bit.
Cayce Osborne (52:20.185)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (52:32.881)
For sure.
Cayce Osborne (52:37.179)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (52:38.725)
And I’m just like, so what American you need an American screenwriter, an American actor, and an I really do think you would need like an American director to really understand the time and place that Travis McGee actually is is coming from.
Cayce Osborne (52:49.351)
Sure. Yeah. Either that or just someone who’s a huge fan of the books and understands the books. you know, even if you you’re not American born, if you have a sensibility about what the books are saying about this particular part of the country that is unlike any other part of the country. I think I think that could work, but you know, what person from another country is gonna, you know, feel it as much I don’t know.
Emily Edwards (52:57.145)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (53:04.539)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (53:10.575)
Yeah, it really is. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (53:16.855)
Yeah, I know. I know. I I will be so curious if they ever announce that there’s a new traffic because in the age of IP, this is gonna this is gonna happen. You know, the author has been deceased for quite some time. John me John D. McDonald died in eighty-six, so shortly after this light atrocity came out. And you know, I’m sure he’s got heirs that are like, you know.
Cayce Osborne (53:44.987)
Yeah.
Emily Edwards (53:46.085)
Give me those Hollywood dollars. So I will not be surprised when they announce that it’s happening, but I am so curious to see how it’s going to take shape because unfortunately, charming, but this ain’t it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Nope, definitely not. Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (53:50.523)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (53:58.703)
Right. Love Sam Elliott. He’s just not Travis. He tried his best. Yeah, well, if it ever happens, if something else ever makes it to the screen, I will be there. I know that much.
Emily Edwards (54:09.147)
Fabulous. Yeah, exactly. Casey, thank you so much for taking the time to record with me. How can everybody keep in touch with you and and your future work?
Cayce Osborne (54:17.511)
Sure, CaseyOsborne.com is the best way. if you like social media, I do several things. You can find my links on my website. so that’s like where the hub, you can find whatever you need there.
Emily Edwards (54:29.403)
Fabulous. I’ll throw links in the show notes and a link to watch this on YouTube because that’s the only place to find it. And you get an intro and an outro from a Kiwi with a with with nothing really to say about it, but you know, bless him for doing the work of getting it up there.
Cayce Osborne (54:35.609)
Yeah.
Cayce Osborne (54:42.938)
Yeah. Yeah, at least he put it up so we could have this conversation. Which was more enjoyable than the movie itself.
Emily Edwards (54:48.568)
Exactly.
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