Disaster to the Wench with Nina Berry & Brenda Pontiff
KIM: Hi everyone! Welcome back to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I’m your host, Kim Askew…
AMY: And I’m your other host, Amy Helmes. If you’ve been listening to our podcast for a while, you know that we’re a little obsessed with giving forgotten women writers their due. But what about remembering some of the women from the Golden Age of Hollywood?
KIM: Right, there are so many amazing actresses: “Greta Garbo and Monroe...”
AMY: “Lauren, Katherine, Lana too… Bette Davis, we love you.” Okay, clearly we’re just ripping off Madonna right now. Truth be told, we’re not your go-to gals on old Hollywood and all those “ladies with an attitude.”
KIM: No, but, we know a few women who are, and they have a really incredibly fun new YouTube Channel called “Disaster to the Wench” — two of the hosts of that show are with us today to talk a little about it, and we can’t wait to introduce them.
AMY: So first off, we have the creator and executive producer of “Disaster to the Wench,” Brenda Pontiff. She is a writer and stand-up comic who has worked as a joke polisher for several studios and A-list screenwriters. This whole idea is her brainchild, so Brenda, welcome to Lost Ladies of Lit! We’re so excited to talk to you!
BRENDA PONTIFF: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be a part of anything where the term “lost ladies” is part of the title.
AMY: Yeah, we're kind of simpatico in what we're doing a little bit, right?
BRENDA: Yeah.
KIM: Yep. We’ve also got Nina Berry with us, who is one of the co-executive producers of the show. In addition to being an all-around film buff and film history phenom, Nina is the author of the popular Pagan Jones YA book series published by Harlequin Teen, as well as the paranormal YA series Otherkin. By day, she works for Warner Bros. television. Kim and I met Nina years ago when we did a joint reading of our books at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena. We’ve kind of virtually kept in touch since then, but it’s so nice to get to officially reconnect face to face (or well, Zoom to Zoom)... so welcome, Nina!
NINA BERRY: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here and I can't remember whose silver bowl I still have leftover from that event. Remember?
KIM: I think it’s mine!
NINA: Yeah, I think it is.
KIM: You can keep it. It’s your honorary bowl.
NINA: Thank you for the silver bowl, Kim.
AMY: Okay, there are two more women involved with “Disaster to the Wench,” and we’re going to give them shout-outs here in a second as well, but first I want to just explain what it is you all are doing. When I first heard about Disaster to the Wench,” my first thought was “OMG, it’s like “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” only chick-centric!” (And that’s a compliment because I love “Mystery Science Theater.”) But I think you guys will probably do a better job than I can at explaining what you’re all about. Brenda, can you tell us what is “Disaster to the Wench,” and how did you come up with the idea?
BRENDA: It is a little bit like “Mystery Science Theater 3000” meets TCM, with a twist of Ms. magazine. It's curation, a little bit of comedy … and we wanted to take a look at Old Hollywood and the treatment of women through the actual movies themselves and the women in that story, but the film actress playing the part had her own drama going on often in how she was dealing with the studio. And because this was happening during the pandemic, I was lonely, and couldn't watch movies with my friends ... and a person that I know in my other life, Rob Kates, who I know, professionally in the legal marketing world, was doing a podcast/show that I was a guest on and I said, “Hey, Rob, can people watch a movie together on Zoom and have it be recorded like a show?” He said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, what would that look like?” And he goes, “Oh, it could look like a lot of different things. We could pull a movie off of YouTube and we could play around with it, we could play with the sound and we could do captions.” And so we just started playing around with the idea. And you know, we had several different iterations of what it looked like and then we came up with what we have now.
KIM: I think we actually have a clip of your channel’s trailer, so let’s go ahead and play it ... It’ll give our listeners a little taste of what it’s like.
[plays trailer audio]
AMY: So as you can tell, it’s a very sassy little program. Brenda, you’re the show’s creator and an executive producer and you also provide a lot of the comedy relief, you know … that sort of commentary. Nina, I would tend to call you “the professor” of the group… You have these tidbits of trivia and history that you are dropping throughout the movie, and it’s so great. You are just a font of film knowledge! Then we also have two more women who round out the panel for each screening with you. Tell us who they are and what they bring to the table, also?
BRENDA: Well, Cynthia Levin is a stand up comic who I've known for years, and she's hilarious. She's also an actress and a director, and she's really known for being an improv-er … very off the cuff. And Beth Szymkowski is a working television writer; she created a show on Hulu called “Freakish.” And so she really knows the inner workings of how a script gets to the final stage. What I like is that all four women bring something different to it, like, I didn't want four stand-up comics … four stand- up comics would have been just out of control. And we really needed the depth and the wisdom of someone like Nina to give us the background that makes it richer. And then you've got Beth, who's telling us, you know, from a writer's perspective, like motivation, and, “Oh, I bet the executives wanted this.” And then we've got Cynthia just spurting off something hilarious, you know? And I'm a little bit kind of also trying to, as the executive producer, a little bit trying to keep people kind of focused as well.
NINA: Brenda keeps us focused, and Brenda also really has a lot of film knowledge herself. Like, Brenda knows a lot of film history. So the two of us are also, you know, contributing that.
AMY: All four of you guys are really unique in what you bring to the show, but you’re all collectively really funny, smart … You call yourselves “the wenches” which we will get to in a second... And I have to just give a little anecdote really quick that Kim and I, on Saturday night (you know, we're finally able to get together), we met up with about three other girlfriends, and we watched a movie. And just being in one room watching a movie with friends, you know, you're just having, like, belly laughs, basically. And it just made me think of you guys. And we had such a great time. Right, Kim?
KIM: Yeah, totally. I mean, when you get those snarky clips throughout the movie from your friends, it just ends up being so much better, and such a great experience. So this is the essence that you guys are basically creating, and it's great.
NINA: Well, thank you. I mean, that is totally the vibe we are going for, like hanging out watching a movie with your friends. And I'm the “know it all” over in the corner going, “Well, this is, you know, the star of blah, blah, blah.” And then you've got your funny friends with Cynthia and Brenda. So thank you. That's exactly what we're going for.
AMY: And lest you think this is just four women drinking wine and making wisecracks, like we said, there actually is a ton of film history disseminated. It's almost like being in a film class or something, and it’s really cool. There's a lot of in-depth discussion on character and the choices the director is making and what they think is working and what's not working. So it's not just some superficial viewing party, and I love that about it, also. You really do learn some things.
KIM: Exactly. And I think our listeners will appreciate that aspect of it. So where does the title of your show, “Disaster to the Wench” come from?
BRENDA: It comes from the movie Gilda. There is a wonderful toast where Rita Hayworth is about to get her comeuppance, and women often get their comeuppance in the world if they do something that's not in line with what a woman should do, right? And I just thought, like, that title is just this “Disaster to the Wench” ... Well, who's to say she's a wench or not? I just think that speaks volumes about so many things in the world then and today, you know?
AMY: Yeah, exactly. You’re reclaiming that word.
NINA: We've embraced it. And yeah, these movies, you see bad things happen to women who are doing things that shouldn't necessarily ... (well, some of them sometimes, if you're killing someone, maybe there should be a comeuppance.) But in some of our movies, really, these women are not deserving of bad things that happened to them. And yet, this is a woman’s lot in these movies, and we are examining why women are punished or treated a certain way in films, as well as lifting the glass to them while we toast. So, yeah...
AMY: Right. And so far, you guys have put out three episodes … three old movies that are in the public domain. So far you’ve done Rain, which stars Joan Crawford. Then there’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers with Barbara Stanwyck, and then there was Pygmalion, starring Wendy Hiller (who was an actress I wasn’t familiar with at all until I sat down with you guys and watched the episode). I will say, I was not really sure, when I watched Pygmalion, how it was going to work. I was kind of worried, like, “Oh, man, you know … four women, they’re all going to be talking. Is it going to be too much to hear their commentary during the movie?” But absolutely not … it worked so great. I think it really helps that you include the captions for the movie, so, you know, I can follow along with the dialogue while you guys are adding your remarks. But also, I think you guys jump at just the right times, you know? You give it a little breathing room. I think within probably the first two minutes of watching, I was totally in the zone and totally with you and following, and I loved it. And the Pygmalion one, you guys had the drinking game. So anytime they called her a “poor girl” or a “good girl,” everybody got to take a drink. So if you were the viewer at home, you would get to, you know, play along with that.
NINA: And you would be schnockered, too, because they say it a lot in Martha Ivers … we did it every time someone on screen took a drink or lit a cigarette, and oh, my goodness, like I'm taking tiny, tiny little sips, because these people are drinking and smoking like crazy! But yeah, it makes it fun if you're in the mood, if it's the right time of day for you to have a drink with us. It's a lot of fun.
AMY: So then, in addition to getting to see this whole running commentary through the course of the actual movie, you also do an after-show about each movie. Tell us a little about that.
BRENDA: We didn't want to talk too much during the movie, I mean, especially getting into those deeper issues, because then you start having a real conversation and the movie’s going on and you've got to listen to the dialogue and watch what's going on. So we thought, “Well, we'll have, like, the ‘after chat’ the way they do on TCM,” and then it's just the four of us. And we take time; we tape it, like, a week after so we have time to watch the movie again (or at least parts of it). And then we take a week after and we try to keep it down to about 18 minutes or so.
KIM: Yeah, it reminds me of going to screenings of films where they have the director or the screenwriter speaking afterward. And I love that idea of getting to dissect what we watched a little bit after watching it. So that's right up my alley.
AMY: On your website, you say “the Golden Age of Hollywood was a man's world.” Why do you think it's important to go back and look at some of these classic movies from a woman's perspective? What can that offer us?
NINA: Well, I feel like the things that were going on then are still going on today. The commentary may be about these movies that are very old, but it's still terrifyingly relevant, in a lot of ways. And so looking at movies in the past can shed light on current pop culture and on current attitudes toward women. So I really feel like it gives you perspective on these films that you're not going to get any other way and perspective on films and culture today as well.
KIM: Yeah, I mean, we're finding the same thing out as we do all these lost classics. They're actually so relevant in many cases, unfortunately. But it's important to keep talking about it. And your website also mentions that there might eventually be some live screenings in L.A. at some point, once the pandemic is fully over. I think that would be so much fun.
NINA: So fun. It’d be hilarious. You can all laugh together. And there's nothing like a live audience, right?
KIM: Yep.
BRENDA: It would be a fun party, you know? So yeah, that definitely, definitely is one of the goals, for sure.
AMY: So listeners, we really just want to stress how much we have enjoyed watching “Disaster To the Wench’s” YouTube Channel. And we tend to think that if you like us, you will like a lot of the same things that we like. So you are just going to have to check it out for yourself to see if you agree with us. I would recommend grabbing a glass (or even a bottle) of wine if it’s the right time of day, curling up on the sofa with a blanket and joining “the wenches” for an evening of fun.
BRENDA: We appreciate that.
NINA: Yes. Thank you so much. And yeah, I want to do it right now. I want to grab a glass of wine and watch a movie with you all. I wish we could.
KIM: We can't wait to watch more of them and see some future installments. We really love what you're doing. So thank you for dropping by to tell us about it. Thank you.
BRENDA: Thank you for having us.
NINA: Yes, thank you ladies, so much. It’s been a delight.
KIM: Also, listeners, we’ll be talking a little more about Hollywood next week with another film historian — Dr. Caroline Frick from the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, Austin. She’s joining us to discuss Edna Ferber’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning 1924 novel, So Big, which was adapted for film three different times over the years, including a 1932 version starring Barbara Stanwyck (so that’s a name close to your heart Nina and Brenda, right?)
NINA: Absolutely. She’s the best.
KIM: We think you will love this discussion. It's a phenomenal book and not enough people have read it. So be sure to tune in and don't forget if you have 10 seconds to leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. It's the number one way you can show us some love.
AMY: Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes.