Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

It's the podcast where a filmmaker, a comedian, and their fabulous guests con our way through the 80s movies we think we love or might have missed with these, our grown-up eyes, to see how they hold up.

And today we're talking about Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a movie selection from 1988 about which Letterboxd says, "Nice guys finish last.

Meet the winners." Con artist Lawrence Jamieson is a longtime resident of a luxurious coastal resort where he enjoys the lavish fruits of his deceptions.

That is, until a competitor, Freddy Benson, shows up.

Confident of his own duplicitous talents, he challenges Freddy to a winner-takes-all competition.

Whoever swindles their latest mark, American heiress Janet Colgate, out of $50,000 first can stay, while the other must leave town.

So that's basically all of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

[laughs]

Yeah, it was pretty good.

Wasn't it kind of based on the success of Steve Martin's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's a little bit like that, yeah.

Where they kind of set them up, yeah.

She was Mrs. Mueller, one of the moms in Explorers.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels she was Mrs. Reed, one of the targets of our heroes.

Ooh.

Okay, rich.

The Explorers in '85.

R- oh, okay.

It's interesting that she is rich in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, because it sounds like otherwise she's mostly middle class or working class.

In this case she's a secretary.

He also co-created Breeders with Martin Freeman, which we talked about a few times on this show, directed many episodes of Veep.

He also directed Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in The Hustle, a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

If I give you any more credits, we've run out of time for our interview.

Chris joins me from London now.

Yeah.

Fair enough, fair enough.

Listen, I mentioned The Hustle at the start, which was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Now, I actually never saw that, and I'm not sure why.

... which, of course, I'm in favor of 'cause of his Muppet connection there.

But I guess he did the scores for things like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and What About Bob? And, uh-

Little Shop of Horrors.

Yeah, the, uh, you know, the stuff that wasn't the musical numbers of Little Shop of Horrors-

Well, I only know him from Cheaper by the Dozen.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

I must watch that.

That's actually...

I'd pay for...

What? Two unbelievable shows.

Well, if you like that, like, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is absolutely...

The jerk.

Yes! Yes! Those two scenes, worth it.

There, now I just saved you having to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

And the great and late Glenn Headley also in that movie.

That's Headley! If your garage floor...