385 – Billy Bathgate

This Had Oscar Buzz

Joe and Chris

Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2026

⏱️ 120 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re journeying back to the early 1990s this week to discuss the forgotten failure Billy Bathgate. Adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s Pulitzer finalist, the film cast Dustin Hoffman as real-life mobster Dutch Schultz opposite a Loren Dean as the fictionalized street kid who falls under his wing. With Bruce Willis in a supporting role at the peak of his fame and Oscar-winning director Robert Benton at the helm, the film ultimately bombed at the box office but earned Nicole Kidman her first Golden Globe nomination.

This episode, we talk about the much publicized clashing between Hoffman’s ego and his reunited director and we have a (gasp) triple Six Timers quiz for Hoffman, Dean, and Stanley Tucci. We also talk about the film’s mild approach to crime material, the 1991 Supporting Actress race, and Benton’s somewhat forgotten Oscar comeback Places in the Heart.

Topics also include Highlander 2: The Quickening, Hook‘s surprising Oscar nominations, and surprise Frances Conroy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, wrong house.
0:12.8	No, the right house.
0:13.6	I didn't get that.
0:14.9	We want to talk to Marilyn Hack.
0:15.8	Millen Hack and friends. I'm from Canada water.
0:27.6	Dick Pooh.
0:31.6	Dick Pooh.
0:36.6	How's it feel to be public enemy number one?
0:42.3	So I'm no public enemy.
0:44.3	So what are it?
0:45.3	To a kid from the streets.
0:47.3	Hey, Billy!
0:48.3	Dutch Schultz was everything he could ever dream of being.
0:52.3	Who were you?
0:53.3	Billy Bathgate? You in a gang? No, sir. I'd expect to learn anything. I think for the real training, you got to go right to the top. So he watched. He killed that man. Forget it. He listened. Why are you always listening to what he shouldn't be listening to him? And he learned. Did you ever fire a gun?
1:11.7	No, sir.
1:12.9	Then you should learn.
1:14.2	Hello and welcome to this had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that says Welcome to the Suck, and by that we mean a world where Peter Sarsgaard remains unnominated. Every week on this had Oscar buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar
1:32.6	hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as
1:37.1	always, with my gangster, who is technically 34, but somehow looks like 67?
1:45.0	Cho Reed.
1:50.0	That was a mean intro, but we got to talk about how Dustin Hoffman is old.
	...

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