The two titles mentioned by Earl Emerson are from the P.I.
Thomas Black/Seattle series. The entries through Deviant
Behavior are a shade better than those that come after,
though all of the Black books are definitely worth reading,
including Catfish Café ˇhich I think was his most recent.
Sharply written, great dialogue and some very powerful
stories. His opening sentences are among the best. Here's the
beginning of Fat Tuesday: "I was trapped in a house with a
lawyer, a bare-breasted woman and a dead man. The rattlesnake
in the paper sack only complicated matters." Who among us
could put the book back on the shelf after that.
Nice to see all the chat about Robert Towne's work (though
the less said about Mission Imp 2, the better). There's a
scene in The Two Jakes that I've been curious about. And it's
a SPOILER so move on by if you must.
---------------------------------------SPOILER ALERT
----------------------------------------------
In Chinatown, Nicholson looks into Dunaway's eyes and says
something about there being a little black speck in the iris.
In Jakes, he looks into Meg Tilly's eyes in an almost
identical setup, and, if you remember the first movie, you
wait for him to make the connection. But he doesn't. He goes
off on some other tack entirely, leading one to think that
the similarity of scenes is an unplanned coincidence. Here's
my question. Is it a coincidence? Or did Robert Towne write
the scene with the idea of using the eye thing as a clue only
to have Nicholson the director misinterpret its significance
and throw it away?
Dick Lochte
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