The stray remark from a Los Angeles beat cop friend lodged in Robert Towne’s brain like a splinter. “The one place I never really worked,” the officer told the screenwriter, “was Chinatown. After graduating, he quickly found work; first in television and then in film, writing sci-fi and horror for the exploitation mogul Roger Corman. He sensed a growing appetite for films that depicted the world as it was, even if it initially landed him in trouble. But that’s how sailors talk, he shrugged (and Nicholson, already attached to star, backed him up).

Source: The Star July 04, 2024 04:35 UTC