Robert Towne Wrote Your Favourite Films
If all he'd done was write Chinatown, the Oscar-winning writer would still merit a place in the American movie pantheon.
I think that title bares repeating - Robert Towne wrote your favourite films.
For even if your list of great pictures doesn’t include Chinatown, The Yakuza, The Last Detail and Without Limits, Towne - in his role as Hollywood’s preferred script doctor - left his imprint on a raft of films that were either successful, highly acclaimed, or both.
The Godfather, Bonnie And Clyde, Crimson Tide, McCabe & Mrs Miller, The New Centurions, The Parallax View, The Missouri Breaks, 8 Million Ways To Die, Frantic, Armageddon - I’ll say it again; Robert Towne wrote your favourite films.
And while not everything he touched turned to gold - his list of duds runs to Orca, Days Of Thunder, Tough Guys Don’t Dance, Love Affair and Ask The Dust - there’s no getting away from the fact that, while I mightn’t particularly care for the Mission: Impossible series, Towne scripted the first two pictures in a franchise that’s now worth billions.
Likewise, some of his alleged misfires are nothing of the sort. Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes is anything but the dire follow-up its often presented as. And while Towne saw fit to credit the screenplay for Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes to his beloved dog after it had been molested by the studio - the script that is, not the dog - the story remains one that lesser writers would stampede to attach their names to.
Robert Towne could be a difficult man. Some of his views were positively archaic. But when he was sat at his desk with a pen in his hand, there wasn’t a killer line he couldn’t deliver nor an arch he couldn’t carve.
Farewell Robert Towne - he wrote your favourite films.