"Whose idea was this?" "What idea?" "Meeting here." "Theirs." " Why?" " It looks like we're dealing dope." "You like static?" "It's tough getting FM, okay?" "Under a freeway and high tension wires." "These guys are late." "What time were they going to meet you?" " 7:00." " Yeah, they're real late." "Okay, what do I do about it now?" "Why don't you just back up and see if you can get K-EARTH?" "Boy, this is not cool." "He ought to lower his brights, at least." "Lights, goddamn it!" "Jesus Christ!" "We're just meeting here  to make sure we weren't followed." "Christ, how did I get here?" "He's got the cash." "Now we got to go weigh it and test it." "Why not just do it on the hood of the car?" "Stop here." "What are you looking at?" "Peanut shells." "Right!" "Jesus!" "Go in the room and leave the door unlocked." "I'll be there soon." "What were you doing?" "Who is it?" "It's Leland, Dan." " Andy, how you doing, baby?" " Great." "Say hello to Nick." "Nick's my partner." "Hold it." "Who the fuck is that?" "It's a friend." "He's not my friend." "And I got all the friends I need." "He's my ride." "He drove me, that's all." "Let him wait in the car." "I don't like meeting strangers." "Really, he's just a friend of mine." "Hey, that's cool." "Just let me take a quick leak and I'll be out of here." "Deal's still good." "How do you want to weigh and test it?" "We'll work it out, Andy." "Maybe you shouldn't be looking for any new faces in your life, either." "Fine with me." "I'll wait outside." " I thought you retired." " I am retired." " Then what are you doing here?" " A favor." "You mean, a felony favor." "A client paid him with coke." "I'm holding his hand while he sells it." "Man, that is one flimsy fucking excuse." "He also says his customer asks more questions about me than the dope." "My phones have funny little noises on them." "You're setting me up, Nick." "Not tonight, pal." "I got here by accident." "Talk about a flimsy fucking excuse!" "Later." "This is going down right now." "And do yourself a favor." "Don't go back to the car." "Don't you go back to the room." "There's no evidence." "I'm sorry." "I couldn't afford to have him busted, as dumb as he is." "He's my lawyer." "Who authorized this shit?" "You did, lieutenant." "Look, that's what we were told, okay?" "What a waste of time." "Units 3, 4 and 5, return to parking lot." "Units 6 and 7  check all of the exits and the stairwell." "Look at those vents..." "Got a runner going across the freeway!" "Fucking-A!" "45 minutes." "Must be the only fucking phone I've ever met that don't..." "Get in there!" " Vallenari's." "Good evening." " Hi, this is Dale McKussic." "Mr. McKussic, I'm sorry." "It's a little noisy in here." "Aren't we seeing you this evening?" "I don't think I'll make my reservation." "I'm going to be a little late." "How late will you be?" "I don't know." "How late is the kitchen open?" "Tell me something, Hal." "When you asked me to help, did you know who you were asking me to bust?" "I knew who it was." "Why didn't you bust him?" "You know that too." "He's a friend of mine." "I'll tell you what I heard when I came to L.A." "Nick won't work South Bay because he won't bust McKussic." "Tonight you proved that." "You not only let him walk you kicked him out and gave him a personal escort." "Why?" "Because you're predictable, Hal." "You're very predictable." "Mac saw you coming a mile away." "How did you know he wasn't holding?" "Was Andy Leonard?" "You busted him." "No coke." "No sale." "No conspiracy to sell." "All you've got is a conversation with a chickenshit Century City lawyer." "And an entrapment lawsuit." "Mac's lawyers would make mincemeat of you." "I let him walk to save you from a bad bust." "I did you a favor." " Mr. McKussic, how are you?" " Fine, thanks." "What is it?" "It's McKussic." "You're kidding." "He's in and out of this place all the time." "Andy Leonard's the lawyer for this restaurant." "McKussic and the Vallenaris talk drugs and money?" "They're careful what they say." "Let me hear." "I told you they're real careful." "I'm sure you're right." "Could I hear?" "Yeah, sure!" "In that case, why don't I give you a taste  of something different tonight?" "How about  rigatoni?" "Rigatoni?" "Rigatoni quattro formaggi, a creamy blend of four Italian cheeses." "Fontina, taleggio, gorgonzola, and parmigiano." "Sounds good." "Sounds good to me too." "Look, before we spend another $5,000 to hear what Mac eats take my guys off the clock and let me ask him." "Unless you guarantee the Feds are picking up the tab tonight." "What's good?" "Everything." "Why, are you hungry?" "I missed dinner." " What are you having?" " Pasta." "Something like rigatoni quattro formaggi?" "Good guess." "Dinner's over, Bart. Pay the tab at the bar." "L.A. Narcotics and the D.E. A are arguing about what you're doing here." "Why?" "You deal drugs and don't pay taxes." "I'm not active these days." "But you're a legend around here." "Not only that, you're white." "They figure they'll be able to see your picture in the paper." "So what do you figure, Nick?" "I made lieutenant." "It'll be announced next week." "I'm the head of Narcotics for L.A. County." "Congratulations." "That's all you got to say?" "What about your law degree?" "Getting into the D.A.'s..." "Forget about my career." "The Feds swear you're doing business here." "I'm not, here or anywhere." "And you couldn't catch me if I was." "Try the sand dabs." "Try the sand dabs." "Here, look." "Watch!" "That's terrific." "You know, I just think something's going on." "I'm still a detective even when there's no crime." "What do you think's going on?" "Something you don't want me to know." "How are we treating you this evening, Mr. McKussic?" "Fine, thank you." " Can I offer you anything more?" " More?" "There are two excellent fish you haven't tried." " Sure." " What are they?" "I thought I'd surprise you." "This is my friend, Nick Frescia." "A pleasure, Jo Ann Vallenari." "A plate for you?" "I've got to be going." " Try us another night." " What I tried tonight was terrific." "I'm pleased to hear it." "She's attractive." "So, how about it?" "How about what?" "Whatever you're doing do it somewhere else, and don't make me look bad." "There is one last thing." "There's no new business." "It's an accounting problem." "The Colombians." "Another discrepancy about money." "Sure." "They don't know how to count." "I got your word?" "Yeah." "One more thing." "How about another bite of that fish?" "That's great!" " I give him two drinks." " That's two too many." "If my brother sees Nino like this..." "What will he do, fire him?" "He won't fire the chef, Arturo." "But one less bartender is not a problem." " He can't drive that car." " He can have mine." "Your Cadillac?" "You want to kill him?" "I'll drive." "I go dance." " No, you're going home." " Why?" "In the course of last night something came up which persuaded me that Mac dining in that place is a non-drug related activity." "He won't get away with what he's done for 15 years and just retire." "What do you suggest?" "I suggest you make sure we have a case." "After all, what are friends for?" "We haven't seen you in a while." "I've been a little busy lately." "And I took a break, you know?" "Did you go away for Thanksgiving?" "Yeah, I went up to Aspen and put the skids on." " Put skids on?" " Yeah, I went skiing." " Are you good?" " No." "Well, passing." "I'm not an expert." "Are you?" "No." "You should go sometime." "It's fun." "Maybe I will." "What the fuck is the matter with you?" "I don't need you flying in from Washington taking over my office, telling me to manufacture evidence." "This is my backyard, Hal!" "I don't grow weeds in it so I can pull them." "I swear to God I wasn't using you." "I was just trying to pay some bills." "Now you got another one to pay." "And if I don't come through, these guys'll kill me." "They won't kill you." "They'll probably just break your legs." "Here comes the money junkie." "I've been calling and calling." "I just broke a fucking nail!" "I sent your lawyer the check, Shaleen." "Tomorrow's the first." "You might as well write another one." "I'm at a critical point." "This business requires cash." "So do I. Sorry, I'm not starving so you can tell your little boy you're a rubber hose salesman, not a drug dealer." "Cody gets old enough to ask what his father does for a living suddenly he has a conscience." "Greg, I'll deal with that other stuff later." "Leave my kid out of this." "Our kid." "Anyway, I need another 10,000." " The Mercedes burned up." " The SLC?" "It's under warranty." "Take it back, make them fix it." "You know those assholes." "They claim I didn't have any oil in the engine." "I made an improper suggestion." "I overreacted." "It was uncalled for." "No." "It was my fault." "Look, I'll lay my cards on the table." "Any questions about our operation go ahead, ask me." "Shoot." "Who's your snitch?" "I can't tell you that." "We got to start somewhere." "How about..." "July 17, 1963?" ""Frescia and McKussic were arrested for curfew violation on Hermosa Beach."" "7 years later you were with Mac when he was busted for drugs on Rosarito Beach." "No, he was on the beach." "I was in the water." "Otherwise I'd have ended up in the same Mexican jail for 2 years." "What can I say?" "You have really done your homework." "This is not about you being a cop." "I know you're one of the best." "You're close to Mac." "Mac is close to Carlos, who is coming to town." "Who says?" "He's getting ready to move 1200 kilos of coke personally." "That's the word." "For $ 1100 a week, a local snitch will tell you anything you want to hear." "I'm hearing it from the Federal Mexican Police, and I'm not paying them." "You say this is your back yard." "Has Carlos ever made a move in it without Mac's help?" "If Carlos is back in town, Mac's back in business." "What do you want?" " Use Mac to get to Carlos." " How?" "Any way you can." "If Mac's clean, it will do him a lot of damage." "Say he is working with Carlos and we bust him." "I will personally guarantee that Mac doesn't stand trial in federal court." "You're liable to save him 15 years of his life." "I cleared out of your office." " It's me, Mac." " Hey, my buddy." "Qué pasa?" "No, you called me, buddy." "Not now." "They watch me everywhere I go." "I'm telling you, there's renewed interest in me here." "My cousin used my name as a guarantee of delivery." "I'm not worried about my cousin." "It's you." "Don't come here now." "Not now." "Your chef's visa has expired." "He has a work permit." "My brother has an immigration lawyer working to get Nino his green card." "Andy Leonard?" "Have you seen Andy Leonard in your restaurant with Dale McKussic?" "Yes, they're both very good customers." " What's that?" " What's what?" "A "good customer."" "Someone who is on time." "Who doesn't make personal requests or demands for unusual dishes." "In other words, you're telling us you've never had to satisfy any personal requests for Mr. McKussic." "No, he usually orders off the menu." "Who are you and what's this about?" "Agent Maguire." "Federal Drug Enforcement." "Has Andy Leonard been arrested on some sort of drug charge?" "We arrested him." "You think my restaurant is involved?" "Leonard's in there all the time." "So is the District Attorney." "Does he sell drugs in my restaurant?" "Leonard doesn't have dinner with the D.A. He does with McKussic." "You think Mr. McKussic sells drugs there?" "Maybe." "All I do is see him eat." "Miss Vallenari, we know how important your chef is to you." "We have our problems." "We certainly don't have to help Immigration with theirs." "In other words, if I'll spy on my customers my chef won't be deported for drunk driving?" "I didn't say that." "Don't bother to explain." "At 8:00, I'll be seating my lawyer and his ex-partner, a federal judge." "I'm sure they'll explain to me what you meant." "Hello, I'm Lieutenant Frescia from the Sheriff's Department." "We've met... with Mr. McKussic." "Absolutely." "And when you sue him I don't want to be anywhere in sight." "Get me out of here." "Arturo will come for it." " Take care of it." " Everything okay?" "Somebody dropped last night's evidence including Nino's urine specimen." "What's that mean?" "It means we'll have to drop the case." "No court?" "No court." "Take it easy, for Chrissake!" "I work here." "What's on your mind?" "The way I met you with Mr. McKussic." "You seemed like friends." "I'm sorry." "It's really none of my business." "You've been terrific." "Don't worry about it." "Just buy me dinner one of these days." "Any goddamn day you want." "Thank you so much." "We got the word your friend has got a deal cooking." "We're going to nail him." "If anybody can do it, you can." "Why'd you let her chef go?" "She's tough, isn't she?" " She beat the shit out of you." " The hell she did." "The hell she didn't." "Ask anybody." "What you got going on here?" "Where've you been?" "I've been looking for you." "In Chula Vista, selling farm equipment." "What are the Sin Sisters doing here?" "Just cranking on the coke." "I'm just kidding." "They're just leaving." "What can I do for you?" "I'll do anything." "Name it." "Start by cleaning off that table, and get some new paddles and balls." "Suddenly up for Ping-pong?" "And drop something off at Vallenari's for me." " Who for?" " Jo Ann Vallenari." " Aren't you going there tonight?" " I want to clean up first." "Besides, she can look that over before we talk." " Could you give it a rest?" " Whatever, man." "I hear you." "What is it?" "The cop." "He's waiting for you." "How nice." "Not nice, he thinks he did you a favor." "And cops are the worst barflies." "It's not worth it, I tell you." "You just don't like his looks, Arturo." "It's quite an experience to watch you work." "Like you're in a play, everything's on cue." "You're kind of letter-perfect." "Do you ever flub your lines?" "Are you politely suggesting I lack spontaneity?" "Have you seen Mac?" "He's going to ask you to cater a party." "That is our business." "We think it involves his business." "Are you suggesting I refuse because it's a party for drug dealers?" "But if it's for this one particular guy, he's particularly unpleasant." " You mean violent?" " No, I doubt that." "Unless he doesn't like your lasagne." "I'm sure Mr. McKussic's friend will be well-behaved." "Why would you call him a friend?" "A figure of speech." "Who else would you give a party for?" "A business associate." "As it happens, Carlos and Mac are friends." "And you and Mac are friends." "That's right." "Sounds like a friendly situation all around." "Not exactly." "Nobody knows Carlos." "Nobody knows what he looks like but Mac." "You want me to spy on a customer so you can find out what he looks like?" "Absolutely not!" "Let's not discuss my business or his business or your business." "But that leaves nothing to talk about." "Let's eat." "She's having dinner with him." "She can't be." "The chef is with them right now checking out their Caesar salads." "Do you want me to drop off the envelope anyway?" "Yeah, I'm beat." "I'll never make it in there." "Thanks." "You meet at Orville and Wilbur's every Christmas." "He throws his Chevrolet keys on the bar." "You throw your Porsche keys on the bar." "You pick up your drink with a gold Rolex on your wrist." "He wears a Timex." "Even if he wasn't a cop he'd hate your guts." "Deputies seized over 700 kilos of cocaine  a street value of $ 27 million." "Street value $27 million." "What street is that?" "You show me how to get there just once." "Man, aren't you listening to me?" "Nick Frescia came in that restaurant looking for a way to bust your buns." "He's going to have to drag me out of bed to do it." "I'm under the weather... heavily." "What I'm telling you is for your own good." " That swordfish was great." " Excellent piece." " And the Cristal." " You know it." "We serve it at the Lomita station." "What do cops drink?" "Depends." "I tell my men to avoid vodka." " And stick to Scotch and bourbon." " Why?" "So the brass will know they're drunk, not stupid." " You have an answer for everything." " So do you." "You answered Maguire's questions like you were reading off a menu." "Your keys." "And yours." "Want me to lock up?" "I will." "Make sure the kitchen is closed." "Good night, Arturo." "You were saying." "You're still suspicious of me and Mr. McKussic." "You think we're in business together." "I don't date the customers, Nick." "Especially when they drive $50,000 cars and always pay in cash." "Then you'd heard about Mac." "You hear everything in a restaurant." "He's never asked you out?" "You're still suspicious." "If I was, you'd talk me out of it." "That's not it." "No, you're suspicious of any woman who hasn't slept with you." "Jo Ann that is a wildly off-the-wall assumption on your part." "What is it?" "Do you need some Chap Stick or lip gloss?" "Your lips get stuck on your teeth, or is that your idea of a smile?" "That's my idea of a smile." "You are, you're tough." "You're a bad boy, Nick." "You're a very bad boy." "What's this mean?" "Redondo Union High." "You smoked in high school?" "We were a bunch of rowdies, Jo Ann." "How about an espresso?" "I've got to lock up and I'll never do it like this." "Oh, no!" "What are you doing?" "I want this under there." "You'll get dirty." "The skylight's indented so rain fills it up into a puddle until it becomes a pond, and then..." "And then what?" "And then you're all wet." "I'm sorry." "I should have just left it." "I don't know what it is  about going to high school with someone  that makes you feel you're automatically friends for life." "Who says?" "Who says friendship lasts forever?" "We'd all like to, maybe  but maybe it just wears out like everything else." "Like tires." "There's just so much mileage in them and then you're on nothing but air." "Keep your shirt on." "Any word on where McKussic's giving the party?" "How would I know?" "I'm waiting to hear it from your snitch." "I keep coming back to this." "What do you think?" "Excuse me." "This is a personal call." "How about a movie?" "I can't tonight." "We're booked solid." "This afternoon." " Don't you ever work?" " Yeah, I'm working now." "Don't say that or I'll believe you." "I always believe the worst." "I'm going to die if I don't see you." "We can't have that." "Check out the competition with me this week and we can both keep working." " Where's Jo Ann?" " She's taking a few days off." "Your table is ready." "I'll have the drink sent over." "Where the fuck have you been?" "Working my ass off." "Mac's party is next week at his house at 1:00 P.M. For 56 guests." "You like cappuccino?" "We got two coming out." "Down front, two males." "I got them." "She won't talk as long as the checks keep coming." "Surprise!" " What's so funny?" " That dogcatcher." " He's not catching the dog." " That's right." "Wrong size handcuffs." "I'm leaving right now." "Thank you." "Nice food." "Thank you." "Nice party." "You're a real magician." "I was surprised." "Well, it was a surprise party." " Did it surprise your boy?" " Oh, yes." "Not as much as it surprised the 25 cops on the beach." "You're going to tell me that's a surprise?" "No." "Mr. Frescia said it was possible the police might be watching you." "Did he say why?" "Yes." "Do you want me to be specific?" "I'd appreciate that." "He said that you were a serious drug dealer." "You promised to quit, but you lied and are still doing it." "He called me a drug dealer and a liar?" "Bummer!" "I guess I can't blame you." "For what?" "Telling Nick about the party." "Thanks again." "I didn't tell Nick about the party." "He told me." "What was I supposed to do?" "I didn't know it was for your child's birthday." "I didn't even know you had a child." "I thought it was for a "Carlos."" "Just pretend like none of this ever happened." "The harbor patrol is involved?" "To do surveillance in the marina." "Boats are in the marina." "You see, this is a house." "A house is not going to float away." "It's not going to fucking move!" "Yeah, put him through." "How you doing?" "In my office." "And you?" "In my office." "I was wondering if we can get together somewhere?" "Yes, any particular time?" "How about right now?" "Sure, why not?" "You say he's giving a party soon." "Hang on." " And Carlos is coming to town soon." " Who's your snitch?" "He hasn't gotten a damn thing right." "You look for Mac in L.A., he's in San Francisco." "You go for Carlos, you get Mac's kid." "Sin Sisters?" "Listen, I'm not authorizing any more county funds unless you get someone who can actually identify Carlos." "What are you talking about?" "Is he right there?" "Just about." "Everything all right?" "Why did you try to get me kicked out of my favorite restaurant?" "You told Jo Ann about me, didn't you?" "Yeah, I did." "You got a reason?" "I didn't want her getting hurt." "Is that why you told her about Carlos?" "So she could identify him?" "Is that your way of making sure she doesn't get hurt?" "Okay, I fucked up." "I've been seeing a lot of Jo Ann and it affected my judgment here." "If you want to go after Carlos, go after him." "Just don't use me to do it, okay?" "I don't get it." "He saves your life in a Mexican prison, so you owe him for 20 years?" " None of my business." " Exactly." "By the way, you told Jo Ann about the party, didn't you?" "No." "You got it backwards." "She told me." "Then I guess she got it backwards, huh?" "That's understandable." "You confronting her like that, she probably got flustered." "After all she's not used to that." "She's a very traditional girl." "By the way, wish Cody a happy birthday for me, will you?" "Sure." "Would you hold, please?" "What do I do with Mr. McCussky's tip?" "McKussic." "Divide it among the waiters, like you normally do." " It was a pretty good tip." " What do you mean?" "His bill is $2500 and his tip is $2500." "There's $5000 in there?" "Must have been a pretty good party." "Arturo, give me that envelope." "If you want Mac he's down at the competition." "Cody, get away from the pier!" " Holy smoke, it's you!" " Yes, it is." "Look, I don't want your money." "I don't want any of it." "How come?" "What did you think you were paying for?" "What?" "If it's not enough..." "No, it's not enough." "Did you think you could buy me?" " Buy you what?" " There's $5000 in there!" "Lower your voice." "Someone will think something's going down. $5000?" " Right!" " I must have grabbed the hundreds." "You owe me." "What?" "This was a mistake?" "Wrong envelope." "Shaleen must have the fifties." "She'll be pissed." "What did you think I was trying to buy for $5000?" " Man, you all right?" " Yeah, I'm fine." "He's hurt." "Could you get everybody out of here?" "I'll get the gate." "What do you see?" "A Kleenex." "Blow your nose on that!" "Still hurt?" "I feel like shit." "Mom's going to blame this on you." "Cody, watch your language." "How about I send over some angel hair pasta?" "Would you like that?" "Thank you." "Be well, Cody." "I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come along." "Greg had my car." "I'm sorry, I don't usually do things like that." "They make you sign forms when your kid's neck..." "Why don't you sit down?" "I'll just have some Herradura." "Your boy lives with you?" " That depends." " On what?" "Money and his mama's mood." "Haven't you had enough?" "You want to hear if Cody wakes up and needs something, don't you?" "You won't answer me?" "I don't think you really want me to." "Yes, I do." "I'll answer any question you ask." "How about that?" "Bet I know the first one." "What's that?" "How can you feel about your boy the way you do and sell drugs?" "Cocaine." "It is cocaine, isn't it?" " It was." " But not anymore?" "You were with Andy Leonard when he was arrested." "Nick tell you that?" "You weren't with him?" "I was with him." "And you weren't selling cocaine?" "No, I wasn't." "He was." "Then what were you doing?" "Trying to teach him how to sell it." "You're serious." "That's what it came to." "He's smart enough to be a lawyer but too dumb to be a crook." " You had to get something." " He's my lawyer." "He's your lawyer, too." "So he's your lawyer and he's my lawyer." "What does that do for you?" "I pretty much knew that you knew what I had done for a living." "I wanted him to let you know that I now had a legitimate business." "Naturally, I didn't want him busted." "So you thought Andy Leonard would give you respectability?" "Yes, ma'am." "What do you need it for?" "You." "So if I asked you out, maybe you'd accept." "You don't need a lawyer for that." "Dating is not a criminal activity." "I think your profession has clouded your judgment here." "I'm flattered and I I believe you." "It was awful dumb." "I'm late as hell." "Pour me a glass of champagne." "You'll never believe what happened." "If it's bad news, I believe it." "I returned McKussic's money." "You gave back my tip." "I don't believe it." "Good evening, Lieutenant." " You're early." " You're late." " Disappointed?" " Yeah." "What kept you?" "You don't want to know." "We're over here." "No, we're not." " Where do you suggest?" " The wine cellar, where else?" "Nick, come on." "Stop kidding around." "I mean it." "I have customers all over the place." "I'll scream." "That won't be necessary, señorita." "May I present Commandante Xavier Escalante-Portero y Vega of the Mexican Federales." "Lt. Frescia has alarmed you." "I surprised her with a private party in the wine cellar." "Because I phoned and made reservations." "She arrived late and didn't realize we were here." "You go to a good deal of trouble to explain an inconsequential event." "Hal." "You remember Jo Ann Vallenari." "Yes, of course." "How are you?" "Nice to see you." "You were going to tell me about your day." "Oh, with Mr. McKussic." "You were with Mac?" "How come?" " Is this a professional question?" " Purely personal." "Please, the judge is waiting for you." "I'll be right back." " I hope we didn't keep you waiting." " Not at all." "Here's a green card for Nino." "I had to pull some strings." "Come on, Escalante's waiting." "He has a token of his friendship." "A gun." "He's Mexican." "What can I tell you?" "You wanted someone to I.D. Carlos." "I've got him for you." "I've worked with him for 8 years." "He doesn't get involved in an operation unless he can bring it off." "Don't mess with him." "You can mess with her anytime." "Think it was an accident Nino was arrested for drunk driving?" "Frescia had the police waiting for him every night." "Why?" "He figured you knew more about Mac, and used Nino to find out." "How's the judge involved?" "He's the Federal judge Frescia went to for the deportation order." "I told the judge he was about to deport his fettucini verde his ossobuco and his rigatoni quattro formaggi." "Informants assure us Carlos will contact McKussic before he does business elsewhere." "Would he risk going to McKussic's house?" "He hardly expects me to be there to identify him, Mr. Maguire." "After all, beaches are a crowded, friendly place, aren't they?" "People don't wear much in the way of clothing." "Guns and surveillance equipment are that much more difficult to hide." "Mr. McKussic thinks about such things." "Which brings me to the point." "A group of Mexicans patrolling the strand will look conspicuous." "I suggest your people patrol the beach and keep a wide perimeter with some frozen surveillance for us." "Where'll you be?" "There's a lot on the highlands above his home." "But I'm told Mr. McKussic has a boat stored there." "That could prove awkward." "That can be handled." "How?" "With a phone call." "Don't you have to get back to your party?" "In a minute." "Excuse me." "Is there something wrong?" "What do you want to know about McKussic?" "I asked about you, why you saw him." " He owed me an explanation." " Did you get it?" "Yeah." "Would you like to hear it?" "I'm not sure." "It seems he has been engaged in his business for purely romantic reasons." "While you have been engaged in romance for purely business reasons." "I'm not sure I understand that." "A little vague for you?" "A little." "Let me spell it out." "You want to fuck your friend?" "Fuck him, not me!" "How you doing?" "I have to go to work, okay?" "Is everything okay?" "Yeah, I'll be irrigating half the county by the end." "Who's sitting me?" "Ann Marie downstairs." "She's very good." "You ever date her?" "I don't date the sitters." " Couldn't Jo Ann baby-sit me?" " Who?" "Jo Ann Vallenari." "How do you know her name?" "She promised to make me angel hair spaghetti." "I wouldn't count on that now." "She's a very busy girl." "Doesn't she like you?" "We never really got around to that." "Why doesn't she like you?" "I didn't say she didn't like me." "I don't know what she likes or if she likes a damn thing." "Some people don't like anything." "They just have nice manners and live." "Take your shoes off the bed." "What are you doing?" "I got a ticket." "Noise abatement ordinance." "Not allowed to do any work on machinery." "Haven't worked on it lately." "Anyway, I better move it or they will." "I ran into Rudi Samudio's customers." "They're desperate for product." "Not as desperate as Rudi." "He's doing 100 years." "They'll go up to half a million in advance." "I couldn't help you if I wanted to, and I don't want to." "You got to know where something is even if it's bad shit." "I mean, half a million bucks!" "We agreed you weren't going to hit me with this kind of stuff anymore." "Why do you keep talking?" "I had a feeling you'd change your mind." "Enough of this shit!" "I got to stick this thing in the water." "See if it floats." " What can I do for you?" " I'm okay." "You don't have to be here yet." "No, I'm fine." "Thanks." "Go home and rest and come back tonight." "No, I'm fine." "It's okay." "I didn't know you or your relationship with Mac." "I only knew he was hiding something." "It turned out to be his feelings." "But you're so smooth I figured you were hiding something too." "How could you tell?" "You lie to me about Mac." "You lie to Mac about me." "You lie to the judge about everybody." "Eventually, you have to lose sight of the facts, don't you?" "No." "You don't lose sight of the facts, not unless you're nuts." "You lose sight of your feelings." "Mac knows his feelings." "He's crazy for you and doesn't want to get caught." "For a crook, it's crystal clear." "But for a cop, it's confusing." "Mac's my friend." "I like him." "Maguire's my associate and I hate him." "I probably have to bust my friend to do my job and I hate that." "But I hate drug dealers and somebody's got to get rid of Carlos." "How do I do that?" "With my powers of deduction, I walk into your restaurant look at you and realize regardless of the food, Mac's not here to eat." "He's in love." "And I wonder if you're not as good about concealing your feelings as you are at taking care of your customers." "You're not in the drug business, but you may have helpful knowledge." "So I checked you out." "You've had, near as I can tell, 3 affairs in the last seven years." "With a lifeguard who was more a high school buddy a painter who did frescoes for your restaurant and a married man with whom you broke off almost immediately." "So you're not exactly wild and crazy in this area." "I figured if you got involved with me, you're not involved with Mac." "But his interest in you makes you likely to find out what's going on." "What I didn't figure is that you're not like me." "You're honest and kind and principled." "And I trust you." "Suddenly, I'm ashamed." "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen and I'm nuts about you." "I've only got one question." "I don't want to know what you know about Mac." "I just want to see you tonight." "Will you?" "See me?" "So what else do you know about me?" "God, didn't somebody turn the machine on?" "No, somebody didn't, because I'm supposed to do it." "No, I do know who it is." "How did you get my number?" "I'm surprised you'd be left alone unsupervised." "I don't believe you." "I'll see what I can do." "I'll be over as soon as I can." " So, do you think there's a chance?" " Of what?" "Of seeing you tonight." "Let's play it by ear." "Call me later." "We're continuing with the full spectrum rock and roll on KMPC-FM." "Beautiful Southern California day." "That song was made for girl-watching." "The fantasies come just by hearing the lyrics." "Female Caucasian, late twenties, fair hair, medium height." "No makeup." "No visible jewelry." "What's she doing?" "She's taking some clothes out of the car." "Obviously, she's going back to the house." "Earlier she was cooking spaghetti." "Fancy dish cooking spaghetti." "How about that call, Hal?" "Our guy is set to drop off the half million at McKussic's." "Carlos will pick it up there tonight." "What about McKussic?" "Could you hold on a second?" " Where you going?" " Carlos is due at McKussic's." "Not till 12:30." "Jo Ann Vallenari is not an informant." "I dont want her mistaken for one." "Forget it." "She let herself in, she can let herself out." "I just left $500,000 at a church, and not for religious purposes." "I'm telling you if you call her or go anywhere near Mac's, I'll have you shot." "You hear me?" "!" "You mean arrested." "Don't you?" "I'm sorry, Xavier, what were you saying?" "What about McKussic?" "Where will he be?" "We're not sure." "He isn't cooperative." "But it's no problem." "Our guy has made contact with Carlos directly." "How long have you been here?" "How long have you been here?" "Let's discuss this somewhere else." "After I dealt with the fact of your leaving him alone Cody admitted he dismissed the baby sitter to get me over here." "I didn't know when you'd be back, so his mother picked him up." "How did he reach you?" "Called the restaurant." "Yes, he called there." "Some wine?" "Not a bad Chardonnay." "How'd he get the number?" "Your bed stand." "I'm late for work." "When did you last see Nick Frescia?" "This morning." "I didn't know you're open for breakfast." " When will you see him again?" " I can't answer that." "Right, you don't talk about customers." "Not after I've slept with them." "If you want to know more about Nick, talk to him." "And he'll tell me to talk to you." "Thanks for the bullshit, Slick." " Did you call me "Slick?"" " I'll say." "Ask me anything." "Whatever you want to know about me." " Anything, Mr. McKussic." " Please don't call me that." "I'll call you what you want." "Contrary to popular belief I'm not good at undercover." "I don't know your first name." "Dale." "But don't call me that." "Then don't call me "Slick."" "Alpha, Beta, Charlie teams, we need 1020 at Western and P. C.H." "Equipment van is waiting." "It's called leaky pipe irrigation." "Trade name is Hydro-pore." "Made from old tires." "You put it 14" under the soil and it sweats out the water." "I got an order for 50,000 feet from a lemon grower in Encinitas." "I didn't think there were any growers left in California." "You said she was leaving." "She was." "What's the delay?" "They're watering the lawn." "Watering the lawn." "What do you think?" "I think you're a legitimate businessman." "I hope so." "If it doesn't work, I'm a crook forever." "Why haven't you gotten out of that before?" "It's tougher to quit than you think." "Just say no." "Nobody wants me to quit." "Don't get caught." "Stay on top till we knock you off." "That's the motto:" "Nobody wants me to quit." "Cops want to bust me." "The Colombians want my connections." "My wife wants my money." "Her lawyer agrees." "Mine likes getting paid to argue with them." "Nobody wants me to quit." "Not to mention my customers." "They don't want me to quit." "That is completely paranoid." "I'm just talking here," "I'm not trying to convince you of a damn thing." "I may be paranoid, but then nobody wants me to quit." "I'm sorry." "I was just joking." "I didn't mean to hurt you." "It didn't hurt that bad." "Just looking at you hurts more." "You said she was leaving." "Well, sir, it was a miscommunication." "How much longer do you think she'll be?" "I can't leave just yet." "My clothes are still in the dryer." "Get out of there!" "I believe you that you're out of that other business." "What's that?" "Nothing." "It's just my service." "I better call." "Right now?" "I'll be right back." "What the fuck are you doing?" "Are you nuts?" "They're covering me!" "Didn't I say to call first?" "Not only that, you scared the shit out of me!" "This is not funny." "I'm wearing a fucking towel." "You know who is in charge of all that surveillance?" "The U.S. Government and the Federal Republic of Mexico have me watching you waiting for me to show up." "Which reminds me." "I talk into the wrong one of these and it costs us fifty years apiece." "I told you on the phone." "I take care of everything." "I've been instructed to tell you that Carlos has entered the house." "Thank you, thank you." "But you, I trust with my life." "You keep me waiting all night never showing any sign of being worried about me." "Forget it." "Your hands were full." "I could see." "What's more, you fuck like a world champion." "Four fucking hours!" "Those cops are terrified their wives will hear about this." "I got starved just watching you." "She can cook too." "Believe me, if she's willing to take out the garbage, marry her." "Is this the best idea right now?" "When's the next time we'll get a chance to play?" "In jail." "What's going on with you and Lindroff?" "I don't want him involved in anything." "I realize it must have..." "I'll take care of it." " You've got company." " Company?" "It's for you." "You've got to be out of here in less than twenty minutes." "We'll never finish the game!" "Vittorio's wife called." "He had to go home." "I've got to go close up." " Why are you here?" " Vittorio's wife is fine." "I had Arturo call you." "Listen to me." "Mac's getting busted tonight." "There's an informant making sure of that." "Your behavior could be misconstrued." "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time!" "That could get you hurt." "Give me your purse." "I want you to go inside and lock the door." "Detective Torres will be here in a few minutes." "He'll take care of you until this is over." "Ready to fire." "All you care about is arresting Mac." "Get inside." "Don't smoke." "I got a leak in the fuel line." "Everything's set." "No, Carlos is still at your house." "Wait a minute." "Now I recognize you." "From the restaurant with Lieutenant Frescia." "Miss Vallenari." "Where's Mr. McKussic?" "I recognize this, too." "You've got to watch her." "Is that right?" "She's friendly with a cop that knows Mac." "Where is Mac, by the way?" "Do you think she could be dangerous?" "Be some sort of informant?" "I do." "Mac's nuts about her." "He wouldn't see it." "That's terrible." "Have you mentioned this to him?" "Oh, yeah!" "I do what I can for Mac." "It's all here." "Yes, it is." "Speaking of information you were busted by the D.E.A. Four months ago." "You didn't happen to mention that to Mac, did you?" "I didn't think so." "What a shame." "People in trouble need to talk to somebody." "If not to their friends it's usually your enemies." "Federal narcotics number 7-2-4-4." "Maguire claims only he has contact with Mac's cousin?" "At 7:00 P.M., we spotted a couple of Escalante's men with him." " Near the Wayfarer's chapel?" " Right." "He's got some interesting holes in him." "He went down, what can I tell you?" "For only getting hit once or twice, he sure got him in the best spots." "All right, who fired their gun?" "Everybody to the edge of the pier." "Let's have a show of hands." "Come on, people, hands in the air!" "How the fuck did this guy get dead?" "Escalante's men got here ahead of us." "That's when there was gunfire." "This stinks." "Gas fumes." "So what?" "I've been hearing for months how Carlos was real upset because he shipped cocaine that got soaked in gasoline on a tanker." "What is this?" "1200 kilos exactly." "I think you just paid half a million for it." "You're full of shit." "Carlos wouldn't go to that trouble for half..." "Half a million?" "Probably not, but who knows what he's really up to?" "Your snitch isn't going to tell us." "Where's Escalante?" "I don't know." "He said something about going back to his boat." "His boat?" "He sailed up here from Ensenada." "Said he wanted to go fishing for albacore on the way home." "Gone fishing?" "What is wrong with that?" "Escalante is Carlos, you miserable shit." "She works hard in a restaurant, but never takes the time to enjoy a meal." "She starts taking the time." "She enjoys it." "She goes from one customer to another from your friend Frescia to his friend McKussic to who knows?" "I'm sure the girl has friends of her own." "The point is she's discarded her traditional values." "She's lost." "Then she uses cocaine, for Chrissake." "Naturally, she dies." "It's an American tragedy." "Don't worry, buddy, I won't kill her unless you approve." "And if I don't approve?" "Then we talk until you do." "Come on, when was the last time we smoked some really good shit?" "Life is serious enough." "Where is she?" "I should be the one calling you for help." "It's been rowdy tonight." " What's up?" " We've got to find a boat." "Probably out of Ensenada." "Put in for mooring in the last five days." "You want me to call every harbor master between here and Mexico?" "This is Torres at Vallenari's." "She's not here, Nick." "Check McKussic's and get back to me right away." "Why would I do something like that?" "What for?" "What would I gain?" "We've been sitting here doing nothing but asking ourselves that same question." "I haven't seen any matador stand his ground like that since Abruza." "He's a pussy." "He's the finest matador in Mexico." "He's a pussy, man." "Why is that, buddy?" "I don't know why." "Look at him." "Look at the matador." "What does he fucking do?" "He dresses up in his spangles and puts on his fucking sequined jacket and wraps that sash around his waist." "Then puts on his little pink stockings and his hair up in a little pigtail." "I mean, that's a pussy." "That's what a bullfight is." "It's saying he's a pussy." "And we're the bull." "They got that thing and they wave it like a red flag." "What do we do?" "We charge that sucker!" "They always got the edge." "They know what we'll do." "We're predictable." "They're just going to stick it in and break it off." "There's not a fucking thing to say." "Bravo, buddy!" "What do we do about it?" "What do we do?" "You die." "You fucking die." "That's what." "Wait, I've seen him this way." "He's very serious." "Are you coming with me or are you staying?" "This is a tragic fucking mistake, buddy." "She'll testify and she'll get us all." "She's the only one who can." "What will you do about that?" "What about your boy, family, friends?" " What are you going to do?" " Get in the boat." "I urge you to reconsider." "Meet me at Pier 17." "Stay up on channel 12." "I'll tell you when." "Son of a bitch!" "Could you get me a flashlight?" "There's one near the companionway." "Can you do that now, please?" "How about that light?" "Could you turn it on?" "Could you hold it, please?" "Right, just there." "That's an awful lot of money." "$ 15 million." "That's an awful lot of money." "Money makes people predictable, at least." "They'll never be reliable." "Nick knows everything about me now." "I didn't talk about you." " Forget it." " I don't want to." "I don't care what you want." "When I drop you off you better take a long vacation in Bora Bora because you'll never live to testify." " I was never going to testify." " You're telling me." "Mac, I'd die before I'd hurt you." "That was being arranged." "If you believe what Carlos said, why didn't you let him kill me?" "Could you hold the light?" "I love you." "You got to stop talking, you know?" "I got to fix this boat or someone will get killed." "I'll put it like this." "Shut up or I'll smack you." "Now hold the light." "I love you." "I love you." "Don't say that again." "I tell you right now if we find McKussic anywhere near Escalante I'll put him away for 25 years." "That's not what we agreed." "You're reneging on a deal." "You're a lying no-good cocksucker and a four-flushing son of a bitch." "But, no matter." "You didn't tell me Mac was involved." " What's the difference?" " Mac's a friend." "He's a drug smuggler." "What do you mean, Frescia?" "Let's see." "You've lost half a million dollars, confiscated a ton of useless coke caused the murder of a federal informant, and that's just tonight." "That's all bullshit, and you know it." "Think about this." "Mac can identify Escalante as Carlos and prove you've been partners with the biggest drug dealer in Mexico for eight years, wether you knew it or not." "And when you put Mac away, he puts you away." "Any luck, Woody?" "Yeah, see you." "I got to go post warning signs." "Can you give me a hand?" "It will make messy headlines." "At least the CIA does it on purpose." "When will I see you?" "How about dinner?" "What time do you want your reservation?" "7:30?" "I'll put it down." "Anything else I can do?" "Marry me." "Let's go." "Let's do it now." "Thanks for showing up." " How did you two get here?" " Boat." "Could you excuse us?" "Did Woody have any trouble getting ahold of you?" "None at all." "I need you to look after her for a while." "Tell me where Carlos is or you're an accessory to your cousin's murder." "Mac, you're under arrest." "I hate to pull a gun on you but that's how it is." "At this point, that's nothing new." "Here's another gun you pulled." "I don't believe you'll use that." "I know how you feel." "I don't get it." "I mean, you're not this stupid." "I caught you." "You can't pretend you're not caught." "You can't spend the rest of your life hiding in Mexico, either." "You got one chance." "Turn yourself in." "What for?" " What for?" " Yeah, what for?" "I told you I had an accounting problem in the restaurant." "I've been keeping money for someone and he's here to pick it up." "I want to get this." "You'd kill me over drug money?" "It's a lot of money." "What's it going to be?" "I can't believe this." "I can't believe what you've done with your fucking life!" "I can't believe you either, thinking you can do anything, like Carlos." "You try to fuck her, he tries to kill her." "Woody's the only one of us worth anything." "He's got a decent job." "I'll be back in an hour and you can lock me up." "You lied to me." "You wouldn't shoot me over money." "You've got to tell me where Mac's gone." "Why should I?" "He'll try to kill Carlos because Carlos is trying to kill you." "Ensenada, this is Little Red." "I'm approaching Pier 17." "Ensenada, this is Little Red approaching Pier 17." "Over." "You son of a bitch!" "How could you do this?" "!" "Friendship is the only choice in life you can make that's yours!" "You can't choose your family!" "Goddamn it, I've had to face that!" "No man should be judged for whatever direction his dick goes!" "That's like blaming a compass for pointing north, for Chrissake!" "Friendship is all we have." "We chose each other." "How could you fuck it up?" "How could you make us look so bad?" "Welcome aboard." "Here." "Careful, it's loaded." "Keep it." "You're going to spend the rest of your life in jail." "I won't be there to take care of you." "I'll be in a Mexican jail." " She's never going to testify." " How can you say that, damn you?" "She can't testify against her husband so she can't testify against you." "She said she'd marry you?" "Under the circumstances, she would have said anything!" "She would have fucked a snake!" "Come on, be serious!" "I am serious." "Don't you even want to..." "check below?" "When it comes to money I trust you." "So, how are we going to do this?" "I don't feel like unloading $ 15 million." "Why don't we swap boats?" "That is not exactly fair." "This is a real nice boat." "The hell with it." "So this is it?" "I hope she's worth it." "And I hope she keeps her mouth shut." "That's all I can say." "Go!" "No, don't." "Hold it." "I got that thing rigged to blow sky high." "I'm sorry." "I hated having to do that, but I didn't want her hurt." "You mind undoing it?" "Look at it this way." "If you had tried anything, we both would have gone." "You love her that much?" "Yeah." "When I first heard that, I thought you rigged the butane stove." "I thought of the butane stove." "But that's a little too hard to control." "The ignition system is best." "You knew?" "I know you." "Jesus Christ, look at that!" "You shot me." "So what?" "You shot me." "Look at my stomach!" "You went too far, damn it!" "And because you're my friend, that means you can kill anyone you want?" "Will you stop talking?" "It's making me sick." "That looks bad, don't it?" "That's what I've been telling you." " Now I got to get you a doctor." " Don't move." "Wait a minute." "I feel seasick." "I think it's time for both of us to quit." "I know." "I've seen it coming for some time." "Cocaine is no damn good for anybody." "The future..." "The future is grass." "Grass, buddy!" "I have 60 tons of Thai stick coming in." "It's on the way." "Don't do this, goddamn it!" "Freeze!" "I said freeze!" "I'm unarmed!" "Don't shoot!" "I'm unarmed." "I'm turning myself in!" "Goddamn it!" "Stay still!" "What the fuck are you doing, Maguire?" "He's turning himself in!" "Let it go, Hal!" "Jo Ann, it's Nick." "Before you open for dinner, can you meet me down by Tower 12?" "Attention." "We have a strong riptide in this immediate area." "And all lifeguards will be off duty soon." "For your own safety, please stay out of the water." "How's our friend?" "Fine." "Aside from a concussion, powder burns and being generally pissed off." "Did my name come up?" "Repeatedly." "They're probably talking about me right now." "Subtitled by GELULA  CO., INC." "My name is Tom Mount." "The producer of Tequila Sunrise." "Tequila was a picture of curious origins." "Robert Towne had written and directed for Warner Bros a picture called Personal Best." "Warners had removed Bob from the post-production process on that picture." "As a result of a lawsuit Warners had agreed to pay Robert a million dollars for a screenplay." "An original, which would be his next and to let him direct that original." "Our paths crossed in Paris where I was producing a Roman Polanski movie called Frantic starring Harrison Ford and Roman's soon-to-be wife, Emmanuelle Seigner." "We needed a rewrite on Frantic and hired Bob and he moved to Paris in early '86." "We did that work together." "He explained the dilemma on Tequila Sunrise." "Bob at that time had about 10 or 15 pages of outline for the story and a deadline looming, by which he had to deliver a finished script to Warner Bros." "So while in Paris he went to work in earnest on Tequila and we started shooting Frantic." "Before very long, there was very, very good first draft of Tequila Sunrise." "Bob Towne's a remarkable screenwriter." "From a producer's perspective you run into very few people who are able to write scenes that feel completely real whose first drafts are so close to being shootable." "We submitted Tequila Sunrise to Warner Bros." "They were thrilled with the script and agreed to go forward with Bob directing on the condition that we attached a major star." "As a result of our experience in Paris together on Frantic," "Bob and I approached Harrison Ford." "Harrison read the script and loved it and agreed to star in it." "Things then proceeded to pace." "We began to budget the picture and get ready and as we got closer to a pre-production date Harrison got cold feet." "One morning he called me and said "Tom, I simply can't do this thing." "I'm not sure about this character." "I'm not sure about this movie."" "And so we were left a couple a months ahead of a start date, without a star and we needed one very, very, badly." "We at that point approached Mel Gibson, who was in Australia." "I talked to Mel on the phone;" "we sent him the script overnight." "He read it and loved it." "Robert Towne and his wife Luisa and myself, we jumped on a plane and flew to Sydney and had lunch with Mel which was a successful meeting." "And agreed to do the picture together." "At that point we started pulling together the rest of the cast." "Bonnie Timmermann, who was has been my long time casting director suggested a number of actors for the parts." "We were all thrilled with Michelle Pfeiffer." "I had worked with her before in a picture I'd supervised at Universal called Scarface." "Bob was thrilled with her demeanor and look and acting ability." "Kurt Russell's part was originally aimed for Alec Baldwin." "But after reading Alec we began to look around again." "Bob had kind of an inspired notion, which was to take Kurt Russell and introduce him to the Los Angeles Lakers' coach, Pat Riley." "And Kurt and Pat hit if off and Kurt began to construct a character that borrowed a lot of the stylistic trademarks of Pat Riley." "The suits and hair and attention to personal detail." "Kurt hit a gym and lost 20 Ibs." "And pulled himself together." "And I think it's one of his best roles." "Of course, as one starts to make a movie, inevitably budget comes into play." "There is a moment when the studio actually realizes that they are about to make the film." "In the case of Tequila Sunrise, we had two such moments." "The first month or so away from production the studio began to get very nervous about the cost of the movie." "Their internal estimates for making the film at Warner Bros. In Burbank were running between 30 and 33 million dollars." "My budgeting work inside our company led us to believe that, if we could separate ourselves from Warner Bros and act as a completely independent film the so-called negative pick-up project we could save a lot of money." "Maybe 8 million dollars." "And we agreed to make the picture for between 22 and 23 million on that basis." "Warners liked that number and we worked out a business arrangement which allowed us to separate the film from Warner Bros and produce it independently, even though we shot entirely in Los Angeles." "This had a lot of very salutary consequences later." "The second little dilemma we had in this preparatory process was that one week before rehearsal started a very senior executive at Warners who at this moment will remain nameless called me and said, "You know, we just can't make this picture."" "And I said, "Great, fine, why?"" "And he said, "Well, you know, the hero of this movie is a drug dealer."" "And I said, "Yes." And he said "And then the villain in this movie is a cop."" "And I said, "Yes." "That's true."" "And he said, "Well, worse than that."" "I said, "Well, what's worse than that?" He said, "Well, worse than that this girl, the female lead, she sleeps with both guys."" "Well we talked for some time and I assured him that in real life it was possible." "That there had been drug dealers who reformed that it was likely that there'd been cops who were corrupt, and that it did occasionally happen that a girl slept with two guys." "While at the same time, while trying to make up her mind." "Once we'd gotten past the moral dilemma we started rehearsal for the picture." "Things moved into a very different gear." "We had because of our independent relationship to Warner Bros constructed out of an old warehouse in Santa Monica three sound stages." "The production designer Richard Sylbert had created a truly gorgeous restaurant set which was the centerpiece of the picture's interiors." "One of the things I wanted to do with this film was to make a picture that was fundamentally film noir, but looked very, very glamorous." "I wanted people to look good." "I wanted them to be sexy." "I wanted them to be people that felt like characters from a Hollywood movie of another time." "Bob Towne was very supportive of that idea and we pursued it with a vengeance in the picture." "We started photography with a German cinematographer who had done a wonderful job on an epic but small submarine movie called Das Boot." "He did about a week's work on the show and we decided it simply didn't look right." "So we went in search of a new cinematographer on the weekend." "One week to production." "This is, you can imagine, a somewhat pressurized operation." "The guy we wanted most was Conrad Hall." "A legendary cinematographer, multiple Academy Award winner and a man whose sense of the elegant and the spare combined unusually in the work." "But we couldn't find Conrad Hall." "Conrad Hall is the son of one of the co-authors of Mutiny on the Bounty." "Nordoff Hall wrote the book and so, Cony grew up in Tahiti where he still lived at this time." "Ultimately, we found a cousin of Cony Hall's in Tahiti on the telephone and got the cousin to jump on a dugout canoe and go to Cony's house which had no phone and get him on the next plane to Los Angeles." "Without Conrad Hall  Tequila Sunrise would not exist." "He came in and did a spectacular job, not only in photography but in organizing the shoot and in making sure that we all paid attention to detail." "If you look at the scene Mel and Russell in the restaurant in this booth confronting each other for the first time about their personal histories and about their intent you notice that in addition to the traditional two shots and cutaways there will be a little sequence when Michelle Pfeiffer walks into the scene that is designed to keep things as interesting and sexy and vital and rich as possible." "This is, I think, gorgeous work." "And I love the idea of playing the hard drama of a story that is a thriller against the luxury of this kind of scene and this kind of shooting." "It's also true that this scene is a very, very good example of Bob Towne's writing." "You know, one guy insists that the other guy try the fish." "What the hell are these guys talking about?" "They're not talking about fish; they're talking about a lifetime of competition." "Look at that shot." "Now we need to understand visually that..." "Mel Gibson, having confronted the Jo Ann Vallenari character for the first time in his life is going to be a goner." "And if you watch the scene carefully and if you watch the way Mel plays it the shooting and the choices we see that the lifelong competition between these two characters is about to take a new turn." "Michelle of course patterned a lot of her character after Bob Towne's wife, Luisa." "Because in fact Luisa had been married to the very very successful owner of a luxurious Italian restaurant in Los Angeles." "Bob had met her in this restaurant and courted her as a patron and ultimately won her." "Michelle observed I think, Luisa's unique combination of cordial and engaging and distant and brought a lot of that specificity to the part." "By this scene, we were trying to knock off the major interiors in the picture." "The daily work of the film, in terms of moving it forward was done by the executive producer, Tom Shaw." "He's a unique personality in the movie business." "He was a line producer for Richard Brooks on most of Mr. Brooks' wonderful movies from In Cold Blood to The Professionals and also was the line producer and first assistant director for John Huston for many, many years." "So Mr. Shaw provided a kind of unusual glue in holding the picture together, pushing things forward and making the film move along everyday." "In this scene, you see a much younger J.T. Walsh getting his from his boss." "I'm particularly fond of the kind of underplayed humor in Tequila Sunrise." "There's a lot of it." "It's somewhat sardonic, it's always cruel it's frequently articulate." "Maybe this doesn't happen everyday in the movies anymore." "The next problem we faced in the making of Tequila had to do frankly with maintaining schedule." "A lot of actors in the movie." "A lot of sets." "A tremendous amount of night work outdoors, boats and by the water." "It was not a physically easy shoot." "Bob Towne who, for whom this was a second film didn't understand exactly what the demands would be." "And it was a very tough tough, physical endeavor for him." "The punitive new career for the ex-drug dealer, Mel Gibson is the hydro-hose business, which is the business of pen point hose irrigation systems." "It's kind of a perfect idea for the great South Bay Curve in Southern California." "A place where you can make a living by selling something that's directly related to citrus and farming in desert conditions." "As you probably know, Robert Towne is a native of Los Angeles." "A guy who, in Chinatown and Shampoo and in a number of his best films, has really and brilliantly captured the tone and texture of Southern California." "In this case virtually everything in Tequila Sunrise speaks to the transitory nature of life in the South Bay Curve from Santa Monica to Huntington Beach." "It also speaks to carelessness of life and the carelessness of characters when you see Mel's ex-wife complain that her Mercedes burned up because somebody forgot to put oil in it you see kind of a hilarious metaphor for the disposable and materialistic nature of life in this part of the world." "The fun in this scene with Kurt Russell and J.T. Walsh is that Kurt went out of his way to throw coffee on this guy and insult and beat him up so that he would force him to come to him and apologize and that indeed has happened." "Now the J.T. Walsh character, who knows he has been humiliated in the context of his work has figured out enough background information to turn the heat up." "Also the dialogue in this scene begins to establish high moral ground for Mel Gibson, which is a difficult thing to do about a guy who's been dealing drugs all his life." "But it's, I think, very important to the story that we get a sense that even though he was a drug dealer the Gibson character had a different kind of personal moral code." "And that code had overwhelmed his professional work." "And as Mel says later in the movie:" ""When you are a successful drug dealer, it's very hard to quit." "Nobody wants you to quit." "Not your accountants not your lawyers, not your girlfriend."" "So it's fun over the course of the movie to play out the complicated and very compromised moral playing field that the cops operate on against the fairly singular and straightforward moral playing field that the drug dealers operate on." "The nature of the film of course like most movies, is that one tries to conquer from a production point of view the hardest parts of the film first meaning the big night exteriors and save the so-called easy work." "The interiors and shots like this beach perspective for a little later." "Of course Bob Towne a wonderful screenwriter, tends to write screenplays that are much too long." "No exception here." "The screenplay... we started shooting the film with a script that was 135 pages." "In this scene in particular Mel Gibson speaking to Carlos, the drug dealer, about his son was the beginning of an entire sequence which is no longer in the film, but which we shot." "A sequence in which Mel had to go to San Francisco to rescue the son of his friend Carlos from a drug deal gone wrong." "It simply was irrelevant and became too long." "It's one of several sequences that were cut from the film by the time it was released." "We gave Jo Ann Vallenari, the female lead an Alfa sedan to drive partially because she's Italian and partially because Bob wanted to tip his hat very gently to Mike Nicholson in The Graduate." "In this scene we begin to hear the dispassionate, rational, and somewhat angry dynamic that characterizes the female character." "Now the respect Kurt Russell has for this character increases dramatically, but of course her willingness to trust this guy or the cops is also diminishing in equal proportion." "Setting up, shall we say a complicated relationship." "The sets in this film are kind of intentionally full of contrast." "The restaurant's a very rich embracing emotional environment." "All of the officers are intentionally pedestrian, ordinary." "Richard Sylbert, of course has an illustrious history as a production designer from Day of the Locust to Chinatown." "Richard's work is always, enormously useful in a storytelling sense." "Very rarely do you get art directors who are going to be able to come up with set design and an approach to a film that helps you support the narrative." "In the case of Richard Sylbert he is as important a storyteller as the cameraman or the director or the screenwriter." "This is the kind of scene where David Grusin's music is extraordinarily useful." "Now the picture takes a tonal shift that is kind of critical to the whole construct of Tequila Sunrise." "Just when we have lulled everyone into thinking that everything's normal we gently describe abnormality and put the Gibson character in a kind of ill-at-ease context." "Arliss Howard, of course does a wonderful job of playing his extremely unreliable cousin." "The two girls who play the Sin Sisters downstairs with Arliss Howard are appropriately named Dawn and Lala." "Names I think you can only get in Southern California." "One of the motifs in Tequila Sunrise that was the most fun for us from a pure acting point of view is that every single person in this film has a contrary opinion relative to everyone else's point of view about what's happening." "There is no one who simply nods nicely and goes along in Tequila Sunrise." "Everybody is potentially a source of trouble and everybody's got a mouth." "As a film maker for Bob Towne and myself and for the rest of us involved in this picture you know, it is so rare that we get an opportunity to work with material in which people actually talk." "Where the language is rich, where the things they say have to be listened to." "Where things are emotionally revealing." "The problems with the drug dealers you can't pay with anything but cash and they can't pay in front of anyone in cash because people think you're a drug dealer." "So Mel Gibson's, having a very hard time changing his life and his reputation." "This restaurant set created by Richard Sylbert was so detailed and so lush that during the course of making the picture, we had several Los Angeles area restaurants come to us and make bids for the set after we wrapped." "Ultimately we did sell big pieces of the set and the plants for the set to a restaurant company that recreated it in a new restaurant on Hollywood Blvd." "So always Bob Towne is salting this picture with references to the great Sot Baker, Redondo Union High." "A sense of history, of growing up together." "A sense of evolution, life at the beach." "It, I think, helps enormously to evoke the sort of texture of this of the culture that surrounds this picture." "These people and this dilemma couldn't happen anywhere else in America." "It's very specific in the same way that  Coal Miner's Daughter describes Loretta Lynn's life in Butcher Hollow with great specificity." "This kind of film really gets at the defensive, the game playing the superficial and the deeper needs and desires of the people who inhabit this world." "You may notice that Mel Gibson is pouring Herradura tequila throughout this entire film thanks to a generous contribution from Seagrams the distributor of Herradura tequila in the United States." "It's one of the few movies in which we could actually do product placement without looking like product placement." "A kind of busman's holiday for Jo Ann Vallenari." "While Dale McKussic, the Mel Gibson character eats his heart out in the distance." "While the party is set up for McKussic's son and Jo Ann Vallenari thinks she's falling in love with the cop." "The cop is of course playing both sides of the fence gathering information." "And this party sequence is a hilarious, I think send up of a cop surveillance and all of their technological excess." "Certainly it's not what the police thought they were going to find in this house on this afternoon." "These exteriors were shot in Manhattan Beach, California on a series of hillsides and yards for houses that were immediately adjacent to the strand and to the ocean." "Ann Magnuson plays Mel Gibson's ex-wife and I think quite wonderfully." "Ann is a very gifted actress and part of the secret was to surround Mel in this..." "Surround Mel in this situation with actors who really were overcast in a certain sense." "Much better actors than their small parts would let you know." "Jason Randal who plays the magician in that scene, is really a magician in Southern California." "Works frequently at Magic Castle in Hollywood." "These house interiors McKussic's house of course, are constructed on a stage at the makeshift stage in Santa Monica." "And this kind of creation is enormously helpful to us in the production process." "We can locate the restaurant and the house interior a piece of the house exterior including the hot tub and a part of the yard and the various bits and pieces of the office for the police department all in the same sound stage, all within a few feet of each other." "So as we work we are in a position to move efficiently and get from one piece to the other." "In this scene, of course Michelle Pfeiffer begins to understand for the first time the depth of the betrayal that's going on here." "She's already begun to fall for the Kurt Russell character, Frescia." "Now she's beginning to have to reconsider her judgment about his honesty and about the situation she's in." "Moral ambiguity is of the essence in this movie." "Probably as it is in life." "Once more we have a moment when the cops in their extreme eagerness to capture the dreaded drug dealer McKussic have screwed things up and managed to spend a lot of money and use a lot of people and figure out nothing." "The fun thing about this next shot is the reveal of the snitch." "We begin to see who inside Mel Gibson's world is betraying him." "And there we are." "Mel's cousin, the guy he lives with and has hanging around the house at all times he is indeed his betrayer." "This sequence is one of my favorites in the movie." "It's a scene that we shot purely at the last minute." "It wasn't scheduled to be shot in a swing set nor was it scheduled to be shot at sunset." "But we had wrapped the day's work in Manhattan Beach, we were driving back to our homes in Los Angeles in a convoy through Venice, California and we saw a swing set on a beach and it was almost sunset." "We literally, no permit, no nothing stopped all the equipment, grabbed the DP a handful of crew no lights, ran out stuck the sticks in the sand, popped a camera on it and as the sun begins to set with three different cameras simultaneously running we shot this sequence." "Which I think is one of the most emotionally important in the movie." "And if we hadn't had the happy accident of finding the swing set on a beach in Venice near Sunset." "If you know Southern California, you can see that that sun is setting on the far north end of the Santa Monica Bay, setting over the mountains of Malibu." "We end up with a very evocative scene mostly by chance." "It is terrifying how many good things happen in movies and bad things, by chance." "The plot thickens, sort of the understatement here." "A lot of people complain that Tequila Sunrise has too much going on in it and is too confusing." "My own feeling is that it's always fun to see a movie where you have to actually listen and think to keep up with it." "We're made a number of films that are reliant on dialogue and complex layering of character, whether they are comedies or drama." "For us, it's always more fun than a kind of straight ahead paint-by-numbers sort of film making." "This is a song by Crowded House." "The Grusin score and the contemporary songs were put together and produced by Danny Bramson who is probably the finest film soundtrack producer in our industry." "He's currently head of motion picture music for Warner Bros." "At this time, this song hadn't been released went on to being a big hit single for that band." "The McKussic character's inadvertent switch of envelopes creates a crisis with Jo Ann Vallenari." "Again, the dangers of life in an all cash economy." "There's a very interesting turn in this movie." "Of the things I'm particularly pleased with about the film is Bob's use of Mel's relationship with his son." "At the time this movie was made of course Southern California was a world capital of single parenting and there were lots and lots of guys with kids without wives." "I guess by this moment in history single parenting is a nationwide phenomena." "But I think, it was used cleverly in this picture." "Of course, Bob Towne had for some years raised a daughter by himself so he had some sense of how to approach that issue." "I think we should stop and watch this scene because this scene is actually important and I think perhaps Michelle's best scene in the movie." "And so life among the compromised goes on." "It's particularly fun in this film to watch the shift of emphasis as characters gain awareness and turn on each other, one after the other, after the other sometimes correctly, sometimes mistakenly." "Like an endless the House of Mirrors, emotional House of Mirrors." "We introduce in this scene the Raul Julia character." "And like everything else in Tequila Sunrise, this man is not what he seems." "He is the head of the Mexican Drug Enforcement Task Force legendary drug dealer and ex-partner of McKussic's." "But of course he also happens to be Carlos." "So everyone perpetually working across purposes." "Budd Boetticher, legendary film director all sorts of blood and sand bullfight type movies and westerns:" "Lonesome Kid and many others." "We asked Bud to come up from San Diego out of retirement and play the judge in this movie." "In the back corner, the gentleman that you met at the beginning of the film the drug deal Arliss Howard, who plays Jo Ann Vallenari's lawyer and the lawyer that Mel tried to teach to sell cocaine at the beginning of the film." "Now Jo Ann Vallenari discovers that from her lawyer that a lot of what she's been told by Frescia, the policeman who she's crazy about simply isn't true or was designed to elicit information to help him track and or apprehend McKussic." "Now we find Frescia's firm ground shifting once more." "The essence of this confrontation of course is that Frescia contrary to his better judgment or his intent is actually falling in love." "So the essence of this picture in a funny way is that kind of abiding melodrama that was a staple and a main stay of Hollywood for since the beginning of sound, certainly." "It's a bit of a romance, certainly." "It's a bit of a thriller, certainly." "But really this is drama and melodrama." "I hope sort of its best form for my Hollywood terms." "It's not very different in many ways than good pictures with Alan Ladd, Jr." "Or with Fred McMurray or with Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda." "The complexity of the emotional relationships gradually overtake the plot and push it into the background and what the audience really is interested in this:" ""Who's going to end up with whom and why?"" "As opposed to:" ""Will the cops get our hero or not?"" "So it's an interesting balance to try to strike." "This particular location in the little boat towing sequence was Dockweiler Beach near the Los Angeles International Airport." "Now we see the beginnings of the setup of the Mexican police cooperative action to bust Carlos, the drug dealer." "The theme of surveillance is lots of fun in this movie because people listen and see things all the time." "What does any of it mean?" "Becomes the question." "If the woman takes her clothes out of the car, is she staying at the house?" "Heavy shot, maybe just a bit of an overreaction." "Part of the essence of this kind of film is trying to find that balance between continuing action and plot and emotional evolution." "I'm not sure Tequila is entirely successful in doing it, actually." "I like this film very much." "In fact, it happens personally to be my favorite film of all the films I've done or worked on and that includes, God knows, lots and lots of good films and some not so good films." "By the way, this shot took us the entire night because the damn cat wouldn't do what he was supposed to do." "That shot you just saw was the one time that the cat stopped and played with Mel on the way into the house." "It was a very expensive cat shot." "One night on this movie, night shooting exterior cost about 140,000 dollars." "My best advice to you is:" "No animals!" "Now we begin to put the information about who the inside snitch is in the hands of Frescia whose rivalry with McKussic is at its maximum and whose loyalty is still a factor in the plot." "Now we are about to get into a sequence in which Mel and Michelle their characters, make love in a hot tub." "This of course makes life complicated." "On a movie set when you have important stars who are supposed to be nude or seminude and make love." "...life gets very, very complex." "Michelle had read the script." "She understood that this scene was in the script but closer to the day of achieving this stuff she got more and more nervous, understandably." "Finally a couple of days before we were to shoot this scene, I got a call from her attorney, who also happened to be my attorney Barry Hersch." "He said, "You know, Michelle is fundamentally uncomfortable being seminude in this shot and perhaps we shouldn't do it."" "I said:" ""Well, it was in the script and I think we ought to shoot it."" "I went to see Michelle and she was indeed nervous, trying to figure out what she could wear in the shot that would be as close to invisible as possible, but still resembling clothing." "So we called in an expert on clothing for dancers in Las Vegas who came up with some very invisible and micro designed monofilament G- string kind of thing." "After a lot of hemming and hawing and back and forth Michelle finally decided that was something she was comfortable wearing and felt dressed in." "Mel of course had a very different reaction to the issue of nudity." "Mel is a lovely guy and in his heart, fundamentally a surfer from Australia." "So when the question about taking his clothes off came up, he simply said:" ""Let's shuck the bathing suit and get on with it."" "This wasn't exactly designed to reassure Michelle that he was as concerned as she was." "So we kept them apart until the start of the scene and then of course, you cut the crew on the set to an absolute minimum." "Something like this:" "A cameraman, one assistant a handful of others." "But you know it's a movie and actors and actresses understand fundamentally what they are going to be doing." "We also obviously shot this scene in an somewhat abstract way because we weren't trying to create the most explicit scene in the world." "We were trying to do something erotic and romantic and something that would establish the notion that when these two characters make love it is different than her liaison with the Kurt Russell character." "So that separation is utterly important." "Kurt, in this slide projector scene sees the worst clue he'd possibly see." "It's the look in her eye when she's looking at Mel." "If you look at Robert Towne's work, you see that most of it operates on at least two levels, sometimes three or four, all the time." "Shampoo, Chinatown  The Last Detail." "Pictures where people's behavior, the details of their language their movements and even the gestures all add up to a multi-layered sense of what they want." "The first thing they want, the second thing they want the third thing they want, like all of us." "Now we see Frescia's police partner, J.T. Walsh, making the exchange with Mel Gibson's cousin." "Now we know where the rat is." "Raul Julia, we've worked with on several films and one of the things of course that was wonderful about Raul as a human as well as an actor, is that he brings a tremendous kind of excitement, enthusiasm, to the set and his performances are always flamboyant, smart, funny." "Raul loved to drink and he loved to sing." "After a few nights in restaurants in which..." "Bob Towne and I heard Raul's amateur but enthusiastic versions of operas we decided to insert some of that drinking and singing into this picture." "Which we'll see later on." "Again those night scenes by the hot tub, which are interiors beautifully lit by Cony Hall." "So my question is:" ""Can the Carlos character prevent himself from singing in the rest of this movie?"" "I think it's probably an impossible notion." "For the restaurant exterior that you just saw, we used Mateo's a well-known Italian restaurant on Westwood Blvd in Los Angeles." "Mateo's was the long time haunt of people like Sinatra, Dean Martin." "And is still very much of a Hollywood nightspot." "This little shot you've just seen in the parking lot behind the restaurant was done entirely in a corner of the sound stage in a space about 12 feet by 20 feet, with a little smoke and some paint and light." "In the course of making a picture many times we shoot location specific masters and cutaways or big interior pieces and later in editing, we discover that we need pieces that are connective tissue, utterly critical to the movie but we just don't have them." "And that was one of them." "We go back in after the fact and pick up little bits and pieces of shots that make the story supportable and understandable." "You see lots of people wandering towards the beach in the dark." "This is because the grunion are running a small shellfish which is, a small fish which is a favorite in Southern California and they run periodically during the year and people come down to the beach and catch them in buckets boil them." "This sequence takes place on the bridge leading into Long Beach, California." "One of the tallest bridges in Southern California." "A bridge from which you can see the cityscape in all directions." "And it appears that Lindroff, the snitch has had his ticket canceled." "This we shot in a shipyard in Long Beach, near the old..." "Naval Air piers." "We stayed down in Long Beach for the dock sequence the boat chase and other pieces of the night exteriors using the Navy pier warehouse as makeshift sound stages." "Now we enter a sequence in which the Dale McKussic character has to make a series of very hard decisions which involve in dramatic terms, separating himself from his past, for real." "He has made all the external signs of separation he's no longer a drug dealer." "But he's indebted to Carlos." "And he's indebted to his past as a drug dealer." "And Jo Ann Vallenari who now means everything to him is the access around which his release from his own past will be constructed." "This sequence we shot over two nights on a rented yacht in Long Beach Harbor." "Raul insisted on being genuinely drunk for the scene." "So did Mel." "It's a very interesting sequence from the director's point of view, because working with them was, to say the least, an imprecise science during this part of the film." "And you see in the background everywhere, oil derricks pumping away." "The lifeguard is played by Ken Moore who was in real life a lifeguard and a surfer." "A kind of unofficial Mayor of the beaches of the South Bay." "Shooting movies is always complicated when it comes to practical locations and Manhattan Beach was one of our primary locations." "The location of McKussic's house exterior of the place where the surveillance took place the place where the birthday party for the children occurred." "The Mayor of Manhattan Beach was running for re-election." "I made a deal with him for a permit to shoot in the area." "The minute we moved the trucks and equipment in all the neighbors started complaining like mad and holding out their hands for cash to be quiet or turn their televisions down or go away or let us park cars in their driveways." "And we were happy to pay them." "What we hadn't counted was the then Mayor of Manhattan Beach would turn our production unit into his closet election campaign headquarters." "So rapidly I found that our printshop was turning out posters for the Mayor and many of our production assistants and drivers were stapling posters all over phone poles and buildings, up and down the streets of Manhattan Beach." "By the time the election came around and this guy won, we all felt jubilant." "We felt like we were his campaign staff." "I would've been very, very disappointed given the amount of money we spent and the focused time if we hadn't been able to re-elect this guy." "It would have been a terrible commentary of the inefficiency of a movie company." "Cruising along Long Beach Harbor in the fog this Fittipaldi racing boat is capable of doing over 100 miles an hour on water." "We had two of them for the show cruising along there at about 60." "It's a remarkable boat and a very, very high maintenance item." "It's also true, of course, that once you start shooting in fog you are perpetually trapped in fog and you have to create it when it doesn't show up for you." "That's why this sequence is shot on a sound stage with the boat on gimbals." "A lot of fog in the background trying to solve the engine problems because while there are a few foggy nights it's absolutely unpredictable, the fog moves easily when blown by the wind." "It's really impossible to control the situation." "I entered the movie business like most people I know, backwards." "I started out to be a painter went to graduate school at CalArts in California an arts conservatory." "In search of an ability to pay the rent went to work for Roger Coreman the legendary producer of many of your favorite biker and monster movies." "Working for Roger was always an education and an adventure." "In an eight month period, we made ten motion pictures which meant that no film was shot for more than ten or twelve days at a time." "Those films probably averaged to 50 or 60 thousand dollars each in cost." "The great advantage of working for Roger was that on Monday you were loading cable in a pick-up truck and on Tuesday you were a second AD." "On Wednesday you were a speaking extra." "On Thursday you were rewriting a scene of the script and on Friday you took his wife shopping." "It was always a well-rounded education." "From Roger I got a job at Universal purely by accident." "One of the low level executives there had seen a film, a 16 mm black and white film I had made at CalArts and in a local festival in Los Angeles and I was asked to show up in his office to interview for a job." "In that interview, it became clear that this guy was actually going to hire me much to my amazement." "He asked me what I've been making weekly." "I had been terminally unemployed for some months." "I thought, "Well, what's the biggest number the biggest lie I could tell this guy?"" "So I said, "Well, I've been making 250 dollars a week."" "He said, "Fine, you start Monday. 300 a week."" "I thought frankly that I had died and gone to heaven." "Three hundred dollars a week at that moment I think I was 22, 23 years old was a lot of cash." "What Ned did not tell me as I showed up for work on my first day at Universal was that my first job on my first day was to go down to the 8th floor of the tower and find the young man who had had my job as of Friday and fire him." "Ned had neglected to tell his old assistant." "As I delivered this charming news to this hapless guy he explained to me that Ned had had nine assistants in a four year period." "Nobody had ever lasted as much as six months." "This meant that we were destined to work together and I spent the next decade working happily with him." "This pier by the Long Beach Naval Station we constructed especially for the final shot." "Pieces of the pier are already pre-rigged with explosives, fire." "So the final moments of Tequila Sunrise..." "The final moments of Tequila Sunrise revolve entirely around people's emotional needs, not the needs of the plot." "We tried to keep the plot alive enough to be able to remember what the hell's going on in this movie." "But not so alive that it dominates the personal vendettas and emotional tension." "Among the other problems we had with Warner Bros was the constant pressure to subtitle the pieces of the film that are in Spanish which is pointless." "Because even if you don't understand them word-for-word, you understand the intent of the scene." "The moral implications of the picture were critical to all of us." "In this final sequence after Carlos is wounded and is dying his continued fidelity to the greatness of drug dealing is very important to us." "The studio thought this was insane and we had an enormous amount of pressure to change the scene or cut the scene or re-shoot the scene." "But ultimately, in previews, audiences loved it that Carlos never wavered from his enthusiastic embrace of crime." "One of the great problems with the studios always is that they want every single character to end up being a soldier for the good, the right, for mom, apple-pie and the American way." "There's very little room for unrepentant behavior or ambiguity." "This film is nothing but ambiguity and lots of unrepentant behavior." "In the background the Star-Spangled Banner playing in the radio sign off." "It kind of underscores the finale of this movie, which is a merger of drugs and money and power and betrayal." "Which seems the appropriate fuel for the lives of these characters." "Now as usual in a Bob Towne movie people discuss with each other the diabolical things they're going to do before they do them." "The perfect Bob Towne ending to which two wounded guys on the edge of death continue their philosophical argument." "You can imagine how much Warner Bros. loved this advice from Carlos:" ""The future is grass, buddy."" "The J.T. Walsh character having sunken to morass of compromise and foolish decisions and stupid bureaucratic bungling has no choice but to kill everybody in sight, if he's going to look like a hero..." "...and he's about to start a little bigger fire than he anticipated." "That is about as complete an expression of continuing friendship as one can find when a cop shoots his partner on behalf of his buddy the criminal." "You may notice a lot of dollar bills falling through the air in this shot." "These series of explosions took us two nights in Long Beach." "And this beach and this sunset." "This ending is a new ending." "This is an ending that we shot after the fact in an effort to perfect the emotional connection between the characters using the lifeguard station, which you've seen before in the film and this shot which is at a different location." "That's the beach at Zuma Beach California." "Sunset." "Tying in the ubiquitous lifeguard truck and the not so subtle conspiracy as among the cops and Frescia." "Woody the lifeguard and Harbor patrol officer and McKussic a guy who has only one goal at this point in life and it appears that he's got it." "So what can I say?" "This is Bob Towne's vision of another day in the South Bay." "The original ending for the movie involved tying up a tremendous number of loose ends in a much more linear dramatic way and was completely unacceptable to audiences in the preview process." "In fact, in previews this movie got shorter by almost 20 minutes, 25 minutes." "The entire subplot having to do with Carlos' son and his failed drug deal in San Francisco, which we shot was all excised from the movie." "Further a number of smaller sequences were pulled out to try to clarify plot." "Many people still say the movie is incomprehensible on a pure plot basis." "Personally, I like that." "That intense melodramatic layering that causes you to have to think and work and struggle to keep up with the film." "The film was edited, by the way, edited by Claire Simpson a wonderful English editor who studied with Dee Dee Allen;" "perhaps one of our 2 or 3 best editors." "The stunt coordinator for this movie, Bobby Bass is a legendary character who'd done many films and many stunts throughout the business and Bobby continues to stay, to do many of the most important action pictures you'll see." "Of course, not long after this film Raul Julia died, very unfortunately." "Left a big hole in the world of entertainment, where that kind of character is rare." "A character that rich and expansive." "The soundtrack for Tequila Sunrise as it happened, turned out to be a big hit and did very well for Warner Bros." "The picture was a modest hit in the U.S. And a giant hit outside the U.S." "In America, it got good reviews, sometimes great reviews but it got tremendous acclaim in the international market where people seemed frankly not to be at all put off by the dense language..." "...and the intensely layered melodramatic nature of the picture." "Subtitled byd th GELULA  CO., INC."