Robert Towne

Born: 1934-11-23

Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz; November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning original screenplay for Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), which is widely considered one of the greatest screenplays ever written. He later said it was inspired by a chapter in Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article on Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Towne also wrote the sequel, The Two Jakes (1990); the Hal Ashby comedy-dramas The Last Detail (1973) and Shampoo (1975); and the first two Mission: Impossible films. Towne directed the sports dramas Personal Best (1982) and Without Limits (1998), the crime thriller Tequila Sunrise (1988), and the romantic crime drama Ask the Dust (2006). Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Towne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.


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Shampoo

as Party Guest (uncredited)
Released: 1975-02-11

George Roundy is a Beverly Hills hairstylist whose uncontrolled libido stands between him and...

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Suspect Zero

as Professor Dates (uncredited)
Released: 2004-08-27

A killer is on the loose, and an FBI agent sifts through clues and learns that the bloodthirsty...

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The Pick-up Artist

as Stan
Released: 1987-09-18

A womanizer meets his match when he falls for the daughter of a gambling addict who is in debt...

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Salinger

as Self - Screenwriter
Released: 2013-09-06

An in-depth investigation into the private world of the American writer J. D. Salinger...

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Creature from the Haunted Sea

as Sparks Moran / Agent XK150 / Narrator
Released: 1961-06-01

A crook decides to bump off members of his inept crew and blame their deaths on a legendary sea...

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Last Woman on Earth

as Martin Joyce
Released: 1960-08-05

Harold Gern, a shady businessman from New York, is spending a holiday in Puerto Rico with his...

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What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael

as Self
Released: 2019-03-22

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) was undoubtedly one of the greatest names in film criticism. A...

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A Decade Under the Influence

as Self
Released: 2003-04-25

A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of...

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Rescued from the Closet

as Self
Released: 2001-05-29

A collection of interviews recorded for the making of the 1995 documentary "The Celluloid...

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You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story

as Self
Released: 2008-05-15

Jack L. Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner were siblings who were born in Poland...

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The Zodiac Killer

as Man in Bar #3
Released: 1971-04-07

The San Francisco area is beset by a series of seemingly random murders without motive or...

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Drive, He Said

as Richard
Released: 1971-06-13

Hector is a star basketball player for the College basketball team he plays for, the Leopards....

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Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That

as Self
Released: 2005-12-02

Documentary about filmmaker Budd Boetticher.

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Billy Wilder: The Human Comedy

as Self
Released: 1998-02-04

A profile of writer-director Billy Wilder

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Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature

as uncredited
Released: 1997-06-24

Documentary on water usage and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part...

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A Sad Flower in the Sand

as Self
Released: 2001-01-01

About a largely unsung writer of the twentieth century: John Fante, the renegade author whose...

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AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies

as Self
First aired: 1998-06-23

To commemorate the first century of American filmmaking, the American Film Institute embarked on...

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The Story of Film: An Odyssey

as Self
First aired: 2011-09-03

A worldwide guided tour of the greatest movies ever made and the story of international cinema...

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