It was not possible to film in California, because all the areas are heavily built up now. Coming to Cape Town is an invitation to step into the past and recreate Los Angeles of the 1930s.
Robert TowneBut, uh, censorship at that time said that you just absolutely couldn't do anything involving children and so we had to go from there. I don't remember what I changed it to. Duvall is just excellent in it.
Robert TowneBut time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.
Robert TowneThe one thing you know when you're shooting a script - and I've been on a lot of sets - is space is in a script, and the distance between the page and the stage is so enormous that it is unbelievable how even the brightest people can misread your intent or not see it altogether. Scripts have air in them. Scripts are supposed to leave things up to interpretation, but people can misread things enormously, so sometimes it's just a matter of wanting to put on the screen what you had in mind.
Robert Towne