Lost Highway ***½ (1997, Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Gary Busey, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Loggia, Robert Blake) – Classic Movie Review 1315

Co-writer/director David Lynch’s infuriating, but imaginative and thrilling-looking 1997 surreal thriller film Lost Highway stars Bill Pullman as saxophonist Fred Madison, who dreams that he and his wife Renée (Patricia Arquette) are being watched by a strange man while they sleep.

When Renée is killed, Fred ends up on Death Row, only to disappear himself, replaced in his cell by innocent motor mechanic Pete Dayton and his mistress (Arquette again), who offer him work. Dayton and Madison’s paths begin to cross.

This strange, nightmarish movie grips and stirs the senses, even if it doesn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. But, then again, does it need to? No one but Lynch could have made it, and probably no one else would have wanted to. The songs are by Lou Reed, David Bowie (‘I’m Deranged’), Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson (‘Apple of Sodom’).

After this, Richard Pryor was forced to quit acting due to his multiple sclerosis, and it is also the last film appearances of Jack Nance and Robert Blake, who plays The Mystery Man.

Balthazar Getty, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Gary Busey, Marilyn Manson, Lucy Butler, Michael Massee, Jack Kehler, John Roselius, Henry Rollins, Scott Coffey, Giovanni Ribisi and Robert Loggia (as Mr Eddy /  shady gangster boss named Dick Laurent) also co-star.

Lynch co-wrote the screenplay with Barry Gifford, whose novel was the basis for Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990). Lynch had come across the phrase ‘lost highway’ in Gifford’s Night People and told him how much he loved it as a title for a film, suggesting that they write a screenplay together. In 2003 the film was adapted into an opera.

It was shot in 84 days from November 29 1995 to February 22, 1996, funded with a moderately large budget of $15 million from the French production company Studio Canal. Lynch had great kudos in France after winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 199o for Wild at Heart.

The first cut of the film ran around 160 minutes. After a negatively received test screening, Lynch cut 25 minutes. The running time is now 134 minutes.

The much-loved, durable and versatile character star Robert Loggia died on December 4 2015, aged 85.

RIP Robert Blake (born Michael James Vincenzo Gubitosi; September 18, 1933 – March 9, 2023) best known for the 1967 film In Cold Blood and the 1970s US TV series Baretta. He started as an MGM child actor and continued acting until 1997’s Lost Highway.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1315

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