---[ ROBERT BLAKE ]---

A while back in the mid to late 90's Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with his film Pulp Fiction. I saw the flick while in University & thoughly hated it. I mean, the film had style, it was personable, and there were some definite touches & overall structure, but that didn't mean I had to like it. So I hated it. In spades.

What I really irked me though, is that John Travolta's star went into overdrive again, and once again, it was hip to like this 70's star. I thought Samuel L. Jackson was more deserving of praise, but instead disco's golden boy got it.

Sure Travolta was a great 70's icon, but isn't he not much beyond a bloated porker these days? Well, I guess that's just the fan boy in me wishing he'd tank again and never resurface for another 10 years or so.

What I'm getting to is this. Robert Blake, an actor far older than, Travolta made Lost Highway for David Lynch a few years after Pulp Fiction but got NONE of the accolades that come with re-surfacing in film after years of obscurity, and his performance was better than John's!

But he wasn't paraded around hollywood as the comeback kid, or geezer, or what have you, the way Travolta was.

Robert Blake, the one and only.

You can tell from the pic(s) above that he can certainly hold your attention. And that he did, very well in Lost Highway, playing the horrifyingly watchable Mystery Man.

This is a major factor in my choosing Blake. There's only one other guy in my entire wish list who could do what Blake can do, and do it naturally, Yul Brynner.

Like Brynner, Robert Blake has such a tight fisted grip over every word he says, that you can't help but sit to attention when he speaks. His words are clear, crystal, and carry so much weight that they slam into you like Jack Crow driving a steel pike through your heart. Tha' man, has PRESCENCE. He eats up scenery and his costars like an oversized monster truck on acid. He's naturally gifted and his talent knocks the living hell outta most actors his age, or any other age for that matter.

And for that reason I chose him to be in a John Carpenter film. His prescence alone would satisfy the coolness factor in one of John's films. I'd prefer to see him as a bad guy (naturally) because that is what he does best. When this guy gets mad, he really gets MAD and I would hate to be the one who'd have to face him down, even at his age. In a sequel script to THE THING I've been writing for what seems ages, I've cast Blake as one of the main good guys, albeit somewhat frightening good guy.

If it were me, it would probably only take Blake to shake a fist at me and I'd go screaming for the hills.

Physically Blake is a small man, but he's like a very tightly wound coil, ready to spring into action at any moment. He has everything a great Carpenter actor could ask for. A definite must on the Wishlist.