Funny scene

Nick's whole character throughout is a kind of sardonic smart a**. And in that scene, he plays it!

That whole sequence..."HAVE THE SANDABS!!!" makes me laugh out loud all throughout. I grea up catching pails of sandabs on the beach from the pier, then taking them home a few blocks where we cleaned them, dipped them in cornmeal, milk and egg and fried them. You don't often see sandabs in a movie! But Robert Towne just knew...

This film was always an under-appreciated masterpiece of "time and place."

I grew up in So.Cal. and when I saw this film in 1988 after being away from California for more than 10 years it rocketed me right back to everything I recognized and knew.

That simple but excellent cinematography made me smell the ocean from Mac's place, I remember people at the beach always had wind chimes, the sunsets were like those I saw every night. The atmosphere was completely right in every shot and every mannerism of the characters.

And further, even though Mel was living in Australia, and Nick WAS a guy who knew the Southern California male culture, those two nailed (as did the supporting cast) every single aspect of being a guy who grew up in the ocean communities in the 60s and 70s like Nick and Mac did.

I KNEW those guys growing up. It was uncanny how they jumped from the screen for me fully formed as the Southern California beach guys--between Towne's script and their creation of the born and bred LALA men of the '60s and '70s, it was palpable--they were so familiar to me.

I knew Nicks and Macs (minus the drug dealing though.)