10 Small Movie Roles You Didn't Know Held Signifigance

If one is looking for a narrative throughline in David Lynch's work, and it's generally not recommended, Lost Highway might be generously considered the first in a loose trilogy of haunted L.A. films that continued with Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire. There are no locations or characters that return to any standalone film, but the three are tenuously connected thematically. Highway even pulls many of the same narrative beats of Mulholland Dr., changing BIll Pullmans midstream.

Pullman plays a tortured jazz musician accused of murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette), only to body shift into a mechanic working for Richard Pryor and mob boss Robert Loggia. But the film's logline hardly does what transpires onscreen justice, beginning with Robert Blake's mystery man.

We first meet Blake at a party, eerily appearing simultaneously at Pullman's house via cell phone. And he continues to show up any time another body turns up.

Of course, in reality, Blake allegedly left the scene when bodies fell. At least, that was his shakey alibi when his wife was shot. According to Beretta, he'd left his gun inside the restaurant and was headed in to retrieve it when shots rang out.

Obviously, Lynch couldn't have predicted the future, but Blake's creepiness wasn't hidden; the pancake make-up was his idea. Somehow, Lynch had orchestrated a stunning coincidence, perhaps driven by the same subconscious that had driven him to write a movie inspired by O.J. Simpson.