"It was some kind of black-tie affair, some charity event with free champagne, and the little pills got working with the champagne. Pretty soon, they introduced me and I started clapping. Then I realized it was me. Somehow, I don't know how, I went on and I was funny; I danced and sang, I was the greatest thing since Swiss cheese."

He smiled in memory. "Ah, yes, yes," he said. "Well, this is a crazy business. What did you think of 'P.J.'? I thought it was a pretty good movie. But it's not the first of a series. I wouldn't get trapped into playing the same detective in a series of movies for all the gold in Hollywood. But what this has, I think, is a good understanding of what a detective movie is.

"See, I think there are different kinds of good movies. Like you can have a work of art, or a good kid's movie, or so on. 'P.J.' is a detective movie that knows what detective movies should be. They have a beginning, where the character is introduced and put into a situation. It has a middle consisting of episodes to develop the situation. It has an end, resolving the situation."

He leaned forward. "And it has a great musical score," he said. "Music is very important in developing the feel of a movie like this. Henry Hathaway once ran the same shot of Gary Cooper asleep and played happy music, sad music and tense music. You could swear you could look at Cooper's face and what he was dreaming. "A great score means everything. I always think of the score in 'High Noon,' where you have the outlaws in the shade of the railroad station and the music tells you how menacing they are. Remember?" He hummed, keeping time with his hand: "Da-da-da-da-dum-de-dum-da--da..."

He smiled. "Great. And then when the menace was established, there's the cut to Cooper and the words begin: Tho' you be grievin' I cain't be leavin' Until I shoot Frank Miller daid...Now that's music. Makes the hairs on the back of your head stand up.

"And there are people who can act and achieve the same effect. Marlon Brando. I thought he was finished, and I was wrong. For the last five years I've been going around bad-mouthing Brando, until I saw 'Reflections in a Golden Eye.' What a movie. A great movie. A lot of critics didn't like it, but I think that was because they were embarrassed by its really total honesty and intimacy. It made them uncomfortable, as a great movie should.

"And show me an actor who could play that scene where the horse runs away the way Brando did. The horse throws him, and he's groveling in the mud and crying. By God, you believe that's what happened to that man. No dialog. No other characters on the screen. Only Brando's face."

He leaned back into his armchair and sipped his drink. "But I'm getting carried away," be said. "Tell you what. Forget all that. Just say his hand didn't shake."

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