Talk:Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)

Don Vallens *is* alive throughout the majority of "Blue Velvet." Frank didn't cut off his ear to persuade Dorothy (falsely) that he was alive. There are a number of signs to support this.

1) When Jeffrey first sees Dorothy speaking on the phone, she says "Don? Don?  Is little Donnie alright?" and then a moment later, "Frank, what's the matter with him?"  This would indicate that Dorothy was speaking to Don but was unable to carry on a proper conversation with him due to his having lost one (or both, depending on whether or not one considers the screenplay to be canonical) of his ears.

2) Most importantly, when Jeffrey finds Don's body in the Deep River Apartments toward the end of the film, it is clear that he has been recently killed. There is a bandage around his head (why bandage a corpse?), he is tied down to the chair (why tie a corpse down?), he has the swatch of blue velvet stuck in his mouth (which Frank employs when engaging in sex and violence, neither of which would apply to an inanimate object), and so on.  Don also shows no signs of decay, which he would, had he been dead for as long as Dorothy seems to have been in the situation with Frank.  Also, if one looks closely, one can see brain matter smeared across the counter behind Don's head, indicating that he was shot in the head in Dorothy's apartment.  Also also, Dorothy tells Jeffrey at Sandy's house that "They've hurt his head," which jives with the idea that Don was shot in the head very recently.

3) Jeffrey says that he believes that Frank cut the ear he found off of Don in order to warn Dorothy to stay alive. Jeffrey's interpretation of events may be incorrect, but it's certainly evidence to the contrary of the Don-being-dead-all-along theory.

Aside from Don's status, there are some outright errors. It is most logical to assume that Frank beat, stripped, and dumped Dorothy because of the police operation which had been instigated against him when Det. Williams began to investigate Det. Gordon's (The Yellow Man's) crime ties. Also, Dorothy was dumped in front of Jeffrey's house, not in front of Sandy's.

There's also a fair bit of conjecture being presented as fact in other bits of the article, but I'm too lazy to have a look at 'em now.

Do I need to do anything other than justify this idea here before editing the article itself?


 * No, go for it, but you should qualify the statement by saying it's not 100% clear, just pretty likely. Tempshill 04:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Drug of choice?
What drug does Frank Booth use? The article currently claims it's alkyl nitrites ("poppers"), but that's a new one on me. Other sources I've seen have claimed that it's helium or ether. Here's something purporting to be the script of the movie and describing it as helium:

Helium isn't exactly a drug - Frank wouldn't get high on it as such. The reason for him to use it would be to make his voice sound high-pitched, as part of his infantilism. That's a bit of a stretch. But I think poppers and ether are even less plausible. They're both liquids at room temperature. One would normally use them by inhaling the vapour from a vial or a soaked piece of cloth. Booth inhales whatever it is he inhales, through a mask attached to a tank of what seems to be compressed gas. That could be helium or nitrous oxide. Not many other inhalants are actual gases. The visible effects on him when he inhales it don't seem to be very conclusive. His voice does get higher, but that could be just him deliberately speaking in a high-pitched voice. His behaviour doesn't seem to be consistent with being on alkyl nitrites. Maybe ether. Quite possibly nitrous.

Is there any authoritative source identifying what the character is actually supposed to be inhaling?67.158.72.8 01:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Blue velvet scene.jpg
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BetacommandBot 02:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Robert Loggia
"The part of Frank Booth was originally offered to Robert Loggia, Willem Dafoe, and Richard Bright, all of whom turned it down."

Can we get a citation on that? I don't think it's correct. I recall hearing (probably from a random interview or maybe some behind the scene documentary) that Robert Loggia had been offered the part of Booth and actually wanted to play it (and maybe even thought he was getting it due to miscommunication or confusion), but then the role was given to Hopper at the last second, causing Loggia to be at least somewhat bitter towards Lynch until he was given the role of Laurent/Eddy in Lost Highway. Funkeboy (talk) 12:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw Loggia talk about this on a documentary... perhaps the making of Lost Highway? He says that he had been chosen to play, or audition, for the part, and arranged to meet Lynch somewhere in L.A., but Lynch got lost, and left Loggia waiting in the sun for an hour or something. When Lynch turned up, Loggia got mad at him, and then Lynch was too scared to work with him. But Lynch remembered the event and eventually decided he would be good and threatening enough for Lost Highway. I made have remembered it wrong though....+&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;&#124;+ (talk) 19:02, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Just adding to the Robert Loggia thing; here's a direct quote from Lynch, apparently from his memoir Room to Dream, according to this website: "One day when I was casting Blue Velvet, I was working … with two actors, and Robert Loggia was waiting to test for Frank Booth. I was so long working with these two actors that we ran out of time, so somebody went and told Robert Loggia, “You’re not needed,” and he hit the fucking roof. He came in screaming at me, like so mad — it was scary. But I remembered that and that’s how he wound up playing Mr Eddie in Lost Highway. See, one thing leads to another, and when we worked together on Lost Highway we got along like Ike and Mike. We had so much fun." Grønnøye (talk) 11:08, 2 September 2023 (UTC)


 * wow thank you Grønnøye for responding 13 years post my comment, thats cool. And sorry it took me half a year to respond! ¥¥ (talk) 10:14, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

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