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“You’re a big man, hit me again!”

24. Pamela's father [Peter Coffield] loses his temper with Nicky (ROBIN JOHNSON) when she refuses to tell him the whereabouts of his daughter. A scene from "TIMES SQUARE" distributed by COLUMBIA/EMI/WARNER Film Distributors.

I’m starting to think that there are two separate sets of UK black-and-white publicity stills, one with borders, one without. You know, just to make things more confusing. Thankfully, so far at least there isn’t another one labeled “24” but not full-bleed.

On the Times Square commentary track recorded around 1999-2000, Robin says:

“Peter had so much trouble with this… It was hard for him to be rough and violent with me, actually. I remember him having some trouble with that… He’s such a doll… I didn’t want to do that fake, camera-angle stuff so I let him really smack me around. [laughs] It’s my S&M streak. ‘Smack me!'”

Although it’s hard to tell if he’s really hitting her in the film – for instance she’s definitely turning her head several frames before his hand starts traveling – as far as I can tell this still is unique in that it’s actually from the shot used in the film, just from a different, closer angle. I’d assume from that that there was no run-through or rehearsal, or even a second take, in order to reduce the wear and tear on both actors.

Mr. Pearl slaps Nicky.

It’s impossible to tell from the film angle, but this photo definitely makes it look like a solid face-smashing slap that took something out of both performers. It seems something of a shame that it was never used for anything, as far as I know, and perhaps hasn’t been seen by anybody until now.
24. Pamela's father loses his temper with Nicky (ROBIN JOHNSON) when she refuses to tell him the whereabouts of his daughter. A scene from "TIMES SQUARE" distributed by COLUMBIA/EMI/WARNER Film Distributors.

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