This handsome devil right here is Oscar. He owns the Bandstand, the New York nightclub where Dalton’s working at the beginning of the film. As such he serves as two separate object lessons. First, he provides us with a solid point of comparison for just how creepy Frank Tilghman looks in this opening scene. Take a look at the man above, then at the man below, and consider what it takes to make the man above look like the more pleasant alternative.
The second lesson pertains to something Dalton says moments before Oscar enters the room: “When the job’s done I walk.” He says this to Tilghman as a condition of taking the job at the Double Deuce; this is worth keeping in mind during the film’s final reel, as just up and walking away is not unheard of for Dalton and presumably for his mentor Wade Garrett too. The only issue is whether fixing up the Double Deuce but leaving Brad Wesley in control of Jasper constitutes the job being done. (I personally lean towards no, but then I’m not a cooler.)
Point is, you can look at the Bandstand—all that gold plastic, all those hundreds, no chickenwire around the stage—and deduce that, despite the fact that he was stabbed moments earlier, Dalton has finished the job. Certainly his bouncers are competent enough to help escort the knife nerd who cut Dalton outside and then just…prevent him from returning—an ideal bouncing maneuver according to Dalton’s Three Simple Rules. There’s nothing left for those men to learn from Dalton, ergo he can take Tilghman’s offer and split on the spot.
But there’s a world out there somewhere in the multiverse where Dalton continues to work at the Bandstand, fending off further attacks from the knife nerd. Perhaps he’s a low-level drug runner for one of the Five Families, and the mafia tries to move in on Oscar. Maybe Dalton winds up having to fight off various assassination attempts from hardened killers instead of Wesley’s goon squad. Maybe a horse’s head winds up in his bed. Dalton vs. the mafia is a movie I’d watch, and a prequel we deserve.
Tags: dalton, frank tilghman, oscar, road house, the bandstand