a question for Chrissie & Jules, & everyone else out there

[Vaska]

This is a fairly off-the-wall question, but here it comes:

Does anyone of you know, Chrissie and Jules in particular, if Pynchon had
any Hollywood connections in the late 1970s - early 1980s?  

I ask because I have here some notes I made about ten years ago about a
sci-fi comedy melo-drama _Buckaroo Banzai_.  A friend of mine whom I'd
recommended the _Lot 49_, I think, came back to ask me if Pynchon had done
the script for this film.  So, I got a video-tape copy and, sure enough, it
did look mighty suspiciously like a Pynchon-goes-to-Hollywood production.  I
wonder if anybody out there happens to have seen it as well.  It had Peter
Weller in the leading role with Jeff Goldblum as one of his faithful
retainers.  

What made me think of Pynchon -- aside from everything else in the movie --
were references to an evil Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems corporation and the
typically Pynchonesque zany character names.  The chief of the bad guys (it
was that kind of movie, honest) was a certain Lord John Whorfin -- which is
too close not to be an allusion to Richard Wharfinger in _Lot 49_.

Oh, yes -- and the screenplay was attributed to a certain Earl Mac Rauch.  I
have no German myself but have been told that "rauch" is German for, among
other things, "smoke."  A smoke-screen alias for TP or the name of some bona
fide Hollywood screen-writer?  Any leads, anyone?

And now I'll shut up for a while.

Vaska Andjelkovic 
vaska at geocities.com