Why didn't Jack Terry just accompany Sally to meet with the supposedly Donahue/Lithgow character at the train station. Whats wrong with him and Sally going together to meet the guy? Of course without this, there wont be any ending to the movie but still this bothers me.
shareI think it was stupid of Jack to stay in the car. He didn't necessarily have to be right by her side, but to stay where he was is basically a story contrivance - if he was in the station he would've caught up to Sally and Burke before they head to the station. It creates some solid suspense but once you think about the logic of it it falls apart - luckily the suspense is so well staged I can excuse it. Sorta.
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Jack Terry wasn't exactly what you would call a caring gentleman.
He was willing to send that lady alone to meet the supposed reporter and apparently decided to do the same wire-tapping trick that had gone wrong in the past again.
I would actually see Jack Terry as a character to be somewhat of an antihero for the most part of the movie. He actually makes Sally do his bidding at times and not care too much about her safety. Terry just sits in the car listening to some headphones.
One might also see Terry's technical abilities to be less than convincing when you think about the incident in the past. You would think that a sound technician like Terry would take into account that the equipment strapped to the stomach of a person could overheat under the conditions.
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I agree with this assessment. Jack is a tragic anti-hero, desperate to redeem his past mistake but too hubristic to try a different method. He ends the movie doubly haunted and trapped in a job he despises.
shareThe train station scene is De Palma homaging Hitchcock (as usual). It's his version of the scene in "Rear Window" where James Stewart sends his girlfriend to find evidence of a murder in a neighbour's apartment while he watches through binoculars. Then he sees the murderer enter the apartment and catch her...
In the Hitchcock movie the hero is immobilised by a broken leg. In this movie there's no explanation of why Jack stays behind in the car, but De Palma does a good job of distracting you from thinking about it too much. The final act of the movie, from the murder of the prostitute to the fireworks display, is De Palma at his virtuosic best.
I agree. I also thought when he said he’d be nearby that he’d actually be around the corner. My question is, they didn’t have Google back then, but did they not know what the talk show host looked like (if he was supposedly famous and all)? If Jack knew, shouldn’t he have at least informed Sally by showing her a photograph so that she didn’t have to meet up with the killer? But I get it, suspension of disbelief.
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