Twin Peaks Publicity – Dale Cooper and The Little Man from Another Place in The Red Room

After more than three decades of being a Twin Peaks fan, I love spotting little details I’ve never noticed. I’ve looked at this publicity photo from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me of the Little Man From Another Place (Michael J. Anderson) and Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in the Red Room for decades. It was only when I was writing this article that I noticed something in Cooper’s hand.

DALE COOPER AND THE LITTLE MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE IN THE RED ROOM

This black and white publicity photo from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was taken by the late on-set photographer Lorey Sebastian. It was used as part of New Line Cinema’s marketing and press for the 1992 film. The photo caption reads:

“Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, right) contemplates a riddle posed by The Man From Another Place (Michael Anderson, left) in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, from New Line Cinema.”

I’m assuming the riddle asked was “Is it future? Or… is it past?” which doesn’t appear in the theatrical cut. So the riddle could also be “Do you know who I am?”

This is a cropped image from The Mauve Zone that removes the film and New Line Cinema’s logos and caption.

It’s an alternate angle to this full-color publicity photo from the same scene.

The scene appears to be the flashback Laura Palmer has to seeing the Little Man From Another Place hold up the ring. Cooper appears to be standing in a similar position to the publicity photo.

The camera, probably mounted on a jib, flies toward the Little Man as he hold the ring in front of his face.

WHAT IS DALE COOPER HOLDING?

While looking at this image, I spotted something in Dale Cooper’s right hand. It appears to be something clinched between his fingers and thumb.

I checked both the theatrical cut and 2014’s The Missing Pieces which contained an extended scene in The Red Room. If Cooper was holding something in any of these shots, it may be obscured or it could be an alternate unused take.

The scene from David Lynch and Bob Engles’ script dated August 8, 1991 makes no mention of Cooper holding something.

113. INT. RED ROOM
The MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE walks into the red room to a table: Airing lies upon the table.

COOPER ENTERS THE RED ROOM. The Man from Another Place tums-toward Cooper.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
Is it future? Or is it past? Do you know who I am? … I am The Arm… And I sound like this…

The Man from Another Place puts his hand in front o f his lips and makes an Indian Whooping sound.

The Man from Another Place picks up the ring and moves it very close to us. We recognize it as Teresa Banks’ ring. The symbols on the ring are identical to the symbols of Owl Cave.

Cooper seems concerned.

Even the later scripted scene included in The Missing Pieces doesn’t mention Cooper holding anything. I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me but you can’t see Cooper’s pointer finger so there must be something there.

INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISEMENTS FOR TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

The North American marketing package for Lynch’s film used an image of Laura Palmer at the Red Diamond City Motel pictured inside a flaming heart locate. For international releases, the marketing team extracted elements from this Red Room publicity photo for various advertisements.

For the United Kingdom release of Lynch’s film on November 20, 1992, you can see Dale Cooper’s image was pulled from the publicity photo and placed next to Laura Palmer.

For Australian market in November 1993, they reversed Cooper and Laura’s images.

PUBLICITY PHOTO IN PRINT

The photo did appear in several newspapers in the United States during the film’s North American release in August and September 1992. This image accompanied several film reviews (which will be part of future Reviewing Peaks articles.). In the September 4, 1992 issue of The Chapel Hill Herald, the photo is used with the statement “The Big Question” before the printed caption.

The Grand Rapids Press also ran the photo on September 11, 1992 in the paper’s movie section.

Download a high-resolution photo of this image and other publicity photos on my Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/albums/72177720325607231