From the screenwriter who gave us “Chinatown”…”Road House”?

During a double feature of films featuring bands fronted by Tito Larriva (1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn and 1989’s Road House), I began to wonder who crafted the ridiculous wonderment that is Road House.  A one-hour and fifty-four minute long slow-motion train wreck of a film, it is nearly impossible to take one’s eyes off the screen and with Pinter-esque pauses so big that you could drive a locomotive through them, it’s impossible to not quip along.  Besides, Road House is set in Missouri, near where I grew up…though was filmed in California.

So who wrote this masterwork of participatory cheese?  A quick IMDB search:  “David Lee Henry”.  Who is this David Lee Henry?  No bios anywhere.  The only mention of a David Lee Henry is that Robert Towne, the screenwriter of Chinatown used this name as an alias when he wrote 8 Million Ways to Die.

Under David Lee Henry’s credits on IMDB are both Road House and 8 Million Ways to Die.

Therefore…

Is it possible that the same person who wrote Chinatown and The Last Detail also wrote Road House?  Or is this just a pseudonym regularly used by folks who aren’t so proud of their work?

I’d like to think that the masterful strokes of hilarity that still resonate twenty-four years after Road House first hit the cinema with all of Patrick Swayze’s oiled hairless beauty were crafted by one of our great screenwriters.  Either that, or some hack who hit the nail on the head and didn’t even know it.