"That moment says a lot about McClain's relationship with women," Brown said. "There are a lot of men like him. They care for their woman, but they have to do their thing. They neglect their woman. That doesn't mean they don't love her. McClain got the money, but his woman was snuffed out. So when it ended up, he thought he heard her voice. The movie doesn't say crime doesn't pay; the cat gets his 20 per cent, all right. But he loses his woman."

Brown was sitting in his hotel suite dressed in denim pants and a denim jacket, a black T-shirt, beads, boots. He had just flown, in from Spain.

"The thing about McClain," he said, "is the same with a lot of men, myself definitely included. You have a woman, you make love, and it's beautiful, man, beautiful.

"But after it's over, she starts picking on you. Picking on you about this, picking on you about that. So you get out of there. You leave. And then you're both unhappy. So you go back, you make love, and then she starts in on you again..."

"A lot of people wonder about a man, if they don't know the whole story." He was serious now. "My wife and I are getting a divorce, but you'd never believe it listening to our conversation last night. My case is one of going, away, being away, first pro football and then the movies, and suddenly you realize the woman hasn't had much of a life, and you think, what can I give her now?"

It was interesting that Brown was in town for the world premiere of "The Split," because he was originally scheduled to be here last spring for the premiere of his last picture, "Dark of the Sun." He canceled his plans and didn't show.

"I couldn't," he said, "because, man, I just didn't like the movie. It's the only film I've done I really didn't like, If I'd come here to Chicago, and some guy had said, I don't like your flick at all, how could I disagree with him? If you put yourself on the line, you have to be able to believe what you say. But if you KNOW the movie's no good, man, and you have to say it is, that eats you up.

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