Book: The Wrecking Crew, by Donald Hamilton (1960)

After Donald Hamilton’s recent death, I said I’d read the other Matt Helm novel that I own. I’m a man of my word. Now my problem is that I don’t have another one waiting in the wings.

Crew, the second book in the series, takes place a year after the events of Death of a Citizen. Helm’s wife has left him, having discovered his past as a WWII government operative with a license – and a willingness – to kill. So Helm has accepted Mac’s offer of returning to service. His first assignment sends him to his (and Hamilton’s) ancestral homeland of Sweden. Helm is to smoke out a spy known as Caselius while masquerading as a photographer alongside a journalist who might be a double agent ... or Caselius herself.

Of all the book’s good qualities – the pacing, the sense of place – what struck me most was Hamilton’s coolly rational view of violence. Helm’s a bit rusty when it comes to dishing it out, and Mac cagily uses that fact to the mission’s advantage. Helm still has problems when it comes to women in pants, but each of the female characters is nicely nuanced. And Hamilton can always be counted on to deliver a sharp observation in his spare style:

I was told by my dad once that a man who tied his own ties was much more likely to be a gentleman than one who did not. Just what constitutes a gentleman in this day and age, the old man didn’t bother to say. To him, the distinction was clear. It must have been nice.

The 1969 movie “adaptation” has Helm (Dean Martin) chasing down thieves who have hijacked a train carrying a billion dollars in gold. It also features Chuck Norris.

Movies: Boston Blackie

What interested me most in Turner Classic Movies’ “Watching the Detectives” line-up last month was an evening of Boston Blackie movies. Actor Chester Morris starred in fourteen films as the gentleman thief turned crimefighter, loosely based on a character created by Jack Boyle. Clearly Blackie had been popular, yet now he was almost completely forgotten; the movies TCM was airing hadn’t been on TV in decades. I cherry-picked a few to record. Maybe I’d get lucky with a series character again the way I did with the Michael Shayne movies.

(I’m not the only one who was impressed with those films, by the way. Bruce Grossman at Bookgasm sings Lloyd Nolan’s praises. Hat tip to The Rap Sheet.)

I began at the beginning with 1941’s Meet Boston Blackie. It was written by Jay Dratler, whose work I’ve praised before. (I link to that post only so you’ll read the lovely comment it prompted.) This inaugural entry, in which Blackie stalks spies operating out of a beachfront carnival, establishes tropes that end up in every film. Devil-may-care Blackie is accused of a crime. The intrepid Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) hounds his every move. He’s aided only by a beautiful woman and his pal the Runt, played in this outing by Charles Wagenheim and in later films by George E. Stone. Sadly, the problems that plague the series are also here. The plot breaks down about 25 minutes in, and the comic relief is neither comic nor a relief.

Morris is an interesting presence. He has the theatricality of Robert Preston combined with a hint of coldness; as a result, he’s completely plausible as a reformed criminal. In real life Morris dabbled in magic, which is often deployed to good use in the films.

Next I played the auteur game, recording the titles made by directors I’d heard of. Noir veteran Edward Dmytryk (Murder, My Sweet, Cornered, Crossfire) is behind the camera on the series’ second movie, Confessions of Boston Blackie. Our hero takes on a gang of murderous art forgers. Also written in part by Dratler, the movie makes even less sense than the previous one, with an ending that’s a complete mess.

Budd Boetticher – whose Randolph Scott westerns like Seven Men From Now and The Tall T are as tough and spare as movies get – was still billing himself as Oscar when he helmed 1944’s One Mysterious Night. Blackie is deputized by Farraday in order to track down a stolen diamond. Dorothy Malone (then Maloney) turns up in a small part and Morris makes some cunning use of disguises, but again the plot quickly becomes ridiculous.

What have we learned? Some things are forgotten because they deserve to be. Now if somebody wanted to update the character ... that’s another story.

TV: Entourage

Season 3B’s premiere included a shot of a massive banner that read, “Victoria’s Secret Wishes Vince A Very Sexy Birthday.” I would like it known that I will pay a king’s ransom for said banner.

Superagent Ari Gold trying to dissuade his once-and-future client from doing a period piece: “Do you know Edith Wharton? It’s always the same story. Guy can’t fuck the girl for five years ‘cause those were the times.” I’ve missed you, Ari.

Miscellaneous: Make Mine Music Link

Still on deadline, but I have to steer you toward this marvelous Washington Post article by Gene Weingarten. Take one of the world’s greatest classical musicians and a flawless instrument. Put them both in a D.C. subway station at rush hour. Watch what happens. Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily.

Upcoming: El Aura (U.S. 2006)

Barreling toward a deadline means no new blog fodder for the weekend. Instead, here’s a heads up about an old favorite.

The best crime drama of 2006, not to mention one of the finest films of the year, comes to DVD on Tuesday. I speak of Argentina’s El Aura, or in English, The Aura. (Pretty good, huh? Never took Spanish. That’s just from watching soccer on Univision.)

Fabien Bielinsky’s haunting movie is about an epileptic taxidermist who accidentally gets the opportunity to live out his dream of pulling the perfect heist. To quote myself when I raved about it last November, “think of it as Richard Stark meets Oliver Sacks.”

Bielinsky died far too young last year, having made only this film and the marvelous con man caper Nine Queens. Both deserve your attention. I’m happy to do what I can to get El Aura’s cult following off the ground.

Movie: Johnny Cool (1963)

Sicilian bandit Henry Silva is “adopted” by an exiled Mafia kingpin, schooled in the ways of the Syndicate, then dispatched to America to wreak bloody vengeance.

The film, based on a Gold Medal paperback by John McPartland, perfectly captures the spirit of those pulp novels. It’s filled with hard men, harsh violence and wild passion, all of it capped by a truly twisted ending. What’s amazing is who’s behind the camera: William Asher, a veteran of I Love Lucy who would go on to direct several AIP beach party movies and almost a third of the episodes of Bewitched.

Silva has always been an odd actor, but here his stoic, implacable quality is a bonus; he’s essentially playing a zombie, doing another man’s bidding. Producer Peter Lawford found room in the movie for Rat Pack running buddies Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis, Jr., who’s great as an icy eyepatched gambler named “Educated.” Familiar faces stud the cast; satirist Mort Sahl even turns up as a casino boss! This must have been some hip ticket back in ’63, pally.

But the revelation is Elizabeth Montgomery as Dare Guiness. (What a name!) She simply nails the psychology of those mercurial good-time-girls who are drawn to bad boys. And she was never lovelier.

Bill Crider brought this movie and another fine McPartland adaptation, the 1957 suburban drama No Down Payment, to my attention. He observed that Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a kind of unofficial Johnny Cool remake. I think he’s right.

Sammy Davis, Jr. also sings the movie’s theme, a Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen classic that tells the story of Johnny Cool. It’s called “The Story of Johnny Cool.” After hearing this and Sammy’s rendition of “My Mother The Car,” it’s safe to say that no one sold a bad song like the Candyman.

Life’s Too Short: Marlowe (1969)

I recorded this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister the same day as Johnny Cool and gave up after forty minutes. James Garner makes a fine Philip Marlowe, but the movie seems tired from the start. It’s bad enough to have Marlowe use gay panic to trick a thug into jumping off a building. But when said thug is played by Bruce Lee ...

Miscellaneous: Link

Grady Hendrix offers an inconvenient truth: authentic grind house theaters and movies sucked.

Movie: Dressed To Kill (1941)

You’d think four Michael Shayne movies in a row would be enough. But knowing that the third film in the series was already available on DVD meant that I had to track it down. My Shayne bender wasn’t over yet. Speaking of which, who played Shayne Bender? Wasn’t it Hugh O’Brian? No, wait, Hugh O’Brian was Brannigan. (Have you watched the Lookwell pilot I sent you to? These are the jokes, folks.)

Alas, Dressed to Kill is easily the least of the five Shayne films I’ve seen so far. The gumshoe’s all set to marry his girl (played by series regular Mary Beth Hughes) when he stumbles onto a gruesome double murder tied to a long-ago theatrical production. The plot, from the Richard Burke novel The Dead Take No Bows, is so thick that Lloyd Nolan gets little chance to demonstrate his charm. His few good lines and the presence of veteran actors William Demarest and Henry Daniell are all that recommend this one. And with that, I stop talking about Mike Shayne. Until Volume 2 of the collection comes out.

Miscellaneous: Links, All Queens N.Y. Edition

A last-minute deal keeps Major League Baseball’s out-of-market games on cable – and the Mets sweep the opening 3-game series against the defending world champion Cardinals in St. Louis, outscoring them 20-2. It’s going to be a good summer.

Spider-Man 3 is set to receive “the first-ever star-studded gala premiere in Queens” in the movie theater blocks from my childhood home. I knew Peter Parker growing up. A loner, kept to himself mostly.

Donald Hamilton, R.I.P.

I suppose it’s only fitting that I learned about the death of novelist Donald Hamilton at the Mystery*File blog. It was two articles that appeared in the magazine that convinced me to give his Matt Helm books a try. I still haven’t read The Wrecking Crew, but it’s close at hand and I’ll be diving into it soon enough. I worship Dean Martin, but the Helm movies are a caricature of what Hamilton accomplished on the page.

Some of my usual web haunts do a far better job of remembering the man. Steve Lewis looks back at The Ambushers and hints at the possibility of one last go-round for Helm. Plus more from Bill Crider and The Rap Sheet.

Upcoming: Art House Freak Outs!

I noted in my previous post that Alejandro Jodorowsky’s hallucinogenic western El Topo was almost impossible to see. Looks like I spoke too soon, because it’s scheduled for release on DVD next month. I assume a direct dial number to the closest mental health facility is among the bonus features.

WR: Mysteries of the Organism, the damnedest movie I’ve ever seen and the highlight of my “The Body In Film” class, will be getting the full Criterion treatment. I’m going to have to revisit this one.

Movie: The Lookout (2007)

Scott Frank gets my vote for America’s best contemporary screenwriter. Turns out he’s a fine director as well. Some guys have all the luck. The Lookout is a smart, taut, lived-in thriller. With roles in this film, Brick and the much-delayed Elmore Leonard adaptation Killshot, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is becoming this generation’s noir icon. Greencine has an interview with actor and director, as well as co-star Matthew Goode.

Movies: An F in Grindhouse 101

You bet I’m going to see Grindhouse. Just not right away. I want to let the fanboy stench dissipate a little first. Plus I’m leery of the idea of deliberately setting out to make what some would call “bad” movies. Plenty of “bad” movies happen all by themselves.

Lately, though, I’ve had a revelation. Perhaps I’m not grind house material.

Understand, I love my junk cinema. I’m the guy who recently binged on Coffin Joe movies. But when it comes to true grind house, I may be out of my depth.

Assemble a list of twenty movies of any stripe – neglected art house gems, say, or the best films with protagonists named Steve – and I will have seen at least seventeen of them. In many cases all twenty. No brag, just fact, to quote one of my former bosses quoting a TV series I’ve never seen.

At least it was fact until last week, when Entertainment Weekly cited 20 flicks that inspired Messrs. Tarantino & Rodriguez. (List not available online.)

I only notched ten. A meager half.

Here’s what I’ve seen and what I haven’t:

1. Escape from New York (1981). Yes. Repeatedly. I still do Lee Van Cleef’s awesomely callous move with his fingers when he tells Snake Plissken about the explosive charges in his neck.

2. Vanishing Point (1971). Yes. The best exponent of the Southwestern Existential Highway Movie. Examples of this genre that I don’t like include Two Lane Blacktop and Electra Glide In Blue. Blame a New York childhood’s general indifference to cars. I can sum up why I like it in three words: Barry f*cking Newman.

3. Mad Max (1979). Yes. The one title on this list I own on DVD.

4. A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Yes. The best movie on this list. In fact, I’m not sure it belongs here.

5. Dawn of the Dead (1978). Yes. Once. And I never forgot it.

6. The Warriors (1979). Yes. Many times. See earlier reference to New York childhood.

7. The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970). Yes. Not my first or my favorite Dario Argento movie.

8. The Street Fighter (1974). No. I’m woefully unschooled in Sonny Chiba.

9. Piranha (1978). Yes. Still hilarious – and scary.

10. Zombie (1979). No. I’ve never seen “the Cadillac of Italian zombie films,” in which a zombie battles a shark. I know at least one person I’ve just disappointed.

11. El Topo (1970). No. It’s almost impossible to see. I read about a guy who watched it while on acid in the ‘70s and had recurring nightmares about it decades later. Which I consider a ringing endorsement.

12. Maniac (1980). No. Haven’t seen it, and never will. Joe Spinnell’s psycho killer movie holds no interest for me.

13. Dolemite (1975). No. Rudy Ray Moore just performed in Seattle to mark his 80th birthday. Didn’t see that, either.

14. Raw Meat (1972). Yes. Cannibals in the subway. See earlier reference to New York childhood.

15. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). No. But it’s been parked on my DVR for nine months, so I deserve partial credit.

16. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). Yes. Bored me stupid.

17. My Bloody Valentine (1981). No. Not a big slasher film fan.

18. Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971). No – I think. I consumed Hammer horror films growing up, but don’t recall this one. And something tells me if I’d seen it, I would remember it.

19. The Big Bird Cage (1972). No. My women-in-prison background is very thin. Except for an incident in Juarez that I’m not prepared to discuss.

20. The Clones of Bruce Lee. That’s not a title, it’s a subgenre. And the answer is no.

It only gets worse. Cinematical offers a similar list. There, I’m 0-for-7. I hang my film buff’s head in shame.

Book: The Birthday Party, by Stanley N. Alpert (2007)

Alpert was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York City when, in 1998, he was abducted off the street by a trio of thugs. What was supposed to be a quick forced trip to the ATM became a 25-hour kidnapping ordeal. Although he was offered drugs and sexual favors once his abductors discovered it was his birthday.

The second section of Alpert’s memoir, recounting how his captors were caught, drags a bit. But his recreation of his own experience is riveting, and offers an object lesson in how to remain cool under pressure. Here are a few others things I learned:

1. Those oddball crime stories treated as curiosities by the news are significant events for those involved – and if they’re lucky, they won’t be defined by them.

2. There’s no point in waiting until your life is almost over to start living it. Or as Alpert puts it, order what you want when you want it.

3. Never wear a nice trench coat in Manhattan. You’re just asking for trouble.

Miscellaneous: Links

Turns out there’s still a grindhouse in New York and it’s in Queens, the borough of my birth. I used to go to some of the theaters mentioned in the article – before they went porn. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

While we’re in grindhouse mode, let’s hear from the Godfather of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis!

Seattle Weekly delves into the epic lawsuit between Harlan Ellison and Fantagraphics Books.

Bill Pronzini remembers novelist Elliott Chaze at the Mystery*File blog.

Book: The Spoiler, by Domenic Stansberry (1987)

Baseball season kicks off Sunday evening with the Mets and Cardinals in an NLCS rematch. That may be one of my few chances to catch the Amazin’s on TV, as it’s increasingly likely that MLB’s Extra Innings package won’t be on cable. (Senator John Kerry, you disappoint me again.) So it’s MLB.tv for me. Like I don’t spend enough hours in the day staring at my computer screen.

I warmed up for the season opener by reading this debut novel from Edgar-winner Domenic Stansberry. A reporter on the run from a failed marriage finds himself in a Massachusetts mill town with a struggling minor league team, a spate of arson fires, and some surprising connections between the two. It’s not just a good crime novel, it’s a good baseball novel, a good newspaper novel, a good small-town novel.

Get ready for the season yourself by singing along.

Movie: 300 (2007)

My take on the movie, mainly so I can link to some others: It’s kind of nuts. But the gonzo quality is part of writer/director Zack Snyder’s vision. I’m still not sold on the CGEverything™ concept, and there’s not much of a story. (In a nutshell, 300 Spartans hold off the Persian hordes – until they don’t.) But I wasn’t bored.

Here’s John Rogers on the movie’s screenwriting, Archeology Magazine on the historical perspective, and Michael at 2Blowhards on the critical hand-wringing the movie has spawned plus much more.

John P. Ryan, R.I.P.

The veteran character actor never had a breakout role but worked steadily, often with director Bob Rafelson. He’ll always be remembered around here for two performances: as the gangster with a soft spot for another man’s moll in Bound, and as a hard-ass prison warden in one of the great films of the 1980s, Runaway Train. No doubt he’s bellying up to the bar in tough guy heaven at this moment.

DVD: The Michael Shayne Collection, Volume 1

I watched all four movies in Fox’s new two-disc set in four days, popping them one after another like Raisinettes (or your candy of choice), so obviously I liked them. I don’t want my newfound affection for these films to lead me to overstate their quality or importance. But it’s worth pointing out that actor Lloyd Nolan had worn Mike Shayne’s fedora three times before Humphrey Bogart appeared as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. The 1940s was the decade of the hardboiled gumshoe, and Nolan’s Shayne was one of the first.

The movies are all solidly crafted entertainments, as you might expect from the B-movie unit at Fox responsible for the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series. They use the name of Brett Halliday’s character but little else; the cinematic Shayne is your basic wisecracking big-city P.I., although what big city changes from film to film. In fact, there’s no continuity between the movies other than a stable of actors who recur in different roles. (For a sense of Halliday’s Shayne, check out Thrilling Detective or Flagler Street. And many thanks to Steve Lewis at the Mystery*File blog for clearing up questions about source material and for backing me on some other points.)

As is often the case, the debut title in the series is the best. Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1940) is the only film based on a Halliday novel, 1939’s Dividend on Death. A wealthy client hires the shamus to baby-sit his daughter, a degenerate gambler running with a shady crowd. An early scene in which Shayne hustles the men sent to repo his office furniture not only demonstrates a refreshing honesty about the realities of a private eye’s life, but establishes Nolan’s sly take on the character.

The follow-up film Sleepers West (1941) prefigures the classic noir The Narrow Margin as Shayne escorts a witness (Mary Beth Hughes) to trial on a train while fending off those who want to silence her. The next Shayne outing, Dressed to Kill, isn’t in the collection but is available on an older DVD. Here’s hoping a restored version is in Volume 2.

Blue, White and Perfect (1941) may be my favorite of the bunch. Shayne’s fiancée (Hughes again) pressures him to leave the detective racket, so he hires on at an aviation plant only to wind up tangling with Axis spies. The movie boasts a nice turn by TV’s Superman George Reeves as the mysterious Juan Arturo O’Hara. With a moniker like that, you know he’s up to something.

1942’s silly The Man Who Wouldn’t Die strands Shayne in a haunted house caper, but Nolan’s insouciance and the presence of Shayne regulars Marjorie Weaver and Helene Reynolds keeps the action snappy.

Fox errs in the placement of the movies, pairing the first and last titles on one disc. But crisp digital transfers and useful extras more than make up for the oversight. A feature on Shayne’s long history includes comments from Otto Penzler, Stuart Kaminsky and Mary Dresser, the widow of Brett Halliday (Davis Dresser). There’s a gallery of covers by Robert McGinnis as well as an informative interview with the artist. My favorite line is when McGinnis says that the women in his paintings are “ladies at a higher level, yet still appealing and provocative.”

What registers most strongly in these films is Lloyd Nolan’s wonderful performance. He’s given only stage Irishness and a bit of business with a keychain to define Shayne, yet he inhabits the role completely. Concocting disguises that fool no one like a proto-Fletch, tossing off sharp lines, engaging in deft physical comedy while still coming across as a man who can handle himself, Nolan essentially creates the modern P.I. template out of whole cloth.

Rosemarie planned on watching only the first film with me, but was so taken by Nolan’s work that she stuck around for all four. As the last movie ended she said, “I finally realized who Lloyd reminds me of: Bugs Bunny.” Fast on his feet, forever in trouble but always coming out on top ... yeah, I can see it.

Book: Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime, by Robert J. Randisi (2006)

You can have your rock’n’roll fantasy camps, your dude ranch getaways where grown men play cowboy, your baseball weekends where you take the field with the last of the Brooklyn Dodgers. My dream experience would require a wormhole. I want to be in Las Vegas in the early 1960s, when the Mob ran the town and the Rat Pack ruled the land.

So Robert Randisi’s latest novel is pure wish fulfillment. Eddie G is a Brooklyn CPA turned pit boss at the Sands. When Dean Martin starts receiving threatening letters on the set of Ocean’s Eleven, Frank Sinatra asks Eddie – as a personal favor – to get to the bottom of it.

All the boys – Sammy, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, even Henry Silva – are characters in this yarn, and Randisi nails ‘em all. He even captures behind the scenes figures like casino kingpin Jack Entratter. But above all, he brings the mood of that place and time to life: the booze, the broads, the hellzapoppin’ masculine energy, the devil-may-care attitude. I can’t actually wow a showgirl from the Sahara with tickets for Buddy Hackett and Patrice Munsel, so this book will have to do. I devoured it in one sitting, and can’t wait for the follow-up.

Miscellaneous Rat Pack Note #1: Henry Silva had one of his only cracks at a lead role in Johnny Cool, based on a Gold Medal paperback by John McPartland. No less an authority than Bill Crider has spoken highly of the film. Turner Classic Movies is scheduled to air it next Tuesday, March 27, at 6PM EST/3PM PST. My DVR is already set.

Miscellaneous Rat Pack Note #2: Through Rhapsody, I have discovered Sammy Davis Junior’s cover of the theme song to TV’s legendary flop My Mother The Car. I can’t stop listening to it.

On The Web: Mystery*File

Steve Lewis and I continue our conversation about Brett Halliday’s shamus Mike Shayne and his incarnations on screen and on the radio. Steve, ever diligent, has even included a 1948 episode of The New Adventures of Michael Shayne starring Jeff Chandler. It’s a blast. Give it a listen.

On The Web: Crimespace

I’ve hung out a shingle at Crimespace, the new social networking site dedicated to crime fiction. It’s the brainchild of writer Daniel Hatadi, who’s doing a bang-up job of running the place. It’s meant to be the online equivalent of the bar at a convention. Considering that I attended my first convention earlier this year and found the experience ... odd, maybe a virtual version is more my speed.

At such sites you’re faced with the eternal dilemma of making friends. At least, you’re supposed to be. You should see my MySpace page. My only friends are tumbleweeds. And Tom.

So I’ve established some hard and fast rules at Crimespace. I don’t want to go all Tila Tequila on the place. If I’ve read your books or your blog, you get a friend request. What the hell, right? It’s only the internet. Trust me, I’m a good guy to know. I don’t eat much and I tend to keep to myself.

Whereas if you send me a friend request, I’ll accept it even if I don’t know you from Adam or Eve. That’s just how I roll. Amigo de todos.

Miscellaneous: Links

One of the pluses of living in Seattle is proximity to the unassailable Zen cool of the Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki. Turns out he’s also a talk show host. Here’s a clip of him playing a word association game with singer/musician Shiina Ringo. It’s in untranslated, unsubtitled Japanese and I don’t care. The man is that charismatic.

Speaking of baseball, I want this nonsense resolved in a hurry. I’ve got Mets games to watch next month.

I have a near-pathological dislike of National Public Radio. The sound of earnest vanilla voices backed by tastefully-selected world music makes me want to hurl in my eco-friendly tote bag. So I don’t know much about This American Life, the radio show. But if it’s going to have animated segments by Chris Ware, I may gave the TV edition on Showtime a shot.

Miscellaneous: Link

The AV Club lists 22 opening credit sequences that fit their shows perfectly. Points for acknowledging the cheestastic magnificence that is Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Of course, this is just an excuse to link to the opening of Jack of All Trades again. It doesn’t belong on the list because it was better than the show itself. But it’s still the greatest credit sequence ever. Watch and see.

Movie: Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)

James Coburn plans a heist to coincide with a visit by the Soviet premier in this caper film. There are plenty of slick bits as well as Harrison Ford’s first film appearance. But some aspects of Coburn’s scheme are needlessly complicated, while others aren’t explained at all. The twist ending is clever without being satisfying. On the whole, the movie is what we at Chez K call --

Hang on. I should explain first.

I used to work at a magazine. (Don’t worry. You’ve never heard of it.) Once, when the editor Bruce and I helped out a coworker, she rewarded us with two microwavable s’mores. You know how it gets around 3:30 – you’ll eat anything. Bruce and I decamped to the break room to heat those bad boys up.

The company’s microwave had seen better days. Many of them. Within seconds, it began spewing smoke and the odors of chocolate and burning graham cracker. All of which were then sucked into the ventilation system and pumped into every office.

Someone pulled the fire alarm. The building was evacuated. The fire department showed up. Excuses were made.

Later, Bruce and I retrieved our snacks. We hadn’t gone through all that trouble to go home hungry. Bruce took one bite of his s’more and said, “I don’t know. It’s a long way to go for a hot Mallomar.”

When Dead Heat ended, Rosemarie turned to me and said, “That movie was a hot Mallomar, wasn’t it?” And I said, “Yes, sweetie. That’s exactly what it was.”

OK, so maybe it’s not Hank Azaria’s “idiot ball.” But I like to think of the phrase as my personal contribution to the lexicon. Even if I’m not the one who said it.

Miscellaneous: Links

Over at the Mystery*File blog, Steve Lewis takes my thought on the Michael Shayne films and runs with it. So it’s decided. I will travel back in time to cast Ken Tobey as Brett Halliday’s private eye in a series of movies. And do some other stuff.

By now you’ve probably heard about the secret FBI file allegedly linking Robert F. Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe’s death. What I find most interesting is that this new evidence was unearthed by the filmmaker behind The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf. I refuse to weigh in on the matter until the director of Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest is heard from.

Book: The Sound of No Hands Clapping, by Toby Young (2006)

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the first book by Toby Young, chronicled his doomed attempt to break into the front ranks of American magazine journalism at Vanity Fair. Young, who can be what the English refer to as a “wanker,” has no one to blame but himself for his lack of success, self-sabotaging his efforts at every turn. (For example, it is not a good idea to ask the actor you’re interviewing for a puff piece if he’s gay.) But Young’s willingness to own up to his every stupid move – and his decision to stop chasing after models and commit to a woman who’s smarter than he is – made him strangely likable.

The second memoir cribs the structure of the first, pairing another ill-advised pursuit for fame (in the movie business) with massive personal changes (impending fatherhood). Like most sequels, it’s not as satisfying as the original. But Toby remains an affable chap, in spite and perhaps because of his penchant for boneheaded plays. (For example, it is not a good idea to approach an established Hollywood player by having your paparazzi friend tail him to the Ivy. Particularly when the player has Halle Berry in his car.)

I like Toby because his goals sound awfully familiar. He has no delusions of creating the next Citizen Kane. “I wanted to write something that would be regarded as a fine example of its type, like a good screwball comedy or a well-crafted thriller.” Later, he says that “being hailed as a genre master ... (is) the highest compliment I could imagine.”

Sometimes you meet yourself in the oddest places.

Movie: Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)

In college, I roomed with a guitarist in a metal band. A great guy. He explained to me that bass players the world over loved the theme from Barney Miller because it gave them a chance to shine. Sadly, there are few requests for it.

That limited I’m-with-the-band experience is one reason why I’ve always found Tenacious D funny. Consequently, I laughed all the way through their first movie, even though it’s dumb. Really dumb. On a scale of one to five, with one being sober as a judge and five meaning deeply ridiculous, Pick of Destiny rates a B+. That’s how dumb it is.

Here’s a quick test to see if the movie is for you.

1. Do you know who Ronnie James Dio is?

2. Does the prospect of a poster of Mr. Dio coming to life fill you with anticipatory glee?

If your answers are yes, rent it now.

Books: The Worst Pulp Novelist Ever?

In Seattle’s alt newspaper The Stranger, Paul Collins remembers Leo Child, “the worst pulp novelist ever,” on the tenth anniversary of his death. Child went from ghostwriting Hollywood bios to churning out titles for Holloway House.

His signature accomplishment is The Werewolf Versus Vampire Woman, which “has the reputation among aficionados as the most craptastically awful book ever written.” Collins says it’s “an extremely loose adaptation of an Italian schlock-horror film.” If I had to guess, I’d say that film is, um, The Werewolf Versus Vampire Woman, one of the many Waldemar Daninsky movies made by Paul Naschy.

The notion of any writer trying to capture the weirdness of a Naschy film on the page boggles the mind. At the very least, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers should name an award in his honor.

Magazines: Famous Last Words

I read the final issue of Premiere, although I fully expect the magazine to be revived within five years. (If they can bring back Tab ...) The last page is a brief interview with Jeff Daniels, who’s asked how he feels about being remembered primarily for Dumb and Dumber. Daniels responds:

Listen, over the weekend I saw soldiers at the Walter Reed hospital – no arms, faces blown up – and every single one of ‘em quoted Dumb and Dumber. Later, I was told that those were the first words one guy had said in three days. So that’s my answer: “Absolutely, it was worth it.”

Not a bad way to bring down the curtain.

Miscellaneous: Vamping

Work, work, work. Here’s some stuff for you while my nose is applied to the grindstone. You could head over to Damn Interesting and read about bizarre phenomena. Or you could watch this video of Raquel Welch dancing with a giant spider from The Muppet Show. I have to admit, I’m kind of turned on by this. I don’t know if I should talk to a therapist or an exterminator.

TV: Andy Barker, P.I.

There are several reasons why I’m going to watch Andy Barker, P.I. on NBC Thursdays, even though it’s temporarily spelling the now-firing-on-all-pistons 30 Rock. (Last week’s episode, featuring Nathan Lane as Alec Baldwin’s estranged brother, was the greatest depiction of Irish Catholicism on network television since the heyday of Bishop Fulton Sheen.) Said reasons follow.

1. I am an unabashed Andy Richter fan. His first sitcom, Andy Richter Controls The Universe, deserved to run a lot longer.

2. The premise kills me. Andy Barker is a CPA who rents what used to be a private eye’s office and finds himself handling cases.

3. Andy is assisted in his new career by a movie-mad video store clerk and the septuagenarian gumshoe, played by Fargo’s Harve Presnell in full old-guy roar.

4. Any series with episodes titled “Fairway My Lovely” and “The Lady Varnishes” has a shot with me.

5. It’s funny. I already watched the premiere online.

But the main reason is Lookwell, the last detective sitcom from Andy Barker co-creator/producer Conan O’Brien. Adam West played Ty Lookwell, the washed-up star of a ‘70s cop show who in better times was named an honorary member of the LAPD. As far as Ty is concerned, that gives him license to solve crimes.

Lookwell never made it past the pilot, which aired only once in 1991. I was one of the few people watching that night, and loved the show. I don’t know how it would have worked week after week, but that one outing was inspired silliness. Helping was the direction by E.W. Swackhamer, a veteran of McCloud and The Rookies, who gave the show that authentic ‘70s look.

See for yourself. The pilot is available on on YouTube. Look for Academy Award-nominated writer/director Todd Field as one of Lookwell’s acting students. If you don’t want to watch the whole 22 minutes, at least check out the opening scene in which Lookwell clears up any confusion by enumerating all the ‘70s TV cops he didn’t play.

I’m sure some of you think that watching a 22-minute busted pilot is a waste of time. But remember, you don’t waste time. Time wastes you.

Miscellaneous: Links

At Slate, use the new-fangled science of bracketology to determine once and for all what the greatest movie death scene is.

The A.V. Club cites 14 cover songs that are better than the originals. It is VinceKeenan.com policy to link to any list that includes multiple Elvii.

Movie: The Host (U.S. 2007)

Here’s what I want to say: “It’s a monster movie! Go already!”

But I realize that the phrase “monster movie” may not carry the same magical charge for you that it does for me. (Although let’s be honest: if it doesn’t, what are you doing here?)

Besides, The Host is more than a monster movie. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a monster in it and what a beast it is, a mutant sea creature at once hideous and graceful, looking strangely at home beneath the bridges than span Seoul’s Han River. Yes, it goes on a rampage. Several, in fact. And more importantly, yes, it stomps things.

The movie is also a shrewd family comedy – there’s a scene involving an escape in a van that brought to mind Little Miss Sunshine – and a sharp satire of paranoia. Director Bong Joon-ho has worked similar cross-genre magic before. His 2003 film Memories of Murder, a true-life tale about the years-long hunt for a serial killer that devolves into obsession, makes a striking companion piece to Zodiac.

Americans aren’t the villains of The Host, but we come close. It’s always interesting to see how we’re perceived elsewhere in the world. (Briefly: in charge and kinda stupid.) Plus there’s an additional contrast. The Host has storytelling stones that you won’t find in a U.S. film. Nothing goes the way you’d expect, so hang on for the ride.

Speaking of monster movies, I happened to catch the original version of The Blob again yesterday. Chuckle over it all you want, but that movie still scares the bejesus out of me. Must be that scene in the theater.

Miscellaneous: Link

I love this poster.

Movie: Green For Danger (1946)

Seeing Green for Danger has been a mission of mine since first reading about it in my trusty Leonard Maltin Movie Guide (“exciting whodunit ... a must-see classic”). The fact that Rosemarie had stumbled onto a rare TV screening as a child and still vividly remembered the movie only made me more determined.

Now, thanks to a new DVD from the Criterion Collection, I can finally cross that goal off my list. Next up: bring sexy back. (Damn it. Remind me never to draft a list while sitting next to Justin Timberlake.)

At a rural English hospital during WWII, a patient dies on the table – before his operation begins. An eccentric inspector from Scotland Yard, played by the incomparable Alastair Sim, must discover which member of the surgical staff is the killer.

Danger is that rarest of birds, a mystery movie that succeeds as both mystery and movie. Co-writer/director Sidney Gilliat plays fair with his clues while capturing life in a once-bucolic setting where V-1 flying bombs, or doodlebugs, now rain down on the countryside. Best of all is Sim as the preening master detective who may not be as clever as he thinks he is. Danger lives up to its billing.

Upcoming: The Michael Shayne Collection

Volume One of Fox’s Michael Shayne, Private Detective collection will be out on March 20. The two DVD set contains four 1940-41 films starring Lloyd Nolan as the gumshoe created by Brett Halliday, as well as plenty of extras: a history of the character, a feature on the work of paperback cover artist extraordinaire Robert McGinnis, and more.

I’m curious to dig into the Shayne movies for two reasons. One, Nolan, while a fine actor, doesn’t jibe with my sense of the character. He certainly looks nothing like the mug on the covers of the books. (You know who would have been perfect as Shayne? Ken Tobey from The Thing. Tell me he’s not a dead ringer for Halliday’s “reckless, red-headed Irishman.”)

And two, after the debut film – Michael Shayne, Private Detective, which is based on Halliday’s Dividend for Death – the series cribbed from anything but the Shayne books. Take Sleepers West, for instance. It’s a remake of – what else? – Sleepers East (1934), from a story by Torchy Blane creator Frederick Nebel. A Nolan/Shayne film that will with any luck appear on Volume Two, 1942’s Time To Kill, is actually an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window with Shayne subbing for Philip Marlowe.

Fate can be cruel. Decades later, another Michael Shayne novel finally reached the big screen as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, only without Michael Shayne. But that’s Hollywood.

Miscellaneous: Links

I didn’t plan on filing a post tonight. But I’ve had an excellent day and found plenty of good stuff to share.

John August says adios to MySpace. I have a MySpace page myself – I didn’t want some other Vince Keenan seizing it, piggybacking on my good name – but I never use it. I assume people searching for me on the web will eventually make their way here.

In recent days, Ken Levine has offered a tribute to Steve Gordon, the writer/director of Arthur, as well as two scenes from the original script that didn’t make it into the movie. Great stuff.

At The Rap Sheet, Jeff Pierce takes an early look at NBC’s new noir-inflected crime drama Raines, starring Jeff Goldblum.

And the U.S. print edition of Premiere has officially bitten the dust, a fate considered in this space last month. As I told Ivan, maestro of the must-read Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, I didn’t actively wish for the magazine to be killed. I simply wanted a once-noble publication to be put out of its misery. You know, like Old Yeller.

Website Update: Links

Not reading The Rap Sheet? Well, you oughta be.

Movie: DuBarry Was A Lady (1943)

CNN used to be the default station on the Chez K TV. But at some point during their relentless coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death, I said to hell with it. Now when I fire up the tube I’m greeted by Turner Classic Movies. Puts a whole new disposition on the evening. And more often than not, I get sucked into whatever is on.

Like this musical starring Red Skelton, Gene Kelly and Lucille Ball. It has a half-baked plot – nightclub attendant Skelton dreams he’s Louis XV – and jettisons all the Cole Porter songs from the stage version save ‘Friendship.’ But there’s plenty to recommend it: a young Zero Mostel, Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra in powdered wigs, a cameo from Lana Turner.

And then, be still my heart, there’s Virginia O’Brien, who knocks ‘em dead with the comic number ‘Salome.’ (“No matter how you slice it, it’s ...”) She does the entire song without cracking a smile, instead punctuating the lyrics with perfect throwaway looks and gestures. That shtick – accidentally developed as the result of stage fright during her debut performance, according to legend – earned her the nicknames ‘Miss Deadpan’ and ‘The Red Hot Frozen Face.’ A gorgeous dame with a sense of humor who was the daughter of the LAPD’s captain of detectives and married to Kirk Alyn, the first Superman? Sounds like a character right out of James Ellroy. Or maybe Megan Abbott. (Who, as it happens, recently wrote a birthday salute to Ellroy at, you guessed it, The Rap Sheet.)

I watched ‘Salome’ again when DuBarry was over, tracked down some of Virginia’s songs on Rhapsody, and queued up the few other movies she made. Always nice to have a new retro crush.

Movies: Memories of Meme

When at a loss for something to post about, I turn to that evergreen subject: me. Here’s a screenwriting meme I poached from Ken Levine.

Name one (1) earliest film-related memory.

Making a pilgrimage to Radio City Music Hall to see a movie. I can’t even remember what it was now – probably a reissue of one of the Disney cartoons – because I was so overwhelmed by the experience of being in the theater. The vastness of the lobby. The size of the crowd. The sense of hushed anticipation as the lights dimmed. All I could think was, “I want more.”

Two (2) favorite lines from movies.

From Out of the Past. Script credited to Daniel Mainwaring (Geoffrey Homes), based on the novel Build My Gallows High by Geoffrey Homes.

Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer): Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to die!
Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum): Neither do I, baby. But if I have to, I’m gonna die last.

From Once Upon A Time In The West. Story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone. Screenplay by Sergio Leone and Sergio Donati.

Cheyenne (Jason Robards): You know, Jill, you remind me of my mother. She was the biggest whore in Alameda and the finest woman that ever lived. Whoever my father was, for an hour or for a month – he must have been a happy man.

Three (3) jobs you’d do if you couldn’t work in “the biz.”

FBI agent. Seriously.
Genially corrupt political operative.
Alcoholic copywriter.

Job I would most likely have: overnight manager at a 24-hour copy shop.

Four (4) jobs you have actually held outside the industry.

Writer of phone sex ads. As I’ve said before, the only job I was truly good at.
Legal assistant.
Telemarketer.
Journalist at a business magazine.

Three (3) book authors I like.

Lawrence Block.
Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark.
Ross Thomas.

Two (2) movies you’d like to remake or properties you’d like to adapt.

There’s this Hong Kong gangster movie called Infernal Affairs that would ... what? Damn. I should get out more.

There are plenty of remakes and adaptations I’d like to do that I’m actively pitching, so I’m not naming them here. Instead, I’ll give you two (2) remakes that actually work: His Girl Friday and The Fly.

One (1) screenwriter you think is underrated.

From the golden age of Hollywood, Jay Dratler. The best known film he worked on is Laura. He also contributed to gems like the Fred Allen comedy It’s In the Bag, the true-crime drama Call Northside 777, the Lucille Ball film noir The Dark Corner, and the sorely neglected Impact.

From today, Ron Shelton. Because comedies and sports movies (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) always get short shrift. No one writes contemporary American men in all their befuddled glory better. And at times he seems like the only studio filmmaker who’s interested in sex – real, human, occasionally goofy sex. Blaze, Cobb and Hollywood Homicide all deserve to be better known.

TV: Watching The Detectives

New month, new leaf. I’m going to be a giver.

So is Turner Classic Movies, with their festival Watching The Detectives. 53 films shown every Tuesday and Wednesday night in March.

Things kick off next Tuesday, March 6, with the most famous gumshoes in their most famous cases: Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep), Mike Hammer (Kiss Me Deadly). More obscure titles come to the fore on March 7, with the TCM premieres of four Lone Wolf films. I haven’t seen any of these movies starring Warren William as Louis Joseph Vance’s gentleman thief Michael Lanyard. I assume that the keeper of the lot is 1939’s The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, featuring Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth and a script by novelist Jonathan Latimer. Later in March is an entire evening of Boston Blackie films starring Chester Morris that haven’t been seen on TV – or anywhere else, most likely – in ages. Fire up that DVR.

TV: Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

I’m sure this Fox game show will grow old quickly. I already hate the music. But I have to admit that the concept is ingenious. The questions are drawn from elementary school textbooks – in other words, everyday stuff the contestants learned ages ago and have stopped thinking about.

So when host Jeff Foxworthy asks how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon, you think, “That’s easy. Two ... right? No, wait, it’s three. Or two. Hang on.” And next thing you know, you’re copying answers off a ten-year-old. (It’s three, by the way. I did know that five U.S. states border the Pacific Ocean, and if my answer of ‘Kodiak’ had not been accepted in response to the question “What is the largest species of bear?,” I would have appealed to the judges. Or the hall monitors. Whoever. Kodiaks are comparable in size to polar bears. Honest.)

The crowning touch is that when contestants get an answer wrong or opt to take the money and run, they must look into the camera and say, “I am not smarter than a fifth grader.” That kind of mortification will keep me tuning in for at least another week.

Books: The Bridge of Sighs (2003) and The Confession (2004), by Olen Steinhauer

There must be a word that means “to read an author’s blog before reading any of that author’s books.” Maybe the Germans have one. If they came up with weltanschauung ...

I can’t remember how I discovered Contemporary Nomad, a group blog written by a quartet of authors featuring smart posts on life and culture and a name I always sing to the tune of Re-Flex’s immortal “The Politics of Dancing.” (In my head, everything is set to music.) Once it became one of my regular stops, I decided I might as well check out the contributors’ books.

Olen Steinhauer is the site’s unofficial ringmaster and an American living in Europe. His crime novels chronicle life in a fictional unnamed nation behind the Iron Curtain.

In Sighs, set in 1948, a young homicide inspector is assigned a politically sensitive case that no one expects or wants him to solve. The novel, touching on wartime atrocities committed by both the Nazis and the Russians and including a jaunt to Berlin during the height of the Airlift, deftly introduces the country and the core group of characters that appear in subsequent books.

I liked it enough to move right on to the follow-up, and what a huge step forward it is. The Confession unfolds in 1956. The Hungarian revolution is in the air. A murder investigation involving state-supported artists triggers a personal and political awakening in a detective/frustrated writer. More than a smartly plotted mystery, The Confession lays bare the social and psychological survival methods that develop in totalitarian states.

Still to come are 36 Yalta Boulevard, Liberation Movements (recently nominated for the Best Novel Edgar) and the final book in the series. Not to mention the latest icy thriller from Steinhauer’s fellow Nomad Kevin Wignall. Then, only two more Nomads to go. Whew.

Miscellaneous: Links

I was lax in not doing an Academy Awards recap this year. (I’ll say only this: with big wins for The Departed and The Lives of Others, it was a grand year for the thriller.) Jay A. Fernandez of the Los Angeles Times looks back at the ceremony from the screenwriters’ perspective.

Also from the L.A. Times: director David Fincher and novelist James Ellroy, a man who knows something about obsession, talk Zodiac.

Miscellaneous: A Note From The Management

For reasons large and small, petty and profound, and far too numerous to mention, I would like to say the following:

Fuck February 2007. Fuck it right in the ear.

The shortest month of the year was too long for me by a damn sight, and I am counting the minutes – no, the seconds – nay, the nanoseconds until it comes to an end.

I never want to hear from this month again. Heather Rene Smith, Playboy’s Miss February 2007? You’re dead to me. I know it’s going to be rough on you. Deal with it. Any and all February 2007 Employees of the Month, from Kinko’s to Starbucks? If you see me, you’d better run.

It’s nothing personal. But I’ve got to take out my wrath on someone, because I can’t do what I want to do. Which is trap February 2007 in a dark alley, unleash years of training in Krav Maga, the ancient art of Sinanju, and some badass shit I made up myself, and kill it stone dead without mercy. I want February 2007 to look into my eyes and know that its moment of reckoning is at hand.

But I can’t do that, because February 2007 is only a month. And it’s almost over.

Meaning that March is coming. In like a lion, I hope, and let it go out like a lamb so long as it vanquishes my sworn enemy, the month of February 2007.

We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming right after this.

Books: Hard Case Crime Report

Usually I don’t read two Hard Case titles in a row, but sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Lucky at Cards, by Lawrence Block (originally published as The Sex Shuffle by Sheldon Lord, 1964). It’s a Lawrence Block novel. What do you think I’m going to say about it?

A card sharp gets run out of Chicago without the resources to make it to New York. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, he’s tempted by the squarejohn life – but even more tempted by the wife of his new best friend. A standard set-up, to be sure, but Block deploys some ingenious plotting. The closing scene nails that “surprising but inevitable” feel that David Mamet cites as storytelling’s holy grail. The missus in particular loved it.

The Peddler, by Richard S. Prather (1952). Perhaps the darkest Hard Case reprint yet. A young hothead realizes there’s a fortune to be made in prostitution, so he works his way methodically up the rackets. Prather makes absolutely no concessions to likability with his main character, which only makes his odyssey more compelling. A brutal ending caps a potent piece of work.

Tributes to the late Richard Prather continue to appear. By now you’ve probably seen the terrific piece by Stephen Marlowe about his collaboration with Prather on the Shell Scott/Chet Drum novel Double in Trouble that appeared at Ed Gorman’s blog, but I’m linking to it anyway. And Lee Goldberg offers some cherce Shell Scott lines.

Miscellaneous: Miscellany

While getting a haircut, I asked the barbers what they would do if Britney Spears pounded on the salon’s front door and demanded to have her head shaved. What followed was a conversation on tonsorial ethics that would have held Socrates rapt.

So I’m watching Spiders on the Sci-Fi Channel, because it’s on. Prompting Rosemarie to ask, “How many movies do you think you’ve seen where someone says, ‘Do you know how to fly this thing?’” I don’t know the answer, but I consider that one of the finest questions I’ve ever heard.

Book: Bambi vs. Godzilla, by David Mamet (2007)

It should come as no surprise that yours truly is a David Mamet fanboy. Once when Rosemarie and I passed the carousel in New York’s Central Park, I reenacted from memory a scene in The Spanish Prisoner that had been filmed there. I called Spartan the best movie of 2004, an opinion I hold to this day. (It’s odd how many people I’m working with on film projects speak of Spartan with reverence. I should use that movie as a yardstick: like it and you’re in.)

Naturally, I’m interested in whatever Mamet has to say about, as the subtitle has it, “the nature, purpose, and practice of the movie business.” The book’s tone, a blend of arch academic lecture and Victorian novel, occasionally obscures Mamet’s point. I read the essay on the cop movie twice and I’m still not sure what he’s talking about.

But what comes through loud and clear is Mamet’s abiding respect for craft, for those who take “pride in working toward perfection through the accomplishment of small and specific tasks perfectly.” (He puts this belief into practice on his sets; on the State and Main commentary track, William H. Macy notes that during downtimes Mamet will ask for a round of applause for the contributions of ‘below-the-line’ personnel like production designers.) As such, Mamet doesn’t cotton to those producers and executives whose life’s work is apparently interfering with those who simply want to tell a story.

Those sections of the book are getting all the buzz, but it’s Mamet’s observations about storytelling that fascinate. Like his explication of the difference between gangster movies (“a film as written by a criminal, which is to say a sentimental, self-servicing, pleasant lie”) and film noir, which “depicts a cold, Darwinian, zero-sum world ... (a) film, if you will, written by a cop.” Or the three simple questions that will allow one to write a successful scene:

1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don’t get it?
3. Why now?

String enough successful scenes together and you may have a movie. Perhaps even a perfect film. Mamet defines them, saying that they “start with a simple premise and proceed logically, and inevitably, toward a conclusion both surprising and inevitable.” He even names a few – The Godfather, A Place in the Sun, Dodsworth, Galaxy Quest.

Hang on. You mean like me, David Mamet also thinks Galaxy Quest is a perfect film? Great minds really do think alike.

Mamet also offers an essay in which he suggests that Tony Curtis is a better film actor than Laurence Olivier. As it happens, I agree. But I mention it as an excuse to run a quote I have never forgotten. It’s from a March 2000 Reel.com interview Curtis did with Jeffrey Wells, now of Hollywood Elsewhere.

“Can I tell you a story? In 1948, when I was 23 or 24, when I first came out here I lived in a house on Fountain Avenue ... I rented a room there. And they had a swimming pool. I had an appointment and I got on a trolley car ... they were running right down the middle of the freeway back then.

“Then I got back, I jumped in the pool, I took a shower, got dressed and got into the car, and drove up here to meet you. That’s how quick these fifty-fucking-two years have gone ... quick as that.”

I hear you, Tony.

Movies: Five Year Plan

As if I didn’t already have enough problems with Entertainment Weekly, now they’ve stolen my idea.

I believe that the best measure of a movie is how it holds up over time. So every Academy Awards season I’m tempted to revisit the films that were – and weren’t – honored five years earlier, to see which titles have faded and which have aged well.

EW has finally put that notion into practice, the bastards, complete with poll. At this point, Jennifer Connelly (Best Supporting Actress, A Beautiful Mind) is the only winner to retain her crown. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring would sweep were the balloting held today.

Writer Jeff Labrecque cites several performances that, in retrospect, should have been nominated – Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. I still can’t believe that Billy Bob Thornton wasn’t recognized for his work in my favorite movie of that year, the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There.

My video collection contains several other films from 2001 that didn’t get much love from the Academy. Like Vanilla Sky. Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The Deep End. (No nod for Tilda Swinton? Come on!) Ghost World. And perhaps the most influential movie of 2001, Memento. I’ll bet you have overlooked favorites, too.

This exercise has taught me two valuable lessons. One, my taste is very odd. And two, the ultimate honor is to be considered for a nomination.

TV: Raquel!

Now that I’m getting 18 hours of streaming video per month with my Netflix subscription, I want to make the most of it. I’ve already watched all four hours of House of Cards. Today I struck the mother lode: Raquel Welch’s enthusiastically self-titled 1970 TV special. It features an interpretive ballet based on Barbarella, a rendition of ‘Age of Aquarius’ featuring a parade of astrological symbols atop a Mexican pyramid, and appearances by John Wayne, Bob Hope and Tom Jones. It is, in a word, awesome.

Next up, something a little more sedate: 1979’s Bobby Short at the Café Carlyle.

Music: The Killers, Sam’s Town

Music critics. (Italics intended to convey disgust.) Can’t stand them. With their overheated prose. Their hothouse controversies. Their dogged insistence on keeping the cool kid mentality of high school alive.

Here’s how much I hate music critics: I still remember this Onion piece from five years ago and count it among my favorites. OK, the people in the article technically aren’t music critics. But you know they aspire to be, and somehow that’s worse.

Consequently, I hate myself when I listen to music critics.

I ignored them two years ago when I bought Hot Fuss, the debut album by the Killers. Plenty of critics dismissed the band as a bunch of post-punk pretty boys. I played Hot Fuss over and over. Still do; I’m sure my neighbors are sick of it. There’s not a weak song on the album. Listening to those sweeping choruses conjures up that adolescent sense of drama, of driving late at night with your friends, your whole life sprawling ahead of you, your future yet to be written. I figure as long as those feelings can be sparked by a new piece of music and not some nostalgic favorite, you’re in good shape.

Most reviews of Sam’s Town contained the phrase “sophomore jinx.” I liked the first single, ‘When You Were Young.’ The follow-up, ‘Bones,’ not so much. I didn’t bother to pick up the album.

Once I got my Rhapsody subscription, I decided to give it a listen. Then I played it again. Then I downloaded it, and I’m sure my neighbors will grow to hate it as much as they do Hot Fuss. Particularly the song ‘Read My Mind,’ which again has me on the road in South Florida, intent on “breaking out of this two-star town.” Even ‘Bones’ works in the context of the entire album. So I’m back to ignoring the critics again. I was never a cool kid when I was in high school. I don’t see the point in trying to be one now.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s the video for ‘Read My Mind.’

Movie: The Lives of Others (2006)

Extraordinary. There’s no other word for this movie, an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. It hit me so hard that I wanted to take a long walk afterward and talk about it. Fortunately, Rosemarie felt the same way and it wasn’t raining.

In 1985 East Germany, a Stasi officer is ordered to monitor a playwright, “the only non-subversive writer who’s still read in the west,” as a favor to a cabinet minister with designs on the writer’s actress girlfriend. The more he learns about the couple’s relationship, the more the gray government man is drawn into their lives.

Screenwriting is often called a craft as opposed to an art, and once upon a time I bristled at that description. Now I embrace it. Writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, in addition to possessing one of the world’s great names, is a master craftsman. His script is a marvel of engineering, with every detail serving more than one purpose in a way that’s both economical and expansive. The story culminates in an extended epilogue set after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that is low-key and utterly devastating. That final sentence ...

The Lives of Others provides an object lesson in the contributions of the wardrobe department; for much of the movie, the Stasi officer wears a coat so mesmerizingly ugly that it seems to represent all of the evils of Communism. And on that subject – politics, not hideous outerwear – there’s a certain stripe of far-left American that’s thick on the ground in this neck of the woods. The kind that gathers in fair-trade-only coffee shops to yammer about the industrial uses of hemp. (Screw the historical perspective. Just admit that you want to smoke pot. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.) I’ve heard these types say with withering condescension that there is no freedom of expression in this country. Let’s hear them spout that after seeing this movie, in which paying respect to a fallen friend not only requires daring acts of subterfuge, but ones that must be accomplished while dressed in unsightly jackets. Damn hippies.

Miscellaneous: Links

A pair of longish but interesting articles in New York magazine, courtesy of 2 Blowhards. First, Po Bronson on the right way to praise children. Then, Emily Nussbaum considers the generation gap spawned by the current need to document every aspect of one’s life online, no matter how personal or potentially embarrassing. Inspired by this latter piece, I will now admit that I appear in a series of artful nudes posted on the web. You can find them by searching for either my alias – an anagram of the name of one of the members of the 1974 Philadelphia Flyers – or the distinctive headgear I’m sporting in most of the photographs.

Richard S. Prather, R.I.P.

The creator of swingin’ private eye Shell Scott has died. The Scott books are a blast, a dizzying blend of hardboiled and uproarious. Plus they’re packed with sex that’s actually sexy. Richard Prather had a way with the risqué that will be sorely missed. I picked up a trove of these books on eBay and dole them out one at a time. Sometimes I get in a funk where the only cure is Shell Scott.

Mr. Prather lived to see his acclaimed novel The Peddler reissued by Hard Case Crime. I picked it up recently but haven’t read it yet. Rest assured I’ll get to it soon.

Steve Lewis has a fine tribute up at the Mystery*File blog. I will pay my respects to Mr. Prather the best way I know how, by rerunning the cover of his novel The Scrambled Yeggs, which accounts for half the traffic I get at this site.



Again, for the record: yes, Shell is spanking that woman.

Miscellaneous: Burning Questions

Why do people feel compelled to write corrections into library books? And why are those corrections always wrong?

TV: The Next Round of Lattes Is On Simon Cowell

Everyone involved with American Idol said the show’s Seattle auditions were the worst ever, yet five of this year’s 24 finalists are from here. On behalf of the city, I say: nyah.

Book: The Song Is You, by Megan Abbott (2007)

It’s a common Hollywood story. A beautiful woman, the belle of her hometown ball, goes to Los Angeles to make it as an actress and finds herself adrift. It’s Jean Spangler’s story. Then comes the twist: on October 7, 1949, she vanished, leaving behind a young daughter and a cryptic note found in her discarded purse. After an initial flurry of activity that compared Jean to the infamous Black Dahlia, interest faded. Spangler was never found. Her case remains open to this day.

But Megan Abbott hasn’t forgotten her. Jean’s disappearance is the basis of her second novel. (Abbott wrote about her interest in Spangler for the Rap Sheet.) The Song Is You is set in 1951, when on-the-rise publicist Gil ‘Hop’ Hopkins finds himself drawn back to that October night when he last saw Jean alive and kept a few details from the police.

Abbott’s low-key, intimate approach to Tinseltown noir makes quite a contrast to the epic scale of, say, James Ellroy, but it’s effective in its own way. And the ending is a doozy.

My favorite aspect of the book is the way Abbott deftly weaves in another real-life tale, that of actress Barbara Payton. Her story darkly parallels Jean Spangler’s, and is as noir as Hollywood gets.

Miscellaneous: My Valentine’s Day Gift To You

Saw this ad on CNN yesterday. Nothing says love like production values.

Miscellaneous: Heading For The Future

OK, this is bit unnerving.

I had read with sadness the obituaries of the late actor Ian Richardson. (Not enough of them mentioned his turn as the evil Mr. Book in Dark City, but never mind.) Much attention was rightly paid to Mr. Richardson’s personification of the scheming Tory politician Francis “F.U.” Urquhart in the three House of Cards series. I hadn’t seen the original show in some time, so I checked with Netflix to see if it was on DVD.

It was, along with another option: Watch Now.

I’d heard that Netflix was introducing a streaming video feature, but this was the first time that a title I’d looked up was instantly available. One brief installation interlude later and there was Ian Richardson in all his malevolent glory, only minutes after I’d thought of watching him.

Factor in the Rhapsody subscription I recently ordered that turns my PC into a jukebox – love that New Wave channel! – and I may never work again. This could be very, very bad.

Miscellaneous: She Said What?

The March 2007, thick-as-a-phone-book issue of InStyle magazine brings us this conversation overheard backstage at the American Music Awards.

Beyoncé: It’s so nice to see you! You look lovely.

Ashlee Simpson: Thank you!

They hug.

Ashlee Simpson: Hey, honey, how are you?

Beyoncé: I’m happy everything went well. Now I can relax and sit in the audience. Where’s Jessica?

Ashlee Simpson: She’s at home in her pajamas.

A STAGEHAND passes with a cart carrying a large set piece.

Stagehand: Ladies, you need to move!

Beyoncé: Oh, oh! Things are getting a bit chaotic back here now.

And ... that’s it.

I used to think these candid celebrity moments were made up, like the letters in Penthouse magazine. (Twins. Riiight.) Or the cutesy items in the New York Times Metropolitan Diary. But the stagehand sold me. This diva-to-diva exchange actually occurred, and I for one am glad that InStyle has preserved it for the ages.

Miscellaneous: Shutterbug

Black has been my mood of late, and that’s not conducive to blogging. My own opinions bore me. The internet itself is pissing me off. My buddy closes, and all that comes out of my mouth is bile. Maybe I should watch Man of the Century again.

But I don’t want to trouble you folks with my woes. They’ll pass soon enough.



Instead, I strolled down to the Seattle Art Museum’s newly opened Olympic Sculpture Park and snapped a few photos. Enjoy.

Million Dollar Movie: Man of the Century (1999)

Not the old cinema showcase on WOR Channel 9 in New York City. Although that would be worth writing about. (Here’s the title sequence. Tell me that’s not the classiest intro you’ve ever seen. No wonder I fell for the movies and hard.)

No, this is the first in an occasional series on movies that make me feel like a million bucks whenever I watch them. Maybe not the greatest films ever made, but the ones that are guaranteed to chase away the blues.

We’d had an odd couple of days when I noticed that Man of the Century was on cable, so we watched it for the fourth time. Eighty minutes later, the clouds had lifted.

The movie doesn’t have a plot so much as a premise. Johnny Twennies (played by Gibson Frazier, who co-wrote the script with director Adam Abraham) lives in contemporary New York as if the 1920s never ended. His clothes, his language, and his deportment may be decades out of date, but not out of style.

This isn’t an affectation; Johnny’s a living anachronism, and the movie never offers an explanation. There are some bits that don’t make a lick of sense, and a story about a shadowy crime boss that goes nowhere.

And I don’t care. Man of the Century is in love with New York then and now. It’s got great blasts of silliness and is always ready to stop for a musical number. Frazier has a true knack for period dialogue, and some of his lines are now Chez K staples. (“If you keep riding me, you’re gonna have to pay the fare.” “Mother, when I’m in the swim, I wanna be with goldfish!”) And the ending is sheer bliss. The first time we saw it, Rosemarie actually wept tears of joy. That hadn’t happened since the ‘Be Our Guest’ number in Beauty & The Beast.

Ultimately, the movie says something profound: you can’t choose when you live, so you might as well choose how. All that and Bobby Short, too. You can’t go wrong.

Miscellaneous: Newsstand News

The upcoming Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair includes a portfolio of contemporary stars photographed film noir-style by Annie Liebovitz. All the big names are there: Naomi Watts, Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis, Kate Winslet. And those are just the W’s.

It’s on sale later this week, but right now you can check out a video feature based on these gorgeous photos called Killers Kill, Dead Men Die, which comes complete with sorta-cheesy hardboiled voiceover.

As Bill Crider notes, I mentioned the video yesterday on the noir fiction list Rara Avis but didn’t get around to posting it here. Sometimes being lazy pays off. Thanks to Bill’s post I can now also link to the B-roll, which offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the photo shoot. And there’s no voiceover.

Elsewhere, the New York Post reports that Premiere magazine may be shuttered. If it happens, it should be considered a mercy killing.

When Premiere, uh, premiered, it was the, um, premier film rag in the U.S. Intelligent coverage of a broad range of movies. Once a month I’d hike up to the video store, buy a copy, and spend the rest of the day devouring it. For years I held on to the collectible lobby cards that used to come in each issue.

But over time Premiere became smaller, both physically and in terms of scope. I still have a subscription, but only because the magazine is so cheap; the latest renewal come-on I received in the mail offers three years for a mere twenty-two bucks. I’d already decided not to renew it. I flip through each issue in about ten minutes, mainly to read critic Glenn Kenny, and then toss it into the recycling bin. The sad truth is Premiere hasn’t mattered in ages. I’m not even going to lament that there’s no serious mass-market print magazine about cinema in the U.S., because there’s no need for one. Not with such in-depth writing on movies available online, much of it recapped on a regular basis through GreenCine Daily.

Still, I miss those lobby cards.

Miscellaneous: Left Coast Crime Report

I can’t remember the last time I attended any sort of convention. Occasionally I tag along when Rosemarie goes to the annual NCURA wingding in Washington, D.C. Research administrators are animals. I still have a scar from the 2003 get-together, and remain banned from the Watergate Hotel thanks to what I’d categorize as a silly misunderstanding.

So I’m no expert, but I thought this year’s Left Coast Crime was smartly put together. A strong mix of guests and panels, an attentive hotel staff. Here’s a quick recap of my LCC.

Two bits of sage advice from toastmaster Gary Phillips: Always get your money, and never sell to a snitch.

A panel about politics in mystery seemed appropriate considering that one guest of honor was the late Dennis Lynds. I was surprised to hear the thriller described as a “right-wing genre.” Why? Because the characters are often allied with government or military agencies? What’s right-wing about a corporate conspiracy? Alas, time ran out before I could learn more. I blame the Trilateral Commission.

Thriller novelists weighed in on recent movies at another panel. Guest of honor Gayle Lynds is a fan of Casino Royale and was disappointed by the critical reaction to The Good Shepherd, while Mike Lawson praised Syriana and Munich. I was hoping someone would credit Eric Roth with writing both Shepherd and Munich. I guess that someone is me.

The most fun panel was on swearing. It was led by three of the Killer Year gang, with other members of the class there in force. All of them kept it reasonably clean.

Good times were had at Saturday’s discussion of noir featuring Megan Abbott, in which it was revealed that even practitioners of the form aren’t sure of its definition, and a surprisingly funny session about true crime chaired by David Corbett. It was also nice to put faces to names I knew from the web, like January magazine guru Jeff Pierce.

Having gotten my feet wet, though, I have to admit: I still don’t get the whole convention thing.

Let me stress that my reservations are no reflection on this particular conference. And I understand why authors go. It’s a chance to catch up with contemporaries and meet fans.

What I mean is I personally don’t get it. This is partly because I didn’t have the full convention experience. I wasn’t staying in the hotel, and thanks to other obligations I left early every day. But it’s mainly because I’m not much of a joiner. I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

I can’t simply wander up to writers and start talking. I don’t want to intrude. I already know what the end result is going to be – a brief chat about the weather or the Super Bowl, maybe a request for the name of a good local bar. And it’s not a social phobia; on the way home yesterday I stopped by the very bar I would have recommended and fell easily into conversation with total strangers. It’s just that as a reader, I don’t have any expectation of a relationship with an author beyond the words he or she placed on the page.

Again, that’s just me. I’m such a bad fan that I may be the first person in the history of these events to leave without a single signed book. Not one. Simply never occurred to me. This is every signing I’ve ever been to:

Me: Hi, love your books.

Famous Author: Thanks! What’s your name?

Me: (mumbling) Um, Vince.

Famous Author: Frank, you said?

Me: (beat) Yeah, that’ll work.

Eventually, I just stopped going. (That must kill J.A. Konrath. All his carefully laid plans actually working against the purchase of a book. I’ll shatter his illusions further. When a clerk starts a conversation with me about whatever title I’m holding, it almost guarantees I won’t buy it. Years of self-preservation instincts forged on the streets of New York kick in: “Why are you talking to me? Who sent you?”)

Don’t get me wrong – signed books mean a lot to me. I’ve got a whole shelf of them in my library. Perhaps my most prized possession is a copy of the seminal baseball book Ball Four personally inscribed to me by Jim Bouton after a profile of him I wrote ran in a business magazine. In some respects, that book set me on the path I’m on now.

But I want each of those books to have a story. And “I went to a place where the author was signing books and he signed this one for me” isn’t a story no matter how well I tell it.

I probably just went in to my first con experience unprepared. (Friday kicked off with a panel called “LCC 101,” but I missed it.) I’d love to hear from authors and fans about how they run the convention gauntlet. Feel free to leave pointers. I plan on getting to Bouchercon one of these years, and I want to do it right.