Books: Three for the Road

Thanks to a Design for Dying book tour that lasted much of May, I almost broke my Showgirls oath to post at least once a month. Here I am under the wire to recommend a troika of titles that kept me company while I was on the road.

Underground Airlines, Ben H. Winters. Late last year I devoured the entirety of Winters’ Last Policeman trilogy, genre-bending marvels that claimed both Edgar and Philip K. Dick awards. Even those books didn’t prepare me for Winters’ latest, due out on July 5 and destined to be a hot button topic for the rest of the summer. Airlines takes place in an alternate America where the Civil War never occurred, a twenty-first century where slavery remains legal in four states. Victor is a young black man who has made a devil’s bargain with a shadowy government agency to act as bounty hunter, tracking down fugitives from the South. Winters’ world-building is astonishing, creating a wholly believable society mere degrees from our own. But it’s Victor’s raw and potent story that carries us through this distorted and disturbing mirror image.

West of Eden: An American Place, by Jean Stein. Given the Lillian Frost/Edith Head series any book on Old Hollywood is going to command my attention, but this one-of-a-kind oral history is told from the inside. Stein recounts the sagas of five different Los Angeles families, including the Dohenys, who inspired There Will Be Blood and haunted Raymond Chandler; the Warners; and Jennifer Jones and David O. Selznick. The section on Jane Garland, the troubled daughter of a fortune-hunting mother who paid assorted California dreamers to keep her company, is like a real-life Ross Macdonald tale. Stein then turns her gaze toward her own clan; her father Jules founded MCA and played a pivotal role in building modern show business. A compulsively readable book about the price of privilege under the sun.

The Only Rule Is It Has To Work, by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller. It’s a dream come true for a pair of hardcore baseball statheads: the chance to operate an actual team, albeit one in the independent leagues several rickety rungs below the minors. But in order to apply sabermetrics to the Sonoma Stompers, Lindbergh and Miller will have to win over rookies and lifers alike, plus learn some things about themselves and their beliefs. I heartily recommend this book to any baseball fan – it goes down much easier if you already know what wRC+ means – but don’t go in expecting a dry treatise heavy on objective analytics. This is powerful, moving stuff about theory and practice, dreams and reality, and the struggle to make tomorrow different from today.

Me Elsewhere: On The Road

Once again, my alter ego Renee Patrick has all the scoop while I’m left with scraps. She can tell you my schedule at Malice Domestic plus the first round of stops on the Design for Dying book tour, as well as the ingredients in a Renee Patrick cocktail, an original created at the Zig Zag Café. If you’re interested, that is.

The Lasting Legacy of Roy Huggins

NOTE: This post is my contribution to the Detectives and Dames blogathon hosted by Flicker Alley in advance of the May 10 release of Too Late for Tears (1949) and Woman on the Run (1950) on Blu-ray/DVD. Other posts hosted by Flicker Alley are here, and this piece will be linked there later in the week.

You can preorder Woman on the Run and Too Late for Tears now. The Film Noir Foundation spearheaded the restoration of both films, and the bountiful extras included commentary tracks by my FNF colleagues Eddie Muller (Woman on the Run) and Alan K. Rode (Too Late for Tears).

You know the work of Roy Huggins, even if you’ve never heard his name. Huggins, who wrote both the screenplay for the newly-restored Too Late for Tears (1949) and the serial on which it was based, is one of the stealth giants of twentieth century pop culture, leaving his fingerprints everywhere. He’s the Stan Lee of network television.

He began as a novelist, debuting with a 1946 novel called The Double Take that aped Raymond Chandler so shamelessly Chandler himself admired it. The book was filmed two years later as I Love Trouble, with Franchot Tone as wisecracking shamus Stuart Bailey. It boasts gorgeous dames a’plenty, noir favorites like Raymond Burr and Steven Geray, and a corkscrew plot that, as in many a Chandler yarn, ultimately proves irrelevant. Huggins adapted the book himself, quickly realizing Hollywood was where a writer could take down the big money. He’d script several other underrated noir titles. 1954’s taut Pushover gives the lie to the belief that Fred MacMurray never strayed to the dark side of the street again after Double Indemnity. Ida Lupino is menaced by her new husband who’s only interested in the family mill in Woman in Hiding (1950), which dutifully follows Chekhov’s dictum that if a hydroelectric turbine is mentioned in Act One, it must be turned on in Act Two.

It was in television, though, that Huggins would truly leave his mark. Among the series he created are several with outsized footprints. Maverick and The Fugitive were both rebooted for the small and big screens, while a feature film based on his jazzy Los Angeles private eye show 77 Sunset Strip has been in development for years. Sunset’s lead detective? None other than The Double Take’s Stuart Bailey, given new life. Crime novelist Max Allan Collins, long a Huggins admirer, observed that The Double Take is “undoubtedly the most filmed private eye novel ever.” Huggins recycled its plot on many of the series he worked on, even transposing the action to the Old West for Maverick. When you’re as prolific as Huggins was, you’re not going to get too precious about reusing a story that works.

Huggins’ name came to mean something else inside Hollywood’s corridors of power. He’d gotten shafted on a number of shows he created, the most legendary example a story that sounds like something out of Hail, Caesar! Studio chief Jack Warner arranged for the pilot episode of 77 Sunset Strip to be released theatrically in the Caribbean, a dodge enabling the studio to claim the series was based on a movie and not Huggins’ original Stuart Bailey stories. Fed up, Huggins had ownership of all the concepts he created written into his contracts, a practice other producers soon followed.

What cements Roy Huggins’ Hall of Fame status is his work as a mentor, with one writer in particular. TV titan Stephen J. Cannell (The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street) called Huggins “my Godfather in this business,” saying “during the two-and-a-half years I sat in his office, or in screening rooms, or at lunch discussing script problems with him, I learned more about the process of writing and producing television than I have in the entire twenty years since ... He was the one who showed me how to do it. He was the one who taught me how to fix a bad piece of film or plot a script so each scene is more interesting than the one that came before it.” Together, Cannell and Huggins co-created the perennial The Rockford Files, re-teaming Huggins with Maverick star James Garner. Many of today’s top television auteurs came through Cannell’s system, filtering Huggins’s storytelling lessons through to an entirely new generation.

Too Late for Tears is easily Huggins’ greatest achievement in his relatively brief movie career. His casually diabolical script prefigures A Simple Plan as young L.A. marrieds Lizabeth Scott and Arthur Kennedy accidentally come into possession of a hefty extortion payoff. As Scott’s avaricious tendencies get the better of her, the blackmailer (Dan Duryea) comes calling. It’s unquestionably Liz Scott’s finest hour, but good luck taking your eyes off Duryea, who saunters onto the screen all rancid insouciance and ends up timid and broken before La Scott.

The surprise, then, is that Huggins didn’t care for the finished film. He even assumed some of the blame himself. “I hated the movie (producer Hunt Stromberg) made from my script,” he said. “It was intended to be a suspense movie ... It was a bad movie because it was badly directed – and possibly badly written, but in view of the lethargic direction, how could you tell?”

Rapturous reactions to the Film Noir Foundation’s restored version indicates that on this score, Huggins was wrong. But he can be forgiven, considering he got so much else right.

Go for Launch: Design for Dying

Today’s the day, kids. Design for Dying, the mystery novel I co-wrote with Rosemarie under the pen name Renee Patrick, is finally available wherever, as the man says, fine books are sold.

In case you missed it, here’s the premise –

Los Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl ... until she discovers she’s a suspect in the murder of her former roommate Ruby Carroll. Party girl Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head.

Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she’s barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian’s name and save Edith’s career, the two women join forces. Unraveling the mystery pits them against a Hungarian princess on the lam, a hotshot director on the make, and a private investigator who’s not on the level.

All they have going for them are dogged determination, assists from the likes of Bob Hope and Barbara Stanwyck, and a killer sense of style. In show business, that just may be enough …

Glamorous clothes, celebrity cameos galore. What more could you want?

Renee is the one with all the information. Go to her website for the latest, like this blog post with everything that went live today as a result of the launch and a hint of what’s to come. And why not follow the links to your favorite bookstore and pick up a copy while you’re there? A boy’s gotta eat (and drink), you know.

Extra, Extra!: Noir City

It’s that time again, gang. Another issue of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine submitted for your delectation. I wasn’t planning on penning anything other than my Cocktails & Crime column for this installment, which riffs on the “noir in the arts” theme of this year’s Noir City film festival. But an opportunity presented itself that I simply couldn’t pass up.

One of the most astonishing documentaries of recent years is Marwencol (2010). It’s about Mark Hogancamp, whose story fuses art and noir in an intensely personal way: after a beating left him with amnesia, he found a way to help heal himself by recreating his ordeal in a richly imagined fictional world, a 1/6-scale World War II town in Belgium. A new book dives deeper into Hogancamp’s life and art, and I talked to co-author and Marwencol producer Chris Shellen about it. Also included is a bounty of Hogancamp’s remarkable, hypnotic photographs. I’m thrilled Noir City is able to bring Hogancamp’s work to you.

I recruited a few other contributors to this outing. Like my better half and other half of Renee Patrick, Rosemarie Keenan. A longtime admirer of the master of the American musical Stephen Sondheim, she sizes up his only original feature film script The Last of Sheila (1973) and suggests, in her “Noir or Not?” essay, that within this mordant inside-showbiz bauble beats the black heart you’d expect from the man responsible for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

In our “Prime Cuts: My Favorite Neo-Noir” section, crime novelist and country-western shirt connoisseur Martyn Waites appraises “one of the saddest, bleakest noirs ever made”: 1964’s chilling Séance on a Wet Afternoon.

I discovered two of Richard Shepard’s early films while channel surfing, and each time made a note of the filmmaker’s name. Both Mercy (1995) and Oxygen (1999) boasted a white-knuckle energy in spite of low budgets, and featured accomplished performances from then-little known actors (Sam Rockwell and Adrien Brody, respectively). Shepard went on to become the poet of wrecked middle-aged machismo, writing and directing two crime dramas boasting career-best work from Pierce Brosnan (The Matador) and Jude Law (Dom Hemingway). In addition, he won an Emmy for his direction of the Ugly Betty pilot, is a principal helmer of HBO’s Girls, and makes a hell of a Twitter follow. In “5 Favorites,” Shepard offers the quintet of films in his personal pantheon.

All that plus the estimable Imogen Sara Smith on ballet in noir, Steve Kronenberg on the classic pulp cover artists, a filled-to-bursting Noir @ Home section, and more. Donate to the Film Noir Foundation to receive your issue – and a chance to win the new Blu-ray of 1948’s Pitfall, with commentary by FNF honcho Eddie Muller.

While I have you here, remember that Noir City Annual #8, collecting the best pieces from 2015’s run of the magazine including a few by yours truly, is now on sale at Amazon. That’s a veritable bonanza of noir goodies, so what are you waiting for?

Miscellaneous: By The Time We Get To Phoenix

This year’s Left Coast Crime will be in Phoenix, Arizona from February 25-28. Rosemarie and I will be there – ask to see our Edith Head cigarette cases! – and on a panel.

Teamwork: Writing with a Partner
Sunday, February 28, 11:00 am – 12 noon

Moderator: Charles Todd (Caroline). Other panelists: Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbøl.

For all the scoop on what’s going on with our upcoming debut novel Design for Dying, including a Goodreads giveaway, head over to our alter ego’s latest blog post.

Speaking of my partner, over at The Five-Two you’ll find Rosemarie’s latest poem ‘Grandiflora,’ which is in no way based on a real incident.

Book: Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel, by Lawrence Block (2016)

The first edition of Lawrence Block’s book was simply called Writing the Novel from Plot to Print. 1978, the year of its publication, was a different era; watch the Johnny Carson reruns now airing on Antenna TV for a taste of those bygone days. (The other night, Carson reeled off a list of do’s and don’ts for singles bars. Talk about your time capsules.)

Block’s book served as this nascent novelist’s first Bible. I read it over and over, primarily because I responded to his crisply professional approach. WNPP wasn’t full of inspirational, follow-your-bliss advice. It treated writing as a job, which made sense given’s Block background in the paperback trade of the 1950s and 1960s, and was resolutely practical. He suggested subjecting several novels in your chosen genre to detailed outlining, and I broke down more than one of Block’s own books to study the mechanics of story.

It’s no surprise Block updated his book for the modern age, given the forward-thinking approach he’s had for his entire career. He was ahead of the curve on audiobooks, embraced e-books early, and of late has self-published several titles including this one and the most recent entry in his Burglar series.

That breadth of experience is brought to bear on the new and improved WNPPP. What surprises is how little revision the first fourteen chapters required. For all the technological innovations, the nuts and bolts of writing haven’t changed. Block’s counsel has weathered well, and he smartly peppers the text with interjections updating the content. Plenty of material that has served me in good stead for decades remains intact, like Block telling the story of how novelist John D. MacDonald made use of a chance meeting with a friend’s father: “By the time the evening was done, my father didn’t know too much about John D. MacDonald, but MacDonald sure learned a lot about hotel management.” I still hope to work a reference to a “tobbo shop” in somewhere. In the chapter on outlining, Block is finally able to quote an uproarious example from Donald E. Westlake’s Adios, Scheherazade that he’d previously only left to the imagination. Thanks to an assist from Duane Swierczynski a while back, I was able to read Westlake’s original, but reprinted in this context, it’s even funnier.

As for the book’s Pixel portion, Block wisely observes that the field is changing so fast the best he can do is offer tips on where to find the most current information. But focus your energy on what precedes it. Writing a good book is always your best first step, and Block will put you on the road to accomplishing that.

Movies: 15 for ‘15

First and foremost, here’s wishing a happy new year to all my loyal readers. Great to see both of you here!

I’m hoping to post a bit more frequently in 2016 – be warned that more than a few of those posts will be about my debut novel Design for Dying, co-written with my wife Rosemarie under the pen name Renee Patrick and being published in April – and, figuring there’s no time like the present, decided to get things started right away. Herewith, a survey of my favorite films of the year just ended, in a somewhat vague order of preference.

Mad Max: Fury Road. Throughout college, I’d argue with all comers that George Miller’s post-apocalyptic films made a better trilogy than the original Star Wars. In a year when both franchises came roaring back, my heart remains true.

The Big Short. The biggest surprise of the year. Righteously angry, richly funny.

’71. Ceaseless white-knuckle suspense as a British soldier spends a harrowing night trapped in Catholic Belfast during the height of the Troubles.

Spotlight. You don’t have to be an Irish Catholic former altar boy from the Northeast who went into journalism to appreciate this film. But it helps.

Saint Laurent. Bertrand Bonello’s sprawling, hallucinogenic biopic of the designer (not to be confused with the more sedate, authorized version which preceded it by several months) casts a spell.

Office. Johnnie To directs a musical about the financial collapse of 2008. Also the strangest moviegoing experience of the year, in that Rosemarie and I were the only people in the theater.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Maybe never seeing a minute of the TV series helped. When every other movie seems to be about building or protecting the brand, it was a relief to see one hell-bent on feeling gleefully offhand. (The boat chase is a thing of wonder.) A stylish movie that is about style – Henry Cavill wears a blue 3-piece windowpane plaid suit that’s like a special effect – and Daniel Pemberton’s soundtrack is one of the year’s great accomplishments. If they won’t make any more of these movies, I hereby volunteer to write a series of tie-in novels featuring the Cavill/Hammer/Vikander/Grant team.

The Gift. Classic noir in modern duds, served up by Joel Edgerton.

Trainwreck. Amy Schumer’s script is tough on her character while not skimping on jokes. Plus, Mets references aplenty!

Magic Mike XXL. The original film was my favorite of its year. The sequel is looser, more shambolic, and even funnier.

Steve Jobs. Uncut, prison-grade Aaron Sorkin and a dazzling Michael Fassbender performance.

Iris. Documentary master Albert Maysles’ final film is, fittingly, about staying curious and true to yourself – and looking good while you do so.

Love & Mercy. A daring dual turn by Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian Wilson, with Elizabeth Banks carrying the day.

Phoenix. If I’m undervaluing a title on this list, Christian Petzold’s melodrama may be it. At times too sedate for its own good, but Nina Hoss is transcendent – and the final moments are absolutely shattering.

Mr. Holmes. A meditation on memory and regret, filtered through one of the most iconic characters of all time.

Keenan's Klassics: It's a Shane Black Christmas

From December 2009, the first Renee Patrick collaboration. As timely as ever: that’s clearly a Christmas tree behind Russell Crowe in the final scene of the hilarious red band trailer for Shane Black’s upcoming THE NICE GUYS.

There I am at my favorite watering hole, talking with the staff, when the subject of Christmas movies is raised.

First suggestion, not made by me: the traditional double-bill of Die Hard and Die Hard II: Die Harder.

Thus giving me the tenor of the conversation. This is not the time, perhaps, to mention Remember the Night and Holiday Affair, two overlooked films (with noir connections!) that Turner Classic Movies has labored to turn into Yuletide staples. Although a mention of Blast of Silence, full of Wenceslas wetwork, might not be out of the question.

So I lobby for my own Christmas favorite, The Ref. And then observe, not for the first time, that the entire oeuvre of Shane Black – Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – is set at the most wonderful time of the year. (Editor's note, 2013: You can now add IRON MAN 3 to that roster.)

Therefore, as you venture out for that last round of shopping, I offer, by popular demand, what has become a VKDC tradition. (“By popular demand” meaning Rosemarie asked, “Why haven’t you posted this yet?” And she did write most of it.) Here, once again, is Shane Black’s 12 Days of Christmas. Record your church group performing this and we’ll post the video here!

Twelve cars exploding
Eleven extras running
Ten tankers skidding
Nine strippers pole-ing
Eight Uzis firing
Seven henchmen scowling
Six choppers crashing

Five silver Glocks

Four ticking bombs
Three hand grenades
Two mortar shells
And a suitcase full of C-4

God bless us, everyone. Or else.

Me Elsewhere: Star Power

After a hiatus, my Down the Hatch column returns to Eat Drink Films. Served up in this installment: the Star, a cocktail with a long history, and a beguiling newcomer named for a siren of the silent screen, the Clara Bow.

Miscellaneous: November Roundup

Facing multiple deadlines, I look up at the ol’ calendar on the wall to notice November is in its dotage and I haven’t posted yet. I don’t update the blog as much as I used to, but I haven’t missed a month since I started it in April 2004 and I aim to keep the streak going. I swore a sacred oath years ago: The show goes on. The Stardust is never dark. It never has been. It never will be. Not while I’m alive.

Herewith, some recommendations.

Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin and a Century in Two Lives, by Karin Wieland. Wieland’s wide-ranging, meticulously researched dual biography stems from a remarkable happenstance. Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl barely knew each other in Weimar Berlin despite living close enough for Riefenstahl to see into the windows of Dietrich’s apartment. Yet they would end up as icons of the opposing sides of the conflict that defined the twentieth century: Dietrich the imperious seductress who sacrificed herself for the boys during World War Two, Riefenstahl the filmmaker willing to glorify the Nazi regime in exchange for a budget as unchecked as her ambitions. Wieland’s book, featuring a supple translation from the German by Shelley Frisch, cuts back and forth between lives, the juxtaposition revealing surprising commonalities. It also benefits from judicious use of archival resources previously unavailable, specifically Dietrich’s letters and telegrams as well as Joseph Goebbels’ diaries, which illuminate Riefenstahl’s relationship with Hitler and the mechanics of the production of Triumph of the Will and Olympia. The closing chapters are particularly strong; decades after the war Dietrich, imprisoned by a glamorous image age will no longer permit her to live up to, retreats from the world while Riefenstahl, her films now viewed in a broader context, inhabits it more fully as she seeks the validation as an artist she believes history has denied her. A compelling look at two extraordinary women, both of whom appear in the just-completed second Lillian Frost & Edith Head mystery by Renee Patrick (aka me and the missus).

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy, by Kliph Nesteroff. Anyone with a passing interest in show business will devour this book by standup comic-turned-scholar Nesteroff. Starting with vaudeville and ending with the death of Robin Williams, it chronicles decades of entertainment in a style simultaneously breezy and nuanced. Nesteroff is acutely aware of influences, tracking different strains of technique through generations of performers. Along the way, he offers deft thumbnail sketches of neglected names like pioneering female standup Jean Carroll, she of the evening gloves, and acerbic radio comic Henry Morgan. Even as the book moves into the modern era, Nesteroff still finds offbeat angles on familiar names. Bonus points for mention of the long-forgotten scandal that factors into Lillian & Edith #2.

Blandings. Our new favorite show here at Chez K. We blew through both seasons in no time flat. Available on Acorn TV, this P.G. Wodehouse adaptation boasts a peerless cast. Timothy Spall is Lord Emsworth, the daft nobleman preoccupied with the health and well-being of his prize pig. Feckless Freddy is his son, played by the pitch-perfect Jack Farthing. Jennifer Saunders pointlessly tries to impose order as Emsworth’s sister. Familiar faces aplenty turn up as various relatives, bounders and braggarts. The biggest surprise was discovering that the location for Blandings Castle is in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, home to the Keenan family for millennia, in a tiny town I’ve visited several times.

Extra, Extra!: Noir City

The cover of the latest issue of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine says it all.

The women of film noir, particularly the ones behind the scenes, step into the spotlight in this edition. The result is, in the words of FNF founder and host of Turner Classic Movies’ Summer of Noir Eddie Muller, our “best issue ever.” It certainly boasts a stellar line-up of contributors.

Kicking things off is the cover story by Eddie himself on Alfred Hitchcock’s secret weapon, producer Joan Harrison. We’ve got Kim Morgan offering her defense of the femme fatale, Christa Faust weighing in on every movie based on the infamous “Honeymoon Killers” case, plus actress/hellraising advocate Rose McGowan on her top five noir films. Not to mention surveys of the film adaptations of Dorothy B. Hughes and Patricia Highsmith; tributes to Ella Raines, June Havoc and Jean Gillie; and so much more.

Getting her first-ever byline is Renee Patrick, the mystery writing alter ego I share with my wife Rosemarie. Together we look at Edith Head’s singular fashion contributions to film noir, in a piece gorgeously assembled by ace designer Michael Kronenberg.

It was my distinct pleasure to organize the women noir writers’ roundtable, posing questions to a quintet of top-flight talents: Megan Abbott, Steph Cha, Christa Faust, Vicki Hendricks and Denise Mina. I also interview Sarah Weinman about the acclaimed new collection she edited, Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s and ‘50s.

My Cocktails & Crime column is in the front of the book, while in the back is a piece I’ve wanted to write for a while: an appreciation of the Joel and Ethan Coen film The Man Who Wasn’t There. Its debut on Blu-Ray finally allows me to make the case for it as the Coens’ best film, a truly chilling film noir, and one of the few masterpieces of this still-young century.

I’ll be blunt. You need this issue. So make a donation to the FNF’s preservation efforts and receive the magazine as your reward. The ladies of film noir and I thank you.

Me Elsewhere: Belly Up To The Classroom

It’s back to school season, even for yours truly. In my latest Down the Hatch column at Eat Drink Films, I recount my adventures in bartending class. Chief lesson learned: I finally crack the code of the gimlet, the cocktail Raymond Chandler made famous.

Happy Birthday, Preston Sturges!

In honor of the 1898 birthday of the American master of film comedy – and supporting character in our debut Lillian Frost/Edith Head mystery Design for Dying, available from Tor/Forge in April 2016 – here are his Eleven Rules for Box Office Appeal.

1. A pretty girl is better than an ugly one.
2. A leg is better than an arm.
3. A bedroom is better than a living room.
4. An arrival is better than a departure.
5. A birth is better than a death.
6. A chase is better than a chat.
7. A dog is better than a landscape.
8. A kitten is better than a dog.
9. A baby is better than a kitten.
10. A kiss is better than a baby.
11. A pratfall is better than anything.

Me Elsewhere: On The Rocks

A lazy lightweight, Deborah Kerr, Mad Men, and Hawaiian Punch. They all feature in my latest Down the Hatch column at Eat Drink Films, focusing on a trio of cocktails made with the same ingredient. That magical elixir? It’s the one advertised here.

Extra, Extra!: Noir City

In Amadeus, Emperor Joseph II tells Mozart one of his compositions, while ingenious, includes “too many notes.” At Noir City, we tell Emperor Joe to stuff it.

The house rag of the Film Noir Foundation shines its spotlight on music, and we filled this issue to overflowing. Honestly, it’s an embarrassment of riches of which we are inordinately proud, and you owe it to yourselves to secure a copy post haste.

My favorite piece, for obvious reasons, is my lovely wife and writing partner Rosemarie’s debut in the magazine. When we finally saw Jean-Pierre Melville’s Deux Hommes dans Manhattan, Rosemarie became obsessed with “Street in Manhattan,” a haunting ballad performed onscreen by a singer billed as Glenda Leigh. Rosemarie wondered whatever became of her and doggedly tracked her down. Now Glenda Grainger, still singing at age 80, she tells the story of her jet-set career in an interview.

But that’s only one verse, kids. Open your ears and eyes to the following:

- Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus on the soundtracks of Philip Marlowe

- Ray Banks’ self-described “5000 word labour of love” on the noir ethos of Tom Waits

- Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra names his Five Favorite noir films

- Woody Haut’s survey of the 15 best film noir jazz soundtracks

- Jake Hinkson considers the country noir of Johnny Cash

- Brian Light revisits the scoring of Touch of Evil, by Henry Mancini and a cast of West Coast jazz heavyweights

- Maestro Eddie Muller not once but twice, recalling his friendship with jazz legend Charlie Haden and interviewing noir chanteuse Jill Tracy

Plus even more music, as well as our usual coverage of all things noir like my friend David Corbett’s razor sharp appraisal of the best film noir of the 21st century, El Aura, and Duane Swierczynski’s review of the new Blu-ray of Prime Cut. I yammer on about nonsense as well, sizing up a trio of titles that screened at the recent Seattle International Film Festival and serving up my usual Cocktails & Crime column.

Contribute to the Film Noir Foundation and this veritable feast will be winging its way to you. Don’t wait.

Me Elsewhere: Elementary, My Dear Bartender

Yours truly is all over this week’s issue of Eat Drink Films. First up is my Down the Hatch column, which reviews a new book destined to become a modern mixology staple: The Cocktail Chronicles by Paul Clarke. Included are some comments from Paul and a sterling trio of drink recipes from the book’s pages.

But wait! There’s more! Eat Drink Films also features excerpts from The Cocktail Chronicles, among them a take on the gimlet that could teach Raymond Chandler a thing or two.

Then I slide over to the film portion of the magazine for A Century of Cinematic Sherlocks, about seeing a pair of Sherlock Holmes films made one hundred years apart within days of each other. Swing by and give them – and the rest of the issue – a look, why don’t you?

Me Elsewhere: Oh! Canada!

My latest Down the Hatch column is now up at Eat Drink Films. In it, I serve up a pair of north-of-the-border cocktails just in time for Canada Day. Featuring cameos by Michael Caine and Errol Flynn. Check out the rest of magazine while you’re there. Plenty of good stuff.

Noir City Newsstand Now Open

More big doings at the Film Noir Foundation, kids. And what better time to launch a project long in the works than when FNF honcho Eddie Muller is serving as host of TCM’s Summer of Darkness?

The FNF’s quarterly magazine is called Noir City. Eddie is publisher and editor-in-chief. I’m co-managing editor along with the estimable Steve Kronenberg. Gorgeous visuals come courtesy of ace designer Michael Kronenberg. Each issue is packed with some of the finest writing on noir past and present, in every medium. And each issue is available by subscription only.

Until now.

At our new website, you can purchase individual back issues for the bargain price of $5.99 each! Peruse the table of contents before you buy, knowing whatever particular noir kicks you’re seeking, Noir City has you covered.

We’ve got theme issues on icons like Robert Ryan and Dan Duryea. We go way back for regular features on silent movie noir. We’ve got invaluable work from regular contributors like Imogen Sara Smith (on Jan Sterling, Jean Gabin, noir westerns) and Jake Hinkson (on Tom Neal, Peggie Castle, and those unsung directors known as Poverty Row Professionals). Not to mention Eddie, the man himself, weighing in each and every issue.

Noir City’s also your destination for crime writers on noir. Like Christa Faust on noir vixens of recent vintage. And an overview of heist movies featuring the likes of Ken Bruen, Laura Lippman and Scott Phillips. And Five Favorites, with masters like Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Lawrence Block giving you their quintets of quality. And Prime Cuts, spotlighting neo-noirs like Cisco Pike (Duane Swierczynski), Thief (Wallace Stroby), and The Offence (Ray Banks).

Plus there’s the stuff I’ve written over the years, on subjects like noir chanteuses, remakes, marriages, True Detective, dollhouse murders, and the films of Alan Rudolph.

Six bucks an issue, with all proceeds bankrolling the FNF’s restoration efforts. Throw in twenty bucks a year and each new installment will come right to your in-box. Do it now, because we just laid out the latest magazine – and it’s a killer.

Reminder: TCM’s Summer of Darkness

Another heads up, gang, about the coolest event of the summer of ’15, which kicks off today.

Turner Classic Movies has turned over Fridays in June and July to film noir. That’s all Friday, every Friday, for twenty-four hours each day. TCM is calling this bonanza the Summer of Darkness, and made the very wise decision of naming your friend and mine Eddie Muller, honcho of the Film Noir Foundation, as your prime time host.

Regular readers know the FNF is an outfit near and dear to my heart. I’m the co-managing editor of the Foundation’s magazine Noir City, as well as a columnist and contributor. So naturally I’m thrilled to see our charismatic kingpin taking to the air.

TCM has pulled out all the stops, setting up a gorgeous website for the entire festival and starting a free online course on film noir in conjunction with Ball State University. As for programming tips, Eddie kicks things off at 8 PM EST/5 PM PST tonight with Nora Prentiss, a movie yours truly considered in detail for Noir City. The must-see is the world television premiere of the FNF’s restoration of Woman on the Run (1950) tonight at 10:15 PM EST/7:15 PM PST. A second FNF restoration, of 1949’s Too Late for Tears, debuts on July 17.

Honestly, you want my advice? Turn on TCM every Friday for the next nine weeks and leave it on. Get yourself an education.