I am preparing to begin Road to Hell, which will be both the prose novel prequel to Road to Perdition and a deeper dive into the real-life criminal reign of John Looney (and his son Connor) in the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities.

This mini-documentary on Looney has just popped up on YouTube.

Of course, you have probably already heard that “Looney” was changed to “Rooney” in the 2002 film, because Looney sounded too “comic-booky” (a pronouncement indicating a lack of knowledge about Looney and his son having been real).

Here’s another YouTube look at John and Connor Looney courtesy of the Forgotten Quad Cities series. The narrator overdoes the folksy bit but he knows his stuff.

[And here’s an older one, short and sweet, from a channel I recommend highly. –Nate]

And as usual, here’s a story about the “comic book” that led to screen great Paul Newman’s final film role.

People still can’t get over Road to Perdition being based on a comic book, which is to say, graphic novel.

I believe I’ve told this story before, so forgive me if you’ve heard it. But one of my instructors at the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop was Walter Tevis. He wrote The Queen’s Gambit (a terrific novel) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (one of several science-fiction novels he wrote). More importantly, in this context at least, he wrote the great crime novel The Hustler, made into a Paul Newman-starring film, much acclaimed, directed by Robert Rossen. I was excited to have an instructor who seemed to be working my side of the street, at least to some degree.

When I know I’m going to meet someone famous, particularly one who I admire, I take a tactic designed to disarm that someone. For example, when I talked with Tom Hanks at the Chicago premiere of Road to Perdition, I didn’t talk to him about that film but instead brought up That Thing You Do, which he’d written and directed. I knew he had an interest in ‘60s garage rock and I talked to him about that subject, which he immediately warmed to. He seemed excited to learn of the famous groups my two bands had opened for in concert.

So with Newman I thought bringing up Walter Tevis as one of my teachers would be just the ticket.

It wasn’t.

The actor immediately said that they had thrown the book away and started over – nothing was usable. Now we were talking about The Hustler, or at least that was the door I went in. I was puzzled and taken aback and had to do some fancy footwork to get back on this enigmatic man’s good side.

What I figured out, literally years later, was that he had confused The Hustler with its sequel, The Color of Money, which had been the source of the film sequel, too…but most of which had indeed been thrown out.

In a way, it was a lucky break, because I liked The Color of Money the book much better than the movie, and if that had slipped out, I’d have received an even colder look from those ice-blue eyes.

A minor irony is that a documentary about Newman’s life included, of all things, some footage of my conversation with him at the Perdition premiere.

M.A.C.

Tags: Road to Hell, Road to Perdition