Posts Tagged ‘Barbara Allan’

Pee-Wee Herman, Death by Fruitcake & San Diego Comic-Con

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025

The two-part HBO documentary, Pee-Wee as Himself (directed by Matt Wolf) hit me hard. It was, in many respects, delightful; but to revisit the unfair attacks on Paul Reubens, due to one ill-judged moment and a subsequent witch hunt, was a painful experience.

The Paul Reubens interviewed by Wolf (a great job by Wolf on this) was the Paul I knew – a pleasant, quietly witty soul who could be frank and guarded, all at once. He’s very funny in the doc, but Wolf wisely included Paul struggling with how deep to dive into himself. He dove pretty damn deep, actually.

The one thing that struck me most was how Paul and Pee-Wee had, on some level – again, a deep level – merged into one for these final trips in front of the camera. The playful Paul, and the private one, seemed to struggle with each other throughout – but the very sweetly funny man he was prevailed.

He made some enemies in his time here on earth. He was driven and that drive at times left people behind. I’ve spoken to several Groundlings (the Second City-style comedy troupe of which Paul was a part in L.A. at the start of Pee-Wee) who resented his success. You don’t reach the heights of show business without a certain coldness – asked about this in the doc, Paul shrugs and says, “It is show business.”

It’s tough to have the kind of large ego that leads to success without alienating some of those you meet along the way. I can only say that Paul’s generous, sweet nature that I encountered reminds me we were all lucky to know Pee-Wee Herman.

This is what I wrote about Paul and Pee-Wee before Christmas 2013. I’ve reprinted this before, but it seemed appropriate – even necessary – to share it again.

For me, Christmas begins when I receive my yearly Christmas card from Paul Reubens. Sometimes Paul writes a personal note. The cards are always charming and even hilarious, and we have easily two dozen of them. This year Barb made a wreath out of some our favorites.

I went crazy over Pee-Wee with his HBO Special, The Pee-Wee Herman Show in 1981. I was doing the DICK TRACY strip at the time, and I put Pee-Wee in the strip – he was on television saying, “My name’s Pee-Wee – what’s yours?” And a TV-obsessed villain of mine replied, “Splitscreen!”

Paul Reubens phoned me shortly after that, delighted by the TRACY appearance, and we chatted. Shortly after that, taking time out from a San Diego con, Terry Beatty and I visited Paul in LA – he was in a small one-story brick house filled with funky toys and oddball memorabilia. We watched a version of The Pee-Wee Herman Show that the cast had looped with blue improv material. The Pee-Wee Herman suit was on a coat tree. I asked Paul how many of those he had, and he said, “Just the one.” Then, noting my surprised reaction, he added, “Sometimes Pee-Wee doesn’t smell so good up close.”

Paul knew that I was a movie buff, and he was working on getting a Pee-Wee film going. Late at night, we would talk on the phone and (at his request) I would send him Betamax copies of offbeat films like Eddie Cantor’s Roman Scandals and Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill! He called once every month or two for a couple of years, sometimes when he was off shooting a movie. (One was a Meatballs sequel, and I asked him what it was about. He said, “A virgin sees her first dick.” I thought he was kidding till I saw the movie.) Barb and I (and sometimes Terry) would go to live shows of Paul’s, and we’d see him after – we did this in New York and Chicago.

When the Pee-Wee movies and TV show kicked in, Paul changed his phone number and I haven’t heard from him since…except at Christmas. Always a wonderful card, and sometimes a warm personal note. I still love Pee-Wee Herman, and it’s been a nice perk of my minor celebrity that I got to know Paul Reubens a little. It’s very thoughtful and generous of him to send me these fantastic cards every year.

After this blog entry of mine appeared, I heard from Paul, as follows:

Max, is this you?! I recently ran across this (the above Update): I’d love to catch up with you. I now (maybe, if this is indeed you) have an email address but don’t have a phone for you anymore. It sure has been a long time!

I hope you’re reading this!

Paul

I was obviously thrilled by this re-communication, and on occasion would hear from him via e-mail, though we never spoke on the phone or in person again. Those Christmas cards kept coming. That’s stopped now, of course.

The last time I heard from Paul was when he thanked me for writing a tribute (here at the Update) about his friend and collaborator John Paragon, Jambi on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and in the original HBO The Pee-Wee Herman Show. John had just passed away and Paul liked what I had to say about the man who’d perhaps been his most important collaborator. Here’s that tribute.

* * *

The important news this week is that I will be a Guest of Honor at the San Diego Comic-con.

I have attended many times, and of course I performed with my bandmates in Seduction of the Innocent on numerous occasions at the con. I have only attended once since my 2016 heart surgery; the con that time around was an experience that was hard enough to have me staying home after that, reluctantly. That was 2018.

So this return visit is going to be somewhat physically tough, but I am delighted to be making this one-stop farewell tour. As it stands now, Andrew Sumner will be interviewing me about all my Titan/Hard Case Crime projects (over the last twenty years!) and Robert Meyer Burnett will interview me about Nate Heller (among other things) with an emphasis on True Noir: The Assassination of Mayor Anton Cermak.

When I say “farewell tour,” don’t panic (I’m not). I generally feel fine, but a-fib has its travails. Nonetheless, please know I will be writing novels and screenplays until they carry me out in a body bag. And they better zip it, or I’ll crawl the hell out.

* * *
Death by Fruitcake poster

We haven’t taken Death By Fruitcake out on the festival circuit, concentrating on getting it on a streamer(s). Right now there’s no DVD or Blu-ray scheduled, as that market has (except for some niche stuff) pretty much dried up.

But we did enter the Iowa Motion Picture Awards. We were nominated in five categories and won five awards. Barb and I did not attend the event, because we’d decided instead to be in Des Moines for an evening screening of Death By Fruitcake (as part of the festival). Two trips to Des Moines from Muscatine in four days was a little much. So our leading man, Rob Merritt, attended for us and picked up the hardware after.

We received awards in all five categories in which we’d been nominated – Director: Award of Excellence: Max Allan Collins; Award of Achievement Long-form Narrative: Death By Fruitcake; Actor: Award of Achievement: Rob Merritt; Actress: Award of Achievement: Paula Sands; and Supporting Actress: Award of Achievement: Alisabeth Von Presley.

We are obviously pleased.

And I will tip my cap to all of those mentioned above, and the rest of my cast and crew, who pulled off something special in a limited amount of time and budget. Particularly I will salute my buddy Chad Bishop, who shot the film, edited it and co-produced it.

Death by Fruitcake IMPA Awards
* * *

At the suggestion of a potential distributer, we have added a subtitle to Death By Fruitcake. Now it’s DEATH BY FRUITCAKE: An Antiques Christmas Mystery. We think this was a good suggestion, because “Christmas” is a helpful thing as is tying the movie to its source, namely the Antiques series of cozy/crazy mysteries by Barb and me, writing as “Barbara Allan.” A novella of ours, Antiques Fruitcake, is the specific source.

* * *

I got a big kick out of being part of the 200th episode of Let’s Get PHYSICAL MEDIA on YouTube this past Sunday.

Most Sunday afternoons, new episodes of this fun show with Robert Meyer Burnett and Dieter Bastian will air with segments from me talking about film noir and crime/mystery movies in general, specifically titles that have recently appeared on physical media. I’ll also be talking about True Noir, which Rob Burnett directed and I wrote from my first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective. True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak is available now at truenoir.co.

M.A.C.

Fruitcake at the Last Picture House, Plus Nate Heller

Tuesday, May 13th, 2025

We had a terrific Quad Cities premiere for our film Death By Fruitcake, starring Paula Sands, Alisabeth Von Presley and Rob Merritt. It was a packed house at Davenport’s stellar The Last Picture House, the theater that’s the brainchild of our bigtime local filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (who brought you A Quiet Place, Heretic and more).

We had a number of cast and crew members on hand, including Paula and Rob, and I led (with producer/d.p./editor) Chad Bishop a Q and A after. I took a spill off the riser onto my back but (with help) got onto my feet to helm the Q and A. Definitely a “show-must-go-on” moment, because I am still (it’s Sunday as I write this) recuperating from my own impromptu stunt-man feat.

Despite this, it was a wonderful evening, thanks to Last Picture House manager Jameson Ritter. Our two Muscatine screenings late last year were marred by sound problems (far too soft, something we weren’t able to rectify on site), but we were nicely loud and pretty impressive on the big screen. For a little movie designed to find a home (or homes) on a streaming service(s), this kind of theatrical exhibition was a rare treat for us (and, I think, the audience).

We promoted the event with an appearance on Quad Cities Live, the afternoon show that followed Paula Sands Live on her retirement from broadcasting. It was fun seeing Paula return to the site of her huge regional success. And what a Vivian Borne she makes! Alisabeth Von Presley, our equally impressive Brandy Borne, couldn’t make it to the event (she was choreographer on a high school production in Cedar Rapids that evening). But what a thrill for Barb and me to see our Barbara Allan/Antiques characters come to such wonderful comic life.

Max Allan Collins and Paula Sands on Quad Cities Live
L to R: Kyle Keil (host), Morgan Ottier (host), M.A.C., Paula Sands

Whither Death by Fruitcake? We are talking to various distributors now. I fully expect us to be streaming for this year’s holiday season. Getting on physical media is a trickier proposition as that market has just about vanished except for blockbuster films and the boutique labels, which specialize in horror and cult items, where we don’t fit. That doesn’t mean I won’t try.

If you want to help us in our filmmaking efforts, take a look at Blue Christmas on Tubi right now. Don’t wait for an invitation from Santa.

photos courtesy of The Last Picture House
Rob Merritt, M.A.C., Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt at The Last Picture House for Death by Fruitcake
L to r: Rob Merritt, M.A.C., Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt
Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt and Paula Sands at The Last Picture House for Death by Fruitcake
Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt and Paula Sands
Q and A post-QC premiere at the Last Picture House
Q and A post-QC premiere at the Last Picture House. L to R: Tracy Peltzer-Timm, Chris Causey, Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt, Cassidy Ptacek, Rob Merritt, M.A.C., Paula Sands, Chad Bishop
L to R: Paula Sands, Chris Causey, Rob Merritt, Barbara Collins, M.A.C., Chad Bishop at The Last Picture House for Death by Fruitcake
L to R: Paula Sands, Chris Causey, Rob Merritt, Barbara Collins, M.A.C., Chad Bishop

L to r: Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt, Rob Merritt, Tracy Peltzer-Timm, M.A.C., Lucy Collins, Nathan Collins, Abby Collins, Sam Collins

This link will take you to Paula Sands and me appearing on Quad Cities Live, the show that took the place of her Paula Sands Live, from which she retired after decades of Emmy-winning broadcasting. For longtime fans of my work, you should recall Paula’s wonderful appearance, spoofing herself and her show, in Mommy’s Day (1997).

* * *

Here’s an unexpected but welcome review of my 1983 novel, True Detective, which introduced Nathan Heller and my format of weaving a detective story in with actual events/crimes.

It’s interesting to me that a review of a novel I wrote in 1981 and was published in 1983 would appear in 2024 (!).

Two things should be noted, however: the reviewer uses True Detective to recommend the entire series; and it’s appearing just as True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak is getting some nice notice, which may have sparked this review.

True Noir is, as those of you who drop by here regularly know, a ten-episode audio drama with a full cast, sound effects, and score. I consider it the best adaptation of my work done to date (but then why wouldn’t I, having written all ten episodes myself). The cast is incredibly stellar, and our Nathan Heller – Michael Rosenbaum – just effing nails it. The score by Alexander Bornstein is mesmerizingly terrific, and the whole thing has been expertly directed and edited by Robert Meyer Burnett.

You may know Rob from his several YouTube shows (Robservations, Let’s Get Physical Media, regular guest on The John Campea Show), but he is much more than that – an accomplished film director (Free Enterprise), documentarian (Star Trek; The Next Generation), editor (Femme Fatales) and producer (Tango Shalom, aka Forbidden Tango).

All ten episodes of True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak are available at truenoir.co, $29.95 for the complete audio drama – four-and-a-half-hours worth. If you are a member of the Nathan Heller Fan Club (well, there isn’t one, but you know what I mean), you will lose your non-membership in good standing if you haven’t ordered yet.

And I would welcome comments/reviews here from those of you who have enjoyed it thus far.

We will be available on other platforms eventually, but for now it’s truenoir.co. And there’s stuff to look at there, including links to episodes of my History Behind the Mystery video series (directed by my longtime collaborator, Phil Dingeldein) that looks at the real events depicted in each episode.

M.A.C.

Movies Vs. Books and Collaboration

Tuesday, January 7th, 2025

I know I said I wouldn’t be talking about Blue Christmas again till next holiday season, but apparently I lied. My defense is that I hadn’t seen the nice review we got from one of my favorite magazines, Videoscope, written by editor Nancy Naglin herself. It’s on the stands now.

Videoscope Winter 2025 cover

Videoscope Winter 2025 Blue Christmas Review

Nancy really seems to “get” our little movie, and it’s another of the overwhelmingly favorable reviews Blue Christmas has received, despite a handful of lumps of coal in our stocking. I should (or anyway will) mention that her observation of there being a sentimental aspect to the film is valid and whether that’s a bad or good thing reflects the way mileage can vary (as they say) among audience members. I like to think of it as “sentiment,” though, and not “sentimentality.”

I have a vivid memory of my late filmmaking friend Steve Henke commenting to the effect of, “Max does something wonderfully nasty overall and then ends with something sentimental and there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Steve was a grizzled, gruff but fantastic collaborator who I once had to bail out of jail while a production was going. At risk of insulting his memory by getting sentimental, I will say his absence from the planet is one of the things that kept me from getting back into indie filmmaking for close to twenty years. Another collaborator I miss to a painful degree is actor Mike Cornelison, who starred in Mommy, Mommy’s Day, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, and Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, and who narrated both Caveman: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop and Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane.

The recent (and not officially released as yet) Death By Fruitcake is the only movie I’ve made recently that did not include any veterans from those earlier indie days. With the exception of my close pal and collaborator Phil Dingeldein, who was d.p. on Blue Christmas, the same was true of that production. (A notable exception on Fruitcake is the great Paula Sands, who appeared as herself in Mommy’s Day and as Vivian Borne in Fruitcake.)

There’s a moment in Mommy when Mrs. Sterling, who’s been committing murders, is about to book it out of town with her daughter Jessica Ann when the little girl complains about having to leave all her friends behind. To which Mommy replies, “You’ll make wonderful new friends, dear.”

And that’s true of both Blue Christmas and Death By Fruitcake (and Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder), which added a wonderful new raft of collaborators to my life, with a special nod to the versatile d.p./editor/producer Chad Bishop.

Collaboration has been an important part of my professional writing career, although at the heart of that career was my desire to control my work, to be in charge. I feared – with justification – that my personality and approach made taking the tempting path to Hollywood unwise. I made the decision to stay put – in Iowa – and just write my stories.

Not that writing fiction for a living doesn’t come with interference, but it’s minimal compared to what happens in the world of movies and TV. Wrestling with an editor or copy editor now and then is nothing compared to the problems Hollywood presents – the way money controls your ability to tell a story, and the crap you have to put up with from those who provide that money; the way directors can rewrite and screw up a script; the many uncontrollable factors including miscasting and all the other slings and arrows of the craft; and most of all the difficulty of getting anything produced.

I watched one of the greatest mystery writers who ever lived, Donald E. Westlake, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay of The Grifters, write seemingly countless scripts that generated option money but ultimately went into a drawer.

Throughout even a moderately successful career like mine you are fairly sure that any novel you write, unless you really miss the mark, can find a publisher.

And yet.

Collaboration is something I instinctively seek out. For years I wrote strictly alone, but at the same time I was playing music in my rock ‘n’ roll bands The Daybreakers and Crusin’, which were overflowing with talented collaborators, a list too long to get into. We got into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame with both bands, and had a national record that, however absurd, became something of a cult classic. Those years of musical collaboration – 1966 through 2024 – were concurrent with my fiction-writing career.

The loneliness of telling lies for fun and profit, as Lawrence Block put it, was further minimized by my collaborations on the Dick Tracy comic strip with Rick Fletcher and Dick Locher. Those collaborations had some ups and downs, but my long partnership with cartoonist Terry Beatty, co-creator of Ms. Tree and Wild Dog, among much else, proved particularly rewarding.

The same can be said of Matthew V. Clemens, with whom I wrote something like thirty novels, including (but not limited to) the bestseller Supreme Justice and its two sequels, plus our very successful series of CSI tie-in novels.

During the Covid lockdown I got the opportunity to collaborate with an SCTV favorite of mine, Dave Thomas, on a novel you may not have read (but should): The Many Lives of Jimmy Leighton. This one seems little known but I’m really, really proud of it. It’s a crime thriller with a science-fiction slant.

Most recently I have collaborated with Robert Meyer Burnett on True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak, the ten-episode fully immersive audio production based on the first Nate Heller novel, True Detective. Rob directed an incredible cast incredibly well and this is also something I’m proud of. We haven’t got a Nathan Heller movie yet – Road to Perdition came close – but what Rob has created from my script is as good an example of effective collaboration as I can think of.

If any collaboration stands out, however, it has to be the one with my wife Barbara Collins – numerous short stories, a novella, two novels, and the Antiques series (aka The Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries), which are heading into their twentieth installment…there are more novels in that series than either Nate Heller or Quarry. To witness my smart, beautiful wife develop into a terrific writer is something I have experienced with great pride, often sitting on the sidelines, impressed. (And later this year I hope you’ll see just how well our Brandy and Vivian Borne have been transferred to the screen.)

Filmmaking is a special sort of collaboration, however, and on the indie level you don’t have the Hollywood baggage. It’s always been like going to summer camp for me (and I loved going to summer camp). I am well-aware that my skills as a filmmaker fall far less of what I like to think of as my mastery of fiction-writing, or even my years of playing rock ‘n’ roll for fun and money.

Being a competent film director, much less a good or great one, is one of the hardest trades that narrative storytelling can offer. I had no ambitions to be a film director – none. Never occurred to me. I wanted to write movies and have wonderful directors bring them to life. It’s happened now and then – Sam Mendes ain’t no slouch.

But mostly it doesn’t. Mostly scripts get written and wind up in a drawer, even if you’re Don Westlake…or Mickey Spillane, who had his heart broken by Hollywood and who died with several unproduced scripts among his papers (The Menace is a novel I fashioned from one of ‘em).

I became a director by necessity, when I had to take over Mommy after two weeks of a four-week shoot, which including reshooting much of what went before. When I completed the movie, worried that I hadn’t known what the hell I was doing, I binged on Alfred Hitchcock movies. Hitchcock is probably the greatest narrative storyteller in motion picture history. I kept watching those movies and being relieved when I saw Hitch doing things similar to what I had done (not talking about content here, but putting pieces of film together into an effective narrative – editing well, like in a novel but completely different).

I am well aware that I started too late to reach in film the level that my fiction-writing has, I think, achieved – writing fiction is a craft I started working at learning when I was in junior high and high school, sending novels to publishers who (thank God) kicked them back to me.

But I love movies as much as I love novels, in some ways more, and they ultimately yanked me in, like Michael Corleone in Godfather 3 (nobody seems to like that movie but everybody remembers that line, possibly second only to “An offer you can’t refuse” in the original film).

Filmmaking has an irresistible pull for me and many other sorry souls. Stephen King said it best, although I’m paraphrasing: “Movies are the most expensive, least efficient way of telling a story; but, unfortunately, also the coolest.”

Am I done with indie filmmaking? I’m still thinking, talking, hoping (Barb has had her fill). Several things are cooking, but the bigger ones probably need a director younger than me. If they stick to the script, I’ll be fine with that.

Which is the problem. My first produced script, The Expert, had a star who seemed to have read the script once and then tried to remember it, and a director who either walked off or was fired (I’ve never found out which) from the production late in the game. The Last Lullaby had a “co-writer” foisted on me who I never met and who rewrote my screenplay, though I did provide revisions that brought it back closer to what I had in mind. Still. I did one script for the Quarry series that got disassembled and spread between two episodes, stitched together like the Frankenstein Monster and about as attractive.

That kind of collaboration? I can do without.

And it’s why I made two micro-budget movies on my own terms.

* * *

Here’s a smart review of the sixth (and final) Titan collection of Ms. Tree.

This is a nice if brief YouTube piece on the writing of Road to Perdition, both graphic novel and film. It answers the question of who wrote which, but is unaware that a playwright friend of director Sam Mendes from the UK did an uncredited rewrite.

Here’s another piece on the film of Road to Perdition focusing on Tom Hanks (and somewhat on Daniel Craig).

The day this appears I will be working with Phil Dingedein at dphilms in Rock Island shooting the final episodes of History Behind the Mystery, each of which drops on YouTube in tandem with the episodes of True Noir.

M.A.C.

Happy 2025

Tuesday, December 31st, 2024

This will be brief, but I want to acknowledge a few of the people who have made 2024 so rewarding for me.

First, Charles Ardai at Hard Case Crime continues to give me and Nate Heller and Quarry a showcase for our wares.

Second, the whole group at Titan Books, including Nick Landau, Vivian Chung and Andrew Sumner – these three made the continuation of Mickey’s Mike Hammer novels, all based on material from Mick’s files, with Jane Spillane’s blessing, a reality, right up to the coming year’s Baby, It’s Murder. That whole bunch, with Charles Ardai added in, and my agent Dominick Abel, made my forthcoming Return of the Maltese Falcon (a year from now) possible.

Third, my producer on Death by Fruitcake, who also shot and edited the feature film, Chad Bishop. A one-stop-shopping moviemaker, Chad was also instrumental in getting Blue Christmas out there.

Fourth, the cast of Death by Fruitcake, every one of ‘em, but a special shout-out to our leads, Paula Sands, Alisabeth Von Presley and Rob Merritt. These three brought the principal players of the Antiques mystery series (by “Barbara Allan”) to credible, incredible life.

Fifth, the production manager and exec producer on Death by Fruitcake, who made the entire thing possible and even kept me alive – the love of my life, Barbara Collins.

Sixth, the incredible Robert Meyer Burnett and a phenomenal name cast for turning my script, based on True Detective, into the ten-part, immersive audio drama, True Noir: The Assassination of Mayor Cermak (available at truenoir.co). Big thanks also to producers Mike Bawden, Christine Sheeks and my longtime collaborator, Phil Dingeldein, who is directing and producing our History Behind the Mystery video series that accompanies each episode of True Noir.

Seventh, the members of my band Crusin’ (established 1974!) – Bill Anson, Scott Anson and Steve Kundel. We are now officially defunct, but you never know – a reunion could happen.

Eighth, my son Nathan who runs this website and posts these blog/Updates and does a fantastic job.

Ninth, thank you to everyone who reviewed Blue Christmas, even those of you (very much in the minority) who gave us bad reviews. All of you helped us get the word out that our little Christmas noir existed. Positive Amazon reviews still appreciated.

I know I have left people out. I did the best I could with my ancient brain. My apologies.

This year-end wrap-up ends a productive, exhausting 2024. A lot is coming up, including the last Mike Hammer novel and the 50th anniversary of Quarry, not to mention a certain Sam Spade book. We’ll be promoting Death By Fruitcake, entering a few film festivals and competitions, and we’re discussing a Quad Cities premiere with the Last Picture House in Davenport. I will be starting my draft of Antiques Round-up in January – Barb is wrapping her draft up now. And God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, we’ll be doing at least one more of the Antiques novels. A lot else is in discussion, but we’ll wait till 2025 to get deeper into any of that.

People always ask me one of two questions – are you still writing? The answer: Yes, nobody sends money to my house if I don’t. The other question is, why at your age are you working so hard on so many projects? Because at my age, the clock is not my friend.

But all of you are.

M.A.C.