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The Noir Musical, A Fairy Godfather With a Cigar and More

Tuesday, March 25th, 2025

My last several Update/blogs have been to promote this and that of mine. Plus, I was deep in the writing of a screenplay and couldn’t come up for much air. You deserve better.

On my plate this week, among other things, is doing a commentary track with Heath Holland of Cereal at Midnight for the 1932 western, Law and Order, from a W.R. Burnett novel about Wyatt Earp. I’m also doing a podcast with my old buddy Matthew Clemens, and have several business calls on Zoom.

So there will likely be some follow-up on some or all of that here next week. What now, then? Well, the questions I continue to be asked most often are (a) what have you read lately, and (b) what have you seen?

As for what I’ve read, the two most current books are:

Barnaby Volume 5

Barnaby Volume 5 () from Fantagraphics, the final volume of the complete daily strips of this classic, too little-known comic strip, which (with Dick Tracy, Li’l Abner and Terry and The Pirates) is among my top favorites. Written and drawn (sometimes with Jack Morley’s help on art) by the great children’s book author, Crockett Johnson (Harold and the Purple Crayon), Barnaby is a deceptively simple strip of the ‘40s and early ‘50s that details the whimsical adventures of a five-year-old boy (Barnaby) and his Fairy Godfather (Mr. O’Malley). O’Malley is just as short as the child Barnaby and is a pleasantly pompous little pixie who looks like a middle-aged man with a fedora and, of course, pink wings.

Barbaby’s parents are distressed by their little boy’s insistence that his Fairy Godfather is real. A lot of the gentle humor comes from the reality of Barnaby’s opinion on this matter being true. Mr. O’Malley frequently almost meets one or both parents, and that becomes the chief running gag of the strip. The other is Mr. O’Malley’s cheerful incompetence, his magic wand (a cigar) frequently accomplishing nothing at all.

O’Malley’s friends and associates are fellow pixies and supernatural types, like Gus the Ghost, who wears glasses and is easily spooked; Atlas the Mental Giant (also no taller than Barnaby), McSnoyd the Invisible Leprechaun (who speaks in a Brooklyn accent); Barnbaby’s talking dog Gorgon (who never speaks around Barnaby’s parents); and many more. Johnson’s “clear line cartooning” is the most deceptively simple aspect of all: oddly elegant, beautifully understated, and unmistakably Crockett.

In this final volume, Barnaby turns six and must say farewell to Mr. O’Malley. It’s a sad moment, bittersweet but just another day in the life of a Fairy Godfather, who is definitely not imaginary and as real as anybody in the comic strip canon.

Round in Circles: The Story of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel

Round in Circles: The Story of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel () by Barry Kester takes an in-depth look at one of the greatest musicals ever written, and in my view (and that of many) the finest work by Rodgers (music) and Hammerstein (book and lyrics). From the 1901 play Liliom by Ferenc Molnar, fairly faithful but with a much less dark conclusion, Carousel focuses on the sudden romance between a carnival barker and a young mill worker lass; the latter’s friends in a New England fishing community provide a backdrop and counterpoint.

It’s most overtly noir musical I can think of, with its emphasis on crime and its tortured central lovers. Modern audiences – or at least those mounting this great work of art for those audiences – have problems with the thematic content of the play. Billy Bigelow is a roustabout roughneck who has, at least on one occasion, “hit” (probably slapped) his gentle wife, who puts up with her husband’s jobless state and foul temper. In modern terms, this is viewed as an abusive relationship, and Round in Circles explores that subject thoroughly and well. Author Kester makes the point that the year the play was produced (1945) was toward the end of the Second World War, when men were starting to return from combat in a traumatized state and sometimes had difficulty into getting back into a peacetime grove. Some brought violence home with them. This is probably why audiences of the day had little if any problem with the overstated “wife-beating” aspect of the narrative.

Today, people are liable to read in contemporary values and beliefs, and somehow ignore the tragic aspects of the story, growing from flaws in both characters, the volatile Billy and the passive Julie. But Oscar Hammerstein knew what he needed to do with this tragedy. In both Liliom and Carousel, the roughneck gets a chance to redeem himself by getting another day – a single day – back on earth. Liliom is the story of man who blows his chance to redeem himself; Carousel is about a man who does, ultimately, in the nick of time redeem himself.

The film version is often dismissed, but it has rewards; and the play itself appears to be a major influence on It’s A Wonderful Life with its angelic conceits.

Additionally, the play has some of the most beautiful words and music ever written for the musical stage – from “The Carousel Waltz” to “If I Loved You” and finally “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” few scores rival it.

Carousel has a particular resonance for me. My father, in the early 1950s, when he was a high school music teacher, mounted the first high school production of Carousel. I was very young but I was spellbound – my father had a working carousel on stage for the opening of the show! Amazing. What a showman my pop was – imagine getting a wonderful performance in a play this difficult from a bunch of high school kids in the early fifties. And as I witnessed my dad’s hometown triumph, those beautiful songs crept into my brain and made a permanent home there.

If you are interested in musical theater at all, Carousel is the ultimate noir musical, and Barry Kester’s Round in Circles does it justice.

Here’s what Barb and I (and sometimes Nate) have been watching (some of these remarks will be brief):

Black Bag – a solid, well-acted espionage tale in the John Le Carre vein, starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. This we saw at a theater.

Zero Day – a good but not great six-part mini-series starring Robert De Niro as a former president recruited from retirement to head up a commission into a devastating cyber- attack. Netflix.

Reacher Season 3 – a meat-and-potatoes series with a fine central performance by Alan Ritchson. The weakest of the three seasons so far, and at times painfully predictable and occasionally plot-hole-riddled, it’s nonetheless a fun watch. Amazon Prime.

Paradise – somewhat overrated but with a brilliant seventh (of eight) episodes. I just wish every character wouldn’t have a monologue about their back story delivered to some other character. I am interested to see where they go next, because the series seems to have painted itself into a corner. Hulu.

Adolescence – a four-episode limited British series that is one of the best things I’ve seen in years. Be forewarned: it’s harrowing, not so much for on-screen violence (which is limited) but for emotional impact. A young teen is accused of murder and we follow from the procedural end through the impact on the parents. Remarkable in approach, every episode is shot in a single unbroken take; how this was accomplished required a degree of difficulty I can barely imagine. The third episode, the least flashy in filmmaking terms, is a masterpiece thanks to the performances of Erin Doherty as psychologist Briony Ariston and Owen Cooper as young accused murderer Jamie meeting at a youth detention facility to prepare a pre-trial report on his mental health. Netflix.

The Thief of Bagdad – This 1924 film starring Douglas Fairbanks is one of the greatest fantasy films of all time. Barb loves silent movies and this one is terrific, with a wonderful orchestral score. The effects are mind-boggling. Eureka! Home Video.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – We decided to revist this before Part Two (no longer labelled that way) comes out. Underrated on its release, with an A-1 “bad guy” that seems more current now than when the film came out, this entry in the long-running series is a succession of over-the-top (in a good way) action sequences, often hilarious in their shameless excess. Paramount Home Video.

The Golden Buddha – From the boxed set Super Spies and Secret Lies, this is an Asian James Bond-era knock-off with eye-popping art direction and an amusing storyline anticipating Austin Powers. My son Nate and I watch one or two Asian movies every week, seldom artistic masterpieces but great fun. Eureka! Home video.

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie – We went with the (nearly) entire family to this one at the local theater, and it’s a blast – traditional animation that seemed more Ren & Stimpy than Warner Bros, but I was fine with that. Word is this was dumped by Warner’s (as was a Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote movie) and that’s a disgrace. Very funny.

Okay that’s what I’ve been reading and watching. It’s an eclectic bunch of stuff, but that’s how we roll around here. I don’t read as much fiction as I once did – particularly not mysteries – but I take in a lot of physical media and streaming shows/movies. It’s how I relax and put fuel in the boiler.

There’s a lot to dislike on TV and on the movie screen these days, but plenty’s still out there to enjoy.

* * *

This very nice, smart review popped up this week at Do Some Damage – it’s detailed and (to me) gratifying. I happen to think the two Krista Larsen books are top-notch Collins, but I got a lot of heat from some reviewers (mostly in the UK) and, frankly, from my Thomas & Mercer editor. The big complaint was too much clothing description, something that goes unremarked upon in this extended lovely review. I had hoped to do at least a third Krista novel, but Thomas & Mercer wasn’t interested. It is, admittedly, the only book of mine there that hasn’t “earned out” yet; but in my defense they’ve given that title zero support.

If you haven’t read Girl Most Likely, check out this review.

This is a very good article on Road to Perdition as a comic book movie that is also a masterpiece. Oddly, neither I nor Richard Piers Rayner are mentioned. But it’s nice,
just the same.

* * *

We have been getting complaints from a handful of you fine folks that the link to this page from Facebook listings doesn’t always work. We (that is, son Nate) are (is) looking into it.

For those of you who can get here, we will have a book giveaway next week.

True Noir Poster

In the meantime, True Noir: The Assassination of Mayor Cermak is winding down – the last couple of the ten episodes will drop any moment now. Director Robert Meyer Burnett continues to do a great job.

If you order now, at least the first eight of ten episodes are available. Episode eight is, as Rob would say, “a banger.”

And this just in!

M.A.C.

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An Impact-ful Noir, James Stewart, and…More

Tuesday, February 4th, 2025

I don’t generally review physical media (that is, Blu-rays) here, but this one, from VCI (who – full disclosure – distributed Blue Christmas) is a worthwhile exception. The movie I’m talking about is a fairly well-regarded noir that I’d never seen: Impact (1949), with Brian Donlevy (perhaps best-known for starring in Preston Sturges’ The Great McGinty (1940) and playing Quatermass in two mid-‘50s Hammer adaptations of the British TV serials).

Impact movie poster

What made me pop this disc into my Blu-ray player the very day said disc arrived, however, was the presence of the two female leads – Helen Walker and Ella Raines. Walker starred with Fred MacMurray in Murder, She Says (1945), that greatest of comedy noir, and had a memorable femme fatale role in the original Nightmare Alley (1947) (accept no substitutes). Raines was a noir favorite (Phantom Lady, 1944) and also a favorite leading lady of John Wayne’s (Tall in the Saddle, 1944). Both women were strikingly, somewhat unconventionally beautiful.

Impact movie poster
Helen Walker

Both actresses, despite varied careers, are probably most associated with their film noir work. Walker in particular played a number of femme fatales, while Raines was more often the “good girl” in the mix, and that’s the case in Impact.

Impact movie poster

And, in Impact, it’s the two women who make the most, well, impact. Donlevy is quite good, and his performance has more colors than was his usual practice – he’s made to go more places, and he goes there in an understated but typically powerful way. He was not usually the leading man, and even playing Quatermass, for example, comes across as a character actor. In any event, a man with a lot of walls that are difficult to look behind.

In Impact, he plays a rather ruthless leader in the automotive industry, casually running roughshod over his board of directors. But at home, in his insanely large and lavish apartment, he is a love-struck pushover to his beautiful, charming wife, Walker in a tricky role. What seems like a textbook happy marriage, if dominated by the female, soon reveals itself with Donlevy as the cuckold targeted by Walker for homicide.

I don’t want to ruin the many twists and turns – one of them involves the great Anna Mae Wong in her second-to-last big-screen performance – but structurally this is like nothing else in the noir (or any) catalogue. It was shot by iconic cinematographer Ernest Laszlo (Kiss Me Deadly, 1955). And it begins as a noir out of the Double Indemnity (1944) play book, if largely from the targeted victim’s POV, playing as a bigger-budget Detour for about the first third.

Then the second act finds a wandering Donlevy (after fate or maybe God gives him a pass on being a murder victim) winding up in what seems to be an Andy Hardy movie, minus manic Mickey Rooney. This is where Ella Raines comes in as a war widow running her late husband’s gas station. The whole mood is wholesome small-town after the harrowing noir first act, cross-cutting with the efforts of Walker back in the big city to dodge the Columbo-like efforts of an unlikely elderly police detective who is inexplicably the very British Charles Coburn (he refers to an impending retirement to justify all this).

Primarily, though act two is chiefly about good old-fashioned small-town American goodness, which redeems Donlevy, despite the Carville-like setting presented just short of cloyingly and with the shadow of big city nastiness hanging over all this normal niceness. There’s a level of Christianity under this section – traditional be-merciful, do-unto-your-neighbor-as-you would-have-them-do-to-you variety. Yup, this is the middle act of a film noir and it works.

Then there’s the third act, of what is an exceptionally long (almost two-hour) noir, where Donlevy does the right thing and comes forward back in Big Town to reveal he’s still alive and that his wife, now facing murder charges, didn’t get the job done. Somehow (beautiful plotting here) this lands him in the pokey facing a murder rap of his own. The third act is sort of a Columbo-tinged 1950s Perry Mason episode.

All this from journeyman director Arthur Lubin, best known for directing Abbott and Costello and Francis the Talking Mule!
It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw, and I loved it.

Here is a very good article on Ella Raines with an interview with her daughter.

Here is an in-depth look at the Hollywood rise and the tragic fall of Helen Walker.

Winchester 73 movie poster

I also watched the Criterion 4K release Winchester 73 (1950), one of the five great westerns James Stewart starred in that Anthony Mann directed. Mann would go on to be a specialist in grand-scale historical epics (The Fall of the Roman Empire, 1964) but came out of Poverty Row films noir, like T-Men (1947) and Raw Deal (1948). The latter films connect well with the noir-ish Stewart westerns.

Stewart is my favorite actor of his era, probably of any era. No one starred in more great films – and I mean great films – than Jimmy Stewart…from his Frank Capra classics to Philadelphia Story (1940), Harvey (1950), Rear Window (1954, Vertigo (1958), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Other gems were sprinkled here and there – Bell, Book and Candle (1958) a particular favorite of mine – but with the Anthony Mann-directed westerns a major part of Stewart’s incredible cinematic legacy.

No other actor has a list to rival James Stewart’s. He wasn’t always good – when the material was spotty, he could be hammy, as in the J. Edgar Hoover valentine, The FBI Story (1959) or if were miscast, as in The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), or was trying to elevate weak material (Thunder Bay, 1953, also Mann).

I mention all this because Winchester 73 is a revenge story, and Stewart displays his dark side, his eyes gleaming as he starts to strangle Dan Duryea. This is the side of Stewart first displayed in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the disturbing boiling over of his frustrations in the final quarter of that film. And it comes to a stunning head in Vertigo, which is my favorite film. Number two on my favorites list (right before Chinatown) is Kiss Me Deadly, which brings us to Mickey Spillane.
Are you surprised? Doesn’t almost everything I write about here come back around to Mickey?

Here’s why it does this time: Winchester 73, and several other Stewart/Mann westerns, are revenge tales, and most of the great post-war films among Stewart’s best depict a hero who is touched by madness and rage. The actor who came back changed, even damaged, from war service is not unlike the PTSD-ridden Mike Hammer of those five early Spillane novels. Or for that matter the WW 2 vets who made Spillane the best-selling post-war mystery writer.

Everybody talks about Spillane (when they talk about him at all these days) in terms of sex and violence; but it is the rage, the thirst for revenge, that really drives Mike Hammer in the first five novels, and that is the same engine in Winchester 73, Vertigo and other stellar Stewart (post-war) performances. Interestingly, with the possible exception of The Glenn Miller Story, most of Stewart’s positive salutes to America and the military are minor, even boring things – Thunder Bay, Strategic Air Command (1955), The FBI Story.

Even in Winchester 73, it’s clear Stewart is a (Civil) war veteran come home changed and traumatized. Circling back to Impact, Donlevy is likely a war veteran and his love interest lost her husband in the war. So many of these noirs, so many melodrama movies of the late forties into the early ‘60s, are impacted by the Second World War – the sacrifices and heroism but also the horrors.

I was born in 1948, and I grew up hearing – often in an indirect, undramatic, even nostalgic fashion – stories and indications of that war from my father and other male (and female) relatives. Gen Z has no memory of even this second-hand experience, and the Greatest Generation is mostly gone now – so why should we expect Gen Z to remember something they never experienced?

This brings me, inevitably, to my own work. We are a month away from the final Mike Hammer novel, Baby, It’s Murder, becoming available. You can order it from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever you like to buy books right now. And True Noir, my ten-episode adaptation of the first Nate Heller novel, True Detective, directed by the fantastic Robert Meyer Burnett, is also available for order now (it’s in progress – the first five episodes are available and the rest will drop on a weekly basis).

So from Mike Hammer we go to Nate Heller, the detective of mine who is involved in real historical crimes and mysteries. Those of you (and this includes me) who were not alive in the early ‘30s can experience it through this immersive audio drama…and from my books, which cover most of the rest of the 20th Century.

I advise sampling some of Jimmy Stewart’s best movies, to any of you Gen Z saplings out there, as not a bad move.

M.A.C.

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Kindle Deals, a Spillane Nom, A Beck & Woods Blurb, New Reviews of Old Movies, and More!

Tuesday, June 4th, 2024
Supreme Justice cover
What Doesn't Kill Her

Supreme Justice will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 6/1/2024 and running through 6/30/2024. The book (topical as hell right now!) will be offered at 2.99 USD during the promotion period.

What Doesn’t Kill Her will be promoted via Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle book deals in the US marketplace, starting 6/1/2024 and running through 6/30/2024. The novel will be offered at 1.99 USD during the promotion period.

Both are written by Matt Clemens and me.

* * *
Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction cover

Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by James L. Traylor and me has been nominated for the Macavity Award in the
Best Mystery-related Nonfiction/Critical category.

The Macavity Award is named for the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote for their favorite mysteries in five categories.

I am not sure when or where the winners are announced. We were up for the Edgar, and lost, as you might recall; and are up for the Anthony, which will be announced at this year’s Bouchercon (which we will not be attending, as I will be shooting an indie movie then). If you are an eligible voter in the Macavity Awards or the Anthony Awards, please keep us in mind.

Our dashed hopes of winning the Edgar (I never really thought that was a possibility, frankly) have been soothed by the knowledge that we are a thrice-nominated book in our category. If we can just win one, Spillane will be an award-winning book; but even short of that, these multiple nominations are a nice validation of the decades of work by Jim and me that went into a book for which I feel a good deal of pride and accomplishment.

One of my missions in life has been to get Mickey Spillane some of the recognition denied him by the mystery community over these many decades, despite the boost he gave to the genre as a whole. The number of careers in mystery fiction that Mickey made possible with his success is difficult to overstate – the entire genre got a shot in the arm (and elsewhere).

* * *

Barb and I celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary on June 1. We had a nice overnight getaway at Galena, Illinois, a favorite haunt of ours. Here’s Barb and me (with one of us looking radiant and young) (hint: not me) at a restaurant we adore, Vinny Vanucchi’s.

Max Allan and Barbara Collins at Vinny Vanucchi's

Even an overnight trip, however, can be a little daunting these days. We feel much more comfortable at home, the familiar surroundings encouraging both work and play. I have sleep issues that staying in a hotel acerbate. This is why you don’t see us doing book signings, attending conventions, and doing other public appearances very often. As much as we like interacting with readers/fans/friends, it’s a dicey proposition, leaving our little cave.

We are extremely lucky to have our son Nate and his family (wife Abby and grandkids Sam and Lucy) just up the street from us, making the households mutual support systems. As you know, if you follow these updates at all, I even managed to write and direct a movie not long ago – Blue Christmas – which will be distributed on home video by VCI and MVD, who will also be marketing it to streaming services.

We have even received a lovely blurb from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the talented creators of A Quiet Place: “Collins is a master of noir and activates a deep reservoir of affection for the genre in his latest noir chamber piece.” This is incredibly generous of Beck and Woods, who have been kind enough to single out my frequent cinematic collaborator Phil Dingeldein and me, as mentors.

Exciting (at least exciting to me) news about another indie feature film project will be announced here soon.

Also, the Nathan Heller audio production, True Noir (based on the novel True Detective) written by me and directed by my pal Robert Meyer Burnett, continues apace. I have completed and delivered the ten-episode script of the production to Rob, and the reviews from him and our distinguished cast members (we’ll be revealing more of them soon) have been wonderful. Unfortunately, our announced star Todd Stashwick had to step down, and we are in the process of recasting now.

* * *
Strawberry Blonde poster

It’s no secret that I am as much a film buff as I am a bibliophile. And I have viewed a ridiculously large number of films in my time on Planet Earth, from the worst to the best. But a few classic films have, for no good reason, remained unwatched by me. I caught up with two recently: Strawberry Blonde with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Rita Hayworth, directed by Raoul Walsh, written by the Epsteins of Casablanca fame; and Meet John Doe with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck directed by Frank Capra and written by Robert Riskins.

Where to start? Both are 1941 films – in that sweet spot that began around 1939 and continued till World War Two kicked in, where Hollywood seemed to be at its creative zenith. The number of great character actors assembled for these two films is staggering: Jack Carson, Alan Hale and George Tobias, with future Superman George Reeves thrown in for good measure, in Strawberry Blonde; and Edward Arnold, James Gleason, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington, and Gene Lockhart in Meet John Doe. And a lot of others in both.

Let me interrupt myself to say that Barb and I, staying overnight in Galena at the Irish Cottage hotel, tried to watch a pay-for-view movie on the evening of May 31. The film we chose was Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. How might I best describe this movie? Childish nonsense, poorly acted, although Rebecca Hall is actually pretty good, whereas Dan Stevens embarrasses himself and Bryan Tyree Henry is, as an African-American, saddled with a stereotypical role that Mantan Moreland would have rejected as beneath his dignity. We bailed half an hour into this CGI fest in which the best that could be said for the monsters is that they come off as more human than the humans.

Meanwhile, back in 1941, Warner’s is giving us Jimmy Cagney in a charming role that because of his artistry overcomes the character’s boorishness, with Oliva De Havilland etching a modern young woman (at the turn of the Twentieth Century) with humor and deftness, and the comic figures (Alan Hale, George Tobias, Jack Carson) all show considerable humanity and growth. I think I’d avoided this film because of its reputation as an Americana valentine to the “Band Played On” early 1900s; but there’s a lot of skill and surprising depth to what at first seems a nostalgia trifle. What comes across as wistful seemed to me, at a distance, as something saccharine. I was wrong. Warner Arcives has a Blu-ray out of this right now.

Meet John Doe poster

As for Meet John Doe, I had expected to encounter Frank Capra at his most populist excessive, and while I wasn’t entirely wrong, I also encountered a skewering of corporate America and a cynical MAGA-style movement taking advantage of its members shamelessly. The dark side of Meet John Doe is plenty dark, and the artistry of a great cast is plenty great. James Gleason (the unforgettable Corkle of Here Comes Mr. Jordan) does a drunk scene in medium close-up, seen past a mostly silent Gary Cooper, that may be the best single piece of screen acting I’ve ever witnessed. After a few comic moments – not overplayed, but broad as drunk scenes often were in those days – Gleason talks about enlisting to serve in the Great War and how his father enlisted, too. The emotions that play over his face are sublimely, subtlely rendered; and this comes from a character who has, till now, been perhaps the most cynical in the piece.

And Cooper’s character is at times the “yup”/”nope” creature he’s known for, but other times is talkative and even spechifying without betraying the simple roots of his character. He’s remarkable as is Barbara Stanwyck, who – like Gleason – travels from cynicism and self-interest to a realization of how she’s betrayed her journalistic goals, feeling her guilt in what was a terrible, hurtful hoax at heart.

Meet John Doe – which has just become available from Classic Flix on Blu-ray (the people who brought you I, the Jury and The Long Wait on Blu-ray!) in a beautifully restored edition – is a kind of pre-war rough draft of It’s a Wonderful Life, which is definitely a post-war take on the same (or similar) material. People don’t think of Meet John Doe as a Christmas movie, in the manner of It’s a Wonderful Life, but both films use Christmas as a powerful climax to stories that otherwise are not holiday-themed.

For a film buff, seeing a James Cagney picture by a great director with a fabulous supporting cast, or a Frank Capra movie starting Gary Cooper and other legendary supporting players, as if they are brand-new items, is frankly thrilling.

Also depressing, in the wake of such travesties as the Godzilla/King Kong rematch. Stick with the Japanese alternative.

By the way, Furiosa is excellent. And yet it’s the poster child for Hollywood’s inability to get in step with itself.

Get Meet John Doe here.

Get Strawberry Blonde here.

* * *

The Big Bundle, a Nathan Heller novel, is out in trade paperback now. Here’s a nice review.

M.A.C.

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True Noir Is Coming, Criticism and Me, Plus Movies!

Tuesday, April 30th, 2024

The Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for my new project may go live as early as tomorrow (as you read this – it’s tentatively set for May 1). This is to support True Noir: The Nathan Heller Casebooks, a fully immersive audio production based on the first book in the series, True Detective. I am writing all ten scripts myself.

My talented director, Robert Meyer Burnett, is assembling a great cast, led by Todd Stashwick of Picard and the 12 Monkeys TV series (and much more). Impressive names are being sought, a number of whom have already said yes, but these will be parceled out to the public as the crowd-funding campaign continues.

Here again is a link to the 12-minute proof-of-concept audio we put together.

It’s based on the first chapter of Stolen Away, which is not the book we’re adapting but was chosen for its combination of establishing Heller in an action situation.

It’s truly odd returning to True Detective (no relation to the HBO show that came after) for the first time in over forty years (!). Also the form is one that has special challenges. The story has to be told in completely audio terms. Its length ultimately will be three times longer than a film adaptation, but still substantially shorter than the 100,000-word novel I’m adapting.

I do find myself pleased to tweak scenes and make them better than the first time around (in 1981!) but at the same time I’m trying to honor the work of the young writer who wrote the novel so long ago.

Fortunately, as some of you know, I wrote a number episodes of the web series Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories, so I’ve written radio-style scripts before and feel I’m fairly adept at it. But nothing as long-form as this, a script of ten episodes that will ultimately add up to over 300 manuscript pages.

I have high hopes for the quality of what we’ll produce – and for its reaction among listeners. As the Heller series winds its way toward its last entry (which I am contracted to write for Hard Case Crime this year), I am happy to be revisiting where the saga began. And it may open the door to more adaptations, and bring more attention to Heller from new readers and perhaps even the TV and movie world.

There will be a strong physical media component. We’re planning a Blu-ray that will contain the entire audio drama, the production of which will be elaborate and truly a movie for the ears; but also an hour-long interview by Rob Burnett with yours truly, footage shot in Chicago of star Todd Stashwick, and much more (my longtime collaborator Phil Dingeldein shot this footage). There may even be a vinyl version!

* * *

You know what my greatest strength is as a purveyor of long elaborate lies? (AKA novelist.) It’s how well I take criticism.

Insert hysterical laughter here.

I have no idea what it is in my psychological make-up that makes me react so badly to criticism. I have a ridiculous amount of self-confidence, but the inflated balloon of my ego is easily pricked. Especially by pricks.

Recently I got dinged at Black Gate, an interesting genre-oriented website where this lovely review of (yup) True Detective appeared in 2018.

But someone named Thomas Parker (the word “Editor” is next to his name but he’s not listed among the Black Gate staff) criticized Charles Ardai and Hard Case Crime for using their line as “a Max Allan Collins manuscript dump.”

This gratuitous cruelty appealed to my poor judgment and I replied, but Black Gate did not post that reply. I never understand the reluctance of websites and publications to allow authors – even those like me with poor judgment – to respond to this kind of thing, when they allow people like Parker to prattle on in the first place.

My response was perhaps less-ill-judged than usual because I was defending a great publisher, and editor, who have almost single-handedly kept 1950s-style noir novels alive, both through reprints and books by contemporary authors.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote that did not appear:

HCC a “Max Allan Collins manuscript dump”? Well, yes. Among the manuscripts I dumped (or helped dump) at HCC are The Cocktail Waitress by James M. Cain; The Comedy is Finished by Donald E. Westlake (I provided the manuscript that Don had given me when he abandoned the project); and the first posthumous, 80% completed Mickey Spillane manuscript (Dead Street) and Mickey’s last completed novel (The Last Stand). I also encouraged the republication of Rex Stout’s early pre-Nero Wolfe novels. When editor Charles Ardai made me the first living author he published (in the first year of HCC), he sought to reprint the second Nolan novel, Blood Money. I gave him instead both the first Nolan (Bait Money) and Blood Money to be published together at the same rate he’d offered for just Blood. After that twofer was published, Charles wanted more reprints but I offered to write new novels at the reprint rate because I relished the chance to write whatever I chose. What I chose was The Last Quarry, designed to end that series but becoming surprisingly popular, which led to more, still at the same reprint rate (which is what I still get, actually a little lower now). That Quarry novel led to a feature film and an HBO/Cinemax series, which led to Charles reprinting the original Quarry novels with McGinnis covers. The Nolans followed, with the first new one in thirty years (Skim Deep) written at Charles’ request. He is, incidentally, the best editor I’ve ever had. Lately I’ve written two Nathan Heller novels — the Edgar-nominated and Shamus-winning historical PI series — for HCC, still at the same reprint-level rate despite being 100,000-word books. I will be doing one more for HCC, ending the series. You may prefer dead authors, but I am 76 so you don’t have long to wait.

I might add to this that I have not foisted any unpublished manuscripts from my drawer for HCC to publish or even consider. Nothing of that kind exists. The only unpublished book from my drawer that I did allow to be published was the first Nolan novel (sans the Jon character), Mourn the Living, which I let be serialized in a fan magazine back in the ‘80s. Later several publishers asked to collect the serialized novel into a book and I allowed that. And when Charles Ardai wanted to reprint all of the Nolan novels as two-fers, when we got to Spree (a rather overlong entry and, at the time I wrote it, another attempt to end a series), he asked to include Mourn in that volume as a bonus.

Look. I understand writers need to learn to take criticism well (I’m still working on that). And I have learned from critical reviews from time to time when the reviewer pointed out some weakness of mine I hadn’t seen or anyway been able to overcome; that’s called constructive criticism, and I may not love getting it at the time, but it can – and often does – pay off.

Sometimes readers, reviewers, just don’t like your stuff and that’s their privilege, obviously. I know that my propensity for describing characters and their clothing in some detail alienates some readers/reviewers. But I’ve explained why I do that, here, any number of times (it has to do with characterization). I’ve been a professional novelist since 1971 and that’s always been the technique I’ve used. That doesn’t make it right, but it does indicate a choice as opposed to some blind flaw. And I am still trying to exercise that approach in a more economical way.

I do not think it proper for me to respond to a thoughtful negative review. But a gratuitous swipe? I do not have enough character to just let that pass.

Or as my wife Barb says when somebody attacks me, “Don’t they know you’re the guy who created Quarry?”

* * *

I generally like Guy Ritchie’s films, which might best be described as British variants on Quentin Tarantino but funnier. Along those lines, I heartily recommend The Ministry of UnGentlemanly Warfare. I freely admit that I thought the bold on-screen claim at the start that the film was based on a true event had to be tongue-in-cheek nonsense.

Then at the end of the film came photos of the actual people and little whatever-happened-to paragraphs.

Turns out historical events and people are at the heart of it, but the outrageousness of its exaggerated version of those events (and the people therein) was such that my assumption that history had nothing to do with it seems reasonable.

Basically it’s a rousing adventure story in which many, many Nazis are slaughtered with relish (and catsup and onions) by the roughneck heroes. What makes it particularly interesting to me is its inclusion of Ian Fleming and Henry Cavill’s dashing and bloodthirty hero, a reflection of the historical figure Major Gustavus March-Phillipps, who was one of Fleming’s role models in creating James Bond.

And it’s cheeky fun that Cavill – often talked about but apparently looked over in the post-Daniel Craig Bond sweepstakes, is playing a guy the character was based on.

Cavill, who appears to be having the time of his life, is joined by a strong cast including Avan Richardson, Elza Gonzalez, and Babs Olusanmokum. I hope you don’t think less of me, but I could watch Nazis getting obliterated all day.

Speaking of the home-grown variety, many nasty folk meet their doom coming up against Jason Stratham (a Guy Ritchie graduate) in one of his best, The Beekeeper, out on home video and streaming here and there right now. I love Stratham, but his list of films is spotty. This one is high on the list (though it does go perhaps too far over the top in the final third), probably right behind the outrageous Crank movies.

For those of you following the saga of introducing my eight year-old grandson Sam to movies not entirely designed for kiddies, we have gone from King Kong (1933), which he loved, to the Ray Harryhausen fest, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which he found utterly amazing. I did, too. It’s a movie I saw on it’s first release when I was probably ten and was blown away then, and now.

Lots more Harryhausen to come!

M.A.C.

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