Posts Tagged ‘Road to Hell’

Physical Media Lives! So Does M.A.C.

Tuesday, September 1st, 2026

A few of you knew about me going in for a procedure last week (Thursday to be exact). I am recuperating at the moment, so this will be a brief update. Medically speaking, I’m doing fine – it was an ablation/cardioversion having to do with trying to tame my a-fib.

Flowers are unnecessary but good wishes always appreciated. I have the most incredible wife in the world, by the way – Barbara Collins is exactly who any smart person would like to have at their side in any tight scrape.

As the Christmas season approaches, I notice a number of my movies on physical media are popping up at good prices – some of these are steals. I’ll annotate each (they are listed here in no particular order).

For the casual browser who’s just happened to stop by I’ll mention that, in addition to some bigtime stuff like Road to Perdition and the HBO/Cinemax Quarry series, I have done (written and directed) a number of indie projects – seven features, two documentaries, and a handful of short films. Also, I’ve written a few produced screenplays that others have directed – The Last Lullaby, The Expert and recently Mickey Spillane’s Cap City.

Some of the prices listed below are sale prices and may not last long – so now’s the time….

BLUE CHRISTMAS $3.49 (Blu-ray) at Oldies.com

Blue Christmas is a micro-budget adaptation my novella “A Wreath for Marley,” which is essentially The Maltese Falcon Meets A Christmas Carol. We shot it in a week for ten thousand bucks on a single set with a largely local cast, who I think did a terrific job. We won some awards and scored some very nice reviews.

ELIOT NESS: AN UNTOUCHABLE LIFE (Blu-ray) $17.47 at VCI

This is my late friend Michael Cornelison’s signature role as Eliot Ness in a one-man show. It was produced and performed at a theater in Des Moines, Iowa, but we shot it movie style with only the opening and closing from a live performance. It appeared on Iowa PBS and also was an award-winner.

MICKEY SPILLANE’S ENCORE FOR MURDER $1.98 (DVD) at Oldies.com

This is a performance (actually a movie culled by me and editor Chad Bishop from a dress rehearsal and the sole performance) of a radio-style play starring Gary Sandy (who was one of the stars of Mommy 2: Mommy’s Day). Gary had performed Encore (originally written for Stacy Keach in an audio production) in several larger venues, but this captured the version done here in Muscatine, Iowa, with (again) local talent backing him. He did a terrific job, and so did they. Again, a micro-budget production that won awards.

MOMMY & MOMMY 2 (Blu-ray double feature) $16.99 at Amazon

These are the two movies starring Patty McCormack as a sort of grown-up version of her classic Bad Seed role. They were done at the tail end of the home video rental era, and were hits – with respectable budgets in the half-million range – in that market. Mommy also appeared on Lifetime in primetime, and we had a stellar cast backing Patty up – Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Brinke Stevens, Jason Miller, Mickey Spillane, Gary Sandy, Arlen Dean Snyder and more.

CAVEMAN: V.T. HAMLIN & ALLEY OOP, $9.98 at VCI.
My documentary about the cartoon caveman and his creators V.T. Hamlin (Iowa born) and the assistant who took over the famous strip, Dave Graue, is my secret take on Chester Gould and his assistant Rick Fletcher on Dick Tracy. Includes an interview with the great Will Eisner.

DEATH BY FRUITCAKE (DVD), $18.90 at Oldies.com

This is our most recent production, based on a novella in the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mysteries by Barb and me (as “Barbara Allan”). It, too, is micro-budget, but like Blue Christmas we got a lot of streaming play and some nice awards. Quad Cities broadcasting legend Paula Sands plays Vivian Borne, Midwest superstar Alisabeth Von Presley (American Idol) is daughter Brandy, and Rob Merritt (star of Blue Christmas) is Detective Tony Cassoto. You can catch this free on Tubi with a few commercials and on Prime and elsewhere on rental.

THE TWO JAKES $12.49 (Blu-Ray) at Barnes & Noble

This is one of my favorite movies, the sequel to Chinatown; this release [The Kino-Lorber release, not the Paramount!–Nate] includes a commentary track by me and my pal Heath Holland.

Why, you may ask, have I spent so much time out of my career in doing smalltime projects? The thing is, I have a love for movies and specifically hearing my dialogue spoken that draws this moth to the flame. In a fairly successful fiction-writing career that began in 1972 I have had many options for film and TV, and the money was nice, but the satisfaction (when the bulk of those projects inevitably went south) was negligible.

Part of this is my fault for never leaving my smalltown Iowa home. The reasons I stayed are many, but among them was an understanding that my temperament, and what it would take to make it in Hollywood, were almost certainly incompatible. Doing this in a small-scale way has helped me maintain control and get things done.

Say what you will, I have wracked up a filmography that has allowed me to demonstrate, at least to some small degree, what I’m capable of. God bless collaborators like Mike Cornelison, Phil Dingeldein, Steve Henke, Chad Bishop and so many more – chief among them Barbara Collins – for helping me carve out this small, unlikely place in my CV.

* * *

Craig Zablo has announced the upcoming Quarry’s Reunion on his site with a lovely look at the cover.

Barb and I received copies of Antiques Web from Severn House in London and will share a look at it as we grow closer to the pub date (early October).

Meanwhile I’m beginning serious research on Road to Hell, which will include a chapter about Michael O’Sullivan’s harrowing experiences in the Great War.

That’s all for this week…my beautiful nurse is calling….

M.A.C.

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The Road to John Looney

Tuesday, August 11th, 2026

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.

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Perdition Milestones, San Diego Con 2027 & More Fruitcake!

Tuesday, July 28th, 2026

As I mentioned last week, Death by Fruitcake – the micro-budget movie we made based on the “Antiques Fruitcake” novella by Barb and me – has hit the major free service, Tubi. You can see it here.

And here’s great new promo art for Fruitcake at the holiday season.

Death by Fruitcake
* * *

You’ll have to scroll down to see it, but No Film School has a “Definitive Ranking of the 40+ DC Comic Book Movies,” and Road to Perdition is number one.

The film was also honored as one of the Five Best Irish Mob Movies of All-time.

I am about to begin writing Road to Hell, the prequel to the Perdition saga. It will be out in 2028, which is the 30th anniversary of the publication of the graphic novel by artist Richard Piers Rayner and me. Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the film’s release.

No San Diego Comic Con for us this year, though we hope to make it next. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of photos from 1988’s con where our band Seduction of the Innocent made its debut – that’s Bill Mumy, Steve Leialoha, Miguel Ferrer and me (Chris Christensen had not joined the band yet).

[And while digging around, I found this video of their performance from the 1988 comic-con. –Nate]

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The ANTIQUES/Trash ‘n’ Treasures series that Barb and I do was featured in an Internet article, “4 Funny Cozy Mysteries for Teachers Who Need a Recharge this Summer”

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan (Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery Series)

Barbara Allan is actually a joint pen name for the husband-and-wife writing team of Barbara Collins and Max Allan Collins, and together they created one of the most entertaining mother-daughter duos in cozy mystery fiction. After her divorce, Brandy Borne heads back to the small Midwestern town where she grew up, only to find that her eccentric, larger-than-life mother Vivian has sold all the family’s antiques to an unscrupulous dealer named Clint Carson. Before Brandy can recover the family heirlooms, Carson turns up dead, and both Brandy and her mother become the prime suspects. They decide to investigate before someone else ends up a victim.

The dynamic between the practical, long-suffering daughter and her theatrical, completely unbothered mother is pure comedic gold. Vivian treats every situation as though she is starring in a Shakespearean production, and Brandy’s deadpan narration is the perfect foil. The series maintains a strictly PG tone throughout, and the small-town charm keeps you turning pages well past your bedtime.

What a delightful review! And a fun picture of Brandy Borner and her sleuthing mother, Vivian…or is it?

I had sent this to son Nate (who manages this Update/blog) and he immediately flagged both the article and the photo as AI-generated.

Initially I defended this (censored) element (that was an actual use of the word “censored,” not a substitution for “f***ing”). The site it comes from appears legit, and the author is apparently a real guy with a doctorate and everything.

But Nate argued that the site itself was designed to promote AI use, and my son is dead set against such things. I am looser, because I figure free promo is free promo, and anyway I’m not going to live long enough to have to deal with our eventual Robot Overlords like Nate will.

Would love to hear your opinion on the subject in a comment below. And rest assured I am a real guy myself!

M.A.C.

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