Posts Tagged ‘Road to Perdition’

Spillane Nominated, Antiques Is Loved, Blue Christmas Begins, and Poirot Returns

Tuesday, September 19th, 2023

Okay, so the nominations for Quarry’s Blood (Edgar) and The Big Bundle (Shamus) did not result in wins. But how about this: Max Allan Collins and Jim Traylor’s Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction has been nominated for BIO’s Plutarch Award, given to the best biography of the year – as judged by biographers. I have no idea how this Bio nomination might play out.

Still, this feels really good, because this book is one I am particularly proud of, and I know Jim feels the same. Obviously we are hopeful for an Edgar nomination, but a win there seems unlikely as the prejudice against Mickey continues in many quarters, particularly coming from people who never read much if any of him.

On the other hand, we received several nice reviews for the current Hammer, Dig Two Graves, and Barb and I just finished listening (in the car) to the Skyboat Media audio book of it, read by the great Stefan Rudnicki, who does his usual stellar job.

The handful of copies of Dig Two Graves that I had to give away here were snapped up eagerly. I am sorry I didn’t have more to offer than that. It’s out today (Sept. 19) – so Happy Publication Day!

Speaking of good reviews, here’s a honey by Sue O’Brien about Antiques Foe by Barbara Allan (Barb and me) from Booklist:

Antiques Foe
By Barbara Allan
Nov. 2023. 208p. Severn, $31.99 (9781448309627);
e-book (9781448309634)

Vivian Borne, co-owner with her daughter Brandy of Trash ‘n’ Treasures, is thrilled to be invited to be a guest on Nicole Chatterton’s video podcast, Killers Caught, until Chatterton ambushes her on her murder-solving record, with Vivian threatening Chatterton and Brandy abruptly ending the interview. When Vivian goes to Chatterton’s hotel room to retrieve her signed release form to prevent the interview from airing, she finds Chatterton dead on the floor and is quickly arrested as the chief suspect in her murder. When Brandy is attacked and badly hurt, Vivian decides on drastic measures to protect her family. Brandy is gutted by the shocking turn of events, but the investigation continues, led by her fiancé, Police Chief Tony Cassato, leading to a plan to trap the killer. This tale is told in first person by both the flamboyant Vivian and the long-suffering Brandy, with the two talking directly to the reader in numerous humorous asides. Framed by small-town life in Iowa, with interesting details on antiques, this fun cozy includes recipes and tips on collecting sports memorabilia.

* * *

One of the things I’ll be doing here at Update Central in the coming couple of months is discuss the ongoing production of my micro-budgeted movie, Blue Christmas, which I scripted and will direct.

We had disappointing news this week when Gary Sandy decided not to do the production out of solidarity with the SAG-AFTRA strikers. He offered to do the film next year, when presumably the strike will be over, and suggested April. We are already going full-steam ahead and had to turn down this generous offer from Gary, who will very likely be in a future production of ours.

This, of course, will have to mean that directing another movie – designed to be user friendly to its aging director, and to be produced reasonably (all right, on the cheap) – is still something I enjoy doing and am able to perform to my satisfaction despite certain limitations due to health issues.

We held auditions this week and they went very well. I cast many of the local players from Encore for Murder, and two terrific pros from Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities respectively, Rob Merrit and Tommy Ratkiewicz-stierwalt. My team includes Chad T. Bishop, producer (he edited Encore for Murder); Phil Dingeldein, Director of Photography (my longtime friend/collaborator on films); and Karen Cooney, production manager (my co-director of the stage version of Encore for Murder).

Rob Merrit playing Richard Stone
Rob Merrit playing Richard Stone
Tommy Ratkiewicz-stierwalt as Stone’s partner, Joey Ernest
Tommy Ratkiewicz-stierwalt as Stone’s partner, Joey Ernest

We have an excellent set builder tentatively on board, and Chris Christensen (my Seduction of the Innocent bandmate, and the composer of the scores for Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, Caveman and the award-winning Quarry short, “A Matter of Principal”) has agreed to do the score. Chris also contributed to Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market and Encore for Murder.

Also on the indie film front, I looked at the “check discs” of the Blu-ray of the documentary Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane with Encore for Murder as the bonus feature, a DVD of the same, and finally a stand-alone DVD of Encore designed to go out to Golden Age Radio collectors. VCI is putting all of these out, in partnership with MVD, who do some very interesting stuff, particularly in their “Rewind” line that puts ‘80s and ‘90s video store favorites on Blu-ray.

* * *
A Haunting in Venice poster banner

Barb and I took in A Haunting in Venice, very loosely adapted from Agatha Christie’s Poirot novel, Hallowe’en Party. We had both pretty much enjoyed director/star Kenneth Branagh’s first Poirot outing, Murder on the Orient Express, but it was no threat to the Sidney Lumet original. The second Branagh adaptation of Christie, Death on the Nile, was more Meh on the Vile. But this one is a stunner.

Branagh’s Poirot is better etched here, and his direction is moody and immersive, creating a horror film vibe without shortchanging the very tricky murder mystery. Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver takes some getting used to, but ultimately comes across well. The standout performer is a child actor, Jude Hill, around twelve when this was shot.

It was wise of Branagh to get away from remaking the excellent previous Poirot films (so far, at least, the great Evil Under the Sun has been spared 21st Century re-imagining) and if more of these follow, he might look at the serious, post-war Poirot novels like Taken At the Flood and Five Little Pigs.

* * *

Crime Reads zeroes in on seven novels set in Sin City (Las Vegas) and one of them is Skim Deep. Oddly, my CSI novel called Sin City (co-written by Matthew Clemens) isn’t among them!

Jeff Pierce’s indispensable Rap Sheet shares some things from a recent update of ours right here. Nice write-up, and the lead item!

Screen Rant discusses my version of Robin in (where else?) Batman. My work on that feature seems to be getting a little more respect these days.

Finally, Den of Geek names Road to You-know-where one of the best crime-and-mob movies. Gratifying that this film is holding on so very well as decades pass.

M.A.C.

R.I.Pee Wee, Mike Hammer at the Movies, E-Bay Deals

Tuesday, August 8th, 2023
Skyline and Mike Hammer banner

The big news this week should be that the long impending Mike Hammer movie deal with Skydance has solidified, and been announced in all the trades. The upside is that Skydance has purchased the film rights for the entire franchise, which includes the books I’ve co-authored. The downside is…things like this, announced or not, often do not come to pass.

Yes, I am an executive producer. That often simply means that when you come to make your set visits, a director’s chair with your name on the back is waiting. On the Cinemax Quarry set (where I was suffering, unknowingly, congestive heart failure) they didn’t let me near the director and other mucky-mucks till they needed me for photos. And I was, again, an executive producer.

I often have mentioned that I did not tell my parents about the Road to Perdition movie sale till Barb and I were on set watching Tom Hanks and Paul Newman shooting scenes under the direction of Sam Mendes.

The news this week that impacted me more, personally, was the loss of Paul Reubens, who had been privately battling cancer for half a dozen years.

Paul Reubens dressed in black with a Pee-Wee Herman Doll in his breast pocket. Art Streiber / August @aspictures

I have frequently commented here about the annual Christmas cards that Barb and I have received from Paul Reubens over many decades. To me it has not officially been Christmas until the Pee Wee card arrives from Paul.

Here’s what I wrote in December 2013:

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 suits 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.

Shortly after the above piece appeared, Paul got back in touch with me – someone had forwarded the posting about him – and we began occasionally exchanging e-mails. Knowing Paul, and having a small impact on his work (Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! had an obvious influence on a sequence in Pee Wee’s Big Holiday), is one of the most amazing things that has happened to me in an amazing life, despite never having moved from the small Iowa town where I was born.

This is my reflection on the passing of John Paragon, Paul’s partner in comedy – the great, much lamented Jambi.

Paul wrote me thanking me when he saw this tribute to his friend and collaborator.

I don’t know what else to say about Paul and Pee Wee. We weren’t close friends exactly, but we were real friends and the sadness I feel is hard to communicate. But he contributed a character, a concept, and point of view that I truly think will last until (as Paul Williams wrote) “the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime.”

* * *

A flurry of M.A.C. e-books sales at Amazon have hit and I will share them with you now.

First, True Crime will be $1.99 on August 8 only, the day this update/blog appears.

From now till August 31, Girl Can’t Help It will be on sale for $2.49. If you haven’t read this one yet, please pick it up – this is one of only two titles (the other being Girl Most Likely) that have not “earned out” at Amazon and have apparently impacted their decision not to publish anything else new by me.

From now till August 31, Million Dollar Wound (Nate Heller), What Doesn’t Kill Her (Matt Clemens and me doing our American riff on Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), and Midnight Haul (my Mallory-ish eco-thriller) will all be available at $1.99 at Amazon on e-book.

Also wading in to the e-book wars is Wolfpack, who are doing e-book boxed sets that are an opportunity to pick up a lot of my backlist (some of which is out of print) at a low price.

The Max Allan Collins Collection Volume Three collects all three Jack and Maggie Starr mysteries as well as the Westlake-ish Shoot the Moon for under four bucks (okay, a penny under…).

The Max Allan Collins Collection Volume Four collects Mommy, Mommy’s Day, No One Will Hear You (co-authored by Matt Clemens), and Reincarnal and Other Dark Tales. Get it here.

Reincarnal, by the way, is one of several indie movie projects we were developing (“we” being my pal Phil Dingeldein and I). Chad Bishop are starting pre-productions on Blue Christmas.

Again, these are e-book “box sets” that are at a $3.99 price point. Such a deal! (The Max Allan Collins Collection Volume One is the four Eliot Ness books, and The Max Allan Collins Collection Volume Two is the John Sand collection (the trilogy plus a short story, by Matt Clemens and me).

Now, some of you are not into e-books. You like physical media. Me, too.

Buy the hardcover Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by M.A.C. and Brad Schwartz here (from Daedalus Books) at a mere $6.95 (originally $29.99).

Daedalus also has the previous Nathan Heller hardcover novel, which thus far does not have a paperback reprint, Do No Harm, with Nate tackling the Sam Sheppard murder case.

* * *

Early tomorrow morning [Monday, 8/7–Nate], I am going into the hospital for a procedure that, with any luck, will get me back home the same day. So by the time this appears, I should be able to post something about how it went.

This is what’s called an ablation, which is done to deal with a-fib, which has been slowing me down since before my heart surgery in 2016.

[Update: The procedure went smoothly, and Max is back home recovering.–Nate]

* * *

Here’s an interesting Tom Hanks article, suggesting he’s the reason the violence in the film version of Road to Perdition was dialed back some.

* * *

The exciting Skydance announcement about Mike Hammer is all over the Net. Here’s an example from Deadline.

A few more (of many):
https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2023/08/skydance-bringing-mickey-spillanes-mike-hammer-back-to-the-big-screen/
https://www.thewrap.com/skydance-mike-hammer-franchise-ip-rights/
https://www.darkhorizons.com/skydance-planning-a-mike-hammer-film/
https://www.joblo.com/mike-hammer-movie-mickey-spillane/

M.A.C.

Quarry on the Brain

Tuesday, July 25th, 2023

On the occasion of my starting a new Quarry novel, Quarry’s Return, let’s look at Quarry on audio and screen.

Let’s start with this excellent overview, which properly gives Hard Case Crime some praise for bringing the series back to life, and lavishes praise on the film The Last Lullaby (more about that below).

I have been very lucky with the readers of my audio books. Dan John Miller is, hands down, the voice of Nate Heller. For a long run, I had Stacy Keach himself reading the Spillane/Collins novels. When Stacy stepped down, Stefan Rudnicki stepped up and has done a fabulous job – no small job filling those Keach shoes (and trenchcoat). Several readers have done right by Quarry, but Stefan is the definitive Quarry.

Check out this sample and see. And hear.

If you’ve never seen The Last Lullaby, the Quarry movie starring Tom Sizemore, co-written by me (and derived from my novel The Last Quarry), it’s available on Amazon Prime.

It’s also available on YouTube. Looks good there.

Here is the trailer.

While I like the Quarry Cinemax series, I think The Last Lullaby – even though Quarry is called “Price” there in – is the more accurate rendition of the character.

I required the production not to call the lead character Quarry because I didn’t want to give up sequel rights. This is the same reason Parker is called “Walker” in the film Point Blank, based on Richard Stark’s The Hunter.

Unfortunately, the short (and award-winning) film, “A Matter of Principal,” which I wrote for the same director (Jeffrey Goodman) who put together The Last Lullaby, does not seem to be available anywhere but on the somewhat out-of-print Black Box that collects a number of my films.

It’s available at Amazon for (gasp!) $68, but secondary sellers there have it for much less.

Troma Direct has it for a much more reasonable $29.71.

I won’t provide a link, but e-bay has it for $40 and up.

Wherever you get it, The Black Box includes: Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market; Mommy; Mommy’s Day; and Shades of Noir, which has several of my shorts, including “A Matter of Principal.” Be forewarned that better versions of the two Mommy movies are coming.

There are a few copies of just the Shades of Noir DVD (never sold separately from the Black Box boxed set) at e-bay in the $25 range. The Troma option seems the best.

Now if only they’d send me some royalties!

* * *
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, still from train action scene.

A quick appraisal of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.

Well, it’s a terrific action movie. Beautifully shot, with Tom Cruise going for broke in what is likely to be the conclusion of the series with Part Two. It’s a thrill ride and often surprisingly witty. Not without heart, it shows a human side of the Cruise character and his supporting cast.

On the downside, the A.I. aspect is not explored as anything but another Blue Meanie. A Big Blue Meanie, the Ultimate Blue Meanie; but little is done with it. The biggest deal is probably screwing up the Internet and forcing our agents to (arrghhh!!!) go analog to use the Net.

The horror.

I am also not crazy about the Part One/Part Two thing, because a two-and-a-half hour movie ought to give you some resolution.

Terrific and fun, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning etc. is not, to me, as satisfying as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (reviled by some, particularly those who decided to hate it before seeing it). Here’s the difference: MI is an action movie and a satisfying one, a wild ride. Indiana Jones is an adventure movie. It’s about, among other things, archeology. Which is to say it’s about something, and not just a vague, scary Big Blue Meanie.

That does not mean you should skip MI, because it’s a terrific example of an action movie. Its action scenes outdo the Indiana Jones movie by half; the final scene on a train in MI is one of the best action scenes (and funniest) I’ve ever seen, if not the best). But Indy is adventure and speaks to the inner child in a very different way.

Not a popular view perhaps, but there you have it.

* * *

Here is a positive review of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction that is nicely illustrated and worth a look.

And here’s yet another “Movies You Didn’t Know Came from Comic Book” articles. Guess what’s included. (And no, I didn’t “base” Road to Perdition on Lone Wolf and Cub – the latter was an influence among a number of other influences. A key influence, like John Woo HK cinema and the real life of John and Connor Looney and Richard Stark’s Parker and various movies about Bonnie and Clyde and more.

M.A.C.

Rock & Roll Happened…Twice

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

This past weekend my classic rock band Crusin’ appeared twice in three days. Since we only perform in the summer and limit ourselves to around four bookings, this was unusual to say the least.

But the two venues – Ardon Creek Winery and the Muscatine Art Center (for their annual Ice Cream Social) – are regulars of ours and we weren’t about to turn either of them down.

I had some trepidation because of my ongoing health issues, which in particular make the load-in and load-out difficult for this 75-year-old rock-and-roller. But my bride Barb and son Nathan lent a hand in both instances, and that made all the difference. My bandmates Steve Kundel, Bill and Scott Anson were understanding, too, and both gigs went well. We were up against weather on Sunday afternoon for the Ice Cream Social, but the heavy stuff (as Bill Murray would say) did not come down until we were loading out.

This week for my update I am primarily sharing photos taken at these two performances. The photographers were Barb and Nate. Our grandchildren, Sam and Lucy, were in attendance for both events, and there will be an attack of cuteness included. Diabetics are forewarned.

Crusin' at Ardon Creek, June 23, 2023
Crusin’ at Ardon Creek, June 23, 2023
Granddaughter Lucy, a born rocker (Ardon Creek)
Granddaughter Lucy, a born rocker (Ardon Creek)
M.A.C. cues the boys at Ardon Creek
M.A.C. cues the boys at Ardon Creek
M.A.C. with grandson Sam after the Ardon Creek gig
M.A.C. with grandson Sam after the Ardon Creek gig
Crusin' on June 26, 2023 at Muscatine Art Center
Crusin’ on June 26, 2023 at Muscatine Art Center “Ice Cream Social”

Crusin’, at the moment, only has one more gig scheduled, but we are working on what is undoubtedly our last CD, which will be original material recorded live…or anyway that’s the plan. We hope to come out of it with both an audio version and a video (with audio of course) version.

Fittingly, this week I have a link to a nice write-up about my first band, The Daybreakers, focusing on our LP.

Here’s a good if patronizing write-up about my final Batman issue.

AV likes Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition, ranking it among his best performances. Me, too.

Finally, it’s yet another of these “movies you didn’t know were based on comic books” write-ups. But they like Road to Perdition, so what the hell.

M.A.C.