Posts Tagged ‘Road to Purgatory’

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Quarry’s Return, Rodriguez, Barry Newman & William Friedkin

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

I have completed Quarry’s Return and shipped it to my editor Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime and to my longtime agent, Dominick Abel. This included a long day of re-reading the 60,000-word manuscript and another day of entering my tweaks and corrections, assembling the chapter files into one big file, and doing a conversion from Word Perfect to Word, followed by a page-by-page check for glitches (and there were some).

This was something of a test case for me, as I have (as regular readers of this update/blog know) been dealing with health issues. My wife Barb has been encouraging me to slow down the writing process, and I have to a degree, but my approach is dependent to some degree on momentum, so I like to get a book done in as short a time as possible because I believe the narrative drive benefits.

This is the second novel I’ve written this year. The Mike Hammer novel, Dig Two Graves, was written starting in February and March. It’s a fairly short book, about 50,000 words, and I wrote it in three weeks, which impressed and sort of irritated Barb, who spends six months on her Antiques drafts before handing one over to me.

Between the two books I’ve written several book proposals, a short story with Matt Clemens (just sold to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine!), and revised a couple of screenplays. Also, we completed the expansion of the Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane documentary and the edit on Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder, both with VCI releases yet this year.

The month I spent on Quarry’s Return included my hospital visit for a heart procedure, followed by a complication from which I am still recuperating (but doing very well). I only lost about three writing days due to the procedure – writing seems to be something I can do and feel “normal” doing, even when I’m under the weather.

Quarry’s Return is a coda to a coda, the latter being Quarry’s Blood. I did not expect to be writing about the older Quarry again (the Quarry who is about my age), but that’s the story that occurred to me and that my editor liked the sound of. What transpired was a novel that took Quarry back to Port City, Iowa – the site of his first recorded adventure, Quarry AKA The Broker (1976) – which plays into the title and to the coda of coda notion.

Will there be more Quarry? As long as there is more of me, probably…though any subsequent Quarry novel will likely be set in the past, as the other HCC Quarry books have been.

Quarry’s Return feels like a good one, but until I hear from Charles and Dominick, I won’t know for sure. Turning a novel in can be followed by requested rewrites in some cases. To me, it’s a nice combo of the Richard Stark-inspired crime novel side of the series and the Mickey Spillane-inspired private eye aspect of the series…in addition to being a hitman (various varieties of which depend on where a story falls in the timeline), Quarry often acts as a sort of P.I. That’s even got him occasionally nominated for a Shamus award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

The novel also has my trademark combination of human sentiment and inhuman behavior that no doubt confuses some, and keeps me off some readers’ preferred reading list.

I don’t recall when it’s scheduled to come out. Probably 2024. I’ll let you know here.

* * *

I have several meetings this week as we move into serious pre-production on my micro-budget movie, Blue Christmas. We suffered a blow when (apparently) we did not receive any Greenlight grant money. That parenthetical “apparently” reflects the failure of the program to come even close to when they were supposed to reveal the results of the competition, which they haven’t officially yet.

This blow puts us further into the micro budget area, and decisions have to be made, and will be made shortly. But unless my health intrudes, I intend to will this sucker into existence. I have great help from my collaborators Phil Dingeldein, Liz Toal and Chad Bishop.

I want to spend at least part of the next few years returning to film projects – sort of my last chance to do so.

Phil and Liz and I, and my Hollywood “guy” Ken Levin, are working hard to get my horror film Reincarnal made. Some of you have read the novella it’s based on, the title story in a Wolfpack collection of mine (Amazon link). [And in the soon-to-be-released Max Allan Collins Collection Volume Four: Dark Suspense (Amazon link) – Nate]

I am in early stages of working with Phil, Mike Bawden and the great Robert Meyer Burnett to create a Heller podcast series that would, we hope, seed the clouds for a Nathan Heller movie or TV series. A long ago project that I was working on for (and with) the late Miguel Ferrer – a film based on my novella Dying in the Post-war World – is in the mix.

We still have an eye on getting Road to Purgatory produced. I have the rights back on my screenplay from my novel, the direct sequel to Road to Perdition.

Other things whirling in the currently strike-stalled land of the wooded holly: the recently announced Mike Hammer feature film from Skydance; a Nolan movie from Lionsgate; and an Eliot Ness in Cleveland mini-series from CBS Films.

Sounds glittering and great, huh?

If I were confident about the big-time stuff happening, would I be preparing to do a micro-budget Christmas movie?

I ask you.

* * *

Among the bad things about writing a weekly update like this at my age is how many people I admire do us the disservice of dying.

But two of my favorites have passed and I must comment.

Rodriguez is a musical artist I discovered recently, thanks to my guitarist in Crusin’, Bill Anson, turning me onto him. I’d had the documentary Searching for Sugarman (2012) on my DVD shelf for some time – my agent gave it to me for Christmas years ago – but had not gotten around to watching it. I finally did, and if you haven’t seen it, you need to.

The basic story is simple if incredible. A talented singer/songwriter out of Detroit, Rodriguez made two wonderful albums (Cold Fact, 1970, and Coming from Reality, 1971) that were mostly overlooked by critics and completely overlooked by the public. He returned to a life divided between playing in small venues and doing day labor, taking great pride in the latter. He essentially fell off the national grid, and legends grew up about him dying on stage, sometimes committing suicide at the end of his set. He became huge in South Africa and popular in Australia, as well, and continued to be unknown here until the documentary came out in 2012.

Some of you know that I am not a fan of Bob Dylan the vocalist, though I like much of his songwriting. His nasal off-key singing is fingernails-on-the-blackboard stuff to me, though I find it interesting that both Tom Petty and John Lennon used him as a vocal role model, but did so by restoring the concept of singing in key.

Rodriguez is often compared to Dylan, but it’s a pretty shallow comparison. You can’t deny Dylan was a prolific singer/songwriter, and his catalogue of compositions is staggeringly large and impressive. Rodriguez did two albums of beautiful melodies and poetic skill in a warm, eccentric vocal style that displayed a limited vocal range but is the perfect vehicle for emotional material delivered from a cool distance.

He’s great.

And he’s gone, at 81. After his discovery made him if not a household word but at least well-known among popular music buffs, new albums from him were limited to a couple of live performance CD’s. He copped to having continued his songwriting all those years, but no new album emerged. I am hopeful that there’s a vault somewhere at his regular label, Light in the Attic Records, that will bring more of his material to light.

* * *

My friend Bob King edits the great Classics Images (published right here in Muscatine, Iowa), in which he covers all kinds of wonderful mainstream and obscure aspects of classic Hollywood. I always check the obituaries (like George Burns, I’m checking to see if I’m there) and now and then a shock comes to the system: Barry Newman has died at 92.

Barry Newman was – no, damnit, is – one of my favorite actors. He came out of the gate fast and was a popular leading man and unlikely action star in the 1970s. He top-billed the cult classic Vanishing Point (1971) as well as Fear Is the Key (1972), and The Salzburg Connection (1972). He later became a star of TV movies, headlining twenty films in the ‘80s. Later he turned up now and then in bigtime films like Daylight (for which I wrote the novelization), The Limey and Bowfinger. But largely he fell off the radar. I never understood that and still don’t.

He made his first splash in The Lawyer (1970), which was based on the Sam Sheppard murder case and evolved from an intended biopic of then famous attorney F. Lee Bailey. His charismatic performance as the title lawyer, Anthony Petrocelli, led to a TV movie (Night Games 1974)) as that character and the two-season, Emmy-nominated Petrocelli TV series (1974-1976). The showstopping aspect of The Lawyer was Newman’s outrageous courtroom performance topped by his summation to the jury, in which he presented an alternate version of the crime to interpret the facts that ultimately got his client sprung. This trademark jury summation followed Newman and the character into the series.

Much of Newman’s success in The Lawyer is due to the dynamic direction of Sidney J. Furie, who put Michael Caine on the map in The Ipcress File (1965). But Newman rose to the occasion.

The Lawyer Episode Guide Cover

I got in touch with him a few years ago, in part because I’d written an introductory piece about The Lawyer and Petrocelli for a Bear Manor Media book about the TV series. Mostly I wanted to get in touch with him because it was The Lawyer (more than The Fugitive) that made me want to do a Nathan Heller novel about the Sheppard case.

When I called him – this is typical Newman behavior – he answered in an old man voice and pretended to be his own grandfather. When he determined who I was, and that I was worth talking to, he became Barry Newman again and might have been thirty or thirty-five, judging by voice alone. We had several wonderful phone conversations and I sent him my Sheppard “Nathan Heller” novel, Do No Harm (2020). He is thanked and recognized in both the text of the novel and the afterword.

He was very complimentary about my essay about him and his work on The Lawyer, and was nice enough to say that my piece was his favorite thing in the Bear Manor Media Book, which you can buy here.

The TV series is available here.

Unfortunately The Lawyer is not available legally on physical media, other than in the wonderful but expensive Sidney J. Furie boxed set currently out of print (but you can find it on e-bay).

The Lawyer is available on Amazon Prime.

I intended to call Newman to congratulate him on the Blu-ray box with The Lawyer finally doing him and that film justice. But I hadn’t got around to it. I do know that he and director Furie were trying to put a movie together with Newman starring. This was just before Covid hit.

But somehow I find it reassuring that in his late eighties, Barry Newman was looking for the next project.

* * *

I mentioned here that Robert Meyer Burnett’s enthusiasm for To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) had found me ordering a film that I’d despised in the theater on its first release.

I do occasionally discover a film I’d not enjoyed years ago turning out to strike me differently today. But I am more inclined to continue liking the films that I liked then. If you had asked me for a list of my favorite films, in 1985, I’d have said, Vertigo, Kiss Me Deadly, Gun Crazy, Chinatown and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (can you spot the non-noir in that list?). I would have cited Alfred Hitchcock and Joseph Lewis as my favorite directors, and James Bond as my favorite film series. Hardly any change.

Revisiting To Live and Die in L.A. was a different ride. First off, its star – William Peterson – I have always liked, going back to Manhunter (1986) and Long Gone (1987); and I did (with Matt Clemens) my long run of CSI novels, comics and even video games with Peterson playing Gil Grissom not only on TV but in the theater of my mind. He even spoke my dialogue in the CSI video games.

What quickly became clear to me (I’d probably noticed this on first viewing, too) was that director William Friedkin was doing a West Coast variation on his very successful East Coast cop thriller, The French Connection. I’ve liked a lot of what Friedkin did, but I don’t think he ever topped The Exorcist and The French Connection.

His work generally strikes me as that of someone who is a great storyteller but not a great writer. He is at his best adapting a novel or play or non-fiction work. Left to his own devices, he can create a vivid movie filled with compelling scenes, and To Live and Die in L.A. certainly qualifies in that regard.

And it’s based on a book, but not a particularly good one. I don’t like to comment on other novelists’ stuff, so that’s all I’ll say.

But this narrative, as presented by Friedkin, has so many cliches, it’s no wonder it pissed me off in 1986. And, look, Friedkin was thinking about doing my True Detective and did this movie instead, which at the time undoubtedly pissed me off. Still, this is a movie that begins with the young lead character’s veteran cop partner having only three more days on the job, with only one dangerous gig ahead. This is a character who says the immortal line, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

It’s also a cop movie where the naive, idealistic new partner eventually becomes the continuation of the corrupt veteran partner who has died in the line of duty. That this is an unbelievable character shift is in no way justified.

Many of the semi-improvised scenes work, a good number do not. It does have some interesting female characters and a car chase designed to out-do the famous one in French Connection. And it comes very close.

I now like this movie, with reservations. Like a beautiful pock-marked woman. SPOILER ALERT: …… killing the lead with fifteen minutes of the movie left was a bold move that irritated me then and makes me smile and nod now.

Incidentally, I accidentally ordered the Blu-ray, not the highly regarded 4K disc. They share the same transfer and special features and I thought it looked fantastic.

I should say that the fuss over 4K may be at least partially dependent on the size of your TV. I have three TVs – a 55″ flat screen in the living room (with a shallow viewing distance between my recliner and the screen), a 45″ TV in my office, and a 19″ tube TV also in my office, for viewing laser discs. The 55″ is from a brief period where you could find monitors that could present both 3-D and 4K. My 45″ is 3-D but not 4K.

Why do I mention this? Because some people say that you need 65″ or larger to appreciate the difference between Blu-ray and 4K. This isn’t entirely true, but there’s something to it. The Blu-ray of To Live and Die in L.A., which I almost sent back unopened to exchange against the 4K, really does look excellent on my 55″ screen.

And for me having the ability to screen 3-D is a must. I have too deep a 3-D library to feel otherwise.

I am also not as attuned (shall we say) to sound. I have a sound bar with a sub woofer and to me everything sounds great. Terms like Dolby Atmos and DTS and 7.1 are outside my area of interest and expertise. For one thing, the reality of my life is that once Barb goes to bed (at 10 pm) I can’t watch anything loud, anyway. I usually watch with subtitles, and still get scolded by the angry woman who storms out, my charming understanding bride having been somehow absconded and replaced by this unforgiving one.

It’s not unlike my situation where my collector gene comes in conflict with my realization that at my age, I have better ways to spend my time and money than upgrading everything from Blu-ray to 4K, and spending big bucks on collector sets with lobby cards and booklets and do-dads that I’ll look at once, smile, and stow away.

* * *

Here’s an article about filmmaking in the Quad Cities, covering a gathering at Phil Dingeldein’s dphilms stuido.

M.A.C.

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A Legendary Evening

Tuesday, April 4th, 2023

[Nate here with a quick plug before this week’s update: VJ Books, home to the world’s largest selection of signed books, is featuring M.A.C. for the month of April with a 50% off sale. Check it out below!]

VJ Books M.A.C. sale banner
* * *

Most of the honorees to date among Muscatine Community College’s Legends have been pillars of the community, including a former dean and major industrialists, and certainly no other writers of sex-and-violence thrillers. How is this to be explained?

Here are the words writer Robert Towne put into the mouth of John Huston as Noah Cross in Chinatown: “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

That may explain it.

I attended Muscatine Community College from 1966 through 1968. My father taught choral music there in the 1950s. I took classes at MCC throughout my senior year of high school and racked up a good number of credits, and had the pleasure (and honor) of being taught and mentored by Keith Larsen, poet and gentleman farmer, who has a building named after him at MCC. So I had affection for the community college before I made the decision to turn down a bunch of writing and even football (I’d have been killed) scholarships, influenced by my desire to keep my band the Daybreakers together. I’d formed the combo my senior year of high school and wanted to stick with it for a while. No idea the Daybreakers would morph into Crusin’ and I’d still be at in 2023.

I taught Freshman English and classes in both literature and creative writing at MCC during the first five years of my so-called adult life. My last semester at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City coincided with me teaching half-time at MCC, which over those five years would expand to full time and then (as my fiction writing career got off the ground) recede back into half-time.

But my roots with MCC are deep, and in that fashion at least my becoming “Legendary” there makes at least a little sense. I should mention that Barb not only attended MCC – where the two of us got together, after knowing each other since childhood – and got her four year-degree there from an extension program offered by Iowa Wesleyan College (now, unfortunately, facing a shut-down). She was also on the scholarship board for MCC and as far as I am concerned is every bit as legendary as yours truly.

The evening celebrating my new legendary status – last Thursday, March 30, at the Merrill Hotel – was pleasant and fun, and never embarrassing. Friends like Matt and Pam Clemens were there, as were bandmates Bill Anson (guitarist) and Steve Kundel (drummer). I’d gone anticipating seeing a lot of my parents’ friends, but few were in attendance, having (like my folks) long since passed away. So a lot of the faces were as unfamiliar as they were friendly.

Our number one fan – Stephen Borer, who is blushing even as he reads this – made an unannounced trip from St. Paul, Minnesota (!), to attend the event. He sat with us at the Collins family table, where son Nate, his bride Abby, and our two incredibly smart grandchildren – Sam, 7, and Lucy, 4 – were also seated. Those two kids sat through a long evening, surprisingly interested in the proceedings and even (mostly) paying attention to the documentary about their grandfather. (Sam noticeably gasped when some violent pages from Lone Wolf and Cub were displayed in the doc as having influenced Road to Perdition.) My wife’s wonderful aunt Helen, herself an MCC legend in tandem with her husband, the late Stan Howe (a great friend of my father’s), sat with son Jim with Barb splitting time between the two tables.


M.A.C. and Stephen Borer

We gave away 130 copies of various M.A.C. and Barbara Allan books, and I signed quite a few after the dinner, which was provided by more than half a dozen local restaurants. The main event was an excellent half-hour documentary about my life and work. Before you dismiss my positive reaction as having mostly to do with my approving of the subject matter, I have to say Naomi DeWinter (president of MCC) and the college’s media guru Chad Bishop did an incredible job pulling the disparate elements of my creative life together into a cohesive whole.

I hope to have a link, before long, to this documentary, as some of you may wish to give it a look.

We also, rather casually, let it be known that the aforementioned Chad Bishop – who was the on-stage foley artist, among much else, on Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder – has enlisted me to do a project at MCC…specifically a production of Blue Christmas, long a favorite unrealized project of mine.

You may have read a little about that here already, but I’ll recap. Blue Christmas is a proposed film version of my novella, “A Wreath for Marley,” which might be described as a mash-up of The Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol. I thought I’d hung up my indie filmmaking spurs (or maybe megaphone and jodphurs) after a long effort to get Road to Purgatory made followed by my descent into health problems, most dramatically open-heart surgery. But then the Encore for Murder experience – staging it as a play and then shooting it as a film (or video production or however it might best be described) – got my juices flowing again.

(NOTE: The screening of Encore for Murder at the MCC Black Box Theater has been moved to May 5. Inclement weather caused the postponement, although the success of the Hawkeye girls in the Final Four was also a factor.)

We are already in serious pre-production with Blue Christmas, and have applied for several grants – one particularly key – that require us to come up with matching funds. Some of that can be “in kind” (i.e., I don’t get paid) but some has to be actual, you know, money. So we have launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise those funds. See my video pitch below.

I’ll be talking about this more over the coming weeks and months. But if you can kick in a few bucks – maybe enough to make it into the credits with a producing credit – that would be much, much appreciated.

By the way, if you’re never read “A Wreath for Marley,” it’s in a book entitled (not surprisingly) Blue Christmas from Wolfpack. And it’s available right here.

Speaking of Wolfpack, they have Barb’s (and my) great collection of short stories, Too Many Tomcats, on sale for 99-cents right now. Don’t dismiss this as a “cat” book – Barb (and I) mostly write about cats who are either killed or are themselves killers.

Amazon has a deal worth noting, too. Starting April 1 and running through April 30 Fate of the Union by Matt Clemens and me is $2.99 on e-book.

* * *

Sadly, we have come to the end of the Max Allan Collins Film Festival, held annually during March, my birthday month. Here are last week’s selections:

12. Super Troopers. Okay, they can’t all be Vertigo or Chinatown. Sometimes they just have to be dumb fun, and this movie is the most dumb fun to be had in one place, and it is a refreshing look at Brian Cox before Succession, which I like…just not as much as Super Troopers. A few years ago the Broken Lizard comedy team (who put this film together) appeared in Iowa City at the Englert Theater. Barb and I got to meet them after the performance and they were unfailingly nice and fun.

13. The Magnificent Seven. Barb requested a western and I quickly served this one up. Never get tired of it. Never get tired of seeing all these stars either at their peak or on the cusp of greater things. Never get tired of watching Steve McQueen upstage Yul Brynner, and Yul Brynner entertainingly retaliating. Then there’s Eli Wallach, whose performance here – really, the whole movie – paves the way for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

14. Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Another Barb request – I wanted to wait till June 1 for this one, when summer was getting started, but when a lovely blonde requests a screening of one of the greatest comedies ever made, who am I to argue? Not a knee slapper (like The Producers for example), Hulot is all gentle comedy, observational humor, and pleasing sight gags. It always feels like you’ve been on vacation after viewing it.

15. Start the Revolution Without Me. This is one of the three truly outstanding funny performances from Gene Wilder (the others being the aforementioned Producers and Young Frankenstein). The first half of this film is hilarious – a take on The Corsican Brothers specifically and swashbuckling films in general – but the second half devolves into farcical blackouts, which are also hilarious but intermittently. Look, the movie is a mess. But what a wonderful, sublime mess, from the greatest comedy team who ever made only one movie together: Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland. “As we say in Corsica — goodbye!”

16. Hour of the Gun. Another western – James Garner as Wyatt Earp and Jason Robards as Doc Holliday in what was then the most accurate retelling of the O.K. Corral shoot-out (and the subsequent “vendetta ride”) to date. It’s still the best, and a grim shock to the system for Garner fans raised on the wry Maverick. The second western from director John Sturges this week (Magnificent Seven being the other).

17. The Time Machine. George Pal’s charmingly dated yet timeless special effects and a narrative that rests comfortably on the broad shoulders of Rod Taylor are enough. But the surprisingly moving story of a man unstuck in time, who falls in love with Yvette Mimieux without quite knowing it, retains its emotional impact with an action-packed climax that holds up (Taylor doing almost all of his stunts). This sports a terrific supporting performance from Alan Young, who deserved better than Mr. Ed, and a mesmerizing score with a haunting theme by Russell Garcia.

Thus ends this year’s Max Allan Collins Film Festival. What, no Gun Crazy? No Kiss Me Deadly? What about The Great Race? No Anatomy of a Murder? There’s always next year….

* * *

Peter Davis at The Washington Times has been very kind to Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction. Here is his interview with my co-author, James L. Traylor.

The Big Bundle is briefly but intelligently discussed on this podcast.

Finally, fifteen comic-book murder mysteries are recommended here, and Road to Perdition is one of them.

M.A.C.

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Movies Are Your Best Entertainment!

Tuesday, December 19th, 2017

Here’s a video I did to promote the prose Perdition saga in the great new Brash Books editions. If you don’t have them, what are you waiting for? A good use for your Amazon gift cards.

And now for Christmas, I thought I would share more opinions about movies with you, all wrapped in a big red bow. You’re welcome.

My son Nate has mentioned frequently my demented taste in film (some of which he shares). When I’m gone, he threatens to mount a web site where every day he will grab one DVD or Blu-Ray or maybe even laser disc at random, and review it. Might be The Big Combo or it could be The Invisible Ghost with Bela Lugosi (both were directed by Joseph Lewis, after all).

To demonstrate what he is talking about, here some movies I’ve watched on home video lately. These include a few movies I saw as awards screeners that I receive as a WGA member. Most I bought. Also, a few theatrical releases are tagged on at the end. All are mini-reviews.

Dolores Claiborne (1995) – really good Stephen King movie with no supernatural aspect, stylishly directed by Taylor Hackford. Great character study and sorta mystery starring Kathy Bates and Jennifer Jason Leigh (of Road to Perdition fame).

Death Rides a Horse (1967) – one of my two favorite non-Leone Lee Van Cleef Italian westerns (the other is The Big Gundown). With John Phillip Law as Clint Eastwood. A new, slightly longer Blu-Ray from Kino. Saw it in the theater twice.

T-Men (1947) – excellent noir directed by Anthony Mann about undercover fed Dennis O’Keefe. O’Keefe is way underrated. Black-and-white cinematography by genius John Alton (I, the Jury). Starts with a stilted intro by Elmer Irey, one of the guys who took credit for taking Capone down and dissed Eliot Ness. See him brought to earth next year in Scarface & the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness & the Battle for Chicago.

The Laughing Policeman (1973) – interesting if dreary police procedural with Walter Matthau in a mostly humorless portrayal and Bruce Dern in a rare heroic role, though he’s casually sexist and sadistic, anyway. From a nordic noir novel. 1973 is starting to feel like a long time ago.

Battle Cry (1955) – wonderful Hollywood-ized Raoul Walsh-directed adaptation of the forgotten Leon Uris bestseller. Great soap opera of men training where my dad did in San Diego; an incredible cast – Aldo Ray, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis James Whitmore, Anne Francis, Van Heflin, Dorothy Malone…did I mention Anne Francis? L.Q. Jones appears under his real name playing a character called L.Q. Jones, which he then took as his stage name. Tons of familiar male actors making early appearances. Final half hour of battle finally arrives and is compelling.

Annie Get Your Gun (1957) – from VAI, a Blu-Ray of Mary Martin and John Raitt in a TV “spectacular” of the famous Broadway show. Great performances from the stars and lots of fun. Native American stuff and male/female interaction that will amuse you, especially if a humorless gal is in the room watchin’ with you. Assuming you survive.

Thieves’ Highway (1949) – gritty noir about trucking written by A.I. Bezzerides (Kiss Me Deadly!) from his novel, Thieves’ Market. Excellent villain performance from Lee J. Cobb, striking female lead in Valentina Cortese, and Richard Conte fine as a nice guy who is dumb enough to make you talk back to the screen. Hey, everybody in the sleazy bar! Look at all the money I just got! Director Jules Dassin tells us how much he hates capitalism, right before he packs his bags and heads overseas.

Since You Went Away (1944) – surprisingly effective home front soaper from producer/scripter David O. Selznick, directed by John Cromwell. Teenage Shirley Temple (disturbingly appealing – I’m pretty sure Roy Moore has this one on his fave flicks list) and Jennifer Jones convincingly go from kids to young women while Claudette Colbert reminds us why she was a movie star. Moving and generally unmanipulative for this kind of thing. Great cast also includes Joseph Cotten, Monty Wooley, Robert Walker, Lionel Barrymore and Guy Madison. A Christmas movie, by the way, though that doesn’t come in till the last act.

And now some new things….

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – this is an excellent showcase for both Frances McDormand and especially Sam Rockwell, with nice work from Woody Harrelson, too. The movie is challenging because it keeps shifting, challenging your thinking and assumptions, with none of its characters perfect (except perhaps Harrelson’s) and the resolution of its crime story elusive. Lovely writing and direction from Martin McDonagh. One of the two or three best of the year, topped only by Wind River.

The Post – boy, what a disappointing Mr. Show movie! Though they appear in a number of scenes together, David Cross and Bob Odenkirk just never get truly funny. And the story is quite unbelievable – a crooked United States President who tries to stifle and belittle freedom of the press? Some story ideas, even in a comedy, are too outlandish to pull off – just not funny! Supporting players Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep hog the screen from stars Cross and Odenkirk.

I, Tonya – good, quirky docudrama about the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident that ignited interest in women’s competition ice skating. Well done, but star Margot Robbie, though very good, is miscast as Tonya, whose petite figure, not quite pretty face, and white trash aura call for a physically smaller, less overtly attractive, less obviously smart actress. Worth seeing.

Star Wars – The Last Jedi. I am thrilled for Mark Hamill, who knocks it out of the park with a genuine star performance. At its best, this is a wonderful movie and audiences will likely love it, and they should. But it’s way too long and overstuffed with very usual Star Wars plot shenanigans, plus a weak performance or two (Laura Dern, anyone?). But Luke Skywalker shines. This series was launched as The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, you know.

So – these were all viewed over a couple of weeks. That’s how we spend our evenings and the occasional at-the-actual-movies afternoon. This is relaxation in Iowa. If you’re nice to me, I won’t do this to you again.

* * *

Bill Morris says Quarry’s Climax is one of the best books of the year – and he’s right. Read here to find me on a list with Joan Didion.

Here’s a nifty little piece about Quarry’s War issue #1.

M.A.C.

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Nathan Heller Confidential

Tuesday, September 12th, 2017

Out of the blue came a lovely e-mail from Nate Heller fan Peter Roff, who is attempting to read the saga in chronological order. He had some questions for me, and I answered them. With his permission, I’m sharing them with you.

Peter writes: Not that you should care, particularly, but I’ve spent the summer re-reading what I refer to as the original Hellers – everything from True Detective through Chicago Confidential – in the order they were released.

It’s a very different thing to see Heller’s character progress and develop in the linear fashion you provide as the creator of his universe then it is to time travel through his life as I first did, having to find the books where I could online, used, and in some cases very hard to get. At onetime I despaired I would never find a copy of Million-Dollar Wound, for example.

They are, in a word, brilliant. Writing is hard enough. Developing a coherent story line even more so. But to interpose fact with conjecture and make it all believable is the work of a true artist.

I have, though, a couple of questions/comments:

1) After finishing Chicago Confidential this evening I had a singular thought: In Nate Heller’s universe, did he kill Sam Gianacana? For some reason, perhaps the solitary nature of his murder, suggests to me he did.

Well, that might have happened if Perdition and its sequels hadn’t come along. The trickiest thing was establishing (not that anyone cares) that Heller and O’Sullivan were in the same fictional universe. That was a decision I struggled with, because Perdition is looser with the facts than Heller. But Road to Purgatory seemed to me to obviously have to tackle the same material as Million-Dollar. So I chose to make them work together as a pair — fit together like a puzzle, if anybody cares.

2) Is it possible, after spending so much time building him up as a character in the second series of Hellers – the ones that begin with Bye Bye, Baby – that you will NOT have Nate tackle the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa? I ask only because it seems such a natural thing for him to be involved in some fashion but the murder (presumably) is outside the timeline you originally announced.

Where I go from here depends, quite frankly, on how long I’m around. I’m in good shape right now but the last two years were filled with nightmarish health problems that almost killed me. I went back and “picked up” Better Dead because I thought that period and the two stories that comprise it were essential to the overall saga. I’m doing Sam Sheppard next in part because it shouldn’t be as demanding as some of the bigger landscape stories. I hope to do both RFK/Hoffa (in a pair of books) and maybe some piece of Watergate. Anything after that would be filling in blanks. But I’m 69, so how much time I have left to play this game remains to be seen.

3) I have not yet read Better Dead – and am trying to decide if I want to continue reading the books in order through the fall – I’ve read them all, including the two collection of shorts – to stay within the chronology as written OR if I should read it now because, in the real world chronology, McCarthyism comes after Chicago Confidential (more or less) but before Marilyn Monroe. If you have a thought as to which direction I should take I would welcome it.

Read Better Dead. If you can do it after Confidential, that would be ideal. A proviso: I can’t guarantee consistency with a saga written over such a long period of time. Heller isn’t perfect as an old guy gathering his memories.

4) Have you considered a Ronald Reagan book. I know we differ politically BUT I have for many years had a sense there’s a mob story there to be told. His relationship to MCA, his tenure as head of the Screen Actors Guild – you touch on it all when Heller goes to Hollywood and gets close to the IATSE/Willie Bioff studio business. But, for sake of argument, follow it through – what if all the racket busting that happened during Reagan’s presidency – particularly the stuff Rudy Giuliani did to the five families in New York – wasn’t somehow, some way, an extremely sophisticated plot to disadvantage The Syndicate and its interests, perhaps even cripple it, for the benefit of The Outfit and the fellows in Chicago?

Not on my plate at the moment, but interesting. Reagan of course is in True Detective. I was never a fan of his presidency but, brother, is he looking good now. Thanks for not letting politics get in the way of reading the novels. I write the very conservative Mike Hammer, after all, and with Mickey Spillane’s blessing — and he and I weren’t exactly on the same political page…..

Peter ends with: I’ve taken up more than enough of your time. I’ll close here but not before thanking you once again for creating Nate Heller and his universe. It has provided me with hours – days really – full of enjoyment. First, through the pleasure of taking in the stories themselves, then in taking the time to delve into the actual history of the events through which he passes and, finally, to contemplate how close to the actual solution you may have come.

He also provided a link to a fascinating story about a real-life Nate Heller in the 20th Century, which puts the lie to the notion that Heller’s life as I report it is far-fetched.

* * *

Last week Barb and I took in an appearance by Bruce Campbell at the beautifully restored Englert Theater in Iowa City. It was a kind of fancy book signing, with every attendee getting a pre-signed book by Bruce, and Bruce then doing some off-the-cuff stuff before reading a funny section of his new Hail to the Chin. He followed this with taking questions from the 700 in attendance, who were clearly the kind of people who longed to have their Ash action figure signed. He gave them a wonderfully wry bad time, humiliating the dumber questions with a light touch, and as for the intelligent questioners…well, there weren’t any.

Afterward he signed one item for anyone who cared to stay and line up to do so, and Barb and I bailed. We had our signed books, and I’d met Bruce before. So we tucked our Evil Dead Season Two blu-rays and DVD of the complete Jack of All Trades away and drowned our disappointment in Pagliai’s Pizza, the best pizza in Iowa City (and the universe).

Watching Bruce Campbell deal with his very special fan base is a study in patience, good humor and genuine understanding of the importance to him of the kind of geeky fan who would bring the complete Jack of All Trades DVD for signing.

* * *

Barb was down with a cold, so I took in IT by myself (she wasn’t that interested). I am lukewarm on Stephen King but I like horror, so I went. You probably did, too. Let me get the negative out of the way, with a little positive mixed in. I read Carrie before the film came out and was mightily impressed. The Shining, too, and a couple of other things. The original films from those two novels are masterpieces, and I include the Kubrick, which nobody seems to notice is a deal-with-the-devil movie.

Anyway, IT (never read the book and didn’t see the old TV mini-series) got off to a bad start with me when an outsider girl got garbage dumped on her by mean girls. Later she would be washed in blood, which the story ties to menstrual blood. In addition to this unimaginative reworking of Carrie (right down to a Travolta-esque bully) we have a fairly lazy reworking of Stand by Me, with kids as stereotypical as the G.I.s in a 1940s war movie. And predictably all the adults in the world of these young teens are monsters – grotesques, Hieronymous Bosch figures in bad eighties clothing. But what do you expect from a guy who wrote two haunted car novels?

Still, it’s a fine line between just repeating yourself and exploring recurring themes, and King is a law unto himself. Any writer has to stand in awe of an author who is so popular that a new section of the bookstore has to be created – that’s right, there were no “horror” sections at all in bookstores before King. Of course, now there are almost no bookstores. (Steve – have you done haunted bookstore yet?)

So did I like IT? Very much. It’s heavy-handed, but I am fine with melodrama, and most horror is very much that. This is a world where fear lurks in darkness – including the almost comically under-lit homes where the teens live with their awful single parents – and each kid must face his or her biggest fear to overcome the monster that their parents may have created. Not an new idea but a deeply resonating one.

This is a beautifully crafted movie, and the kid actors are so good, they don’t seem to be acting at all. Director Andy Muschietti handles the young cast very well, though he is stronger on creepy than scary (but I did jump a couple of times). Bill Skarsgård as the evil clown is a prime example of the creep factor, his smile oozing saliva and blood lust. And any hetrosexual male who does not fall in love with actress Sophia Lillis as Beverly needs medical attention, right now.

* * *

Crusin’s third gig with new guitarist Bill Anson is our last scheduled date of the year, though if something comes in, we’ll consider it. We’ll be rehearsing once a month over the winter. Here’s a shot of us playing bike night at Ducky’s Lagoon outside Andalusia, Illinois – a lovely night till it got cold, and reminded me why I don’t try to book anything in the winter.

* * *

Here’s a lovely review from the great Bill Crider of the upcoming Quarry’s Climax.

And check out this interesting take on A Killing in Comics. The reviewer suggests that I should be more successful and better known than Michael Chabon, and who I am to argue?

M.A.C.

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