Posts Tagged ‘Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction’

The Movies Keep Pulling Me Back In!

Tuesday, May 16th, 2023

I’ve spent a lot of time here, at this update/blog entries, over the past year or so talking about Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer, and my efforts to complete Mickey’s work and to specifically celebrate the 75th anniversary of Mike Hammer’s first appearance in I, The Jury.

Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction cover
Hardcover:
E-Book: Kobo
Digital Audiobook: Kobo Libro.fm

A good deal of these posts have centered upon the biography written by Jim Traylor and me, Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction (and published by Mysterious Press). The response to that book has been terrific, and I have reason to hope our bio will be considered the definitive work on Mickey and will play a major role in getting this great and very influential mystery writer his due.

Lately here I’ve discussed certain Spillane-centric efforts of myself and longtime collaborator Phil Dingeldein, the Director and Photography (as well as Editor) on my indie films Mommy, Mommy’s Day, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market and Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. We have expanded my 1998 documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, from 47 minutes to 61, covering the later few years of Mickey’s life and work as well as my project of completing his unfinished manuscripts (at his request in the final weeks of his life).

We also – and as I’ve reported here, did so last-minute and somewhat on the fly – recorded the performance last September in Muscatine, Iowa, of my Golden Age Radio-style play, Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder, capturing Gary Sandy’s charismatic performance as Hammer (he had starred in productions of Encore at Owensboro, Kentucky, and Clearwater, Florida, previously, and of course was Patty McCormack’s co-star in Mommy’s Day).

This fall the expanded Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane with Encore for Murder presented as a second feature will be out on home video from VCI Entertainment. VCI will be taking both the documentary and the edited/recorded play performance out to the streaming services, too. We are also in early stages of putting together definitive versions of Mommy and Mommy’s Day, having finally located their un-Filmlooked masters (not coincidentally Mickey appeared as Mommy’s lawyer in both).

Things on these updates will begin swinging back toward my own (and Barb’s) work, as only two more Hammer novels (one already delivered, Dig Two Graves) are planned. That may change, as Skydance has optioned all the Hammer novels (the solo Spillane and collaborative Spillane/Collins ones). A renewed interest in Mike Hammer and his creator, due to a new big-deal movie, could inspire me to go back to the files and see what of Mickey’s unfinished work remains.

Encore for Murder has led to a reawakening of my interest in filmmaking. I’ve continued to do the occasional screenplay (director David Wexler is prepping Cap City, based on the Spillane/Collins novella, “A Bullet for Satisfaction”) but I had thought, after my heart surgery and other medical fun-and-games, my moviemaking days were over, save for the occasional scripting job.

But working with editor Chad Bishop has revitalized me, and so we are moving from Encore – that little “movie” that sort of willed itself into existence – to Blue Christmas, based on my novella, a sort of Scrooge/Maltese Falcon mash-up. We have only a couple of more weeks on our Indiegogo campaign to raise $5000 that will provide some of the matching funds needed if our Greenlight grant comes through (and if it doesn’t, those funds will go into the production itself).

A good number of you have supported this effort and I appreciate it…very much. I have been offering perks here that are not part of the Indiegogo descriptions of levels of participation. What I’m doing is working with contributors to fill items on their M.A.C. want list, according to the level of their contribution; most of you will be thanked on screen. Here’s a window on the Indiegogo page. We are at nearly $3000 at this stage.

Anybody who contributes $35 will be recognized on screen. (Keep in mind my postage and handling for your perk, once we’ve decided via e-mail what you’d like, comes out of that $35.)

Our budget is probably going to be around $150,000, with “in kind” figured in – in kind covers things like meager-to-no salaries for actors and crew, local businesses supporting us with free lodging and food, etc. We are seeking a relatively small amount but need it to secure matching funds, often a requirement with grants, or to help cover cash outlay. Much of what we’re doing is volunteer and includes the support of Muscatine Community College, where we’ll be shooting much of the production in their Black Box theater.

Really, I anticipate putting on screen something like looks like at least a half-million-dollar production. (We did Real Time and Eliot Ness for $10,000 and $15,000 respectively.)

I am a believer in the notion that if the story is strong, and the performances and production professional

enough, you don’t have to have huge stars and Hollywood production values to make a satisfying movie. It’s a small miracle that we’ve done five features, two feature-length documentaries, and three award-winning shorts right here in this corner of Iowa. If you want to help us work another minor miracle, consider stepping up.

We are coming down the pike here. If you’ve been thinking about participating, now’s the time.

* * *

While I did not attend the Edgars this year – I can lose so much more easily at home than in a New York hotel – I was asked by the MWA to write about Mickey for their nifty program book. In that publication, a number of mystery writers were celebrated by other pros in the field in brief essays about why each of the chosen artists were worth, well, choosing.

This is what I wrote:

MICKEY SPILLANE
by Max Allan Collins

In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, TV private eyes were the rage. Among the first was Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1958) with Darren McGavin, which I started watching when I was ten. Video P.I. series were often directly based on literary sources – The Thin Man, Phillip Marlowe, 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason – with the biggest hit, Peter Gunn, a Hammer variation. I haunted the spinner racks, using my buck a month allowance to buy 25-cent paperbacks by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Spillane books were considered “dirty,” and for a while I satisfied my urge just reading the jaw-dropping endings. I researched Hammett, Chandler and Spillane, discovering the first two were admired and celebrated, whereas Spillane was attacked as juvenile delinquent-breeding trash. I loved all three, so this made no sense to me. So began a lifetime of reading, defending and eventually getting to know Mickey, and having the privilege of turning his unfinished material into books.

Mickey defies literary appraisal – he is an unpretentious blue-collar ex-comic book writer, his first seven novels (six Mike Hammer mysteries) his most popular, significant work. But his amazing first and last chapters, distinctive first-person voice, and noir poetry on every page makes him more than just a pop phenomenon. For reasons explored in Mickey Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction (2023, co-written by James L. Traylor and me), he stopped writing novels for ten years at his popular peak. Returning for a longer run in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, he was back on the bestseller lists but overshadowed by Ian Fleming, the obscure British thriller writer Mickey’s publisher promoted during their star’s absence. Much of Mickey’s later career was media-driven – he starred in two movies (as Hammer in The Girl Hunters, 1964) and spoofing himself in an eighteen-year (!) run of Miller Lite commercials. A household name in the 20th Century, Spillane demands reappraisal as the writer who re-invented private eye fiction, and whose success sparked the creation of paperback originals, with Hammer the template not just for Bond but Dirty Harry, John Shaft and every vigilante-tinged tough guy who came after.

* * *

Here’s a nice gallery of Hard Case Crime covers, including some of mine. [The site creates galleries from Tumblr hashtags and may contain NSFW content –Nate]

Here’s a mixed review from the somewhat accurately self-described B-Movie Enema. What this reviewer doesn’t understand is that reviewing a movie off You Tube is not the ideal place to judge its lighting, production values or audio (very hissy on You Tube, we’re told – like Gomer Pyle once said, “Surprise, surprise!”). Still, he makes some interesting points. But the major point he makes, inadvertently, is that we are lucky we found the original pre-Filmlook masters for a re-release of both Mommy movies next year.

By the way, the same reviewer liked Mommy a lot more. A lot. He really appreciates Rachel Lemieux’s terrific performance.

I do hope this reviewer will revisit the sequel when he realizes (a) you shouldn’t judge how a movie looks or sounds on You Tube, and (b) you shouldn’t expect the sequel to be exactly like the original.

M.A.C.

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.

Encore for Encore

Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

The poster pictured here will give notice to anyone within driving distance of Muscatine, Iowa, the information needed to attend the theatrical premiere of the filmed version of Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder starring Gary Sandy as Mike Hammer.

Encore for Murder premiere poster

It’s a Golden Age Radio presentation, the actors with scripts (sometimes) in hand, the costuming limited, the sound effects produced on stage (often to comic effect) with a foley table manned by the editor of the feature, Chad Bishop. The cast, other than Mr. Sandy, is local, though these are experienced theatrical veterans, many of whom have appeared in independent films. This production of Encore was presented only once, last September, as a benefit for the Muscatine Art Center.

We did record two dress rehearsals, and some footage from those was edited in (sometimes just the audio used), and what was a two-act play was edited into one continuous 90-minute production.

My goal was to produce a substantial bonus feature for a home video release (Blu-ray for sure and possibly DVD) of the expanded Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane documentary from 1999. My collaborator Phil Dingeldein shot and edited (and I wrote) enough new material to bring Mickey’s story up to the present, and expand the running time from 47 minutes to about an hour. (The Criterion special edit, for their disc of Kiss Me Deadly, runs about half an hour.) Though taking the doc up to 61 minutes made releasing it on its own a possibility, I felt adding Encore for Murder as an Added Value bonus would enhance the package. I also was proud of what we accomplished on what was essentially no budget (and some free help from Phil and dphilms, and Chad Bishop and Muscatine Community College). Even Gary Sandy donated his considerable services.

Gary, as you may know, played Hammer in Golden Age of Radio-style productions of Encore for Murder in Owensboro, Kentucky, and Clearwater, Florida. Encore was nominated in its original, somewhat longer incarnation for an Audie (Best Original Work) in 2011 with Stacy Keach and a full cast doing it for Blackstone Audio. We won Best Script in 2012 at the International Mystery Writers’ Festival in Owensboro, and in 2018 did a rather more elaborate production at the Ruth Eckard Hall’s Murray Theater in Clearwater, Florida.

The Muscatine production held its own in comparison, utilizing the approach of the Clearwater show, which included a large screen with scene-setting slides, costumes and music. The music we used came from Chris Christensen’s score for Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane and Stan Purdy’s 1954 music for Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Story.

The big news is that VCI Entertainment – who brought the Mommy double feature out on Blu-ray not long ago – will be distributing both the new version of the documentary and Encore for Murder (on one Blu-ray) and taking them out individually to the streaming services.

If you are considering coming to Muscatine for this event, we would recommend the Merrill Hotel, a lovely new facility right on the Mississippi.

* * *

The Max Allan Collins Film Festival that is screening my home (no guests invited) continues throughout my birthday month of March.

5. Murder He Says. This 1945 hillbilly take on The Old Dark House sub-genre is the best comedy Bob Hope never made…but Fred MacMurray did. Helen Walker (of the original and superior version of Nightmare Alley) is wonderful here as is Marjorie Main, very much a sociopathic Ma Kettle. In town police is.

6. Waiting for Guffman. The funniest of Chris Guest’s semi-improvised mockumentaries showcases SCTV superstars Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, although everyone here is great….Christopher Guest, Parker Posey and Fred Willard tying for MVP. The Blu-ray has much more of local musical Red, White and Blaine, with numbers apparently cut not just for timing purposes but because they are too good.

7. Harvey. One of James Stewart’s three greatest performances (It’s a Wonderful Life and Vertigo being the others). He’s often been called a little too young for the role of Elwood P. Dowd but it works to the advantage of the film, as he comes across less a drunk (much less) and more a sweet person who stepped away from harsh reality into pleasant fantasy. On the other hand, the movie does not shy away from indicating that Harvey really exists and and how are you, Mr. Wilson?

8. Game Night. This 2018 film is the newest in my film festival so far, but it’s a gem. Hilarious with every performance spot on, and Jason Bateman at his very best. Jesse Plemons as the cop next door almost steals the picture anyway.

9. Leprechaun. Everything else this time around is a comedy, right? But then so is Leprechaun, and the special features documentary reveals that a second director/writer came in and did the really bloody gore stuff, which doesn’t harm this vastly underrated film much at all, because its absurdity fits right in. Did you expect us to watch anything else on St. Patrick’s Day? I just wish the sequels had stayed consistent with the original. We met Warrick Davis and he’s a great, great guy.

Signed Photograph of Warrick Davis as the Leprechaun
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This terrific review of Spillane – King of Pulp Fiction includes an interview with me. A follow-up will soon cover Jim Traylor’s interview on our well-received book.

Wolfpack has the Eliot Ness “Cleveland quartet” at a reasonable price.

An interesting review of the Yoe Books Johnny Dynamite collection, edited and with contributions by Terry Beatty and me, is here.

If you missed it, here’s the info on the Muscatine Community College “Legends” tribute to, yeah, well, me. It takes place on March 30 (a Thursday evening) and the Encore for Murder screening is March 31.

Tickets here. They’re expensive but go to the college.

Trailers from Hell takes a long look at the current Blu-ray release of Mickey Spillane’s The Long Wait, with a commentary by me.

The Trailers from Hell essay is interesting if pretty patronizing, but trust me – The Long Wait is a terrific Spillane noir. Read about it (and order it) here.

For a look at a Long Wait clip, take a gander at this.

And yes, this time it’s Collider telling us about ten movies from comic books that you didn’t know yada yada yada. But, hey – we’re in fourth position.

M.A.C.

Fancy Anders and the Beck/Woods Boys

Tuesday, March 14th, 2023
Fancy Anders For the Boys cover
E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link
Trade Paperback: Amazon Purchase Link
Digital Audiobook: Amazon Purchase Link
Audio CD: Amazon Purchase Link

Fancy Anders For the Boys – the second of the three Fancy Anders novellas – is out now, available in trade paperback, e-book and on audio. Each has its advantages – the trade is an actual physical book (yay!) while the e-book includes the Fay Dalton illustrations in full color, whereas the trade paperback has black-and-white versions (the cover is obviously in color). The audio is fabulous – Barb and I have been listening to it in the car, and Skyboat has again done an exceptional job featuring sound effects, music and a wonderful Gabrielle De Cour narration. Having a skilled female narrator reading Fancy is just perfect.

Here’s where you can get the trade paperback, the e-book, and audio.

I really love these novellas, and hope one day to collect them in an oversize hardcover edition with all the Fay Dalton illos in full color…but for now this is how they exist (and will exist – we have one more to go). I intended this project to be a full-length mystery novel that would first appear as three standalone novellas (much as Dashiell Hammett did in The Dain Curse). I wrote all three during the Covid lockdown and the length of time between publication of each book reflects the time it takes Fay Dalton to do these great illustrations. Worth the wait!

A lot of love and research went into these, which were inspired to some degree by a desire to do an American variation on the Australian “Phryne Fisher” mysteries (the TV series – I’ve never read the novels). Ms. Tree began similarly, as an attempt to be the “answer” to the UK’s Modesty Blaise. Fancy is sort of a younger version of Michael Tree, definitely sharing some storytelling DNA; but she is definitely her own specific character, a spoiled rich girl with a spine. But I also have long wanted to do something that really drew upon my love for Golden Age Hollywood, and Los Angeles during World War II attracts me as a particularly rich period to write about.

In the first Fancy Anders novella, Fancy Anders Goes to War, she goes undercover at an aircraft plant as a war worker, a rivetter; in this one, she is undercover as a hostess at the Hollywood Canteen among Bette Davis and other Hollywood stars.

We only have three Amazon reviews so far, two of which are glowing, the other being rather puzzling in its negativity. After saying how great the first novella was, the reviewer complains about how short this one is – actually, it’s exactly the same length as the first book – and the reviewer complaints that Fancy manages to always be in the right place at the right time. Okay, I would suggest two things: first, any detective in a mystery who is in the wrong place at the right time isn’t going to accomplish much of anything; and just about all of the action takes place at the Hollywood Canteen, where Fancy is working undercover. Of course she’s in the right place at the right time.

Anyway, if you read (or listen to) Fancy Anders For the Boys, your Amazon review will be appreciated, unless you hate it. And Fancy Anders Goes to War is still very much available here, in trade paperback, e-book and on audio (another elaborate Skyboat production).

* * *
M.A.C. and Phil Dingeldein with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck

Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, the two young filmmakers who started making films at age 11 in their native Quad Cities, made it big by writing the smash hit A Quiet Place. They have since done a terrific little horror picture, Haunt, and now have a new science-fiction thriller, 65, hitting theaters – starring Adam Driver, no less.

These are two very nice and obviously talented guys and deserve their success. Barb and I, with my filmmaking associate Phil Dingeldein and his wife Shelley, were invited by the Woods and Beck team to attend a screening of 65 on March 11 in Davenport. They were kind enough to single Phil and me out, in the audience, as having been inspirations to them. Again, these are nice guys.

The really good part is how terrific their new film is. I’ve seen it get a few bad reviews and I frankly don’t understand it, unless petty jealousy is in play (and it frequently is). It’s an exciting ride with a great heart and I don’t know what more you can ask from a movie that already is giving you space ships and dinosaurs.

Barb and I have walked out on the last two movies we attended – both the new Antman movie (and we both like Paul Rudd) and Guy Ritchie’s latest film (and we both like Ritchie) after a painful half hour of each. 65 is 90 minutes that held us every one of those minutes.

* * *

Speaking of movies, March is my birthday month and here at the Collins abode we are commemorating it with a Max Allan Collins Film Festival, which is not a festival of Max Allan Collins films, but rather his (my) favorites. Here are the presentations thus far:

1. Chinatown. Probably the greatest private eye film ever made, not even excluding Kiss Me Deadly and The Maltese Falcon.

2. The Two Jakes. The criminally underappreciated sequel to Chinatown. Looks like it’s getting some reappraisals lately.

3. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. A fantasy film I’ve loved since childhood, featuring Robert Montgomery’s greatest performance.

4. American Graffitti. The film that gave me the idea to do a ‘50s/’60s nostalgia band, which became the you-can’t-kill-it-with-a-stick Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Association inductees, Crusin’. We saw this easily ten times in the theater, pre-home video.

More to come.

* * *

Here’s a short but sweet review from The Saturday Evening Post:

Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor. This is the definitive biography of the incredibly popular creator of the Mike Hammer novels. Collins knew Spillane and has taken over the writing of the novels, so he knows his subject well.

Here, speaking to Paul Davis, is the late great Elmore Leonard on Mickey Spillane.

And here is Paul Davis on Mickey and the Collins/Traylor biography on Spillane.

M.A.C.