Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 36

Prime Eliot Ness! And a Fond Farewell

I am pleased to announce that my filmed version of the play Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life is now available in HD on Amazon Prime, and included as part of your membership. Here’s a link so you can watch it at your leisure, and I hope you take time to give it a nice rating (as in five star). [Note from Nate: For non-Prime members, rental is $2.99 and you can own the digital HD for $9.99]

As you may recall, the film is a one-man show with my late friend Michael Cornelison bringing Ness back to life. It was made possible by a grant from Humanities Iowa, several airings by Iowa PBS, and a lot of hard work by my buddy Phil Dingeldein and myself (and many others).

This is very gratifying, and of course is the work that led directly to the current non-fiction book, Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, & the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me.

Coincidentally, I got this news while I was in Las Vegas with Brad making two appearances in support of our book at the Mob Museum. The museum itself is a terrific facility, and those who run it are outstanding. I was blown away by how much of what is on display relates to various things I’ve written, from Dick Tracy to the Nathan Heller saga and the four Eliot Ness in Cleveland novels. A wall of photos and descriptions of organized crime killings was virtually a greatest hits of my literary output (Willie Bioff, Mad Sam Destefano, etc.). I will include some highlights by way of photos, including my co-author and me in front of the actual St. Valentine’s Day Massacre wall as well as with the real machine guns used in that, uh, celebration. More photos may follow.

Because our appearance was in conjunction with the 90th anniversary of the massacre, and the seventh anniversary of the Mob Museum opening, the attendance reached record proportions. Both of our appearances were well-attended, as were book signings in the Mob Museum gift shop.

What’s interesting to me is how attitudes in Vegas have shifted on the mob influence that built the modern “sin city.” Back in the ‘80s, researching Neon Mirage – the Nate Heller novel about Ben “Bugsy” Siegel and Vegas – I encountered some resistance to my research into what was then seen by many as an embarrassing aspect of local history. That has definitely changed, as Vegas embraces its colorful past.

Brad did an excellent job, utilizing power point presentations (Baby Boomers – that’s “slide show” to you) and I was frankly not at my best at the first presentation, very tired from travel and a long day. The subsequent presentation, however, found me back on my game and Brad just as good as before. If we get a link to the video of it that the Museum made, I’ll provide it in the next few weeks.

Interestingly, nobody asked me a single question about CSI, which of course was set in Vegas, with my five years as its licensing writer (novels, video games, jigsaw puzzles, graphic novels, often with Matt Clemens) not rating a single inquiry. CSI seems to have retreated into the past, at least the Las Vegas past.

All in all, it was a great trip, and there’s a reasonable possibility we’ll be asked back next year to talk about The Untouchable and the Butcher (the sequel to Scarface and the Untouchable, currently in progress) and the new Nate Heller (Do No Harm, the Sam Sheppard murder case, due out in about a year).

* * *

My fellow classmates at Muscatine High School will be saddened to learn of the death of Steve Kochneff, a beloved figure in our collective past and one of my best friends from those years. As had been the case with Jon McCrea (who became the partial basis for Quarry), Steve was someone I stayed in touch with over the years. He spent much of his life in L.A., pursuing the Hollywood dream, and he and I and Barb often got together there, to catch up, meeting usually at the great deli restaurant, Cantor’s.

At MHS, Steve was a genial madman, an eccentric with a unique comic wit, very popular and known for his creativity and his athletic ability. His father had been a much-loved and successful basketball coach, and Steve – who was tall and lanky – was a center on our MHS team, and excelled in that role.

But Steve also was known for mounting crazy comic skits. He and I were collaborators on these. He would come to my house and we’d hole up in my room with me at the typewriter and Steve pacing and throwing around ideas. This was very much like the old Hollywood cliche, short only of Steve puffing on a cigar. At the height of the James Bond craze, we did a Goldfinger take-off skit at a pep rally about a villain called Purple-and-Gold-Finger (purple and gold being our school colors – why the villain bore the school colors is lost to history and my fading memory). The kids loved it.

I was always a little jealous of Steve’s popularity around the school, since we were collaborators and he got the credit, or anyway the love. I was too intense and needy, and Steve was just a big guy with a great laugh and a wide smile, and all that love came pouring in, unbidden. As with so many high school stars, those days were probably the best of his life. In years to come he would be jealous, in a very sweet and even supportive way, of the success I’d achieved in the arts, staying home in Iowa when he had made the Hollywood trek.

I have talked about how I wrote novels in high school and tried to sell them – writing all summer, marketing all year (unsuccessfully), and my career is based on that enthusiastic early obsessive behavior. Only Steve Kochneff was capable of topping me. He wrote a Laugh-In script a year or so after graduation and drove out to Hollywood to deliver it. My memory is fuzzy on this, but I believe he eventually did do some work on the show.

Over the years he had a lot of projects and many were interesting, and I believe some were stolen from him. He created potential shows, with scripts, for a comedy about female wrestlers, a cop show about a motorcycle-riding Hispanic female detective, and an ambitious film script about a cloning of Princess Diana. And much more. His biggest success, perhaps, was his pioneering production company shooting videos of high-ticket homes in Beverly Hills, Bel Air and other exclusive sections.

We talked a number of times about collaborating, and I offered several times to get involved with projects. But he always preferred to go his own way – to talk to me and get input, but make his own mark. Like many talented people in Hollywood, he came close. So close.

He came back to Muscatine from time to time and stayed with us at least once that I can recall. I know he envied my luck in having Barbara as a wife, so beautiful, so supportive, so talented herself. He knew I had really struck gold there, that this was an element that he wished he had in his life. I know he had close relationships with various women in Southern California and also, I think, in Arizona. But he never shared details with me.

I had a phone call from him a few months ago and it was a warm exchange, as always. I gave him a bad time for not coming to the MHS 50th class reunion, and he revealed to me that he was embarrassed to attend. He thought we all knew that he’d gone to prison for a while, apparently on a trumped-up, non-violent charge. But we hadn’t heard, and when he told me – rather haltingly – I said I was in the friendship business, not the judgement one. Typically, he was full of enthusiasm to write a movie script or TV pilot based on his experiences inside. Like any real writer would, Steve viewed incarceration primarily as an opportunity to do research.

Listen, I loved the guy. It broke my heart to learn he had died January 2 in a psychiatric hospital. But I am relieved that his search for fame and success is finally over, because I suspect as the years passed that effort grew only more frustrating and finally painful. I want to assure you that our phone conversation, perhaps two months before he passed, was filled with laughter.

I can hear that laugh right now. One of those distinctive laughs, a combination of glee and embarrassment.

He signed himself Starko, and I didn’t even get into what a terrific artist – in particular cartoonist – he was.

So long, Steve. Damnit. So long.

* * *

Yes, it’s yet another “Films You Didn’t Know Came from Comic Books” write-up in which Road to Perdition is included.

M.A.C.

Untouchable Vegas!

My co-author, Brad Schwartz, and I are making two personal appearances at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, next week.

First, we’ll be doing a talk about Scarface and the Untouchable with an emphasis on St. Valentine’s Day. Not surprisingly, that appearance will be February 14 at 7 pm. Here are the details:

Wiseguy Speaker Series and Book Signing: “Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness and the Battle for Chicago.”

TIME: 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., with a book signing to follow.

LOCATION: Courtroom on the second floor. Seating is on a first come, first served basis with a maximum occupancy of 120 guests.

DESCRIPTION: Over the decades, the stories of mobster Al Capone and lawman Eliot Ness have been subjected to literacy license and Hollywood exaggeration. This new book from authors Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz peels back the layers of these myths to reveal a deeper narrative of these iconic figures. The event will conclude with a book signing.

Second, on Saturday, Feb. 16, I will be presenting a look at the Road to Perdition in particular as well as at my Nathan Heller novels, in particular Neon Mirage, with its Vegas basis. Interviewing me will be none other than distinguished historian…A. Brad Schwartz! How did we land him? Anyway, here’s the details.

The Road to Perdition

DATE: Saturday, Feb. 16

TIME: 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. with a book signing to follow.

LOCATION: Courtroom on the second floor.

COST: Free

DESCRIPTION: In this special discussion, “Road to Perdition” author Max Allan Collins will be interviewed by fellow author A. Brad Schwartz (“Scarface and the Untouchable”) about the fascinating story behind his acclaimed novel. Set in Chicago during the Great Depression, the graphic novel, “Road to Perdition” tells the story of Michael Sullivan, a Mob enforcer on the hunt for revenge after a failed hit.

Attend and learn about:

The real-life Mob inspiration behind the character of Michael Sullivan.

The Academy Award-winning film adaptation starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law.

Collins’ other novel, “Neon Mirage,” which delves into early Las Vegas and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

The Mob Museum will have other events related to their own seventh anniversary. Here’s a cool article about that and about the Massacre.

Hope to see you folks from the Vegas area there, and any vacationers, too!

* * *

An excellent crime film, Cold Pursuit, is in theaters now. It’s not the typical Liam Neeson revenge thriller that it might seem to be. Reviews are mixed, but the bad ones seem obsessed with Neeson discussing his own irrational rage as a young man and how destructive that was. More about that later.

The film is a black comedy based on another good film, In Order of Disappearance (2014), starring Stellan Skarsgaard, who played the Broker in the never-aired Quarry pilot (how I wish he’d been retained, though his replacement wasn’t bad). Though some nice, mostly American-related touches are added, this is one of the most faithful remakes I’ve ever seen, probably because the same director did both: Hans Petter Moland. New screenwriter Frank Baldwin, however, made some interesting adjustments to the new setting, in particular substituting Native American drug-dealing ring for Serbian gangsters.

As for the Neeson controversy, it’s a fine example of how the left is going to screw up their anti-Trump efforts. I am a liberal, as you probably know, a somewhat left of center one who is probably more an independent but who so often votes Democrat, it’s a moot point. My son thinks I am not nearly progressive enough, but then he’s 35 and I’m 70, and that means I’ve suffered through more reality than he has.

So Neeson, discussing revenge, tells an interviewer that after a friend was raped by an African American, he was filled with rage and wanted to go out and thrash the first “black bastard” that gave him trouble. He spoke of this as a bad thing, something that demonstrated how stupid revenge can be, particularly racially oriented revenge, and how dumb he had been as a troubled young man before he grew older and wiser and came to his senses.

Of course the far left has seized upon his racial comments out of context and made Neeson into a racist. No question in this climate that many really shitty things are going down – I mean, is there any politician in Virginia who didn’t think blackface was funny and okay back in the 1980s? Uh, I was there for the ‘80s, and it wasn’t.

But must we work so hard to ruin people’s careers? Is it really surprising Al Franken put his arm around women who wanted their pictures taken with him while he shared his goofy grin with the camera?

Republicans don’t apologize. That’s not an attribute, but it works better than attacking each other when somebody makes a slip or just says something you don’t agree with. Nuance, people.

Just wait. The Democrats will find a way to blow this. The left will somehow manage to keep Trump in the White House. What the hell – every Liam Neeson movie needs a bad guy.

M.A.C.

Giving Away a Girl!

Paperback:

E-Book:

MP3 CD:

Audio CD:

[All copies have been claimed. Thank you for the terrific response! –Nate]

Yes, it’s another Max Allan Collins book giveaway, this time of Girl Most Likely. The usual conditions prevail – you must agree to post a review at Amazon with reviews at Barnes & Noble and blogs also welcome. (If you dislike the book, you are encouraged to keep it to yourself and consider your obligation satisfied).

Reviews do not have to be lengthy.

IMPORTANT: Do not post your Amazon reviews until April 1, when the book goes on sale – no foolin’. Amazon won’t run reviews till the book is available (pre-orders don’t count). Blog reviews can appear any time.

Other conditions are: you must include your snail mail address in your e-mail, and we can accept only USA requests.

I have ten advance copies to give away. Technically, these are Advanced Reading Copies and are uncorrected…only I didn’t make any corrections after this stage of publication, so you’ll be getting the real book. No hardcover is being published, so the trade paperback is it.

This grass roots support is vital. The book is published by Thomas & Mercer, Amazon’s suspense line, so I really encourage reviews at Amazon most of all, since they keep a close eye on their publications. T & M are giving me a great deal of support, and I will be doing everything I can to help in that effort. You’ll be seeing guest blog entries from me elsewhere, for example.

Whether or not you send in for one of the ten freebies – and act quickly, because these tend to go the first day – I can really use the support of those of you interested enough in my work to drop by here.

I will soon be composing an essay for Crime Reads about the attractions – and dangers – of an author known for one thing (noir in my case) writing a change-of-pace novel. And Girl Most Likely certainly is that. Oh, it’s got violence and suspense, all right. But the protagonists are not the tough guys/gals I often write about in my overtly hardboiled fare – rather, Krista and Keith Larson are non-genre figures, reminding you (I hope) of real people you know.

Both father and daughter are law enforcement – Krista is a police chief who previously was a detective on the Galena PD, Keith a retired homicide cop from Dubuque – so you won’t find them foreign in any way. But Heller or Quarry or Hammer, they ain’t. And no first-person in sight.

So that’s a danger. I’ve already encountered that with the Barbara Allan books, which despite being good mysteries and funny as hell – and in that regard very much cut from the same cloth as my other work – do not please all of my longtime readers. Some of those readers refuse to even try the “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” Antiques mysteries. And some who do don’t like them. Different strokes.

Girl Most Likely is not as radically different as the Antiques books are from other things I’ve done (often with Matthew Clemens), like the CSI books, What Doesn’t Kill Her, the Reeder and Rogers trilogy, USS Powderkeg, (did you order that yet?) and the Barbara Allan-bylined standalones – Bombshell and Regeneration. But this Girl is different. It flows from my desire to follow the example of Nordic noir, for one thing.

We’ve had two advance reviews from the “trades” – a patronizing one from Kirkus and a bad one from Publisher’s Weekly. This demonstrates the dangers of a change-of-pace book. Kirkus thinks Girl Most Likely reads more like a novel written by Barbara Collins, tacking on the left-handed compliment of that not being altogether a bad thing. The problem with that is, Barb has never published a novel that I didn’t collaborate on with her (I am the “Allan” in “Barbara Allan,” remember). As for PW, they hope next time I’ll “return to form,” which means obviously that I should stick to hardboiled noir.

Both those reviewing services, by the way, publish only unsigned reviews.

As long as real people read Girl Most Likely – that’s you I’m talking about – these snarky, sullen reviews from the trades won’t hurt the novel. Maybe library sales could suffer a little, but I am pretty firmly placed in those ranks.

An author like me, who only occasionally rises to the bestseller lists, depends on library sales. I’m always amused when a reader apologizes to me for checking my books out from the local library, rather than buying them. Well, no apologies are necessary – those libraries buy the books!

I will be talking more about Girl Most Likely as we approach the pub date. In the meantime, I will be writing the prequel, Girl Can’t Help It (yes, it’s about rock ‘n’ roll).

As for the attractions of a change-of-pace novel, that’s obvious, isn’t it? The chance to do something new, to flex different muscles, and maybe to attract new readers, who otherwise wouldn’t have tried any of my books.

Hey. Everybody. Thanks for the support. More free books to follow!

* * *

Saw Stan & Ollie today and loved it. In this part of the world, finding a theater that had this snapshot of “the boys” at the end of the team’s career was tricky as hell. But we did it. The leads (Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly) were sublime, the supporting cast damn near as good, and the script a sensitive but not overly sentimental job of it.

Also, you will understand why it was tough for the very popular likes of Abbott & Costello and Martin & Lewis to stay together. You can extrapolate why rock acts split, as well, when fans can’t understand why their favorites (who are making such great money) can’t just get along.

I found it moving. I’m at an age where the movies and music I grew up loving get to me in a visceral way. I choked up in this one more than once.

* * *

Here’s a nice review of Quarry’s Climax that does not obsess over the sex scenes! The reviewer dislikes the Quarry TV series, though. I liked it. Of course, I was getting the checks….

And Angel in Black is included in this look at various Black Dahlia books (both non-fiction and fiction).

M.A.C.

Inspiration, Perspiration and Exasperation

Paperback:

E-Book:

USS Powderkeg will be available on February 1. You are unlikely to find it in a bookstore, so go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or BAM! iTunes has it, too – read about that here.

Info about the book itself is available at Brash Books.

We have used the cover before, but this book – finally under my preferred title with my revised text – is important to me and will require some effort on your part to lay hands on it. This is the novel based on my late father’s experiences in World War II as one of a handful of white officers on an ammunition ship whose crew was otherwise African-American.

After shrugging off our disappointment at Scarface and the Untouchable not getting nominated for an Edgar – my “shrugging off” included expressing how pissed off I was, on Facebook – my co-author, A. Brad Schwartz and I are digging in to make some corrections and additions to the upcoming trade paperback edition (June 4).

This will include a new preface as well as bonus material (in the style of DVD extras) that will focus on the newly discovered case file of one of the Untouchables, which serves to underscore and further verify our conclusions about Ness and how he and his team have been underestimated and short-changed by history.

We are also prepping for a visit to the Mob Museum in Las Vegas over Valentine’s Day, about which more will appear here next week. Brad has also been out on the stump by himself somewhat, as I have been burrowed in, here in very cold Iowa, working on novels. Yesterday day I completed the new Quarry novel, Killing Quarry – although I will be re-reading it and tweaking it and such for a few days this week.

Anyway, among Brad’s adventures in promoting our book (did I mention the criminal overlooking of this major tome by the MWA true crime committee?) included this fine interview.

Speaking of the MWA committee’s neglect, someone I trust has suggested the intimidating length of the book probably put some or all of the committee members off. I suspect some truth might be found in that opinion. Having served on MWA committees, I know it’s a fact of life that the committee members are swamped with books to read in full. On the other hand, the advance notices (particularly the fine mini-review from Grand Master Sara Paretsky) should have encouraged them to do so, anyway.

What can you do to help make the pain go away? Well, if you attend Bouchercon this year, you can vote for Scarface and the Untouchable in the non-fiction Anthony Awards category.

I know I plan to.

Hey, I realize this is undignified and sour grapes and boo-hoo-hoo. I have a love/hate relationship with awards, anyway (love to be nominated, hate not to be, and also losing). But awards as respected as the Edgars bring new readers to the nominated works and especially those that win. They have importance only in that regard, because otherwise it’s just a bunch of subjective nonsense.

I feel much the same way about reviews. I want good reviews not because I need validation, but because more readers will come to the books. I would be lying if I said bad reviews don’t matter to me, because they do, and not just in the sense that they discourage readers (sometimes, oddly enough, such reviews don’t always work that way). But it hurts to have something you’ve put hard work into savaged and/or dismissed, particularly when a smart reviewer nails you for something you’re guilty of.

What hurts about Scarface and the Untouchable is the work, and the years of research, that went into it. I am less angry about this for myself and more for my co-author, whose research (building on my original research in Heller and Ness novels) has upended conventional wisdom about Capone and his tax woes, and Ness and the lack of respect and credit he gets, from those who resent how Hollywood portrayed him. Brad did a stellar, mind-boggling job.

He deserved better.

* * *

As I mention, I finished Killing Quarry yesterday, and will dig into minor revisions throughout the rest of the week. I have a particularly full plate this year, which is why I have written three novels in four months – Murder, My Love with Mike Hammer; the Caleb York novel, now entitled Hot Lead, Cold Justice (my original title, The Big Die-Off, deemed too obscure); and now Killing Quarry. Very shortly I will begin serious work on Girl Can’t Help It, the prequel to the forthcoming Girl Most Likely, a task for which I’ve allowed several months. This will be followed by my draft of Antiques Fire Sale (Barb’s working on her draft now), which I have allowed another month for.

This is, of course, insane. Why do I work so hard? Why is somebody who has five doctor’s appointments with specialists this month behaving like this? Should I slow down? Barb thinks I should.

But I like doing this. I really do. And – while I feel fine and all my reports so far (the dentist today) have been positive – when you are 70 and in a month or so will be 71, you sense that maybe you don’t have all the time left in the world to tell your stories.

And I came here to tell stories.

All of which is prelude to what I want to discuss today. Would you agree that everybody has bad days? Various kinds of bad days, of course – from the simple out-of-sorts day to the depressed-about-bad-news day (not getting an Edgar nomination for a ground-breaking book, to just pull an example out of the air) to the nothing-is-going-right day to…you get the idea.

Now I’m not talking about a sick day (in my business, cold and flu generally don’t count – open-heart surgery does) or a day when tragedy has struck a loved one or friend. Nothing like that. Your favorite aunt dies? Take the day off with my blessing!

No, just that typical terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When you are writing on a six-day-a-week schedule, with a deadline bearing down, you write anyway. Writer’s block is not allowed, and I never have it, anyway. Recently I thought I had finally encountered this mysterious, possibly mythical beast – I could not get a single workable thing on paper. I always start with a rough draft, knowing that I’m creating the clay for me to shape into sculpture. But this time, I couldn’t get anything on paper worth building on.

Why?

Well, turned out I was effing exhausted! Just flat-out fried. So I took a two-hour nap, as elderly folk are wont (and permitted) to do. When I got up from my snooze, the words flowed. Maybe not like wine, but definitely Coca Cola.

During the writing of Killing Quarry, I had perhaps three bad days – one of them Edgar-related, which of course I won’t go into. Ironically, one of that sorry trio was the last day of the process – the day on which the crucial last chapter was written.

Knowing I was facing a key part of my story, I considered taking the day off – it was Sunday, after all – and just letting my batteries recharge. But I hadn’t run this race to goof off just shy of the finish line. Plus, all of the plot stuff was filling my brain and assembled into good order – I knew exactly what needed doing.

So I did it.

It was something of a slog. I usually do three drafts of every chapter, then give it to Barb, who gives me notes, and I make minor corrections and revisions (sometimes they’re major – Barb has great story sense), and I’m done till the final read-through. Yesterday I did three drafts, took an hour nap, then came back and did another draft. Barb did her read-through and I made a few revisions and corrections from her notes. If you’re keeping score, that’s an additional draft or pass on the chapter.

Now, here is the lede I’m burying (why is it spelled “lede” not “lead”?) (and why don’t I just Google that and not bother you about it?): how does inspiration figure into a working fiction writer’s process?

I would imagine all of us have bursts of inspiration, sometimes entire work session-long ones. Maybe some writers feel inspired for days or even weeks – trust me, they don’t feel like that all the way through a project. Everybody has bad days, remember?

There are two kinds of writers – the ones who can only write on their inspired days, and who navel-gaze on their (many) off days; and the writers who are thankful for the inspired days that God or luck or somebody or some thing grants them, and who on their bad days soldier on. March through the mud to victory, or at least the end of the work day.

Now here is the real dirty little secret about inspiration – the inspired work and the struggle-to-get-through-it work are always of the same quality. When you go back and read through your story or novel, and recall the passages that came easily as if by automatic writing, those passages won’t be any better or worse than the stuff that came hard.

Or anyway those passages shouldn’t be.

Inspiration is just the days the work is going well. If you are any good at all as a writer, you will develop standards that you will not allow yourself to fall below, before you press on. You stay at it till the work you had to work hard at reads just as well as the work that came easy.

* * *

This story about Black Panther’s Oscar nominations mentions a certain other comics-derived film that once-upon-a-time received five nominations (hint: Road to Perdition).

A cry goes out to reprint the Marshall Rogers Batman comic strip. Who was it wrote that again? (Hint: me.)

Finally, Scarface and the Untouchable made Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop best of the year list, as chosen by the staff – see “Mike’s Picks” on page three.

M.A.C.

Pop the Clutch!

Hardcover:

Paperback:

E-Book:

For those of you who might wonder whatever happened to the Max Allan Collins/Matthew Clemens writing team, this answer is…here’s a new story by us in a great new anthology with a killer line-up of writers.

It’s a visual feast of a book, as the cover itself tells you. But every story has a great illustration, and that includes ours – Steve Chanks did a great job, and I’ve shared it here with you.

Here’s the press release:

Welcome to the cool side of the 1950s, where the fast cars and revved-up movie monsters peel out in the night. Where outlaw vixens and jukebox tramps square off with razorblades and lead pipes. Where rockers rock, cool cats strut, and hot rods roar. Where you howl to the moon as the tiki drums pound and the electric guitar shrieks and that spit-and-holler jamboree ain’t gonna stop for a long, long time . . . maybe never.

This is the ’50s where ghost shows still travel the back roads of the south, and rockabilly has a hold on the nation’s youth; where lucky hearts tell the tale, and maybe that fella in the Shriners’ fez ain’t so square after all. Where exist noir detectives of the supernatural, tattoo artists of another kind, Hollywood fix-it men, and a punk kid with grasshopper arms under his chain-studded jacket and an icy stare on his face.

This is the ’50s of Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror. This is your ticket to the dark side of American kitsch . . . the fun and frightful side!

Table of Contents includes:

“The Golden Girls of Fall” by Seanan McGuire

“Sea Lords of the Columbia” by Weston Ochse

“Tremble” by Kasey Lansdale and Joe R. Lansdale

“The Demon of the Track” by Gary Phillips

“Outlawed Ink” by Jason Starr

“We Might Be Giants” by Nancy Holder

“Universal Monster” by Duane Swierczynski

“Draggers” by David J. Schow

“The Starlite Drive-In” by John M. Floyd

“Dr. Morbismo’s InsaniTERRORium Horror Show” by Lisa Morton

“Hot Babe” by Bill Pronzini

“The Prom Tree” by Yvonne Navarro

“I’m with the Band” by Steve Perry

“Mystery Train: An Arcane Investigation” by Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens

“Lab Experiment Turf War” by Jeff Strand

“The She-Creature” by Amelia Beamer

“Fish out of Water” by Will Viharo

“I Was a Teenage Shroom Fiend” by Brian Hodge

* * *

This is one of my shorter updates, because I am working on the new Quarry novel, Killing Quarry, and doing my best to get it done before the upcoming Mob Museum appearance in Vegas by Brad Schwartz and myself, having to do with celebrating a certain day in February (think about it). More, much more, about that very soon.

For now I’d just like to reflect on how interesting it is to me when I see which topics I explore cause a lot reaction and comments, while others – including ones I thought would spark controversy or at least talk – get no reactions at all. At least not in writing.

The two updates that really caught your attention lately were, first, the discussion of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” and second, my twelve favorite film directors. I get a real kick out of how my choices of the latter frustrated and irked some of you. As I said in my comments last week, there’s a big difference between a “favorites” list and a “best” list.

I would be remiss not to include, say, Kurosawa and Kubrick (to name a couple K’s) on a best directors list. But I have every right to prefer watching Don Siegel or Joseph H. Lewis movies over theirs. Favorite is personal taste – one would hope somewhat informed taste, but personal. My favorite color is green.

Wanna fight?

* * *

Getting back to Pop the Clutch, here’s a nice review of it.

And here, in addition to Amazon, is where you can order it.

M.A.C.

My Dozen Favorite Filmmakers

Here’s just what no one’s been asking for – my list of favorite film directors and why!

First, let me say that some of my favorite films are by directors not on this list – Anatomy of a Murder, Groundhog Day, Army of Darkness, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Harvey, Chinatown and The Maltese Falcon, among others. Blake Edwards and Robert Aldrich gave us The Great Race and Kiss Me Deadly respectively, but also some (let’s face it) real turkeys. Budd Boetticher directed several of my favorite westerns, but his fairly small overall output also included some not terribly interesting films – he should be applauded, however, for doing the first several episodes of Maverick and defining the great James Garner-starring series.

But that’s TV. We’re talking film today.

These are directors who almost always interest me, whose work I collect on Blu-ray and/or DVD, and who have each given me a number of my favorite films. This is a list of a dozen, so don’t look for a lot of detail.

Also, you may be surprised to see me looking at film as if it’s the director who’s responsible, not the writer. Keep in mind a good number of these filmmakers also wrote or co-wrote the films in question. But having both written and directed films, I can tell you the thing writers don’t want you to know (and some of them don’t know themselves, because they have been limited to the writing side): it’s the director, if he or she is any good, who creates the film. A script is a hugely important part, but executing that script – particularly when the director is involved in editing, where the movie is really made – is what it’s all about.

1. ALFRED HITCHCOCK. When I made my little movie Mommy almost twenty-five years ago, and suddenly had the directing chore dropped in my lap, I felt overwhelmed, not having prepared for that job. I was just supposed to co-produce. We made a sequel a year or two later, during which time I watched every Hitchcock film available – all the sound ones, and a good number of the silents. Hitchcock is a school any maker of narrative films can go to and should. Vertigo is only one of half a dozen masterpieces, and plenty more are merely great.

2. JERRY LEWIS. Lewis was the great comedy director of the mid-20th Century. He was not the greatest director of comedies – that was probably Billy Wilder – but the greatest director of a star comedian…and he filled both roles. The Ladies’ Man and The Nutty Professor are both stellar works; so is The Bellboy, and The Patsy is also good. He made some truly terrible films as well – for example, Three on a Couch and Which Way to the Front? – but they were the terrible films of a real filmmaker and unique genius. Yup, the French were right.

3. JOSEPH H. LEWIS. This Lewis is the greatest B movie maker of all time, even better than Ulmer, who was damn good. While Gun Crazy and The Big Combo are the clear masterworks, many other Joe Lewis films – My Name Is Julia Ross and So Dark the Night come to mind – are also first-rate. Unlike Sam Fuller, Lewis tended not to do as well when given an A-film budget.

4. HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT. While his body of narrative film is relatively small, Clouzot’s list includes masterwork after masterwork – Le Corbeau, Manon, Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques among them. Probably the only real competition Hitchcock ever had – both in terms of thrillers and sheer filmmaking skill – Clouzot was controversial because of movies he made during the Nazi occupation (subversive though they were to his masters). He also notoriously treated his actors harshly, to get the right feeling out of them on screen. He would on occasion slap an actress. When he tried this with Brigitte Bardot, she kicked him in the balls.

5. JACQUES TATI. Tati made an even smaller handful of films than Clouzot, but they are all wonderful, and Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle and Playtime are utter genius – comedies quietly satirical, sly and affectionate toward a France that’s slipping into the past and galloping into the future, making you have to pay attention to know how truly great, and funny, they are.

6. DON SIEGEL. Siegel is to the pure crime film as Hitchcock is to the thriller and Ford to the Western. His years as an editor made him the best in the business at putting together shoot-outs and other action sequences. He was another B-movie master, although he slid effortlessly into a later A-movie career, thanks to his Clint Eastwood relationship. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Hell Is for Heroes (with Bobby Darin!), The Killers, Dirty Harry…those are the work of a great filmmaker.

7. BRIAN DEPALMA. DePalma has always had his detractors, and some of his films have been less than great, but even those are of interest. For me, it’s the period of Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Obsession that seal the deal. But much of what followed, starting with Carrie, demonstrated that you can study Hitchcock and still be joltingly original. I usually do not like camera work that calls attention to itself. But DePalma makes the technique intrinsic to the storytelling.

8. HOWARD HAWKS. Hawks was more concerned with good scenes than good stories, and that should bother me, but damn! Are you kidding? That overlapping dialogue, the strong man/woman relationships, the well-staged action scenes. We’re talking His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River, Rio Bravo…the guy justified his time on the planet, all right.

9. JOHN FORD. Do I need to say anything more than THE SEARCHERS? Okay, if you insist: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance…and on and on.

10. JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE. Clouzot was the great French thriller director, but Melville was the great French crime film director. My favorites are Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, and Un Flic. His is a world of cool professionals of crime – some crooks, some cops.

11. JOHN WOO. The great Hong Kong film director (and writer) has been little heard from lately, and none of his Hollywood output has compared to the HK masterpieces – A Better Tomorrow, A Better Tomorrow 2, The Killer, Hardboiled. But his distinctive stamp on action scenes, and his mingling of seemingly mismatched influences – Sam Peckinpah, Douglas Sirk, Jean-Pierre Melville (him again) – make a unique contribution to the world of narrative film.

12. SAM FULLER. Fuller was a lunatic, but what a lunatic. He could get so wrapped up in his tabloid approach that the B-movie attitudes of even his A productions could become over-the-top cartoons. And it’s true that even his best work for the major studios – Forty Guns, Pick Up on South Street, House of Bamboo – had over-the-top aspects, making them memorable and distinctly his. He didn’t call “action” on set, he fired off a gun. How can you not love that?

These, and a few other directors, are on my shelves the way writers like Spillane, Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Stout, Thompson and Christie are. They influenced my fiction writing just as much, too.

Please, in responding (and you are welcome and even encouraged to) keep in mind these are personal opinions, matters of taste, not a listing of what I feel you should like or think.

* * *

Here’s a lovely latterday review of the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective.

The opening paragraphs of Girl Most Likely are teased here.

Finally, Girl Most Likely is discussed as one of the most talked about forthcoming crime novels of 2019. You’ll have to scroll down some – a lot of crime novels are being talked about, apparently!

M.A.C.

Your New Year’s Resolution

Here’s a sad story with which almost any professional writer can identify, as something like it has undoubtedly happened to every one of us.

At the last San Diego con, several personnel from Titan waved me over at breakfast to meet the man from Barnes & Noble who buys graphic novels for the chain. He was a big fan – clearly thrilled to meet me. I was the Beatles and he was Eddie Deezen in I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I sat and we chatted and I told him about the upcoming graphic novels from Titan, Quarry’s War and Mike Hammer: The Night I Died. He couldn’t wait!

Cut to recently when I looked at Barnes & Noble’s graphic novel sections in Davenport, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Iowa; and various Chicago B & N’s. Not a copy of either graphic novel was available at any of them.

Hey! I know! They had all sold out!

Or not.

A smaller sad story is the lousy one- and two-star Amazon reviews for both graphic novels from buyers who are angry that they accidentally bought a comic book. One of these reviewers hates graphic novels and considers them the downfall of literacy in America. Yes, these are idiotic cranks, but neither graphic novel has received enough reviews to weather such boneheaded ones (Quarry’s War does benefit from reviews some of you fine humans have contributed). The Mike Hammer has only one review – a two-star bummer from the aforementioned graphic novel hater.

So.

Here is your New Year’s Resolution. If you have already read either of these – whether in the four comic books collected in each graphic novel, or by way of the graphic novel itself – you will ASAP write a brief Amazon review, unless you have already done so. I do not specify that these reviews have to be raves. But I do request that you not post a review complaining that a graphic novel turned out to be (shudder! horrors!) a graphic novel.

Or…if you haven’t bought either book, and are not among those who despise the comics form, please acquire these gems (unbiased opinion). Maybe you’ll find them at a Barnes & Noble. But don’t count on it. B & N will have it on-line, as Amazon does. I have spotted Quarry’s War at a Books-a-Million, but not Mike Hammer yet. Maybe you have gift cards you haven’t used yet – what are you waiting for?

Okay, I’m whining again. Sorry. But judging by the stealth existence of these two graphic novels, the writer of Road to Perdition…which is on many “best graphic novels of all time” lists…won’t ever get to write a graphic novel again.

In the meantime, let me remind you what’s coming out in the first half of this year, with not a graphic novel in sight. I apologize there’s so much of mine to read, but (a) I can’t control dates of publication, and (b) if I don’t write, nobody sends money to my house.

Here is what is coming up.

Paperback:

E-Book:

USS Powderkeg is a trade paperback (and e-book) from Brash Books on February 1st. This is the revised edition of the novel Red Sky in Morning, with the penname “Patrick Culhane” banished to the cornfield in favor of my actual byline (Max Allan Collins, remember?). I am very excited about this, and so very grateful to Brash to putting my preferred title on the book and, of course, my preferred byline. It’s a personal novel to me, based as it is (in part) on my late father’s experiences in the Navy in World War Two as one of a handful of white officers on an ammunition ship manned by black sailors.

Paperback:

E-Book:

The Goliath Bone by Mickey Spillane and me will receive a mass market paperback, in the Titan format, in late February.

Hardcover:

E-Book:

Audiobook:

Murder, My Love by Mickey and me is the new Mike Hammer hardcover from Titan, out in mid-March. Published simultaneously on audio from Skyboat Media, available from Audible. This is the first Hammer written solely by me, but from a Spillane synopsis.

Paperback:

E-Book:

MP3 CD: Audio CD:

Girl Most Likely is a trade paperback and e-book from Thomas and Mercer, out on April 1, no fooling. This I’m particularly excited about because it’s a thriller that charts new territory for me – I would call it an American take on nordic noir. More about this closer to pub date.

Toward the end of May comes Last Stage to Hell Junction, the new Caleb York western from Kensington, a hardcover. It’s bylined Spillane/Collins, but it’s a Collins novel using characters and situations created by Spillane.

Toward the end of April comes Antiques Ravin’ by Barbara Allan, again from Kensington. Barb and her husband wrote it. Very funny and a darker mystery than you’ll encounter in most cozys. Of course, Jon Breen says we’re a subversive cozy series.

Then in early June comes the trade paperback of Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago by A. Brad Schwartz and me. This is a major work (thanks to Brad) and I’m proud to be its co-author.

So, really, forget all these other writers you usually follow. You have priorities. You have work to do.

For those who need their pump primed – and you know how painful that can be – we’ll have a book giveaway before too long.

* * *

Oh, and Happy New Year, everybody!

We had a lovely holiday with son Nate, daughter-in-law Abby, and grandkids Sam (3 yrs) and Lucy (3 mths). Sam and his grandfather watched a lot of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse on Blu-ray. And for those wondering, yes, I did receive a Christmas card from Paul Reubens/Pee-Wee this year. That made it an official Christmas, particularly since both Scrooge with Sim and the original Miracle on 34th Street were watched as well.

* * *

Here’s the first review of Girl Most Likely.

And the Stiletto Gumshoe includes Murder, My Love among the books to read in the winter of 2019. Great site.

M.A.C.

Max Allan Ruins Everything

I am about to recommend something you are probably already familiar with; but here goes….

Netflix recently added a sampling of the truTV series Adam Ruins Everything to its roster, and it looked interesting enough for me to try it…and now I am hooked. When I ran through the Netflix batch, I immediately bought the various seasons of the show on Amazon Prime and have watched all but a few episodes.

Adam Ruins Everything is the brainchild of stand-up comic Adam Conover, and (in the words of Wikipedia), “The series aims to debunk misconceptions that pervade U.S. society.” It spins off from Conover’s CollegeHumor web series, which I haven’t seen (yet). But it’s a lot more, being as much a comedy show as an educational one.

Adam Conover portrays himself as an overly helpful nerd, a smarty-pants who doesn’t understand why people don’t love him for correcting them. It’s a funny concept which Conover pulls off fearlessly, surrounding himself with some of the best comedic talent around, including veterans of Mr. Show and Reno 911. Recurring characters and story arcs are threaded through, as well.

Conover and his series skewer historical misconceptions, false beliefs fueled by corporate misinformation, urban legends and just plain stupidity. And, uniquely, sources are posted on-screen, and experts on the various subjects often appear in the context of the imaginative episodes. Though I discovered the well-made, entertaining show just a week ago, Conover and his research staff have already changed my behavior. I have sworn off vitamin supplements and Tylenol PM, for example.

He isn’t always right, and to his credit a later episode focuses on some of his mistakes. (When I say “he,” I refer not to the actual Conover but his television character.) For example, the episode about the real Wild West dismisses Wyatt Earp as a nobody con man who tried to peddle the untrue story of his life to Hollywood, implying he wasn’t a gunfighting heroic lawman at all.

Earp, of course, was a controversial figure, but he was famous during his day and well after, surviving several harrowing gunfights, including the O.K. Corral one (which happened in a vacant lot near the corral), which was even covered as news in the New York Times. The show is at its weakest when it accepts its experts at face value.

The Collins/Schwartz Scarface and the Untouchable, for example, debunks the debunkers who falsely represented Eliot Ness and his career. But I fear if Ness came up in a future episode, the research staff would accept the conventional (and wrong) wisdom about the Untouchables and the IRS investigators. Like the anti-Ness writers, many of the anti-Earp writers posthumously attacked the lawman-gambler-prospector because of the exaggerations of a book published after his death, leading to inflated TV fame.

For me, the the anti-conspiracy theory episode is unfortunate on a show that routinely exposes government and/or corporate conspiracies. It conflates the risible “moon landing was fake” theory with the Kennedy assassination. While my Nathan Heller novels have their fanciful aspects, the extensive research I’ve done (often with the help of George Hagenauer) has often shown the official versions of things are false…something Adam Ruins Everything often does.

Let’s not give conspiracy a bad name. Watergate and its cover-up was a conspiracy. The JFK assassination was almost certainly a conspiracy. Robert Mueller is not a guy in a tin-foil hat.

Also, sometimes conspiracies are not really conspiracies at all. Let me tell you about it! The railroading of Bruno Hauptmann for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping was nothing engineered, rather a bunch of cops backing each other up, plus some reporters manufacturing evidence, all filtered through a general hatred of Germans post-World War One. These folks didn’t get together in a room and conspire. They just had mutual views/assumptions of who did the crime.

For the record, when I write a Nathan Heller novel, I go in with an open mind. For JFK, the most outrageous thing I could have done was come to the conclusion that Oswald was the Lone Gunman. For Lindbergh, I’d have been swimming against the tide if I said Hauptmann was guilty; but if that’s where my research led, so be it. When I wrote the Roswell novel, Majic Man, I went in ready to report whatever I came away believing – including the existence of aliens. But my research indicated something else was going on.

With Do No Harm, the Sam Sheppard murder case novel that will be out in a year or so, I had no opinion about who did it…and did not decide till well into the work – not only the research period but the writing one.

So Adam Ruins Everything isn’t perfect. But it’s funny and informative, and – most important – it gets you thinking. It even got me thinking! Also, you need to stop using sleep aids and vitamin supplements.

* * *

I will admit to being disappointed on two fronts by various end-of-the-year “best of” lists.

Both The Last Stand and Killing Town, the final Spillane solo novel and the collaborative first Mike Hammer novel (begun in 1945 by Mickey and completed by me last year), have been pretty much roundly ignored…despite fairly stellar reviews.

One nice exception is this selection of Killing Town as the Best Retro Read of the Year, here.

More disappointing is how Scarface and the Untouchable by A. Brad Schwartz and myself has been overlooked, again despite stellar reviews. The book is a completely new approach to Eliot Ness and his contribution to the downfall of Capone, and the previously unnoticed collaboration between the government and Capone’s fellow mobsters to put the Big Fellow away. I fear the length of the book has scared away reviewers. And I am now officially nervous that we’ll be overlooked by the Edgars.

(But a nice exception is this gift guide from the Entertainment Report.)

If you haven’t tracked down the Titan graphic novel edition of Mike Hammer in The Night I Died, this good review might convince you.

By the way, I signed ten copies of The Night I Died for vj books, available here.

Here’s a nice advance look at Girl Most Likely from Col’s Criminal Library.

This is a mediocre review, but at least it’s a review, of the Quarry graphic novel, Quarry’s War. The reviewer complains about the alternating pages that intersperse the Vietnam war sequence with Quarry during his hitman years, considering what I’m proudest of about the work “annoying.” He complains that Quarry doesn’t open up enough about himself. Sigh.

On the other hand, both Quarry’s War and The Night I Died get nice mentions in this wrap-up of comics in 2018.

This is my first post of 2019, by the way, written in 2018. Happy New Year to all of you.

M.A.C.

Christmas Movie Festival – By Popular Demand!

All right, I admit this is nothing anyone asked for – it’s just a rundown on our personal post-Thanksgiving Christmas movie fest. Barb and I almost always spend the evening watching a movie (sometimes a TV show or two), and this year we determined to watch nothing but Yuletide-themed movies till Christmas itself rolled around.

So you may want to run a copy of this off to guide you for your Yuletide watching next year (or, if you are sane, you may not).

Here, pretty much in the order we watched them, are our selections. We started with bad-taste Christmas comedies, then moved to TV Xmas episodes, followed by more traditional favorites. Nothing religious. We have no intention of debasing this secular holiday with religion.

The Thing – ****. The Howard Hawks-produced 1951 film. Admittedly not a Christmas movie, but the Blu-ray just came out, and the film is set at the North Pole. We were warming up for Christmas by vicariously experiencing all that cold in the company of a fire and hot chocolate.

Bad Santa – ****. Okay, I understand this is not by any rational accounting a four-star movie. But it accomplishes something very special. It surrounds its good heart with layers and layers of darkly funny coal. Billy Bob is a favorite of mine, and Willie T. Stokes is one of his finest creations.

Bad Santa 2 – ****. All right, I realize this is even less rational. Most reviewers hated this. Hated it! Apparently they didn’t notice how hilarious it is. Billy Bob’s commitment to his character is complete, and he has Kathy Bates as his cheerfully sociopathic mother to explain a lot about Willie’s development as a human being. The now adult Brett Edward Kelly as grown kid Thurman Merman damn near steals the picture, which is even nastier than the first one but with an even better heart.

A Christmas Horror Story – ***. This has become our favorite Christmas horror movie, dealing as it does with Krampus and featuring William Shatner as a hard-drinking, smiling radio personality, linking several interwoven stories, of which the most memorable features a wonderfully bad-ass Santa. Many of those working on this were part of the Orphan Black creative team.

Office Christmas Party – ***. Almost as dark as Bad Santa at times, this features Jason Bateman (nearly rivaling his Game Night performance), playing a funny straight man to an unending array of current comic talent. It, too, turns out to have a good heart but – like the Bad Santa films – not a sentimental one.

Murdoch Mysteries – Once Upon a Murdoch Christmas and A Merry Murdoch Christmas – **. We love this series. It’s uneven, but the recurring cast is winning and often the episodes are first-rate. These two Christmas episodes are among the worst outings, however, over-the-top and even embarrassing at times. A third, more recent Christmas Murdoch is better, but the bar isn’t set high.

Poirot – “The Theft of the Royal Ruby.” ****. One of two excellent Christmas episodes of the wonderful, long-running David Suchet series, this Christie adaptation – set in that great art-deco house that turns up in multiple episodes – is the best, amusing and even exciting.

A Nero Wolfe Mystery – “A Christmas Party.” ***. The repertory cast here is even hammier than usual – most Canadian-produced series, like Murdoch, do well with the central casting but reveal a shallow bench among the Canadian day players. Still, the byplay between Timothy Hutton’s Archie and the late, great Maury Chaykin’s Wolfe is a gift that keeps on giving.

Holiday Inn – ****. A masterpiece of music and well-motivated situation comedy with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire playing off each other beautifully. Just fast-forward through the embarrassing blackface number, “Abraham.” By the way, I see blackface as a cultural thing that once was accepted – so, in that context, I can watch Eddie Cantor in his blackface scenes with little if any shame. Problem with this particular blackface number is…it’s an awful song. Irving Berlin wasn’t perfect. He didn’t think “White Christmas” was the hit in his new score (he figured “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” was the winner).

White Christmas – **. Pains me to say it, because I love Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and my late pal Miguel Ferrer’s mom, Rosemary Clooney…but this film mostly stinks. Even Bing didn’t like it. “Count Your Blessings” with Bing and Rosie is lovely, though.

A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas – ***. Barb and I reverted to bad-taste comedy after White Christmas – to cleanse the palate. This is very funny, with some uncomfortable moments in the Neil Patrick Harris section (funny how quickly certain things have dated in the #metoo era). Even for non-dopers like Barb and me, this stoner comedy is funny and has a nice pace, getting gradually more absurd as it goes. And represents a rare, really good use of 3-D in a 21st Century film.

Scrooged – *. I love Bill Murray. Groundhog Day, which covers similar ground, is one of my favorite movies. And I love the Christmas Carol story. But this is a forced, shrill comedy with Bill Murray trying uncharacteristically too hard. The whole movie is hysterical, but in a humorless way, and seems filled to the brim with personalities of the moment who were soon to fade away.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – ***. I love this movie, and know it by heart, but there’s no denying it’s uneven. Still, it’s gradually become a favorite among many and has eclipsed the better first film in the series, because of course Christmas is at this third entry’s heart. Julie Louis Dreyfuss’s presence reflects smart (and lucky) casting. Where Scrooged doesn’t seem to really believe its positive message, Christmas Vacation manages to celebrate family even as it lampoons it.

Meet Me in St. Louis – ****. This should not be a four-star movie. It’s almost plotless. The co-star is Tom Drake, for Pete’s sake (or is that Pete Drake for Tom’s sake – I can’t remember). But it’s beautifully directed and perfectly paced, with Judy Garland at her loveliest and most appealing. And Margaret O’Brien is magically good as the little girl who, if you really listen to her, is apparently the first Goth Girl.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 – *** (for the Shout Factory Blu-ray). Okay, I watched this by myself – not Barb’s idea of a Christmas movie. It’s really not worthy of this rating. About a third of the movie is flashbacks from the first film. But the slasher anti-hero, Billy, played by Robert Brian Wilson, is fascinating – is that a terrible performance, or a great one? I’m just not sure! All I know is it’s “Garbage day!”). And the latterday “making of” documentary (longer than the movie!) is one of the best of its kind.

A Christmas Story – ****. Now we’re into the classics. One of my top four. No matter how hard the world tries to diminish this Jean Shepherd classic – with licensed toys, mini-leg lamps, t-shirts and other crap – this movie remains the best film about childhood in 20th Century America ever made. (There’s even an abysmal stage production – aired live, so you can “re-live” the experience, when I thought you relived it by watching the original again!) I love that Darren McGavin (TV’s first Mike Hammer and the great Carl Kolchak) has become an iconic figure, thanks to his perfect performance as Ralphie’s Old Man. Barb and I first saw this with my late, beloved aunt Beth on Christmas Day on the film’s first release. Loved it then. Love it now. It influenced Road to Perdition, by the way – the adult narrator recalling his childhood. Michael O’Sullivan Jr.’s childhood did vary some from Ralphie’s, admittedly.

Scrooge – ****. The Alastair Sim 1951 version. Accept no substitutes.

Miracle on 34th Street – ****. The Edmund Gwenn version. Again, accept no substitutes. This is Hollywood mid-20th Century studio filmmaking at its finest – perfect script and direction, with even the smallest part perfectly cast (Thelma Ritter!). No major stars – John Payne, wonderful, and Maureen O’Sullivan, also wonderful, were B+ talent, and Edmund Gwenn a little-known character actor whose only other real claim to fame is as a scientist in Them! And yet all of ‘em will live forever, thanks to this impeccably constructed film. Shot on location, by the way, at the real Macy’s in the real New York City.

It’s a Wonderful Life – ****. We haven’t watched this yet this year. We don’t watch it every Christmas season, because it’s a rough ride, in spots. But – like Groundhog Day – you have to forgive the protagonist his flaws in order to witness his redemption. You know what Wonderful Life and the two Bad Santa films have in common? Their protagonist tries to commit suicide, saved by Christmas in the form of Clarence the angel and Merman Thurman, the…God, I’m not sure what.

Merry Christmas, everybody. See you next year.

M.A.C.

Baby, It’s Scold Outside

I really can’t stay (but baby, it’s cold outside)

I’ve got to go away (but baby, it’s cold outside)

This evening has been (been hoping that you’d drop in)

So very nice (I’ll hold your hands, they’re just like ice)

My mother will start to worry (beautiful what’s your hurry?)

My father will be pacing the floor (listen to the fireplace roar)

So really I’d better scurry (beautiful please don’t hurry)

But maybe just a half a drink more (put some records on while I pour)

The neighbors might think (baby, it’s bad out there)

Say what’s in this drink? (no cabs to be had out there)

I wish I knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)

To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell)

I ought to say, no, no, no sir (mind if I move in closer?)

At least I’m gonna say that I tried (what’s the sense in hurtin’ my pride?)

I really can’t stay (oh baby don’t hold out)

But baby, it’s cold outside

I simply must go (but baby, it’s cold outside)

The answer is no (but baby, it’s cold outside)

Your welcome has been(how lucky that you dropped in)

So nice and warm (look out the window at this dawn)

My sister will be suspicious (gosh your lips look delicious)

My brother will be there at the door (waves upon the tropical shore)

My maiden aunts mind is vicious (gosh your lips are delicious)

But maybe just a cigarette more (never such a blizzard before)

I’ve gotta get home (but baby, you’d freeze out there)

Say lend me a coat (it’s up to your knees out there)

You’ve really been grand (I thrill when you touch my hand)

But don’t you see? (how can you do this thing to me?)

There’s bound to be talk tomorrow (think of my lifelong sorrow)

At least there will be plenty implied (if you got pneumonia and died)

I really can’t stay (get over that old out)

Baby, it’s cold

Baby, it’s cold outside

Songwriter: Frank Loesser

Baby, It’s Cold Outside lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

The controversy over “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” – a song four years older than my ancient ass – just rolls on, as Millennials and Generation Z (or whatever they’re called) continue their smug condemnation of anyone who wasn’t “woke” long before that word came to represent a lack of social awareness.

Here’s what a writer in USA Today said last year about “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”:

“Is this the year we finally retire ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside?’ In 2017, America woke up to the systemic sexual predation that pervades every corner of society, but some of our Christmas carols are stuck in the past. In particular, the drumbeat against ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ is getting too loud to ignore.”

Ah, the drumbeat. Before you know it, Frank Loesser won’t be asked to host the Oscars.

Who is Frank Loesser, you ask? Who was Frank Loesser is the more pertinent question. He was one of the great songwriters of the Broadway stage – don’t take my word for it, ask Stephen Sondheim. Guys and Dolls is still considered by many to be the perfect American musical. Among Loesser’s greater accomplishments are the witty and satirical (and tunefully presented) lyrics of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which skewered the hypocritical and often sexist “big business” workplace environment of the l950s and early 1960s. The love song “I Believe in You” was sung by the anti-hero to himself in the mirror (Merry Christmas, Robert Morse!).

Frank Loesser was cynical and defiantly New York, even when he was Hollywood’s “go to” songwriter. He is an American treasure – or he would be (some seem to insist) if only he’d held the attitudes of progressives of 2018 seventy-four years ago.

I’m not going to go into great detail to defend “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which is a sexy, clever and catchy song designed for adults – Loesser wrote it for himself and his wife to sing together at parties and it only went public when a Hollywood producer, who heard it sung at one such gathering, wanted to use it in a film (it won the Academy Award for Best Song).

songwriter Frank Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland sing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” at a party.

But let’s start with this: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is not “a Christmas carol.” It’s not even a Christmas song. Of course a lot of songs from the Great American Songbook – enduring American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century – that get played as Christmas songs are just winter-theme tunes: “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” “Sleigh Ride.” None are “carols.”

As for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” being “rapey,” let’s examine the most notorious lyric, “Say, what’s in this drink?” That refers to, is this punch or is there alcohol in this thing? How much booze did you put in this, buster? Still, the guy may be a letch, and may even want to get laid, but the woman is presumably twenty-one, knows she’s alone in the company of a man and is in charge of her own destiny. A man wanting to have sex with a woman isn’t a crime, and if it were, the species is who would be screwed. I am fairly sure that, at some point this evening, a male will buy a female a drink or glass of wine in a bar or restaurant, in hopes it will relax her and perhaps improve his chances.

Ah, but chances for what?

Well, let’s back up. The answer to, “Say what’s in this drink?” is not “a roofie.” Please. Bill Cosby was seven years old when the song came out.

Hard as it may be to believe by people born in the late 20th century or (shudder) this century, a male could want a female to stick around so they could have some harmless fun, like kissing and maybe (shocking!) petting. Sexual intercourse was not necessarily on the menu. Forced or coerced sex certainly wasn’t. People in 1949 watching the film in which the song first appeared were not thinking, “That Ricardo Montalban is trying to rape Esther Williams!” Most didn’t think Ricardo was after sex – just feminine affection.

The serious issue here is the dangerous trend of judging yesterday by today – specifically, the attitudes of yesterday that many (including me) agree were misjudged. But there’s a corollary to “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”: those who don’t attempt to understand the context of yesterday are going to be denied the pleasures of the past…and a better understanding of it.

The current couple of generations have no monopoly on thinking prior generations were a bunch of louts. Trust me – we Baby Boomers are no prize. Once the Beatles arrived, we dismissed our parents’ culture with smug know-it-all-ness.

Important pop culture figures like Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and John Wayne were ridiculed and even despised. Of course, it must be said that all three of those aided and abetted in their own ridicule as they grew older. Sinatra covered the Beatles embarrassingly (“Something in the way she moves, Jack!”), Bob Hope became a hopeless self-parody, and John Wayne made political comments that make your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving seem like a pundit.

My generation talked peace and love, sang of Aquarius and went to Woodstock. Then we aged into old people who have made war and racism popular again. When somebody (and this happens a lot) tells me Mickey Spillane was a misogynist, I say, “You’ve confused misogyny with misanthropy.” (And clearly they have never really read the books.)

We have a lot of problems in this country and in this world. I am on the liberal side of the center line, but it troubles me – and even frightens me – that seemingly so many young progressives have such a rigid, idealistic, self-righteous view of things. Kids in cages, government corruption, climate change, child abuse, real sexual predators…so many problems that make the Christmas season at once a solace we seek and a terrible ironic thing that has ceased to mean anything. Real problems, not priggish superiority over the “rapey” lyrics to a seventy-four-year-old song.

Bing Crosby sang with David Bowie about “Peace on earth.” If those two had respect for each other, and could overlook what must have seemed like flawed behavior in each other, can’t we sit by the fire and drink some egg nog?

Hey! How much rum did you put in this, Barb?

M.A.C.