Max Allan Collins's Blog, page 5

True Noir Is Here! So Is Christmas…Blue or Otherwise

Yes, boys and girls, dads and moms, True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak (from the Casebooks of Nathan Heller) has “dropped” (a term I just can’t get used to). Well, Act One of it – the first three episodes. The all-immersive, ten-episode audio drama written by me from my novel True Detective (and directed by the great Robert Meyer Burnett) is available at the usual places, though you may wish to go directly to TrueNoir.co to order the complete series.

The only major venue that doesn’t have True Noir yet, that I know of anyway, is Audible, who won’t carry it till all ten episodes have, yup, dropped.

I am knocked out by the work of a truly stellar cast, including Michael Rosenbaum’s definitive Nate Heller and David Strathairn wonderful as Frank Nitti. In these early episodes you’ll also hear Jeffrey Combs as Mayor Cermak and Katee Sackhoff as Nate’s main squeeze, Janey…among many others.

It’s difficult for me to express how rewarding and thrilling it is to hear a full adaptation of the first Nate Heller novel after all the years. A number of times True Detective was optioned for film and never happened (although Road to Perdition came close). The hope, of course, is that this may lead to a film or TV series; but this audio drama, thanks to Rob Burnett and producer Mike Bawden, is an amazing experience for me. And I think you’ll like it.

Is it any good?

Read this review from the great Bill Hunt at Digital Bits.

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I am pleased to report that the fine web site Borg has named Quarry’s Return the Best Contemporary Crime Novel of the 2024. You can read about it below, but you’ll have to scroll down a ways.

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This is the last update before Christmas, and the last chance for all for things Yuletide this year, starting with my appearance with Heath Holland on Cereal at Midnight, a YouTube staple.

I’ve done several of these shows with Heath, who is an articulate, well-informed, smartly opionated and personable host. We focus on some genre, most often, like westerns or film noir. But the idea is never to do a “best of” list, rather a “favorites” one, and in this case we look at Christmas movies that may get overlooked.

You won’t be able to order and receive the physical media of Blue Christmas before the holiday. But you are still encouraged to order it – the Blu-ray is packed with extras but the DVD looks fine (we’re not exactly Die Hard). What you can do on Christmas Eve or Day is watch it on Amazon Prime for $2.99. And it’s free on Fawesome (with commercials).

J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet has a lovely review of Blue Christmas here (and an in-depth interview with me about the making of the film and many other subjects, including the forthcoming last Mike Hammer, Baby, It’s Murder, and Return of the Maltese Falcon).

If you want to give me a Christmas gift, you can do so without spending a cent. How? If you’ve seen Blue Christmas and liked it – post a review at Amazon. We have a handful already posted there, and like the other reviews they either love the movie or hate it. A reviewer who falls in the coal-in-your-stocking category proves his point about how bad Blue Christmas is by dinging me for having the credits say “Principle Photography” instead of “Principal Photography.” Yes, that’s the kind of thing that really ruins a viewing experience.

Funny thing about that.

First, let me say that Blue Christmas is admittedly compromised by its meager budget and tight shooting schedule; the writer/director, the producer/sound designer, and the co-producer Director of Photography all worked without a pay check. (All the actors were paid.) We were limited to six days in the studio space, and the d.p. could give us only those six, and we had to work around the day jobs of a number of actors. It’s not easy making any movie for eight grand. But when the alternative is not making it, I’ll accept the limitations.

Second, I struggled – I was the one who did all the credits, with proofing from my producer – with whether to use “Principle” or “Principal.” Some of you may recall that the Quarry short film I wrote (which led to the feature film, The Last Lullaby) was called “A Matter of Principal.” Constantly during that short film’s life the title would get “corrected” to “A Matter of Principle.” But if you know the Quarry character, you’ll know he did not behave in that story as a matter of doing-the-right-thing, but to make a financial score. In other words, “Principal” in the money sense, not the ethical one.

I was aware that “Principal Photography” was more commonly used, but sometimes “Principle Photography” was – and I struggled with it. We talked about this conundrum, the producer and my wife Barb and I. I used the word as a synonym for “primary.” “Principal,” however, seems correct – it is being used in the sense of “chief” – principal photography is the main photography; second unit covers the other stuff.

So I was wrong.

Therefore, obviously, my movie sucks.

My God, there are a lot of cruel, petty people in this holly jolly world of ours. But some of us tear down and others of us create.

I’ve discussed this before, but I used to be a movie critic. I was the movie reviewer for Mystery Scene magazine in that late great publication’s early years. Later I was coerced into writing a movie review column for Asian Cult Cinema, another unfortunately defunct magazine. I came aboard on Asian Cult with the understanding I would only write about movies I liked.

I had already stepped down from the Mystery Scene slot because I had made my first film, Mommy (1994), and now knew how hard it is to make a movie. It’s brutal, all-consuming, and even on a six-day shoot (and one evening of second unit) like Blue Christmas, you spend many hours, many days, in an editing suite. And in some ways your work has just begun – getting it into film festivals, finding distribution, doing promotion.

I’m not complaining. I wrote about my attitudes where criticism is concerned a few weeks ago – that I generally regard them in an is-it-going-to-help-or-hurt way. Truth is, it’s hard even to make a bad movie (this is where some of you may say, “You should know!”). All I will add is that it’s easier to write a bad review than make any movie.

Now that Blue Christmas will largely disappear from these updates (at least till next year, although Death by Fruitcake will take its place), I want to thank the reviewers who have given so many lovely notices to our little movie, and to those reviewers who wrote mixed or even negative reviews but were civil and fair-minded about it.

Here’s one of the good ones from Russell Trunk’s online Exclusive Magazine, written by Anne Carlini:

Going in knowing that this was Chad Thomas Bishop’s first feature film production and that he also had to play a small role in it after a cast member dropped out of the project, just made me more inclined to let the small stuff drift pass me and to concentrate on the art of the low budget cinematic experience.

And I am genuinely glad I did as Blue Christmas (which is based on the novella A Wreath For Marley, which was written by director Max Allan Collins) is a rather delightfully shot, acted, and scene-set movie that harms no one and is a pure unadulterated little gem to behold this holiday season.

Virtually engaging from the off, or at least once the opening holiday drinks scene has set the scene, sure it meanders and feels unfocused at times, but then it clicks right back into place very nicely; very effortlessly.

Shot at Muscatine Community College, Collins’ alma mater, yes, of course, you can see where most of the low budget went when certain scenes are filmed, but for the most part you allow such things to waft over you.

Already a top competitor to become one of my favorite Christmas movies to turn to each holiday period, the way it occasionally uses the lens distortion at the edges of the screen to emphasize the severity of the dialogue at its center (instead of changing focus depth) is a genuine masterstroke also.

Here’s another nice one.

And another.

Here’s a three-star review (and glad to get it).

And one more.

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I don’t usually reprint fan letters (not that I get that many), but I asked the writer of this one, Chris Dingsdale, permission to use it here.

Hi Max,

Thought I would take a few moments to say how much I enjoyed the

Blue Christmas Movie which arrived in the UK from the US last week.

I simply love the original tale – a perfect synthesis of two genres. Really what more can I say?

While

A Christmas Carol seems to be about forgiveness and change, Blue Christmas (to me anyway) tells us not to let the past define you but use it to learn and move forward. Wonderful.

Actually I read the tale first some years ago in an Otto Penzler compilation; this was exactly the message I needed to hear. I re-read the story every year without fail.

When I read on your website how the story came about I was thrilled to find that it meant a lot to you as the author – there is emotion and feeling in every line, Max.

The Movie was similarly great. It was a joy to read and follow the production on your site. I loved your verve and enthusiasm in making the Movie (and I’m sure that you didn’t relate much of the bad times and frustration!).

Everyone was great – but a special call out to Rob Merritt (is it me or did he make Richard a more beneficial character in his performance?) and Alisabeth Von Presley – that lady has presence and charisma in (Sam) Spades.

The DVD is excellent, not listened to the commentary yet nor the feature about some writer from Muscatine, Iowa (apparently he’s pretty good?).

I am in Florida and Vegas for Christmas and will pick up my

Encore for Murder DVD from a friend (I couldn’t wait for Blue Christmas – had it shipped to the UK – lol! )

I’ll sign off by saying that I really love your work, Max, and recent times have been an absolute gift – the Ms Tree Casebooks, Nolan Reprints (loved

Skim Deep!) etc etc

I am a longtime Nathan Heller fan (one day the world will wake up and say – “have you read these books – this is literary magic in front of your eyes!”).

Merry Christmas to you and your family, Max – hope you all have a terrific festive season and please take a moment to reflect on how much your work means to so many people – I (and thousands like me) cannot imagine what it takes to make career from being creative.

Luckily writers like you do it for us readers. You are a creative tour de force, sir.

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One of my favorite reviewers, Ron Fortier, periodically goes back and picks up on something I did a few years ago. Here he writes about The Hindenburg Murders, a book I have fond memories of because its hero detective is the creator of the Saint, Leslie Charteris, one of my favorite authors in my adolescence, reflecting an early interest in mystery and crime fiction.

Here’s a nice review of Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher by Brad Schwartz and me.

Finally, here’s a fine write-up about the recent collection, Ms. Tree: Heroine Withdrawal by Terry Beatty and me. I am so grateful to Titan and Hard Case Crime for collecting the complete Ms. Tree like this.

By the way – Merry Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah).

M.A.C.

True Noir for Christmas! Also Quarry News

Do you know what you want for Christmas?

In case you’re confused, go to truenoir.co and order True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak right now – the First Act (episodes 1, 2 and 3) drops on December 20! In fact, go there and buy True Noir even if you aren’t confused.

For those of you who’ve been with me for years – some since the publication of True Detective (the specific source of True Noir) – will understand how thrilled I am to have Nate Heller, beautifully portrayed by Michael Rosenbaum of Smallville fame, brought to life in Robert Meyer Burnett’s incredible nearly seven-hour immersive audio drama from my nearly 400-page script.

(Has anyone besides me noticed that actors who play Superman and Lex Luther respectively – Tyler Hoechlin and Michael Rosenbaum – have appeared in M.A.C. productions?)

It’s been quite a trip returning to this novel to adapt it after so many years. True Detective was written in 1981 and ‘82, published in 1983, and won the Best Private Eye Novel “Shamus” award in 1984, presented by the Private Eye Writers of America. It represented several years of research by myself and my research associate George Hagenauer. And I think it’s fair to say that True Detective is the novel most important in (and to) my career.

What? You think that’s Road to Perdition? Well, Road to Perdition is a spin-off of the Nathan Heller novels, particularly the first two (True Crime being the other one). I was asked by DC Comics in early 1994 if I’d develop a series essentially in the Nate Heller universe but new, something that would be specifically for DC. That’s what Road to Perdition came to be. It required some fancy footwork in my novel Road to Purgatory to keep Nate Heller from running into Michael O’Sullivan, lemme tell ya.

Road to Perdition, of course, was the project that lifted me from the doldrums of the aftermath of my then-current firing from writing the Dick Tracy comic strip (for 15 years). Another result of reacting to that firing was a novella I wrote called “A Wreath for Marley,” which became a modest but heart-felt film in 2023 called Blue Christmas. You can buy it on Blu-ray or DVD in time for Christmas right now from Amazon and a bunch of other places, including Diabolik and Hamilton Books – it’s on sale for about eighteen bucks (and you can rent it on Amazon Prime for under two bucks).

And if you saw and liked Blue Christmas, don’t be shy about leaving a review at Amazon. Right now there’s only one.

Speaking of Blue Christmas, one of its two headline stars, Alisabeth Von Presley, presented her annual Christmas show at the Paramount Theater in Cedar Rapids last Friday (Dec. 13), and Barb and I were in attendance. Alisabeth, a phenomenal performer, put on a fantastic show. She’s truly a Midwestern superstar and I hope to do more movies with her (she’s also in Death By Fruitcake), if she’s interested (and if Barb lets me out of the house).

I will share a few photos here from the Von Presley Christmas show (Christmas in the Key of Pink) which will give you a sense of the spectacle she mounted for a full house at a classic old theater. Alisabeth, of course, appeared on American Idol and American Song Contest (she debuted several new songs at the show).

In other news, I’ve been reminded by a number of readers that 2026 will mark fifty years of Quarry novels. Under its original title The Broker, the novel Quarry was first published in 1976. I had planned to write a Nate Heller novel in 2025 for publication in 2026, but we – editor Charles Ardai and I – have decided to do a 50th Anniversary Quarry novel to be published in 2026 (in addition to Return of the Maltese Falcon, which will appear in January 2026).

So the next Nate Heller, God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, will be a 2026 project and a 2027 publication. I may go ahead and write the Heller this coming year, since at my age putting things off isn’t the best idea.

I’m just starting to noodle with the idea for this special Quarry, and I’m leaning toward another one that has him older, and nearly my age. I really did enjoy writing Quarry’s Blood and Quarry’s Return. He doesn’t seem to be any less lethal past 70.

As for making any more of my indie movies, I have two ideas (one already scripted), but it’s complicated by money matters and by Barb’s unwillingness to participate (she has grandkids to spoil). The idea of making a movie without Barb at my side is a painful one, and perhaps impractical, because she has been an indispensable part of every movie I’ve made. The “money” factor I mentioned has to do with whether Blue Christmas and Death By Fruitcake are successful enough to justify continuing on this quirky cinematic path.

A few bigger-time movie projects are perking, but frankly that kind of thing only comes to fruition rarely.

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Here’s an interesting write-up on my Mike Hammer graphic novel, The Night I Died.

And a nice look at Road to Perdition the movie.

This is a look at Paradox Press and how that now-defunct DC imprint published Road to Perdition and other noir-ish graphic novels.

Happy holidays, everyone!

M.A.C.

Reviews Discussed…and Shared!

Barb and I did a book signing at Greenpoint Mercantile, as part of the annual holiday stroll here in Muscatine. Thanks to this new bookstore and to those who dropped by to chat…and to buy and chat especially.

Just around the corner, our Blue Christmas/Death by Fruitcake star Alisabeth Von Presley was doing her thing, with my film-making crony Chad Bishop at the controls.

Alisabeth is a force of nature!

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Let’s discuss reviews.

The baseline of this one-sided discussion is a truism: no two people experience a work of art the same way. A book is the author plus the reader. A film is the movie plus the audience member. A painting is the canvas plus the viewer. This, like all truisms, should be obvious. And yet people argue about whether a novel, say, is a masterpiece or stinks on ice, and every stop in between.

Several things have occurred in recent years that have frustrated any worthwhile discussion of (let’s say for the sake of argument) a novel or a feature film. Reviews used to be the domain of professional reviewers – individuals who worked for a newspaper or perhaps a radio or television station, and presumably had credentials for such work. In recent years – starting with the Internet and careening into the Social Media era – anyone, everyone, is a critic. This is democracy. But democracy is sloppy. And the end result seems to be that everything is judged, minus nuance or context, as either good or bad.

I am thinner-skinned than a professional writer should be. I will brood over a bad review – not long, but enough to make it hard to get to sleep for one night. However. My thin skin has less to do with criticism and more to do with marketing. In other words, I view a good review as something that generates sales, and a bad review as something that lessens sales. The audience, or I should say potential audience, doesn’t necessarily know the difference between an informed review and an unprofessional one.

Which is not to say informed reviews are necessarily “right” – but they are opinions that might reasonably be taken more seriously. And that is largely lost.

Anthony Boucher, probably the greatest reviewer of mystery fiction who ever lived (and a fiction writer of some skill himself), hated Mickey Spillane’s work on the initial publication and success of the Mike Hammer novels. But as the years passed, he re-evaluated Mickey, and came to (somewhat grudgingly) revise that opinion and become an advocate of Spillane as the last of the great pulp fiction writers. That indicates thought, and growth, and yes nuance, on Boucher’s part.

I distrust reviews as they pertain to my potential growth as a writer. That may seem counter-intuitive, as if I want to improve, listening to criticism makes sense. But writers of fiction must have confidence and conviction in what they are creating. Allowing a bad review to undermine you – or a good review to give you a swelled head – is not productive.

There’s an argument, and not a bad one, that if you allow yourself to believe the good reviews, you have to believe the bad ones, too. That however, it seems to me, would lead to mental whiplash or maybe the onset of a bipolar condition. A more nuanced approach would be for a writer (or filmmaker) to consider each opinion on its own merits, and while this makes sense, it can get in the way of the creative process – it leads not to creativity but to second-guessing yourself.

When my first two novels came out in January 1973, I was fairly well-known in small-town Muscatine (pop. 25,000) largely due to my father, Max Allan Collins Sr., who was the director of a national-championship men’s chorus, a beloved former high school music teacher and a choir director at the Methodist Church. If I am half the writer he was a musician, I must be pretty damn, excuse me darn, good.

So eyes were on me when I published Bait Money and Blood Money. And I expected praise. And I got some. But mostly I got dirty looks and dirtier comments because my novels were considered by local residents as, yup, dirty. Should I have taken this criticism to heart and cleaned up my act? Fuck no. Did it hurt my feelings? A bit. Surprised me, more than anything.

My attitude toward reviews, good and bad (few are in between in these black-and-white times) is, “Is there a nice quote that can be pulled from here?” Not that I am either a genius or a fraud. Bad reviews are worthless because you can’t pull a quote for promotional purposes. There was a time, when a mixed review was more common, that you could pull a quote and leave the rest behind, including negatives.

Do I ever allow myself to be seduced by a really terrific review? You bet. Briefly. Do I ever allow myself to be hurt by a really cruel review? Sure. Briefly. But mostly it’s, “That’s going to be helpful!” Or, “That’s not going to be bring some new readers in!”

None of this means that a thoughtful, well-written negative review can’t be helpful. There’s less of that these days because of the this-book-is-fantastic, this book-sucks-donkey-dick dynamic. Also, politics has started to enter in. I first noticed that when Matt Clemens and I got negative Amazon reviews from far-right readers about Supreme Justice – when the book wasn’t available yet, not even advance reviewer copies.

As absurd as that is, it does come back to the point that a book, a movie, a painting, is the artist plus the recipient. That’s especially true with a novel – with a movie, everybody sees the same narrative; they take it in differently, but it’s a shared visual experience. A novel is a movie that plays in the head of a single reader. And sometimes you play at an arthouse, sometimes the local multi-plex, and other times at the Three Mile Island Community Playhouse.

Movies are hostage to their budgets. The most money I’ve ever had to make a movie is half a million dollars. Most recently, I’ve had eight grand to make Blue Christmas and twenty-four grand to make Death By Fruitcake. Before that, Encore for Murder had zero budget – it was strictly a local production I recorded and edited (with Phil Dingeldein and Chad Bishop respectively).

And yet.

I recall back in the early ‘80s when I’d hear from Paul Reubens with a late-night phone call where we’d discuss the Pee-Wee Herman movie he was trying to get off the ground. When he got Warners Bros on board, he was concerned about budget. I told him, “The more money they give you, the more trouble you’ll have.” He said he agreed with me, but not to tell Warner’s. As it was Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure had a modest budget and a terrific unknown director and did just fine.

If a reviewer – a viewer – doesn’t have a sense of scale, of making an effort to meet a movie on its own level, the filmmaker is screwed. Last week, I shared with you a wonderful review of Blue Christmas from a professional critic whose work I admire. Getting that review, I admit, felt great.

But a day later we got a review that dismissed us as low-budget bilge. The reviewer was nobody I’d ever heard of, but I’m sure he has an audience. And I get that when you are used to seeing movies made for hundreds of millions of dollars, or for just a paltry five or ten million, an eight-thousand-buck “blockbuster” like Blue Christmas may be difficult to meet on its own terms.

But a reviewer should try. We all should meet art on its own terms (and I use the word “art” to cover a lot of ground, and perhaps “craft” would be more appropriate). Blue Christmas, a little micro-budget movie that I am pleased with, was worth making. I have been trying to get it done, in various ways, on assorted levels, since 1994. Finally, with my own clock winding down, I came up with a way to do it on a very limited budget, and now – for better or worse (and I obviously feel it’s better) – Blue Christmas exists. (It’s still available as I write this for under two bucks at Amazon Prime; and the Blu-ray release from VCI is pretty nifty, by my biased standards.)

Allow me, if you will, a sidebar about the cast of my little movie. It’s a large cast for a micro-budget production – twenty-four – and consists of professionals, semi-pros (day-job folks who appear in, for example, regional dinner theater), and community theater amateurs. I am grateful to them, every one of them. Our top-billed duo, Rob Merritt and Alisabeth Von Presley, are both well-known in this corner of the world and are film-festival award-winners for their performances in Blue Christmas.

I am pleased and proud to say that we’ve had mostly good reviews for Blue Christmas, a few of which have been raves or nearly so, outnumbering a handful of bad ones.

Now after all that, I’m going to share a really good review with you, our first, for True Noir (based on the first three episodes), the budget for which was around $250,000 and whose cast is overwhelmingly stellar. The review is written by a professional fiction writer and literary critic, by the way.

Here it is:

Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Richard Diamond, Nero Wolfe, Pat Novak, Johnny Dollar – at the height of their popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, when radio was the primary means of home entertainment in the United States, detective story serials drew tens of millions of listeners. These serialized private eye dramas, which hypnotized audiences with crackling writing, stirring voice acting, gripping plots, colorful characters, and atmospheric sound effects, were gradually relegated to silence as the art form of immersive audio storytelling went extinct–until now. Enter True Noir: The Assassination of Anton Cermak, a spellbinding sonic re-imagining of the first installment in Max Allan Collins’ most celebrated series, the Nathan Heller casebooks.

Crisply directed and impeccably edited by Robert Meyer Burnett, based on Collins’ excellent screenplay treatment of his own novel, the audio drama drops listeners into an aurally vibrant and thoroughly realized 1932 Chicago, where we follow the shady power plays of characters both fictional and historical. Michael Rosenbaum brings Nate Heller to life with a captivating blend of playful gusto and sensitivity, pulling double duty with a voiceover simultaneously dynamic and velvety. The stacked supporting cast, which includes Bill Smitrovich, David Strathairn, and Katee Sackhoff, unfailingly deliver performances that pop with nuance and flavor. Michael J. McDonald’s phenomenal sound design, which expertly suggests spatial relationships through the subtle manipulation of audio channel elements, such as floating wisps of background dialog, further orchestrates the drama’s heightened sense of reality. Ingenious transitional effects, like traveling through a telephone wire or experiencing a sensory flashback, invent a whole new vocabulary of acoustic alchemy. Alexander Bornstein’s tastefully interspersed original score, with its sultry jazz influences, smoky sax tones and melancholy piano chords, evokes the best retro-noir scores of the twentieth century, like Jerry Goldsmith’s

Chinatown, John Williams’ The Long Goodbye, and John Barry’s Body Heat. We can only hope for its eventual release as a standalone presentation.

World-building is a term commonly applied to literary and visual media – but

True Noir proves that with the right team at the conductor’s podium, it can be equally batoned to mesmerizing effect just through sound. In a smoky netherworld somewhere between bitter memory and bygone dream, the ambiance-drenched True Noir is the perfect marriage of our past’s most beloved tried-and-true storytelling tradition with the latest cutting-edge technologies of creative soundscaping. The play’s still the thing, and this one hits all the right notes.
—-Author & critic Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

I will add only one slight correction – I’ve never written a screenplay version of True Detective. My adaptation was based on the novel itself, and is to a degree screenplay-style.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro is the author of the well-regarded 2024 novel, Equimedian.

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Here is a great review of the new Ms. Tree collection by Terry Beatty and me, Ms. Tree: Fallen Tree. (Scroll down a bit.)

Never heard my punk classic (let’s make that “classic”), “Psychedelic Siren”? Now’s your chance.

There’s some interesting stuff about Road to Perdition as a graphic novel that inspired a big-time Hollywood movie right here.

Never mind what I said above about reviews – this one from Paperback Warrior about the current Quarry’s Return is a honey! Exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

M.A.C.

My Bestsellers, A Great Blue Christmas Review, and Quarry

You may not know what my bestselling books actually are. And I don’t know for sure that these three novels have outsold everything else I’ve done – various editions of Road to Perdition for example – but they continue to sell and generate income.

They are on sale right now.

E-Book:
E-Book:
E-Book:

Supreme Justice, Fate of the Union and Executive Order will be $2.99 each starting 12/1/2024 and running through 12/31/2024. These are e-books not physical publications. (The physical editions are nice, just not on sale.)

The novels, the last of which was published in 2017, have some interesting themes, considering what has transpired in America since.

Supreme Justice dealt with a Conservative-stacked Supreme Court; Fate of the Union was about a multi-millionaire who runs for president and tries to overthrow the government; and Executive Order concerns a coup by the Secret Service to replace the President.

My co-author Matt Clemens and I have pitched several further Reeder-and-Rogers novels with Thomas & Mercer and have gotten nowhere, despite the strong sales of this (what now appears to be a) trilogy. As tumultuous as the politics are right now, Matt and I actually feel a little relieved not to be adding to the Reeder and Rogers canon. They take place somewhat in the future – not enough to be viewed as science-fiction certainly – and despite what some have posted on Amazon reviewing pages, the books do not take a political stand, at least not overtly. The politics of the two main characters are not the same, for one thing.

I mention all this because (a) you might have been unaware of them and that they are among my bestselling novels, and (b) they are on sale right now.

* * *

You’re going to have to put up with me talking about Blue Christmas for the next few weeks, since we need to encourage you to buy it on physical media or stream it on Amazon Prime (and a couple of other places) before Christmas 2024 is in the rear-view mirror. I encourage you to use Diabolik, but you can get it from Amazon, obviously. Don’t pay more than around twenty bucks, despite its official price of thirty or so.

We had hoped to do a few more Iowa advanced screenings of Death by Fruitcake, but that hasn’t jelled. We have not been helped by how late Thanksgiving came this year, and how suddenly we’re in December already.

I made a calculation that following Blue Christmas up with a second Christmas movie was the smart thing to do. I still think it was – particularly since the two movies are very different – but it made dealing with a limited theatrical release in our native Iowa become problematic. We did do very well with our Death by Fruitcake advanced screening in our native Muscatine, selling out the houses on the two nights we premiered the production.

We spent a little more money, and took a little more time, on Death By Fruitcake than we did Blue Christmas. I think it represents a step up. But I am grateful to the reviewers and, well, viewers who have been gracious about the micro-budget nature of Blue Christmas.

To all of you who have posted glowing reviews, positive Facebook posts and nice e-mails about our modest little effort, thank you so much…and merry Christmas.

One of the best reviews we’ve received is from the well-respected Douglas Pratt at his DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter.

Have a Blue Christmas!

We hate to spoil it, but it happens in the first few minutes anyway and it is just the very beginning of the film’s inspirations when you hear that the name of the grumpy detective’s dead partner, at the start of the VCI Entertainment MVDvisual Blu-ray, Blue Christmas), is ‘Jake Marley.’ It is 1942, and Marley was killed a year ago, of course, on Christmas Day. What happens when you take A Christmas Carol and cross it with The Maltese Falcon? Well, with a good-sized cast and the creative inspiration already in place, you get the most perfect community theater property to show up this side of Mamma Mia! That is how the very low budget film plays, but its imagination and wit are so compelling, and the Dickensian emotional hooks are so effectively preserved, that it can do no wrong. Written and directed by Max Allan Collins, Rob Merritt stars as a 4F detective who is running a reasonably successful detective agency in Chicago, even though he’s chintzy with his staff and blows off requests for charity. He falls asleep at his desk that night, and the visitors start coming, the first of which is his former partner, who needs him to find the killer. Everything else in the 79-minute feature is such a joy to discover, we will leave it to you with glad tidings.

The entire film was shot on a single set, mostly as the detective’s office, but redressed slightly for a few flashback scenes and the like. The one quibble we would have is that the film, shot on HD, is presented in widescreen format with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1. It is very clear in scene after scene that there is not enough decoration to support the framing and that blocking the movie in a squared, full screen image would not only have given it greater production value, but would have better captured the Forties tone the film otherwise so lovingly conveys. Nevertheless, the colors are bright and sharp, and the endless string of instrumental Christmas tunes playing on the soundtrack are well served by the modest dimensionality of the stereo sound. There are optional English subtitles, a trailer, an excellent 26-minute profile of the Iowa-based Collins that barely mentions his work as a film director as it focuses on his prolific writing career (nothing like the Iowa cost of living when you’re trying to get by as a writer…), and an extensive 102-minute collection of post-screening interviews with almost the full cast and crew at different locations, as they all share their eagerness for the project and the enjoyment they had putting it together. Although she only appears in one of the Q&A’s, it is worth noting that regional actress Alisabeth Von Presley is as captivating in person as she is in the memorable part she plays in the film as the specific and inspired ghost of Christmas Past. Scot Gehret, as another inspired ghost of Christmas Future, also has several crowd pleasing moments in the interviews.

Collins and producer Chad Bishop provide a decent commentary track, talking about each cast member (including how they were chosen, their working methods, their personalities and many other details), the technical choices, the adjustments when they decided to do the whole thing in one location (they shot it at a college theater in Iowa in 6 days), how the story was gestated, its previous iterations, and what their own working relationship was like.

Doug Pratt’s ability to take the production on its own (admittedly limited) terms is textbook Good Reviewing.

* * *

I have delivered Return of the Maltese Falcon to Hard Case Crime and sister company Titan Books.

Publisher/editor Charles Ardai got back to me lightning fast, as is his habit, so the book has largely been put to bed – though not due out till January 2026. My Mike Hammer editor Andrew Sumner, at Titan, will be giving it an editorial pass soon, which will really finalize matters.

That gives me a year to be ready for what I think will be a lot of praise but possibly as many attacks. For readers of hardboiled/noir fiction – or just great American fiction – my providing a sequel to a work of this stature – takes a good deal of nerve…and maybe reckless abandon.

But I’m something of an old hand at taking over for my heroes – scripting Dick Tracy for fifteen years, completing Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer over a period of seventeen years. It’s done out of love and respect, I assure you. And I consider it an incredible privilege to walk in such shoes, despite the unlikelihood of ever really filling them.

* * *
Quarry’s Return Audiobook Cover Sample Audio:

Trade Paperback:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:
Audiobook CD:
Audiobook MP3 CD:

With all the fuss over my little movies here of late, the new Quarry has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle, But we have 24 Amazon reviews currently, all five-star.

And Barb and I are listening to Stefan Rudnicki’s reading of Quarry’s Return right now, and he’s done usual terrific job – he really gets it.

In case you didn’t see it, here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review.

QUARRY’S RETURN
Max Allan Collins. Hard Case Crime, $12.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-80336-876-4
Retired hit man Quarry returns to the killing business with ruthless efficiency in the highly satisfying 17th entry in Collins’s crime series (after Quarry’s Blood). When a journalist shows up at Quarry’s door searching for his daughter, bestselling true crime author Susan Breedlove, Quarry senses trouble. Predictably, the reporter turns out to be a hired assassin, and his expert knife skills make him more than a match for the 71-year-old ex-killer. Fortunately, Quarry’s former lover Luann Lloyd, who he believed was dead, arrives in the nick of time to rescue him. But Quarry’s daughter is far from safe; evidence suggests she’s been abducted while investigating a series of cold case murders, forcing Quarry to return to Port City, Iowa, where he met Susan’s mother and left contract killing, and where Susan had been conducting research. With Luann’s help, Quarry begins his own investigation into the killings Susan was writing about, in the belief that exposing the culprit will lead him to her. The fluid narration is better than ever, and Collins brings the proceedings to an exhilarating and unexpected conclusion. Fans will hope Quarry returns again soon.* * *

I hope all of you had lovely Thanksgivings – we did, with a jaunt to the Amana Colonies for an incredible meal – and are dealing with the imminent arrival of Christmas.

Really comes roaring down the track this year.

M.A.C.

Being Thankful

With a contentious election behind us, and an even more uncertain American future ahead, the arrival of the holiday season and those family-oriented juggernauts Thanksgiving and Christmas threaten to make not all of the noises joyful. But speaking from a strictly personal perspective, I have plenty to be thankful for, starting with my family – a smart supportive bride who was beautiful when we married in 1968 and still is, astonishingly so; and a great, talented son and a terrific daughter-in-law and two bright, funny grandkids (Sam 9, Lucy 6).

There’s more. Two Christmas movies, Blue Christmas and Death by Fruitcake, have been added to my list of indie productions I’ve mounted when I didn’t think it likely I’d ever do another project of that kind again. Barb worked on both and co-produced the second; our son Nate toiled on both as well, and grandson son made it into Blue Christmas (both Sam and Lucy are in Death by Fruitcake). As is always the case on a film, I worked with cast and crew both old and new, and my creative circle grew.

Despite health issues, I have managed to stay not just active but prolific, if not as much so as in the past. Barb is writing her draft of our next Antiques novel, a series we began twenty years ago. Our son Nate’s career as a Japanese-to-English translator continues to flourish, though it’s hard, hard work. I’ve written a ten-part audio drama, in post-production now, True Noir (directed by new friend Robert Meyer Burnett) based on the first Nathan Heller novel, True Detective, with an all-star cast, and have another Heller to write for Hard Case Crime in the coming year – the 19th I believe. I have just completed a dream project, The Return of the Maltese Falcon, for publication by HCC/Titan in January 2016, and the final Mike Hammer novel, Baby, It’s Murder, comes out from Titan the day after my March third birthday, March 4 of 2025.

Regardless of how I might feel about the macro state of America, the micro world of the Collins family reminds me of Cary Grant being sent a telegram from a news service asking him, “How old Cary Grant?” And Cary Grant responded with, “Old Cary Grant fine. How you?”

At the age of 76, I face a future that remains uncertain in that inevitable certainty. But being alive (thank you, Sondheim) remains a trip I’m pleased to still be taking, and the specific life I’ve been living has largely been sweet. The bittersweet is in there, too, of course. Many of my best friends and valued collaborators are gone. But how wonderful it’s been to have them in my life. I’ve finally hung up my rock ‘n’ roll shoes, but the talented and funny people I’ve known, the gigs I’ve been able to enjoy (and sometimes endure), are something I’m delighted to have experienced.

It’s not all good, of course. Both the far right and the far left want to control my speech, in varying ways. As I have long said, where the far right and the far left meet is at a book-burning – they’re just bringing different books. I’ve been cancelled by both of ‘em at various times in my career, which starts to feel like a badge of honor.

But, hell – I’ve been able to make a living in the storytelling business. Telling lies for fun and profit, as Lawrence Block said. Doesn’t get better than that.

So you bet I’m thankful.

And a lot of that is due to those of you who drop by here regularly who have supported my life-long journey to avoid actual work.

So on this contentious year at this wonderful, difficult time of year, let me say this: let’s put the “Thanks” into Thanksgiving. Corny, I know. But as my late friend, filmmaker Steve Henke, once said of me, “Max will write something nasty but then ruin it with something sentimental at the end, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

So thank you.

* * *

Quarry’s Return from Hard Case Crime is out right now, and a few reviews have rolled in. This is a particularly nice, smart one.

And this one’s nice, too.

Looks like the old boy has some life left in him. I started the series in the mid-1970s and against all odds it is still kicking.

Same could be said of its author.

* * *

Speaking of reviews, scroll down and read a nice one of Blue Christmas.

And this one.

And some nice Blue Christmas coverage is here.

And how about this terrific Blue Christmas review?

We’ve received a few negative ones, anyway two that I know of – one flat-out mean, another basically dinging us for being so low-budget, a hurdle the reviewer can’t get over. He’s been served a hamburger and, damnit, he insists on steak.

I get it. Doing a micro-budget indie film is a challenge, and the result is so different from the Hollywood variety – where millions of dollars can be spent on a movie called “low-budget” – that a little production like Blue Christmas requires understanding that a budget under $10,000 isn’t going to produce Gladiator 2.

I’m a big believer in meeting art (if I may be so bold as describe what I do as “art”) on its own level. What is it trying to do, and what were the obstacles that may have had to be overcome? That said, some of you may find Blue Christmas a bridge too far, and that frustrates me but I do understand. It’s very low-budget, and the reviewers (including the positive ones) often compare us to a community theater production (not always in an unflattering way). If you can’t meet a book or movie on its own terms – or if you feel those terms are at odds with your point of view, your tastes – I understand.

To put it in perspective, we couldn’t afford licensing a version of the song “Blue Christmas” for a movie called Blue Christmas. That would have taken ten times the budget we had for the whole flick.

But I will say this. As some of you know, Blue Christmas was written to be a bigger budget movie (by “bigger” I mean half a million dollars) back in the days when we did the two Mommy movies. But we weren’t able to make that happen. Periodically over the years, I tried to mount it, including as a stage play with Iowa PBS in mind, but never could get the job done. When I had the opportunity to do a rewrite for a micro-budget version and actually produce it…actually have it exist…I couldn’t resist. And I like this version just fine, and the way it works on (basically) a single set, emphasizing the Christmas Carol-like visions of private eye Richard Stone.

I’ll remind you Blue Christmas is available on Amazon Prime for under three bucks, on Blu-ray and DVD from VCI and MVD (available at Amazon and Diabolik and elsewhere), and on a few streaming channels for free but with commercials.

Now I’ll wind up this commercial and get back to the main attraction: me wishing you and yours a happy Thanksgiving.

M.A.C.

Prime Time for Blue Christmas; Farewell to Stephen Mertz

Blue Christmas is available now on Amazon Prime for under $2.99 (to rent) in HD. It’s also on Fawesome, free, but there are commercials. Several other streaming services are considering it and I’ll post info here as that happens.

Now that the Blu-ray and DVD are out, we’ve had several really nice reviews, like this one.

We had a week-long run at the Palms multi-plex in Muscatine, Iowa (our home town) and Barb and I saw it twice, really loving how it looks on the big screen. The day before this update appears we’ll have had a nice screening at Muscatine Community College in the Black Box theater where we shot it.

Please support our little Christmas noir. If you get a chance to give us a decent star rating at IMDB, that would be welcome and appreciated.

Also, if you order the Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon, and like it, post a review.

And if you haven’t sent for it yet, consider going to the great physical media dealer Diabolik.

* * *

I have been approached by several folks about the Kickstarter page for True Noir. Apparently it hasn’t been updated of late. I am not directly associated with the page, but I’ve talked to Rob Burnett about it and he’s on the case.

There have been some delays in delivery of this ambitious project – a ten-episode immersive audio presentation of True Detective from my scripts. I can assure you this is an impressive production – everything I’ve heard has been terrific.

What happened is, to my understanding, initial plans to release the episodes one at a time, while the production was still in post, have shifted to waiting till the entire audio drama is done. The recording is entirely finished but editing and SFX are still in process, and the last two episodes haven’t been scored yet (but that’s coming – and this music is really impressive).

I will be doing mini-documentaries on each episode for inclusion on the eventual Blu-ray release.

* * *

When you live to be a certain age, or I should say when you are lucky enough to live to a certain age, you may come upon a sad and unsettling reality: more of your friends are dead than alive. I have lost bandmates, like Paul Thomas, Bruce Peters and Chuck Bunn, and Terry Becky (murdered in a motel room while touring); the brothers Van Winkle, Brian and Jim, and – unfortunately in the too rocky world of rock ‘n’ roll – a number of others. My filmmaking collaborator, actor Michael Cornelison is gone – he was part of Mommy, Mommy’s Day, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop and Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane. I basically retired from filmmaking when Mike passed, and only recently have I had the heart to pick up the mantle again.

Now three of my closest friends in the writing game are gone – a while back Ed Gorman, recently Bob Randisi, and now Stephen Mertz.

Steve had his cantankerous side but was cheerful and fun and funny even at his crankiest, and mostly he was a sunny presence, enthusiastic about writers whose work he loved and himself a dedicated professional. He was also a musician and a good one. He was a radio d.j. at times, and the kind of ideal presence you’d love to have with you pouring from the car radio on a long drive.

I don’t recall when I met Steve. He’s one of those people I feel I always knew. It was probably at a Bouchercon, a long-ago one. I just know that he was one of Mickey Spillane’s biggest fans and boosters, and to some degree our friendship was grounded in that.

We were also among a small handful who knew of the work of Ennis Willie, a mysterious figure (for years anyway) whose ‘60s work at the minor paperback house Merit Books ran to two dozen-plus titles that rocketed from his typewriter, a pulp-style writer who seemed to disappear as quickly as he emerged. Had Willie been killed in a car accident or maybe died of a disease? Was he a Black writer? Was he Mickey Spillane secretly writing under a pseudonym? These topics and more were discussed endlessly by Steve and me (and also Ed Gorman).

Ultimately our enthusiasm for his work flushed Willie out of the normal life he’d been swallowed into (he was a publisher in the South) and he was astonished and, I think, thrilled that Steve and I (and Ed) had been such advocates of his work, particularly the Sand novels, which were similar to Westlake’s Parker books but with an overtly Spillane touch. (Matt Clemens and I named our John Sand secret agent character after Willie’s hoodlum hero, Sand.)

Steve was also a big booster of Michael Avallone, who had become, unfairly, a kind of joke in the eyes of some when he was really a dedicated craftsman with perhaps a little too much defensive pride in his work…but that’s better than the opposite.

The biggest argument Steve and I had, over the years, had to do with Steve hiding behind pseudonyms, protecting his real byline for bigger, greater work that he felt he would accomplish later. My approach was, you never know if there’s going to be a “later” – I would slap my name on a movie novelization knowing that the young readers of such books might become lifetime fans of my work. And that proved the case.

Steve wrote scores of men’s adventure novels, and was a big advocate of the work of Don Pendleton, and wound up as one of the best ghosts of the later Executioner novels. Again, this solid work was hidden behind a byline that wasn’t his, and I encouraged him for decades to get his real name out there. But he went on writing as “Jim Case” and “Stephen Brett” and “Cliff Banks”…and “Don Pendleton.” Finally, in the last few decades, he did sign his own work, and did so with pride on such distinctive novels as Hank & Muddy and The Castro Directive.

Back when I was doing a lot of tie-in novels, Steve was the only person I recommended to a publisher when my work schedule didn’t allow – his Sudden Death was a fine example of a tricky craft.

And I let Barb know if anything happened to me, of all my friends – even including Bob and Ed – that Steve was the one to approach if I passed with a book half-finished.

Now here I am, on my own. It will be up to Barb and Nate, if I don’t finish something…and you better.

Steve, you were a fine friend and a fine writer, and a real sweetheart of a guy. I often said you would argue with a tree stump…but with a smile and laugh.

I can hear that laugh now.

* * *

Read about Ennis Willie (who published new versions of his work after the Mertz/Gorman/M.A.C. enthusiasm caught fire) right here.

M.A.C.

Many Happy Returns (Except For…)

I stepped out from behind my usual “no politics here” stance last week by expressing my support for Kamala Harris. Wow, that really made the difference! Look, I am a centrist generally pissed off at both the far left and far right, having been cancelled by both in various eras. But I am grateful that nobody who follows this blog/update stepped up to slap me down last week. They respected or at least ignored my opinion. I had exactly one “pushback” on Facebook from somebody astounded that I would see Donald Trump as a threat to the rule of law. So at least I got one good laugh out of this.

The real winner of this campaign was social media for getting away with completely (a) blotting out any real news coverage in favor of this opinion and that one, and (b) making every one of us feel a sense of importance none of us deserve. Just this week I have had a movie I directed, and a book I am writing, lambasted by people who have not seen the movie and not read the book (not a surprise, since I haven’t finished it). I realize I am being a bit of hypocrite being opinionated in this – but how many of us now think our opinions are so important we need to express them in public, even when we are discussing a movie we haven’t seen, or a book that isn’t even out yet?

This is Alice in Wonderland stuff, boys and girls. And it’s going to get worse.

* * *
Trade Paperback:
E-Book:
Digital Audiobook:
Audiobook CD:
Audiobook MP3 CD:

Quarry’s Return is out now and you should be able to find it at your favorite brick-and-mortar bookstores, but it’s also available at the usual online retailers.

I’ve said a few places that this may be the final Quarry novel, but let’s face it – I said that before (about The Last Quarry and Quarry’s Blood, to name two). So who knows?

This novel is very much a sequel or follow-up to the Edgar-nominated Quarry’s Blood, though like all of these books, each can be read out of order without causing you too much mental whiplash. What I’ve discovered about Quarry, via this one and the preceding book in the saga, is that I like writing about him when he shares with me my current age (he’s actually a tad younger). I think that’s because he was conceived, in the first novel (Quarry a.k.a The Broker), as being my age, very much my contemporary as a child of the 1950s caught up in the Vietnam era.

Nate Heller has also been older in more recent novels (Too Many Bullets is something of a concluding one, though I do have one more to write, which is next up on my novelistic plate). Those books got out of chronological order fairly early on – only the first three (True Detective, True Crime, The Million-Dollar Wound) are strictly chronological, although you could kind of lump the fourth in (Neon Mirage) as well. After that I’m all over the map with Stolen Away and Damned in Paradise and so on.

Speaking of Heller, True Noir – the ten-part fully immersible, M.A.C.-scripted audio adaptation of True Detective is deep into post-production. Plans to drop the episodes gradually, while the later ones were still in post, have been scrapped by producer Mike Bawden in favor of waiting till the entire ten parts are complete. There is merit in this decision. Release should be some time in December or very early January. Exactly how and where they will be released I’ll announce here, as soon I know it.

What I do know is the cast and director Robert Meyer Burnett have done me proud. We have a terrific Nate Heller in Michael Rosenbaum of Smallville fame, and the supporting cast is second to none.

Getting back to Quarry, I should note that we have another terrific audio book of this one read by the great Stefan Rudnicki.

As far as more Quarry is concerned, it frankly depends on my health and the interest of a publisher. As long as Hard Case Crime is around, and I’m around, I’ll probably find a way to write the occasional Quarry. Whether any future one will be about the geriatric Quarry or a flashback to his earlier days remains to be seen.

At my age, writing this kind of book, I face not only my advancement of years, but that of my readership, which (let’s face it) is pretty much cult-ish, despite the occasional break-through like Road to Perdition.

I have found it revitalizing doing several micro-budget movie productions (Encore for Murder, Blue Christmas, Death by Fruitcake); but even at this modest (!) budgetary level, funding is difficult. We’ll see how Blue Christmas and Death by Fruitcake fare.

Right now Blue Christmas is playing a week-long run at the Palms Theater in Muscatine. Seeing our little film on a great big screen, with terrific sound, has been gratifying. (It’s still there through and including Nov. 14.) It’s a testimony to what director of photographer Phil Dingeldein and producer Chad Bishop were able to achieve on a wing and a prayer.

Blue Christmas also out on Blu-ray and DVD right now. Lots of special features, including a nice bio documentary of yours truly done for Muscatine Community College. A good place to get the Blue Christmas Blu-ray online (in addition to the usual online retailers) is the great website Diabolik. They are a terrific outfit offering all kinds of off-beat items, including our little Christmas fable. Their price is in line with other online retailers and I’d love to see you support them.

As for the DVD version, you can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and get it for eleven bucks and change.

Speaking of Blue Christmas, shortly after its run ends at the Palms Theater in Muscatine, there’s a special showing (open to the public) in the very Black Box venue where we recorded the film. This should be a great event and those of you in the eastern Iowa area may wish to take it in.

Hardcover:
E-Book:

Also out right now is the latest Antiques Trash ‘n’ Treasures comic mystery, Antiques Slay Belles. With Death by Fruitcake warming up as a release for next Christmas, with Brandy and Vivian Borne brought to life wonderfully by Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands (co-starring with Rob Merritt who plays P.I. Richard Stone in Blue Christmas), Barb and I are happy to present another Antiques Christmas mystery. Sometimes the mystery of the Antiques novels is where to find the darn things. Our publisher, Severn House, is in the UK and sometimes it’s difficult to find the latest Antiques novel in a brick-and-mortar USA store (there have been some inroads with Barnes & Noble as well as mystery bookstores).

But you can absolutely get Antiques Slay Belles at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and whatever your favorite online retailer is likely to be.

Let’s face it. These are ideal stocking stuffers for a mystery fan – but choose wisely which of these items you stuff. Only the hardiest of souls out there might find both Antiques Slay Belles and Quarry’s Return (and yes, it’s a Christmas novel!) equally palatable. On the other hand, Blue Christmas would make a fine Christmas day family film, despite its noir-ish themes (same noir-ish themes as A Christmas Carol!).

* * *

Check out our Blue Christmas IMDB page!

This is quite a lovely review of Blue Christmas, very positive but frank about our low-budget indie feature.

Here’s another nice Blue Christmas review, if brief; you have to scroll down to find it.

Hey, movies don’t get much more indie or micro than this; but if you like my work, I think – I hope – you’ll impressed with what we came up with. Much thanks goes to our eastern Iowa cast, with Alisabeth Von Presley already receiving a Best Actress award from the Iowa Motion Picture Association for what is essentially a supporting role. And Rob Merritt as Richard Stone carries a good deal of the weight of the production on his shoulders and proves his value as probably the most popular, busiest actor in this region.

M.A.C.

A Personal Note & A Premiere Weekend

I try to keep politics out of these updates – having no desire to offend my “customers” (as a great writer would often call his readers), much less my personal friends and business associates – but this election is just too important. Please support Kamala Harris for President. I’d like to wake up on November 6 still in a democracy, with the rule of law respected (and fluoride in the water, since I haven’t had a cavity since 1966).

* * *

This week in our home town of Muscatine, Iowa, the Palms Theater hosted a world premiere of our new film, Death by Fruitcake. We had near full houses both nights (Friday and Saturday Nov. 1 and 2) with star Paula Sands appearing on both nights, co-star Alisabeth Von Presley on Saturday night and their co-star Rob Merritt (star of Blue Christmas!) appearing on Friday evening.

Death by Fruitcake brings the main characters of the Antiques novels to life, as created by my lovely and incredibly talented wife Barbara and her tagalong husband. Antiques Slay Belles, the latest in the novel series, is out now. Paula inhabits the uninhibited Vivian Borne and Alisabeth her long-suffering daughter Brandy. And they do an absolutely stellar job of it.

The screenings weren’t flawless. These were our first showings anywhere other than on our computers and Death by Fruitcake is primarily intended for television (streaming most likely) and physical media (Blu-ray and DVD). None of that marketing has begun, as the film is intended for a 2025 holiday release. So there were bumps, chiefly of the audio variety (softer image and audio on Friday, and still not ideal audio on Saturday). But they were eminently watchable and got a terrific reaction from both audiences, with lots of laughs and a good deal of fun at the red carpet event before and after, thanks to the efforts of producer/director of photography/editor Chad Bishop. Q and A with many cast members took place each night after the screening, and excerpts will appear on the eventual physical media.

Almost all of the cast made it to one of the two performances, so it was a star-studded night.

We are talking to the Last Picture House in Davenport and to the Collins Road Theater in Cedar Rapids about a few more advance screenings of Death by Fruitcake (stayed tuned) and the Palms in Muscatine is starting a one-week run on Friday Nov. 8 through Thursday Nov. 14. (I will likely be there on Friday for the two evening showings.)

Blue Christmas may be shown in other Fridley theaters around the state (we’re still talking) and at the Last Picture and maybe Collins Road (workin’ on it, as Bret Maverick once said). And of course the Blu-ray and DVD of Blue Christmas are available now from VCI/MVD (and can be found easily at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and numerous other on-line retailers).

For now, enjoy these photos from our wonderful weekend event with our stars and two lovely crowds at the Palms Theater in Muscatine.

Much of the cast is on hand to display the Number 2 for an infamous on-screen moment of Vivian Borne’s questionable taste during an interrogation (interview!). Front row (left to right): Producer Chad Bishop, Paula Sands, Alisabeth Von Presley, M.A.C., Barbara Collins; second row (left to right ) Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt, Tracy Pelzer-Timm, Ben Rollins, Chris Causey, Brian Linderman, Rene Mauck.
Alisabeth Von Presley (Brandy), M.A.C., Paula Sands (Vivian) on the red carpet at the Palms Theater.
Q & A with Alisabeth and Paula after the Saturday night screening.
Our gorgeous Brandy and Vivian (Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands).
Source Writer/Production Manager Barbara Collins and Writer/Director M.A.C. — with Bella as Sushi!
Writer/director M.A.C. and producer/d.p./editor Chad Bishop
Star Rob Merritt and co-star Tommy Ratkiewicz-Stierwalt
Tommy and lovely co-star Cassidy Probasco

M.A.C.

Death By Fruitcake Lives…Twice!

This is a big week for us, or rather big weekend, as we’re having the premiere (aka advance screenings) of Death by Fruitcake at the Palms in Muscatine, Iowa, on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Start time both nights is 7 pm, and there will be a Q and A with cast and crew members after the movie.

Those of you familiar with the Antiques novels that Barb and I write as “Barbara Allan” will recognize the character names in what follows. On both nights (Nov. 1 and 2), Paula Sands – the legendary Midwest broadcaster, recently retired from Channel 6 in Davenport (KWQC) – will be on hand as part of the Q and A; she plays Vivian Borne, aka Mother. Rob Merritt, who stars in our other Christmas movie (Blue Christmas), will be here; he plays Chief of Serenity Police Tony Cassato. And Midwestern pop star Alisabeth Von Presley (of American Idol and American Song Contest fame, among much else) will be on hand Saturday night (Nov. 2).

The Friday night screening has reserved seats and is already 61% sold. Saturday night is at 38% sold. Get those tickets now (and I do apologize to regular readers of these updates/posts for showcasing this local event…but it’s a big deal to us).

Tickets are available here.

In further exciting Palms Theater news here in Muscatine, Blue Christmas is opening on Nov.8. Tickets for the run are available here.

Other Iowa theaters in the Fridley chain will be running Blue Christmas as well, and we should have more info by next week.

If all of this Christmas movie stuff confuses you, here’s the skinny: we had such good reaction early this year when we premiered Blue Christmas at the Palms in Muscatine, the Last Picture House in Davenport, and the Fleur Cinema and Café in Des Moines, we right away started thinking about doing a follow-up of sorts. When we landed a deal for VCI and MVD to bring Blue Christmas out on Blu-Ray and DVD, and to take it out to streaming services, that cinched it.

But we didn’t want to do a sequel or any similar film. And Barb and I have been frustrated by how close we’ve come to a network or streaming service sale for the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures novels that we decided our next movie would bring that series to life. I wrote a script expanding on (and somewhat loosely adapting) the novella Antiques Fruitcake in the three-novella collection, Antiques Ho Ho Homicides.

Barb liked the script, and of course had great suggestions and notes – the series has always been her baby – and we started putting Death by Fruitcake together right away. We called upon many of the cast members of our two previous productions, Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder (with Gary Sandy) – available on DVD from VCI and also a special feature on VCI’s Blu-ray of the revised expanded Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane.

Key to the project was producer/director of photography/editor Chad Bishop, who I got to know doing the edit of Encore for Murder. Chad was a producer among much else on Blue Christmas. Both it and Death by Fruitcake would not exist without his hard work and artistic inspiration.

We’ve had a bit of an unintended (if there is such a thing as an intended) collision course between Blue Christmas and Death by Fruitcake, when it became clear the release of Blue Christmas in Iowa theaters and nationally on physical media would collide with our premieres of Death by Fruitcake. Not much we could do about that but hope you good people out there can sort them out.

Death by Fruitcake will, we hope, we given a Quad Cities premiere at the Last Picture House yet this year – our star, Paula Sands, spends half of the year away in Arizona with her husband David, so we have to work around her availability for personal appearnces. The real marketing of Death by Fruitcake begins now and it’s unlikely to be streaming or on physical media till well into next year (holiday season 2025, most likely).

Blue Christmas and Death by Fruitcake, despite some shared cast members, are very different animals (albeit both being reindeer friendly). Blue Christmas, as you may already know, is a mash-up of sorts of A Christmas Carol and The Maltese Falcon, two of my favorite novels and movies (the Sim Scrooge, the Bogart Falcon).

Death by Fruitcake has been called a zany episode of Murder She Wrote or a low-budget Knives Out. And we are low budget – actually micro-budget. But my feeling is if the writing and acting are there, and the cinematography does them justice, a minuscule budget – if the script has been written toward such a budget – is beside the point.

I continue to be frustrated but mostly amused by the people who attack Blue Christmas based on its meager budget without having seen it. As the star of A Charlie Brown Christmas says, “Sigh.”

Here’s a nice write-up about the coming event from the Muscatine Chamber of Commerce.

There’s been a ton of coverage on the Net but much of it is similar, so I won’t put all the links here.

Finally, however, here’s what our local paper, the Muscatine Journal (where I once worked) has to say.

And this just in:

M.A.C.

Movies and Me

[Bulletin: THE PALMS THEATER WEB SITE IS BACK UP! ORDER TICKETS HERE.]

For those of you in the eastern Iowa (and nearby Illinois) area who have been wanting to get advance tickets to the Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 premiere screenings at the Palms Theatre in Muscatine, you will have probably noticed that for some days now the Palms web site has been essentially down.

Tickets are available through Fandango, however.

Tickets for the Friday Nov. 1 screening at 7 pm – with stars Paula Sands and Rob Merritt on hand, as well as myself and numerous others from cast and crew – can be purchased here.

Tickets for the Saturday Nov. 2 screening at 7 pm – with stars Paula Sands and Alisabeth Von Presley on hand, as well as myself and numerous others from cast and crew – can be purchased here.

We’re sorry about the difficulties with the Palms web site, and by the time you read this those difficulties may have been remedied. But for now (on 10-21-24), the Fandango link is what you’ll want to use.

Right now these are the only screenings scheduled for this year, although the Last Picture House in Davenport has expressed a strong interest in having us.

We also will likely have limited runs of Blue Christmas at the Palms in Muscatine and other Fridley Chain theaters in Iowa, as well as at the Last Picture House…but those plans are not yet firmed up.

Blue Christmas will be out on Blu-ray and DVD on Nov. 12 from VCI and MVD. They can be ordered from Amazon here.

Barb and I, as co-authors of the long-running Antiques mystery-novel series, are thrilled with having Death By Fruitcake to demonstrate how effectively our concept can be transferred to the screen. We’ve come very close over the years, with tons of interest from networks and streamers, but it never quite happened. Which is why we decided to do it ourselves, and show how we think it should be done – specifically including breaking the fourth wall, so that Brandy and Vivian can talk directly to the audience from time to time, invoking the unconventional and (we think) fun rule-breaking style of the books.

Two releases in the Antiques/Trash ‘n’ Treasures mystery novel series are imminent.

The new one, Antiques Slay Belles, will be available on Nov. 5.

The previous one, Antiques Foe, is available in a handsome full-size trade paperback on Oct. 29.

Hardcover:
E-Book:
Paperback:

We must point out that our publisher (Severn House) is British and sometimes the books are hard to find in the USA – distribution to Barnes & Noble appears limited. So please take advantage of the links above, or buy from whatever on-line bookseller you like and trust (this includes Barnes & Noble). [Target Circle has a “buy 1 get 1 50% off select books” deal active through October 26, and both Barbara Allan books (and more) are eligible. –Nate]

We’ve had good support for our efforts with both our film of Blue Christmas and Death By Fruitcake, with the naysayers being exclusively people who haven’t seen either movie yet – just are contemptuous of any film that doesn’t have a Hollywood budget and the name stars that go with it.

For Death by Fruitcake, we are fortunate to have two regional celebrities in Emmy-winning broadcaster Paula Sands and American Idol/American Songwriter Contest pop sensation Alisabeth Von Presley. Alisabeth, of course, is in Blue Christmas along with Fruitcake co-star Rob Merritt, who is by our yardstick the most successful actor in this part of the world.

I have enjoyed getting back to indie filmmaking and, if it’s not too impractical at my age, to possibly do more of it. I’ve been blessed to have a certain amount of bigtime Hollywood success in Road to Perdition and the Quarry TV series; and fairly big success with The Expert debuting in primetime on HBO and Mommy appearing in primetime on Lifetime. And both Mommy movies were video store hits back in the Blockbuster days. I’ve had things on Iowa PBS (notably Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life) and written several independent features for others, including the Quarry-derived The Last Lullaby and the upcoming Mickey Spillane’s Saturday Night in Cap City.

My point, if there is one, is that this notion of letting budget stand in the way of telling stories is a self-imposed limitation. Sure, Blue Christmas would be “better” if I’d had multiple locations and a bunch of Hollywood acting talent. But figuring out how to tell my story with talented local actors (pro and pro-am) on a single set, and shoot it in six days, was how I was able to finally get a project done (Blue Christmas) that I’d been trying to do since 1995.

Death By Fruitcake was a matter of choosing an Antiques story that could be told using limited locations – and the novella Antiques Fruitcake in the three-novella collection Antiques Ho Ho Homicide was perfect. I knew, from having done Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder and Blue Christmas with non-Hollywood talent that Death By Fruitcake was possible. And for all the limitations our micro budget imposed upon us, I could not be prouder of the result.

It’s incredibly gratifying for Barb and me to see Brandy and her mother brought so fully to life by two gifted comic actresses, Alisabeth Von Presley and Paula Sands.

Some of you may have to wait till next year to see it, but I’m confident we’ll get Fruitcake out there in some form for you to partake of a slice. And look for announcements about streaming service availability of Blue Christmas soon.

Although…if you have Blu-ray, the VCI release is packed full of extra features.

Here’s some great area coverage of the Fruitcake premiere weekend.

M.A.C.