Ed Gorman's Blog, page 106

The great Leigh Brackett - Howard Hawks, Ray Bradbury, Bogie and Edmond Hamilton

      Ed here: I grew up on Leigh Brackett novel and stores. Since she worked in so many genres  there was always plenty to read. Writers from Michael Connelly, James Sallis and Michael Moorcock have all praised her work. Here are excerpts from an extraordinary profile of Brackett and her husband the science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton. This is a great piece.Leigh Brackett:
Much More Than the Queen of Space Opera!by Bertil Falkpart 1 of 2http://www.bewilderingstories.com/iss...
I had come to interview Edmond Hamilton and slept one night in Leigh Brackett’s study, a small house besides the main building. After interviewing Ed, I also took the opportunity to interview Leigh Brackett, then a writer I had not read, except for a short Mercury story published in Swedish in 1941, though I had seen The Big Sleep. So I asked her about that period of her life.

“I was young and curious and was at the studio all the time during the shooting. One day Humphrey Bogart came over to me with a manuscript and asked if I had written the cues. I said no and he said, ‘They cannot be said’. You see, William Faulkner wrote wonderful Faulkner dialogues, but they were not written to be uttered. Faulkner went down in history as the screenwriter whose every single line was rewritten in Hollywood.”

“I was young and curious and was at the studio all the time during the shooting. One day Humphrey Bogart came over to me with a manuscript and asked if I had written the cues. I said no and he said, ‘They cannot be said’. You see, William Faulkner wrote wonderful Faulkner dialogues, but they were not written to be uttered. Faulkner went down in history as the screenwriter whose every single line was rewritten in Hollywood.”

                                          Later on, I got to know that Howard Hawks himself sat by ringside during the shooting and rewrote Faulkner’s lines more or less like the way a student’s essay is critiqued. Raymond Chandler visited the studio and was very pleased with the job Leigh Brackett had done. But a craft-union strike hit the movie business in the summer of 1946. No more script-writing jobs were available. Leigh Brackett went back to writing her space opera stories. And that is the way it was to be. She took on many assignments of different kinds over the years, but when done, she always returned to her space opera adventures.
Edmond Hamilton admired the ease with which his wife moved, in his own words:“from one kind of fiction to a completely different kind. In eighteen months, in 1956-57, she wrote not onlyThe Long Tomorrow but also two novels of crime and suspense, The Tiger Among Us, which became an Alan Ladd movie, and An Eye for an Eye, which formed the pilot for the “Markham” series on television. At the end of that period, she returned to Hollywood and to her old producer Howard Hawks, to write Rio Bravo, the first of a series of John Wayne action epics she wrote.”

I know I know another Anthony Mann post--why he & Jimmy Stewart ended up enemies

Night Passage (1957)TriviaShowing all 12 itemsFirst feature produced in the United States in the Technirama widescreen process, developed by the Technicolor Corp. Many of the credits were rendered in the style of the Technirama trademark.Is this interesting? | Share thisFilmed in Silverton, Colorado (called Junction City in the movie) using the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.Is this interesting? | Share thisThis was originally intended to be the sixth Western combining the talents of actorIn August 1957, this film was being being shown on a double bill with The Delinquents(1957).Is this interesting? | Share thisThe real name of the Utica Kid turns out to be Lee, thus the names of the warring brothers are Grant and Lee, just like the opposing generals in the Brothers' War (the American Civil War).Is this interesting? | Share thisThe location is Silverton, with great mountain scenery, but the railroad is the Denver & Rio Grande Western (lettering on the coal tenders is: D & R G W).Is this interesting? | Share thisThe scenes with The movie was filmed hurriedly as they began shooting in the late autumn of 1956 and production had to finish before Christmas.Is this interesting? | Share this

the finest rendition of "white christmas" you'll ever hear --joshua held

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5e...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!!!!!!!

Interview with Legendary Science Fiction writer Joe Haldeman — posted by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Interview with Joe Haldeman— posted by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro at Thursday 19 December 2013 @ 10:00 pm GMTLast month I had the pleasure of attending  ICON 38 , Iowa’s long-running science fiction convention. After closing ceremonies, I sat down with SFWA Grand Master and ICON co-founder Joe Haldeman, and his wife Gay, and asked him some questions.[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro] How has ICON changed over the last 38 years? Has it changed?[Joe Haldeman] It has. Oddly enough, not the people. The people are the same. But it’s much bigger. And fandom has changed around it. To my mind, there’s less conventional fandom and more new kinds of stuff which holds less interest for me. And I guess our basic thing is, we come here to see all of our old buddies, which is true of most regional conventions, I think, for us. It’s always wonderful to get back to Iowa because the years we spent here were among our best.[AZA] From when to when were you in Iowa?[JH] It was ’73 to ’77. Basically, that covered the period when The Forever War came out, and I went from being an unknown writer to a well-known writer. Iowa City is such a literary town. The University of Iowa, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, traditionally does not like science fiction. In fact, for most of the time it has existed, it has hated science fiction. Right now, it’s not so bad. But when I was here it was a great embarrassment to the workshop that I was a famous science fiction writer. It was ironic. The head of the department at the time wondered how I was earning larger advances than he was. I mean, he was literary, and I was just a guy who wrote that rocket ship stuff.[AZA] What would you say is the best memory you have from this or any con?[JH] You know, most of the best memories I have are writer memories rather than convention memories. We went to cons from 1963 on, but that’s only a couple of years before I became a writer. I have interesting memories from our immature period as mere fans. Like one time, after just returning from Vietnam, I was sitting in a room party, and someone bumped against a table and a full bottle of liquor almost fell on Robert Silverberg’s head. But I snatched it out of the air, because I had my combat reflexes. I saved Bob Silverberg from a nasty cut, and I don’t think he ever knew that.[AZA] Well, he will now. Do you remember where that was?[JH] Washington D.C., Disclave ’74.[AZA] Is there anyone in science fiction you wished you would have met but never got around to meeting? And if so, why that person?[JH] I met Edmond Hamilton once or twice, and he was a giant. I wished I would have known him better. Of the old guard, the one who affected me most as a writer was Olaf Stapledon. The first science fiction book I read after I knew I was going to be a writer that really blew me away was Last and First Men. I thought, “What a huge, monumental book.” A great book, and a long one. So I guess Olaf Stapledon would be one of the people I wished I’d met. Another would be Philip Wylie. But I think more than that, there were people who I did meet who I’d like to have spent more time with. I’d love to have been a friend of Heinlein back in the 60s. I could have met him then. I was around. I didn’t meet him until 1975. By that time he was getting pretty old.for the rest go here:
http://www.locusmag.com/Roundtable/20...

A Storyteller Who Thrives in the Shadows The New York Times

By DANA JENNINGS  The New YorkTimesOn the first page of the recent Batman No. 24, the Caped Crusader doesn’t swoop high above Gotham City, and the Joker doesn’t stalk dark alleys, straight razor in hand. But it’s one of the best moments ever in a Batman comic. In this tender scene, Bruce Wayne’s butler and mentor, Alfred, is giving him a pre-battle buzz cut.“How do I look?” he asks Alfred.“Aerodynamic, sir.”That haircut and exchange capture the essence of the bond between the two men in just five panels. It also distills how the writer Scott Snyderhas reinvented Batman in the past two years, deepening and humanizing the Dark Knight’s myth — in the making since 1939 — like no one since Frank Miller in the 1980s. (DC publishes other comics that feature the character, but Batman is its flagship title.) In addition, with DC/Vertigo’s American Vampire comic, Mr. Snyder has also made over the vampire in his own creative image, telling the story of Skinner Sweet, the first vampire conceived on United States soil.Such reinvention is crucial in all popular culture. The land of lame nostalgia is littered with once-vital characters: Tarzan, Dick Tracy, Doc Savage, to name a few.“This is a time when comics companies are looking to bring excitement and fire to their books,” Mr. Snyder said in a telephone interview, referring to the importance of keeping characters fresh, and his colleagues agree.“It’s essential, the lifeblood of our company, to reinvent cultural icons,” said Dan DiDio, a publisher of DC Entertainment, referring to Batman. “And Scott’s tone is unique. It has more of a horror feel. His Joker plays more like a slasher movie.”Mr. Snyder, 37, began as a writer of short fiction, publishing in literary magazines like Tin House and Zoetrope. His first collection, “Voodoo Heart” (Dial, 2006), got starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and Stephen King compared it to T. Coraghessan Boyle’s debut collection, “If the River Was Whiskey.” But comic books were his first and truest love.
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for the rest go here:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/art...

Pro-File: Leigh Russell

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CUT SHORT was released in the US as an ebook on 11/26/13 and ROAD CLOSED will be released as an ebook on 12/31/13.

Pro-File: Leigh Russell

1.     Tell us about your current novel/collection.I write the British Geraldine Steel crime series. My female Detective Inspector, Geraldine Steel, has a male Detective Sergeant, Ian Peterson. Together they investigate murders. My crime series has become very popular with readers in the UK. Since my debut, Cut Short, was shortlisted for a British Crime Association's Dagger Award, my books have appeared on many bestseller lists, and reached #1 on both kindle and iTunes.
2. Can you give a sense of what you're working on now?Following the success of the Geraldine Steel series, I am writing a spin off series featuring Sergeant Ian Peterson. So I'm now committed delivering two books a year to my publisher. It keeps me busy! I'm currently writing the seventh Geraldine Steel mystery to follow Cut Short, Road Closed, Dead End, Death Bed, Stop Dead and Fatal Act. Once that's finished, I'll be straight on to the second Ian Peterson book, to follow Cold Sacrifice. All of my books are murder investigations. In addition to working out my plots, I explore what drives people to kill, and what it is like to work on a murder squad.
3. What is the greatest pleasure of a writing career?It's very exciting to be a published author, and see my books on bestseller lists, but the biggest thrill is writing. I also really enjoy meeting fans of my series. It is really encouraging when readers support my books and tell me they love my series.
4. What is the greatest DISpleasure?Indifferent reviews can be dispiriting, but I try not to take them too seriously. A negative review simply means that one reader didn't like the book. I'm very grateful that my books have received glowing reviews in many respected journals like The Times of London, and the New York Journal of Books. As far as the writing process itself is concerned, I can't honestly think of any displeasure - apart from having too few hours in the day.
5. If you have one piece of advice for the publishing world, what is it?The publishing industry is changing very fast. My advice to publishers would be to keep abreast of changes and be flexible. To authors, I would say never lose your passion for writing.
7. Tell us about selling your first novel. Most writers never forget that moment.I wrote the first draft for Cut Short in about six weeks. With no idea of how the submission process works, I sent my manuscript off to a highly respected UK publisher who deals with crime fiction. I never expected to hear from them. Two weeks later they phoned me and asked for a meeting, which led to our signing a three book deal. Since that exhilarating occasion, my wonderful publisher has offered me four more three book deals, with more in the pipeline. It looks as though the Geraldine Steel series will run to about twenty titles, with fifteen titles in the spin off series for Ian Peterson. 

Vendetta by Ed Gorman now an e book for only $2.99

$2.99


Amazon Reviews  A brilliant three-act tragedy By Michael Sauerson January 13, 2002Format: Mass Market PaperbackI don't enjoy reading westerns. I generally rate them up there with regency romances. But Ed Gorman is an author that could write the back of a cereal box and I'd read it. Whether SF, Horror, Suspense, Erotica or Westerns he knows how to write! This is his latest and one of his best to date. Even if you've never read a western, read this one.CommentWas this review helpful to you?Vendetta beautifully showcases Gorman's skill at characterization through various lengthy passages from different points of view. In this way, we more closely follow the actions of Joan Greaves; her quarry, Radigan; his lover, Caroline Petty; her husband, chief of police Walter Petty; his assistant chief, Red Carney; and bank-robbing brothers, Carl and Leonard Schmidt.
Gorman puts the reader inside his characters' heads and gives us access to their most private thoughts. All the while offering suspenseful narrative that leaves questions unanswered until the reader is simply aching to find out how these complex and interconnected relationships will out.
His ability to make the villain of one story into the tragic hero of another only enhances the reader's involvement in the tale. The centerpiece of Vendetta, a 4-hour bank robbery, brings all the characters together in one place and brings their tensions to a head. The ending floored me.
Best of all, Vendetta is a story that could be set in any time or place. The events are universal and timeless. That Gorman has set it in the Old West merely allows the author to utilize aspects specific to the era while showing that people really haven't changed all that much. It will appeal to fans of Westerns and crime fiction (given that Gorman calls his style "Western noir") or any enthusiasts of solid storytelling.

Forgotten Books: Stranger At Home by Leigh Brackett

Forgotten Books: Stranger At HomeWay back in the Fifties I read one half of an Ace Double mystery novel called Stranger At Home. I really took to it. The writing was swift, dramatic, elegant. Supposedly it was written by the actor George Sanders. But even in my early teens, clueless as I was, I just assumed he hadn't written it. I'd read here and there about "ghosted" books.

The real writer turned out to be Leigh Brackett. I've mentioned this novel before because it's a fine whodunit set in the Hwood of the late Forties. For its time it's a blunt novel. Not even the protagonist Michael Vickers is much of a hero. The story centers on Vickers returning from the dead--one of his three friends (or maybe all of them) pushed him off the boat they were sailing on). Drunk, he nearly drowned. But he survived to return a few years later to find out what had happened to him that drunken night. He doesn't have amnesia, he just can't recall the moment he was pushed off the boat.

For years there were rumors that Brackett had farmed the book out but I don't think so. The writing is purely hers. Those sweeping sentences, those atmospherics, those bitter unhappy people. You find them in her science fantasy, her westerns, her mysteries. If there's an influence here it's Raymond Chandler, one of her idols. The difference is that Vickers, unlike Philip Marlowe, doesn't observe everything at one remove. He goes through the novel trying to find the culprit--and learning in the process what an arrogant ruthless bastard he was to those around him.

The book opens on a party scene that I'd out up against any party scene I've encountered in fiction short of Gatsby. Brackett must have known a lot of drunks because she gets them down just right.

This is a book that should be brought back and put on the Brackett shelf. It's one of her finest novels.

Who Made Those Cop Shows? NY Times

December 13, 2013
Who Made Those Cop Shows?By DANIEL ENGBERWhen David Simon, the creator of “The Wire,” pitched his pilot to HBO, he promised to deliver “a cop show that seizes the highest qualitative ground through realism, good writing and a more brutal assessment of police, police work and the drug culture.” His show would reveal the gritty truth of law enforcement — with all its politics and sleaze — and give the lie to other cop dramas like “CSI” and “Law & Order,” where “every punch was pulled.”But Simon’s project, which went on the air in 2002, wasn’t the first to play the gritty-realist card. It’s a quirky fact of cop shows on TV that a more authentic one arrives with every generation and loudly stakes its claim to credibility. The first police procedural on TV, from the actor and producer Jack Webb, made its debut in 1952 as “Dragnet,” with consultation from the L.A.P.D. “We’re trying to play fact, not fiction,” Webb told the press at the time. “We try to make cops human beings, guys doing a job for low pay.” To make his stories seem more realistic, Webb had his actors hurl department slang and rarely draw their guns.Even Webb was following a trend that began in radio. “The procedural has roots in the 1930s,” says Kathleen Battles of Oakland University, in Michigan, author of the media history “Calling All Cars: Radio Dragnets and the Technology of Policing.” Radio producers worked closely with the police so their shows could give the ins and outs of actual investigations. In 1933, the L.A.P.D. collaborated with a West Coast network to create “Calling All Cars,” an early version of the reality-style police drama, and the practice quickly spread.In contrast to today’s cop shows, the early programs were very pro-police, without much moral ambiguity, says Michele Hilmes, a University of Wisconsin historian of television and radio. Policemen could even be funny, starting with “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Car 54, Where Are You?” and running through “Barney Miller” and “Police Squad.” But that lighter strand has mostly gone away. (This season’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is an exception.) “Our ideas about law and order are a little more complicated these days,” Hilmes says. “People are more aware of how crime intersects with race and ethnicity and social problems. Maybe it’s not so funny to be dispensing comedic justice.”POLICE STORYThe novelist Joseph A. Wambaugh Jr. served in the Los Angeles Police Department from 1960 to 1974. His Emmy Award-winning cop show “Police Story” first aired in 1973.What made “Police Story” special? It was an anthology, and that gave us such incredible freedom. We could kill off our main characters if we wanted to. We could have them go bad. We could have them be weak. We could have them be duplicitous. We could have them do anything from week to week.Did the network push you to make the show more exciting? The editors on the show were all Irish, or mostly Irish. Three of my four grandparents were from Ireland. We had the producer, Stan Kallis, our Jewish leprechaun. David Gerber, the show’s executive producer, used to get so frustrated. He’d say: “Jesus Christ, I’m doing a cop show, and cops have guns; they get in cars and chase people. But the Irish Art Theater over here doesn’t like it. The Irish Art Theater wants emotion!”On “Dragnet,” Jack Webb tried to get away from guns and car chases. Sure, they minimized the gun play — that was good. But “Dragnet” was sanitized police work. At L.A.P.D., there was a police sergeant who was working in the chief’s office, a wonderful guy. He approved or censored every script that Jack Webb came up with. You weren’t seeing the cops with all their vulnerability and flaws and sins.So that’s what you were going for — flaws and sins? We were getting right into the marrow of their bones. We did shows about PTSD, depression, premature cynicism. At 22 years old, these guys become world-weary cynics. It’s dangerous! Police work isn’t the most physically dangerous job in the world; it’s the most emotionally dangerous.

One of the great p.i. series - The Outsider with Darren McGavin

"Losing Can Be Fun and Profitable
By Lawrence Laurent
The News American Weekly Magazine, Feb. 23, 1969
    The Outsider is a loser and Darren McGavin, who plays the title role, is glad that he is.
    McGavin has had his share of "winners" on television with such programs as Crime Photographer, Mike Hammer and Riverboat.  The difference, to him, is that "the public identifies with a loser."    He explains further:  "President Nixon only got 43 percent of all the votes in the November elections.  That makes losers out of 57 percent of the voters.  (Final totals by the Associated Press give Mr. Nixon 43.40 percent of the 73,177,821 votes.)
    "Besides, the country has been built by losers; guys who failed and kept on going; guys who were losers in the east and decided to move West, and, before that, guys who were losers in their native countries and decided to come to America."
    The Outsider portrayed by McGavin is a private investigator named David Ross.  In each episode, he is likely to be intimidated by a racketeer, embarrassed by a crooked sheriff, shot at by a hoodlum, chased by gangsters or beaten by one or more musclemen.  Often, he is outwitted by some cool corporate executive, and sometimes, beautiful women take advantage of David Ross.
    "He's just like most people," argues McGavin.  "He's just trying to make a living.  He picks up a buck here and there, enough to pay the rent and to keep gasoline in the 1957 Plymouth that he drives."  (The car is sorely in need of fender repairs but losers, apparently, can't afford such a luxury.)
    Like most actors, McGavin claims to have worked - always briefly - at every job.  Darren insists that he once worked for a private detective agency.  It wasn't the least bit glamorous.
    "I learned the hard way," he says, "that life isn't all moonlight and roses for a private detective.  I remember nights when I'd stand outside a building while the temperature dropped to freezing, waiting for a man to come out of a warm apartment or a good restaurant."
    McGavin took the role of David Ross for the simplest of reasons:  "If you're not working, you're not an actor."  Even so, the character underwent several changes from the time it was conceived by Roy Huggins and when it arrived on TV last September.
    First, the .38-cal. revolver Ross carried had to be removed.  Then, in the changing conception, Ross stopped having a torrid love affair in each episode.  "That," declaresMcGavin, "was cheap and chintzy."  And he had to quit being a physical superman who won every physical or mental encounter with badmen.
    Darren's so successful that he can now deny, comfortably, his own early press agentry.  "I wasn't really a tailback at College of the Pacific," he said.  "Actually, I was a left end on the scrub team and I wasn't on the team very long."