Ed Gorman's Blog, page 55

NIPPON NOIR: I AM WAITING (1957)

NIPPON NOIR: I AM WAITING (1957)From Movie Morlocks for the entire article go here:
moviemorlocks.com/.../nippon-noir-i-am-waiting-1957

Posted by Kimberly Lindbergs on January 15, 2015 In recent years I’ve seen a critical push to apply familiar terms like Film Noir to all manner of Japanese crime films made during the 1950s and 60s. The term has even been applied to the culturally specific Sun Tribe films (please see my previous post that discusses Sun Tribe films), Pink Films of an adult nature and the more experimental and political films that exemplify the Japanese New Wave. I don’t always agree with this “roping in” because it often limits our understanding of Japanese cinema which contains historical and cultural influences that often defy simplistic categorizations. But sometimes the term fits.
It’s worth remembering that after WW2 the Japanese film industry was largely controlled by the U.S. occupation forces and Japanese filmmakers faced immense pressure from American censors to make films that resembled Hollywood‘s own output at the time. And in postwar America Film Noir was thriving. The concentrated effort to destroy much of Japan’s cinematic history and modernize the country led to an onslaught of gun totting detectives, dangerous dames and cutthroat criminals in Japanese cinema that began replacing the sword wielding samurais, kimono clad ladies and gentle families that had previously populated the movies. Amid these changes filmmakers created their own distinct body of work that became more progresses and subversive after the American occupation ended. But the impact of Hollywood’s aggressively imposed influence is undeniable and in this postwar climate elements of Film Noir became deeply rooted within the Japanese film industry. One particularly striking example of this is Koreyoshi Kurahara’s I AM WAITING (1957), which makes its debut on TCM January 18th (1am PST/4am EST).

I AM WAITING opens on the dark damp docks of Yokohama where Jôji Shimaki (Yujiro Ishihara) is closing up his Reef Restaurant for the night. As he makes his way over derelict bridges and down twisty rain soaked streets to a postal box to mail off a letter, he spots a lovely dame (Mie Kitahara) standing by the water’s edge. She’s wet, tired and plainly distraught so kindly Jôji invites her back to his place where he offers her a drink and a warm meal. When the two start talking Jôji coaxes the woman into telling him her somber tale of woe and over the course of the film she eventually learns his solemn story as well. She’s a once proud opera star who is now forced to sing in dingy nightclubs after losing her voice while being pursued by all manner of lowlifes. He’s a one-time boxing champion who accidentally killed a man in a bar fight and was forced to go into the restaurant business. She’s lost all hope but Joji maintains a fragile optimism while waiting to hear from his older brother who traveled to Brazil a year ago in an attempt to buy some farmland where the two siblings could start a new life together. Unfortunately for Joji, his brother refuses to answer his letters and may have gone missing along with the family’s fortune. Is the beautiful melancholy girl that mysteriously walked into Joji’s life his salvation or his doom?

While The City Sleeps: Hell, Yeah by David Kalat Movie Morlocks TCM

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS: HELL, YEAH!Posted by David Kalat on March 1, 2014

Last week’s post on Jean Renoir’s  The Elusive Corporal  brought to light a pocket of fans of Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps —and so in honor of that long-suffering cohort, this week I figured I’d properly pay tribute to one of Lang’s unsung classics.One of the reasons that  While the City Sleeps  doesn’t get its due has less to do with its actual quality than it does with the sprawling nature of Lang’s absurdly prolific career.  He started off as one of the brand names in German silent cinema, and capped that off with a pair of ground-breaking experiments in early talkie cinema, before emigrating to the US and starting over in Hollywood—where he discarded the stylistic panache of his German films in favor of a stripped down aesthetic.  He went from being an icon of German film to being a journeyman director of American genre films—Westerns, film noir, wartime thrillers.  Then he abruptly quit Hollywood, burned all his professional bridges, and went back to Germany to make some nostalgic updates of his silent films… it’s hard to summarize all that succinctly.And  While the City Sleeps  sits awkwardly within that history—it isn’t his last Hollywood film, it’s his next-to-last.  It may seem elegiac and backward-looking, but he made three more films after it—four, if you count The Indian Tomb  films separately.Furthermore, Lang’s Hollywood work coincided with the so-called “Golden Age,” when most stars were engaged to specific studios in long-term contracts.  Many directors had the advantage within this system to isolate a given performer or groups of performers with whom they had a good working relationship and common creative vision.  But Lang bounced around from studio to studio, never staying anywhere long enough to settle into that kind of relationship with any of his stars. While the City Sleeps  has one of the most impressive casts of any of Lang’s American films—and each of these storied performers are working at the top of their game here: Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Howard Duff… and they in turn are backed up by some outstanding supporting players like Rhonda Fleming, James Craig, John Drew Barrymore…And part of what makes this film sing is the way that Casey Robinson’s screenplay gives such quirky, realistic life to each of these characters.  There’s a tendency, even in the best written and best acted films, to let the dialog serve a utilitarian function—the words are meant to convey exposition, or backstory, or character details.  In real life, people talk in messy ways, without regard to whether they’re “in character.”Take for example Sally Forrest’s character: a sweet, virginal All-American girl who puts up with the pervy advances of her boss, George Sanders, while dating his co-worker Dana Andrews.  She’s the Girl Next Door, as it were.  And what are her first words on screen?  “Shut your obscene face!”  And she says this, smiling, to her boyfriend Dana Andrews while she’s at work.  I honestly can’t imagine any other film that would introduce a character in this fashion, and then expect the audience to accept her as a sweet and virtuous heroine whose relationship with the obscene-face man is something to root for.

Gravetapping: "The Plunge" by David Goodis

"The Plunge" by David GoodisI recently read Dark Passage by David Goodis and really enjoyed it.  It is a novel where everything works.  It is plot controlled, but the characters are given just enough room to be interesting, and the atmosphere vibrates between something close to despair and almost, but not quite, hope.  When I finished I had the sharp desire to flip back to page one and start again.  Instead I dug out a David Goodis’ short story I read a few years ago titled “The Plunge” and reread it.  It was better this time than the last, and rather than satisfy my urge to reread Dark Passage, it made the itch more demanding.   
The following review originally appeared in 2009, and be warned it is a spoiler.
David Goodis is a writer that every hardboiled reader should know.  His work is dark—about as dark as you will ever read—heavy and literate.  It is often difficult to differentiate between the good and the bad, and the tales are drenched with a self-loathing that gives the stories a deep and sinister glimpse into the darkness of the human condition.
His short story “The Plunge” is one of his best, and a perfect example of what Goodis did well—create men who are, for the most part, good and then twist their world just enough to push them out of bounds into waiting darkness. 
Roy Childers is a clean cop in a corrupt department. He has risen through the ranks quickly; he is a homicide lieutenant with a bright future.  He has four children and another on the way.  His wife loves him and he seemingly loves his wife, but that isn’t enough for Roy.  He doesn’t consciously understand that he wants more, but he does. 
His world begins its slow descent when a warehouse is taken down for $15,000.  The robber killed one security guard and blinded the other. It is a trademark Dice Nolan score.  Dice is a man whom Childers has a special connection; they grew up on the same street and Roy has put him behind bars more than once. Now Childers wants to take Nolan down one last time, but he isn’t ready for what happens.  Nolan has something Roy wants and it will be his undoing. 
“The Plunge” is a brutal story.  It chronicles the unwinding of a man.  A man who seemingly has everything.  A man who is better than his end.  And a man who should know better. It is literate and the prose is pitch-perfect:“Seven out of ten are slobs; he was thinking.  There was no malice or disdain in the thought.  It was more a mixture of pity and regret.  And that made it somewhat sickening, for he was referring specifically to the other men who wore badges, he fellow-policemen.  More specifically he was thinking of the nine plainclothesmen attached to the Vice Squad.  Only yesterday they’d been caught with their palms out, hauled in before the Commissioner, and called all sorts of names before they were suspended.”
The story opens in normal enough fashion.  The protagonist is a cop who wants to find a murderer.  There is even something special and personal about this particular criminal, but Mr Goodis takes the premise and smudges it with his own recipe.  He marks it with weakness and greed.  He takes a good and strong man and chops him down with life, fear, and hunger. 
The best part is, he does it all without ever losing his grip on the story or its impact on the reader.  He makes it interesting and entertaining from beginning to end.  He builds a path into darkness and then shows the reader the way out—a cleansing, but a rather messy and permanent one. 
“The Plunge” originally appeared in Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine October 1958. I read it in A Century of Noir edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins.Posted by Ben Boulden at 6:40 PM No comments:  [image error] Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Labels: David Goodis, Mystery, Noir, Short Stories, Suspense

Those Scott Meredith Days: Part One Lawrence Block from Mystery Scene.com

Those Scott Meredith Days: Part One Lawrence Blockfor the complete article go here:www.mysteryscenemag.com/.../2660-those-scott-meredith-days-part-one


Block’s early fiction appeared in the 1956 February and June issues of Manhunt. Unknown to him, there was a Scott Meredith connection.
In the summer of 1956, after my first year at Antioch College, I went to work in the mail room at Pines Publications. One of Antioch’s chief attractions was its co-op job program, designed to furnish students with real-world experience in their careers of choice; I wanted to be a writer, so I picked a job at a publishing house.Pines had a paperback line, Popular Library, and a whole string of magazines and comic books. The job experience was reasonably interesting, but the chance to live on my own in Greenwich Village trumped it. I shared an apartment at 54 Barrow Street with two other Antiochians, and I hung out a lot in Washington Square and the Macdougal Street coffeehouses, and one Sunday afternoon I stayed home and set up my typewriter in the kitchen and wrote a story about an amoral kid who lives by his wits, runs a mail-order scam, and like that. End of October I went back to college and took the story with me.Earlier, I’d read The Jungle Kids, a paperback collection of some of Evan Hunter’s short stories, packaged to capitalize on the success of The Blackboard Jungle. One thing I’d noticed was that most of the stories had appeared in a magazine called Manhunt. I’d never seen a copy, but I got the address someplace, most likely Writer’s Market, and I mailed in the story I’d written on Barrow Street.Now I’d submitted my work before, and indeed had a burgeoning collection of rejection slips taped to the wall of my dorm room. But what I got this time, along with my manuscript, was a note from one Francis X. Lewis, Manhunt’s editor, saying that the story just sort of trailed off, and needed some kind of a snapper ending. If I could come up with something suitable, I might have a sale.Damn!There was a magazine rack in the Yellow Springs drugstore, and, mirabile dictu, they carried Manhunt. I bought it and read all the stories in it, and I tacked on an O. Henry–type ending which saw the little bastard hoist on his own petard.Off it went and back it came, with another note from Mr. Lewis, this one rather less heartening. The ending was too pat and predictable, but thanks for trying.
Rats.

The Autumn Dead/The Night Remembers from Stark House

In the meantime, this week we're shipping our 
first offering from the legendary Ed Gorman, 
a double volume of what the man
himself considers to be two of his very 
best books. 

If you've
never read an Ed Gorman novel before, 
here you'll find many of the trademarks 
of this long-time master: hard-bitten 
and lonely men driven to do what they 
have to do, a touch of 
nostalgia, strong characterization, 
and mystery, all adding up to compelling 
human drama.

Booklist's review of the new 
Stark House volume says "Gorman has 
honed his craft through the years, but he's 
been very good for a long time."
his craft through the years, but he's 
been very good 
for a long time."

One of the wittiest and funniest guys I've ever read Ken Levin let's loose on the Golden Globes

The Golden Globes -- my review


First let me say the Golden Globes is to the Oscars and Emmys what the Rupert Pupkin Show is to THE TONIGHT SHOW. Especially this year. The nominations are staggeringly ridiculous and shows are in categories that bear no resemblance to the genres they belong in. So there is zero credibility and importance as to who wins. 
Among the absurd snubs this year: THE WALKING DEAD, Tatiana Maslany, Lisa Kudrow, Julia Roberts, Maggie Smith, BIG BANG THEORY, MODERN FAMILY, MAD MEN, and SONS OF ANARCHY (well, everyone ignores that one). Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston gets nominated for wearing a back brace for her part. That’s “acting.” 
As a reminder, the Hollywood Foreign Press is a grand total of 89 critics, some of whom are literally waiters. People win these awards for being generous tippers. Considering members of the Hollywood Foreign Press can be bought, some of them might be NFL referees. 
But let’s travel over the potholes on Wilshire Blvd. to the Beverly Hilton Hotel where the red carpet is just out of view of a construction site (“Would you like a hard hat, Ms. Blunt?”) to review last night’s sanctimonious Golden Globe Awards. Helping me this year is the comedy writing team of Annie Levine & Jonathan Emerson. They pitched in some lines and stopped me from changing the channel when F TROOP came on MeTV. 
First up was the NBC Red Carpet show, anchored by Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. Matt always looks so uncomfortable. And why not? THE TODAY SHOW is getting killed in the ratings and all the other network morning hosts are in Paris covering the major news story of the day while he’s in Beverly Hills (adjacent) interviewing George Clooney’s wife. 

Amal Clooney is gorgeous but scary thin. You won him already. Eat something. 
Matt fawned all over her, stating she is an accomplished attorney who has handled high-profile cases, and Jon wanted him to add, “But none of that matters because you’re now Mrs. Clooney.” 
Lots of the stars were wearing lapel pins in support of Paris. I’m sure when they were issued a few weeks ago they were intended to be in support of Sony, the hacked studio. 
Helen Mirren wore a fountain pen on her gown in support of “free speech.” Hollywood cares. On camera.
When Bill Murray was asked how he felt about being a double nominee he said it was “better than being a double amputee.” 
Savannah asked Eddie Redmayne what his process was for becoming Stephen Hawking? Jon thought his answer should have been: “I sat down.” 
Nice of Savannah to remind Matthew McConaughey that “LAST year was really your year.”
With that new beard and mustache, McConaughey looked like either a Civil War General or outfielder for the Boston Red Sox. 
Yeah, now Matt & Savannah need Amy Adams. They didn’t a few weeks ago when they dumped her interview and NBC publicly claimed she was difficult. But on the red carpet they were practically licking her pumps. You could almost see the thought bubble over Matt’s head: “Why aren’t I in Paris?!” 
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler again were the absolute highlight of the night with their opening monologue. Some great lines and their dueling Bill Cosby impressions were both hilarious and tasteless. 
Unfortunately, after that – ten minutes into a three-plus hour ordeal, the laughs stopped. Nothing was particularly funny, even Tina & Amy. Their bit about the North Korean film critic not only died. But it was reprised and died three times. (In comedy we call that a Nakamura – a running bit that doesn’t work… again and again and again.) 
I think Hollywood is finally starting to hate Ricky Gervais as much as America does. 



Emma Stone looked like a table cloth got caught on the back of her dress. 
Again, the nominees for each category were selected randomly. And there are so many genres lumped together in these categories that it’s impossible to keep everything straight. I apologize if I sometimes get confused as to who won what. 
J.K. Simmons won for Best Foreign Film. Now that he’s a Golden Globe winner maybe he won’t have to star in a bad new NBC sitcom this year. 
Speaking of “foreign films,” since this is the Foreign Press, aren’t American movies the ones that should be considered foreign? 
Joanne Froggatt won for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, TV Movie, Stage Play, Musical, Puppet Show, Opera. 
Jeffrey Tambor won for Best Actor and Actress for TRANSPARENT. 

Naomi Watts looked like the world’s most delicious Easter Peep.
Half the show was winners trudging up the side stairs to the stage. It was like watching a security camera at LAX. 
Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader were so unfunny I thought I was watching an old sketch from the CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE SHOW. 
Every time they cut to Oprah she was overcome with emotion. I’m sure the tears were real when she lost. Poor Oprah can’t even win an award she can buy. 
How come in the George Clooney film tribute they didn’t show him as Batman? 
Show Business is so brave. They gave George Clooney a standing ovation for proclaiming: “We won’t walk in fear!” and yet NONE of them would sign his weenie petition last month denouncing Sony’s hackers. Forget the North Koreans, Hollywood is afraid of the Foreign Press. 
Catherine Zeta-Jones came as a Catherine Zeta-Jones impersonator. 
Amy Adams won for BIG EYES and thanked everyone but Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski, the two writers who found the project and toiled relentlessly for eleven years to get it made. 
Best speech of the night was by Wes Anderson. Annie wondered if THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL won because people had mustaches. 
Worst speech was Michael Keaton’s. I guess it was meant to be inspirational. You could come from a poor GRAPES OF WRATH background, brought up in a large family that struggled for every meal on the table. And still you could become a pretentious actor. 

Prince and Claire Danes wore the same outfit. He at least pretended to be blind. 
One of the Gyllenhaal’s won for something. 
Kevin Spacey couldn’t find anyone to come with other than Kate Mara, the girl he killed in the season premier last year? 
Most touching moment: Gina Rodriguez winning for JANE THE VIRGIN. Her acceptance speech was so heartfelt I felt bad that it wasn’t for a real award. I’d like to say this gives her show some much needed exposure but more people watch the CW than NBC. 
Congratulations to Billy Bob Thornton for winning Best Animated Film for his work in FARGO. 
Why didn’t they show Anna Kendrick? She looked stunning. Was she not wearing a solidarity pin? 
Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda now have the same face. 
They kept cutting away to Frances McDormand who looked like her husband had dragged her to a time share seminar. 
Annie: I hate when writers give terrible speeches. 
More people wrote BIRDMAN than appeared in it. 
Jon thought Gwyneth Paltrow came dressed as Pepto-Bismol. 

Keira Knightley’s print gown must’ve been an ode to her bug collection. 
Did it seem like most of the winners had foreign sounding names or accents? Or was that just a coincidence? 
Since there were no actual comedies nominated I forget which show won Best TV Comedy. Was it THE AFFAIR? Might have been. Or might as well have been.
I'll tell you what didn't win Best TV Comedy -- JANE THE VIRGIN, although ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY reported on its website that it did.  If you're going to screw up EW, at least report that SELMA won.  Oprah is so sad.  
And finally, in a salute to the big winner, BOYHOOD -- the show seemed like twelve years. 
Look, the Golden Globes is a bogus fabricated TV “event” – much like the Pro Bowl. The best we could hope for is an entertaining fun silly show where shit-faced celebrities say things they shouldn’t and Salma Hayek has a wardrobe malfunction. But instead it was like attending Mitt Romney’s election night party. 
Bring on the Oscars. Or even the Kids Choice Awards. They at least know that BIRDMAN isn’t a comedy.

By Ken Levine at 6:00 AM 

WL RIPLEY: MISTAKES MADE BY BEGINNING WRITERS (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM)

WL RIPLEY: MISTAKES MADE BY BEGINNING WRITERS (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM)

FROM BRASH BOOKS

Written byW.L. RipleyShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_shareW.L. Ripley is the author of two critically-acclaimed series of crime novels — four books featuring ex-professional football player Wyatt Storme and four books about ex-Secret Service agent Cole Springer. His latest novel is Storme Warning, a stunning new mystery/thriller that we’re publishing in February. We will also be re-releasing Ripley’s other books through 2015 and early 2016.Want to sell your book? Here are the major mistakes to avoid…UNPROFESSIONAL BEHAVIORThis is a profession, not a hobby. Act like an adult when you’re dealing with editors (who are overworked and the best people in the business). Don’t write nasty letters when your work is rejected. Nobody likes a whiner. Rejection is good for you. It makes you work harder. Pay attention to your craft, work to become the best writer you possibly can become, and the rest of it will happen.FAILURE TO FINISH MANUSCRIPT AND SEND IT INBeginners are forever writing the great American Novel. And writing it and writing it. I call it the “fear of success syndrome”. Beginning writers erect these fantasies about best-seller lists and million-dollar advances and are afraid the dream will terminate when they write “The End” on a novel. Thoreau says if “you have built castles in the air, now put the foundations under them”. Write it and send it in. Then write another one. And another one. You’ll never get anything published if you don’t finish. Writing “The End” on a book is tougher than you think.WRITING ABOUT YOURSELFFew of us lead interesting enough lives to get somebody to cough up $22.50. If you were that interesting you’d be on the evening news. Or Oprah. Writing a thinly-veiled autobiography is literary masturbation and should not be attempted by beginners, or writers with any sense.   There are some famous authors who do so, but few do it well.WAITING FOR THE ‘MUSE’ OR THE ‘MOOD’ TO STRIKEThese are the same people who believe in writer’s block. Excuses for laziness. I can come up with a dozen excuses for not writing. Excuses are like armpits; we all have them and they all stink. If I waited for the elusive “muse” I’d never get done. Grow up.USING SUBSTITUTES FOR “SAID”Forget words like “he exclaimed”, “she replied”, in dialogue. He said, she said, enough said.OVERUSING MODIFIERSModifiers are like candy; too many of them makes everyone sick. Wordy and flowery is boring. Write it, don’t beat it to death. And don’t describe everything in every scene in detail. It’s tedious. Mark Twain says, “Eschew surplusage of wordage.” If you don’t know what he means you’re in the wrong business.OVERUSING THE THESAURUS (and not using dictionary enough)Use the right word, not a close relative. Forget the thesaurus. Know the meaning of words. Keep the dictionary close.NOT READING ENOUGHRead whenever possible. Read in your genre. Read the great writers and the classics. Only voracious readers become accomplished writers.DISMISSING GRAMMAR SKILLS AS “UNIMPORTANT”Know sentence structure and how to punctuate. Learn the importance of rythm, tone, alliteration, and word positioning for emphasis. Stylists like Vonnegut and Robbins break the rules, but you can bet they know them.FAILURE TO REWRITE OR EDITIt’s a book, not a grocery list. Get it right. Get it perfect. Polish it. Make it shine. Make it sing. I rewrite all of the Wyatt Storme novels three or four time each. If you’re not willing to do that, then collect baseball cards instead. Spare overworked editors the grief.And one final piece of advice — DON’T TAKE TOO MUCH ADVICE — There are people who are carried away by the winds of whatever article or workshop they attend. Or by the criticism of a friend or relative. Be wary of any advice you receive (including mine). Develop a good B.S. meter and keep it turned on. Have some faith in your own judgement. You must have passion about your work or no one else will.So, why are you sitting here reading this article? Write something.

A truly great post by Jake Hinkson on Ride The High Country

Ride the High Country




The supposed immortality of movie stardom is a funny thing. Some stars only grow in stature as the years go by, but others shrink. They’re “immortal” in the sense that their films still exist, but that’s not the same thing as saying that they endure as icons in the larger culture. Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott were huge stars in their day, but they belong in a particular subset of movie stardom that never quite translated them into legendary status. Please understand, I don’t mean this as any kind of criticism. I’ve always liked both actors. Both actors starred in important films. Both are still, I think, well regarded by critics and historians. But there was a time when Joel McCrae and Randolph Scott were household names. Time, however, has worn away their place in the culture’s memory. Today, most people under a certain age have probably never heard of either man.This isn't a “what's wrong with these kids these days” lament. Movie stardom is, relatively speaking, still a new phenomenon. Maybe this is just what happens to movie stars. Nobody really gets to live forever.Yet McCrae and Scott are important. McCrae made comedies for Preston Sturges (Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story), Foreign Correspondent for Hitchcock, and several good Westerns (my favorite is Raoul Walsh’s Colorado Territory). He was an easy, likable screen presence. If he wasn't as distinctive a presence as someone like John Wayne, he was in many ways a more natural actor. Even among fabled Everymen like Cooper and Stewart and Fonda, McCrea was a laidback performer. Watching him today, it's almost a wonder that he was a star in the forties. That era was full of people who filled the screen. McCrea always seems life-sized, bland, a regular guy. My theory is that audiences liked him because he seemed so much like them. He was the Harry Truman of movie stars.Randolph Scott is a different story. Hawk-faced and stoic in many of his roles, with a gravelly voice and a weathered air, he was a more mannered actor than McCrae. Unlike McCrae, he never made much of an impression outside of oaters. His legacy today rests pretty squarely on the impressive series of seven films he made with director Budd Boetticher between 1956 and 1960, including Seven Men From Now, The Tall T, and Decision at Sundown. It would be too much to say that these were art films, but in their visual sparseness and focus on psychological conflict, the Scott/Boetticher Westerns are closer in sprit to something like Monty Hellman’s arty 1966 The Shooting than to many of the big and flashy outdoor epics of the fifties.Mariette Hartley stars as Elsa, a young girl who has run away from home.By the time McCrae and Scott teamed up for Ride the High Country, they were coming to the end of their careers. Their director, Sam Peckinpah, however, was just getting started. He’d come up through television Westerns like Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, and The Westerner, and he already showed a distinctively unsentimental attitude toward the old west. He rewrote the script about a penniless, once-famous lawman named Steve Judd (McCrae), who teams up with an old partner named Gil Westrum (Scott) to transport a gold shipment through dangerous territory. Along the way, they pick up Gil’s sidekick, Heck Longtree (Ron Starr), and a young woman named Elsa (Mariette Hartley), who has run away from home.Ride the High Country is about the old west passing away, but it would be incorrect to call it a lament for the old west. It isn’t so much about how great the old days were as much as it’s about how human beings scrape for honor in a world where honor is barely possible. Judd and Westrum have a fundamental disagreement about the lessons to be learned from their gradual loss of societal standing over the years. Judd wants to hold on to his dignity. Westrum is more than happy to swap his dignity for the gold. The actors are perfectly suited to their roles here. McCrae, a man who fairly exuded a certain warmth and humanity, makes Judd stubborn but decent. Scott was always a cooler, more laconic presence, and he makes Westrum a man with a heart hidden away underneath a lot of rawhide.

In terms of symbols, too, the filmmakers could not have found two better actors for these roles because McCrae and Scott, big stars though they were in their day, never achieved iconic status outside of Westerns. That means that their cinematic legacies rest pretty squarely on the horse opera, and as the Western has faded in cultural standing, so have McCrae and Scott. Curiously, this only adds to the power of Ride the High Country. When they made the film, the actors were still well known and successful (both were savvy businessmen offscreen and were among the wealthiest stars in Hollywood), but as the years pass, their memories become more and more confined to the genre they both loved so much. This movie was always about two old cowboys on their last ride, but the meaning of that last ride only continues to deepen.

Robert Stone, Novelist Inspired by War, Dies at 77

Ed here: Stone suffered from the Graham Greene problem--yes he was a brilliant novelist but he was also a brilliant storyteller. There are Those who distrust this combination, notably, as William Goldman maintains, The Nobel Prize Committee.

Robert Stone, Novelist Inspired by War, Dies at 77 By ASHLEY SOUTHALLJAN. 10, 2015From the New York Times
Robert Stone, the naturalist author whose satirical epics explored the underside of American life, died on Saturday at his winter home in Key West, Fla. He was 77.His agent, Neil Olson, said the cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mr. Stone was previously given a diagnosis of emphysema.Mr. Stone won the National Book Award for his second novel, “Dog Soldiers,” in 1975, was a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and received many other literary fellowships, prizes and recognitions.“Dog Soldiers,” published soon after the conclusion of the Vietnam War, was about a war correspondent caught up in a heroin-smuggling operation.Two decades later, The New York Times’s book critic William H. Pritchard wrote that its appeal was in the connections it made between folly and violence in Southeast Asia and American counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s.An Appraisal: In Robert Stone’s Books, Heroes, Hedonism and Old-Fashioned MoralismJAN. 11, 2015 “It spoke to American disenchantment,” Mr. Pritchard wrote. “It was a compellingly executed tale of action, and the witty brilliance of its prose created a dark comedy of disaster — of attempted heroic gestures that were also, as its unheroic hero, John Converse, observed, ‘peculiar and stupid.’ ”The book shared the 1975 National Book Award with “The Hair of Harold Roux” by Thomas Williams, and was adapted as a film, “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” starring Nick Nolte in 1978.Mr. Stone followed with several more novels, including “A Flag for Sunrise” in 1981, “Outerbridge Reach” in 1992, and “Damascus Gate” in 1998. He wrote a memoir in 2007, “Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties,” about his years in California as one of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters.His last works were the dark humored short-story collection “Fun With Problems” in 2010 and the 2013 novel, “Death of the Black-Haired Girl.”Mr. Stone was born on Aug. 21, 1937, in Brooklyn. He was raised by his mother, a New York City schoolteacher, until the age of 6, when she was institutionalized for schizophrenia. His father had abandoned the family soon after his son’s birth. Mr. Stone lived in a Catholic orphanage until the age of 10.He was a rebellious teenager who was kicked out of a Marist high school during his senior year. He joined the Navy for four years, sailing to places like Antarctica and Egypt.He drew on his hardscrabble upbringing in his work, where war served as a principle metaphor for human life. A two-month stint in Vietnam for a British journal in 1971 served as the inspiration for “Dog Soldiers,"and “A Flag for Sunrise” focused on characters whose lives collided in a Central American republic modeled on Nicaragua.“It’s literally true that the world is seen by the superpowers as a grid of specific targets,” he told The Paris Review in 1985. “We’re all on military maps. There happens to be no action in those zones at present, but they’re there. And then there are the wars we fight with ourselves in our own cities. It is the simple truth that, wherever you are, there is an armed enemy present, not far away.”In the same interview, he said he was inspired to begin writing novels in his 20s after rereading “The Great Gatsby.”“I decided I knew a few meanings; I understood patterns in life,” he said. “I figured, I can’t sell this understanding, or smoke it, so I will write a novel.”In 1966, he published his first novel, “A Hall of Mirrors.” Set in New Orleans in 1962, the book depicted a political scene dominated by racism. It won a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship and a William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel, and was adapted as a film, “WUSA,” released in 1970.His survivors include his wife of 55 years, Janice, and their two adult children, Deirdre and Ian.A version of this article appears in print on January 11, 2015, on page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Robert Stone, Novelist Inspired by War, Dies at 77. Old Belts an

STORMING THE GATES: HOW TO WRITE A SURE-FIRE, CAN’T MISS, GUARANTEED-TO-GET-A-READ, FICTION PROPOSAL

Written byW.L. RipleyShare on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on pinterest_share FROM BRASH BOOKS
W.L. Ripley is the author of two critically-acclaimed series of crime novels — four books featuring ex-professional football player Wyatt Storme and four books about ex-Secret Service agent Cole Springer. His latest novel is Storme Warning, a stunning new mystery/thriller that we’re publishing in February. We will also be re-releasing Ripley’s other books through 2015 and early 2016.I live in rural Missouri, which is not in the middle of nowhere despite anything you may have heard. The middle of nowhere is a good fifty yards south of my house. Still, it’s two thousand miles from New York City and the publishing industry.  I’ve never been there and in no hurry to go. I am not a celebrity, have no contacts in the industry (well, some) and nobody was knocking themselves out to help me when I started.And yet, I am a published author with seven books to my credit and had my work optioned for movie production by major film stars and producers.How was I able to do that?Being published seemed easy enough when I first started writing. You write a great book, you send it off, and every publisher wants it, right?I was in for a surprise.The Problem There are thousands of good writers in the U. S. Some of them even are published authors. There are hundreds of unpublished writers better than some writers who are published. Perhaps you’re one of them. They have to come from somewhere. The problem is you must get editors to read your manuscript and then what you write must be beyond outstanding. Outstanding is not enough. I once submitted a novel that an editor described as “the best high school sports novel I have ever read.” High praise, don’t you think?It was rejected.Stephen King’s wife fished his first novel,  Carrie , out of the waste basket and sent it in one last time after the mega-bestselling author had given up. Many bestsellers and award-winning novels were rejected without being read before they found a home.Why?Simple. There are too many books being written and editors and literary agents are swamped with manuscripts.You are up against established authors, an avalanche of submissions, and the limited amount of hours in an editor’s day. Therefore, just getting an editor or agent’s attention and getting one to read your manuscript becomes the problem. Book agent Richard Curtis puts it this way in his book,  How to Be Your Own Literary Agent

“You’re not worried about how much you’re going to get for your book,” writes Curtis, “you’re worried about whether the damned thing is going to get read.”

The good news is that successful editors and agents (I have worked with some great people in the industry) love their job and are searching for that fresh new voice.So, how do you get editors to read your manuscript? Here’s the solution. Every writer wants to know how to break into the market. They want to know the inside stuff. The hot tips. Fortunately, there are a few hints that will geometrically increase your chances.Following is a list of tips I wish someone would have shared with me when I started out. It is the result of years of trial and error and research. Some of them you may have heard before. It will save you months of unnecessary work and worry and waiting.I know. Because it worked for me and it has worked for some unpublished authors I have shared it with.   One young author got a response in two days using this method!USE MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCES:Yeah, I know you’ve heard it a thousand times — Publishers won’t consider multiple submissions. It just isn’t done and you’re afraid to offend them. Been there. Listen, if you haven’t been published how do they know you’re doing it? Do you think they’re sitting around some upscale waterhole drinking Bombay martinis talking about your manuscript — a manuscript by an unknown — only to discover (horrors) that you sent a copy to both houses?The real reason they don’t want multiple submissions is that they want to discourage a deluge of manuscripts and to cut out the competition. Besides, if your manuscript is good they’re going to want it anyway.I used to play the one-house-at-a-time game. You wait for months, then the publisher returns it unread, or rejects it (sending you a form letter with your name typed on a slant, now it’s just an email). Now you’re three or four months behind and have to send it out again. If you play by their rules you’ll only be able to submit your manuscript three or four times in one year!Do you have that kind of time and patience? I don’t.Marketing your manuscript is a full-contact sport. For my first published novel,  Hail Storme , I sent queries to a dozen houses, starting with the biggest. As always, some rejected it without reading the manuscript (or the query), some lost or misplaced it, some were intrigued and wrote personal letters; but four major houses were interested. Which brings us to item #2.SUBMIT A QUERY LETTER RATHER THAN A MANUSCRIPT AS YOUR FIRST CONTACT:Query letters are time efficient, cost less, and a besieged editor is more likely to read a short letter or email than the twenty-third manuscript (and they get that many, every day). Also, it’s to your advantage if an editor requests your manuscript on the strength of a query as there is an implicit agreement on the editor’s part to actually read it. Now you are out of the slush pile. So, make sure you have a finished manuscript ready before you query. Editors do not purchase novels on spec from unknowns.Hail Storme sold quickly after arriving in-house. As a result, I wrote what amounted to rejection letters to three major publishers requesting the return of my manuscript. A nice feeling.I barely resisted printing my signature on a slant.TARGET A SPECIFIC EDITORDo you like receiving mail addressed to “Occupant”? Do you like having your name misspelled? Or being referred to as Mr. If you are a woman?Neither do editors.Make sure you address your query to a specific editor using the name and the correct title of that editor. There is a formal hierarchy in publishing houses and a Senior Editor, after working hard for many years to attain that title, might not appreciate being referred to as a mere editor. Which is why the next item is important.BUY THE FOLLOWING REFERENCE BOOKS:

THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO BOOK EDITORS, PUBLISHERS, AND LITERARY AGENTS — by Jeff Herman, Prima Publishing.

NOVEL AND SHORT STORY WRITER’S MARKET — Writer’s Digest Books

These are important publications to keep on hand. Jeff Herman is a New York literary agent who must keep abreast of what is happening in the industry. He lists each editor by name by name as well as their genre interest (mainstream, mystery, romance, young adult, etc.). This book will help you target your submissions. The Writer’s Digest compilation includes smaller houses and magazines (helpful in getting a beginning writer a track record) and rates each house according to its needs. With these two books you learn much about the industry and increase the odds your manuscript will get attention. Both list addresses and phone numbers of publishers.I would not have been published without access to the information in these books.NOTE: There is much movement in the industry. Even if you have the editor’s name it might be helpful to make a preliminary call to find out if the editor in question is still at the house and what his/her title is. And, that’s all you should ask. Don’t cold call editors.NOTE: even if you possess these publications, it is a good idea to call ahead and ask who handles your type (genre) of novel as there is much movement in the industry.These days there are also many websites online you can access that will give you the name and titles of the appropriate agent or editor for your work.HAVE AN EYE-CATCHING TITLE FOR YOUR BOOKHow many times have you been attracted to a book by its title? Or a movie? Happens to editors too. The title is one of your most important marketing tools. Some books, believe it or not, have been sold merely on their title. Consider the following —  The Catcher in the Rye   (Salinger),  True Grit  (Portis),  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  (Kesey),  The Firm  (Grisham)  CATCH-22  (Heller). All were best-sellers with name recognition. Some of the above are first novels and received big advances. Most have been made into movies.My literary agent, Donald Maass came up with a great title for my first Cole Springer novel, Springer’s Gambit. Lee Goldberg, Brash Books publisher (and co-author of the New York Times bestseller,  The Job ), gave me the idea for my newest Wyatt Storme title,  Storme Warning . I’m always open to good suggestions and just as willing to hear objective criticism from colleagues and professionals.Come up with your own list of favorites. Get a good title with a hook for your novel even if you have to ask your mother.PREPARE YOUR MANUSCRIPT PROPERLY & PROFESSIONALLYYour high school English teacher probably knows little about what makes a saleable book. However, she is dead right about punctuation, syntax, usage, spelling, etc. Don’t send in something that screams, fourth grade grammar.DEMONSTRATE CONFIDENCEWhen writing your query letter don’t appear whiney or desperate. Don’t tell them it has been rejected five times and don’t say things like, I hope or I think you will like my novel. Either they’ll like it or they won’t. Use the Jack Webb approach (“Just the facts, ma’am.”). And, keep your letter short (less than one page). It works.Be confident. Insecure people don’t write well. DEMONSTRATE YOU ARE A PROFESSIONALDo things the right way. Research and learn how the industry works. ReadWriter’s Digest and any publication or article about the writing task you can find. Learn to write short, concise business letters. Sloppy, incoherent correspondence will send the wrong message (and get you hammered before you start). Learn to handle rejection and the lethargic way the industry conducts business. Be tough and purposeful and thick-skinned.Get over the notion of being an “Author” with a capital “A” because that notion will get in the way of the writing. People enamored of the idea of being an “Author” tend to see themselves as undiscovered celebrities and above the work it takes to write. Writing is editing and rewriting and throwing away and getting the words right.It’s damned hard work.Here’s a sobering exercise. Pick a literary author (Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, and Joyce Carol Oates) or an author in your favorite genre (mystery writers like James Lee Burke, Ace Atkins, etc.) and ask the average person if they have ever heard of them. Most haven’t. That’s the reality.I write because I have to. It sustains me. I can’t imagine life without writing. This is what you’re up against. People like me. Writers.ALWAYS KEEP A MANUSCRIPT GOING OUT TO EDITORS AND AGENTSIf you receive a rejection letter, immediately send the manuscript to someone else. If you’ve made multiple submissions this won’t be so devastating. There is nothing worse than the tyranny of the reply. If you wait, breathlessly, each day for word on your manuscript you become a hostage to the process.Take charge. I’ll make only one promise and this is it — if you are a good writer and don’t give up, eventually you will be published — it’s only a matter of finding the right editor at the right moment. It will happen. Believe it. It’s going to happen.Send your book off and write another one. And another one.BE COMMITTED (and persistent)This is important! If you are going to write, then write and don’t apologize for it. Tell your friends you’re a writer. Don’t be afraid to tell people you are writing a book and that you intend to become a by-God, full-fledged, sit-around-in-your-jeans-and-drink-coffee writer (I love this part most of all). This will make you work harder and cause you to abandon excuses for not writing. You’ll look an idiot is you quit writing at this point.In the early eighties I made a conscious commitment to become a published writer. Ten years later my first novel was published. In between I wrote three or four books (and started several others) and was rejected over thirty times for every imaginable reason. All the while I was learning the writing craft as well as becoming informed about the business end of the industry.  Hail Storme  was accepted immediately, surprising me.A ten-year overnight success.And now my seventh novel,  Storme Warning , will be released February 2 followed by all of my previous Wyatt Storme novels throughout the year.Never, never, never give up. The late great John D. McDonald, creator of the Travis McGee series, asserted that writers must be willing to write one million words (ten medium length novels) without being published before they were to be worthy of being called a writer.How many words have you written so far?Don’t give up because someone in an office in New York rejects you. Get a life. Mine isn’t dependent on some faceless name in Gotham’s concrete canyons. Besides, get used to it. If you do get published, then you have critics to contend with (and editors and agents).Being a writer is everything I hoped it would be and less. I still have to face the blank page (or screen) and I still have to write every day. The writing gets easier (some aspects) but you have to compete with yourself once you’re in print and you have to deal with the annoyances that are part of any job or career choice.But, I’m a writer. I love writing and creating even though it’s probably harder for me to write than someone who just wants to be an author.Writing is good work if you can get it. It’s the hardest job you’ll ever love.TO BE CONTINUED…On Monday, W.L. Ripley blogs here about the Big Mistakes Made by Beginning Writers…