The Man with Bogart's Face

Sam Marlow #1

by Andrew J. Fenady

ex-library copy. Strong spine with tiny repair. Bright clean cover has light creasing on cover plus edge wear. Text is perfect. Same day shipping first class.

Genres: Fiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Andrew J. Fenady was born in Toledo, Ohio. A veteran writer and producer in Hollywood, Fenady created and produced The Rebel (1959–1961) for television, starring Nick Adams. The top-rated show lasted three seasons and the Fenady-penned theme song, “Johnny Yuma,” became a No. 1 hit for Johnny Cash. He wrote and produced the 1969 John Wayne hit Chisum and the popular TV western series Hondo and Branded. His other credits include the adaptation of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf, with Charles Bronson and Christopher Reeve, and the western feature Ride Beyond Vengeance, which starred Chuck Connors. His acclaimed western novels include Big Ike, Riders to Moon Rock, The Trespassers, The Summer of Jack London, The Range Wolf, and Destiny Made Them Brothers. Fenady presently lives in Los Angeles and has been honored with The Golden Boot Award, the Silver Spur Award, and the Owen Wister Award from the Western Writers of America for his lifetime contribution to westerns.

Reviews

[Wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a Dashiell Hammett and/or Raymond Chandler, this novel will be right up your alley. I enjoyed it immensely.

[Mariah Startzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a conspiracy going on here and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it, and it involves this very book. I saw this book as I was shopping through a used bookstore about a month ago and it caught my eye. Mainly because it reminded me of a Tales from the Crypt episode called “You, Murderer” and I assumed that this episode might have been based on the book. But that didn’t quite make sense for Tales from the Crypt episode story lines are taken from old pulp horror comics. So I decided to do some investigating of my own, much like Sam Marlow in this book. From what I was able to find, which is very little, the two stories have no connection. Actually both of the stories overall are very much different, but both of them have one huge similarity. Both of them feature a man who has gotten his face reconstructed to look exactly like Humphrey Bogart. You can’t deny that is a glaring coincidence! I have a feeling there’s more to the story than what I can find, but for now it’s a mystery. (Fun fact though, the man who plays Sam Marlow in the movie adaptation of “The Man With Bogart’s Face”, Robert Sacchi, also plays the Bogart face character in the Tales from the Crypt. This is likely due to his facial likeness to Humphrey Bogart in general.) To be honest though, the mystery behind the book was far more exciting to me than the actual book. The book wasn’t terrible and it got better as it went along, but it just didn’t have much to it. There were a few instances where I rolled my eyes, because it was trying too hard to be in the film noir style and it just sounded so cheesy. I’m curious to see how the movie version stands up to the book. I feel like the story would translate far better to film. Even with all that, it was a quick read and it was just entertaining enough to keep reading, mainly from the mystery of it all.

[David Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. It is not "great literature," but it is wildly fun for people who like hard boiled detective stories.

"One man was bleeding where he had fallen in an over-stuffed leather chair, a gun still in his hand. The other man was still holding his gun pointed straight at Sam. There was more gunfire.

"The slug tore a hole across the left sleeve of Sam's trench coat as he fired the Lugar twice through his pocket towards the man. The first slug hit the man's heart. The second slug hit the first slug."

That's fun. :-)

[Jake Mabe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time. Perfect for a rainy night.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most enjoyable. Follows the movie closely.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and loving tribute to Bogart and to classic detective and noir movies. A man with a past that is only hinted at (he was somehow wounded at one point in the past and probably worked in the movie industry) has plastic surgery to make himself a double of Humphrey Bogart, then changes his name to Sam Marlowe. He opens a private detective office and has a habit of "casting" people he meets as Golden Age Hollywood actors.

At first, we think he might just be nuts, but when he gets several clients that all turn out to want the same pair of priceless sapphires, he proves to be a good detective and more than able to handle himself in either a fist fight or gun fight. There is a level of parody here, with a plot and characters that key off The Maltese Falcon. And, like all good parodies, it obviously loves the subject it is making fun of. But it is also well-written enough to work as a straight detective story and get us to invest in characters we come to care about.