Browsed by
Author: Bob Byrne

William Goldman’s Hollywood Adventures

William Goldman’s Hollywood Adventures

Goldman_PrincessBrideEDITED

Today, I’m going to take a week off from A (Black) Gat in the Hand. And no, not to dust off The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes. I constantly read. Often related to my weekly column here at Black Gate. A thousand words every Monday morning takes some research. And I like to ‘read now’ to start future projects. And I read ‘how to’ books to try and bolster my fledgling attempts at writing fiction. And I do Bible study. So, I don’t read ‘just to read’ that much these days. Which is fine. I like reading the stuff I do. But sometimes, I just want to pull something off of the shelves solely for enjoyment’s sake. And it’s often something which I’ve read before.

I read two books just for fun last week. And since a big part of why I write for Black Gate is to introduce people to things I think they might be interested in, I’m going to talk about those two books. William Goldman, who passed away in 2018, was a very successful screenwriter (that’s short for ‘screenplay writer’ – Nero Wolfe would not approve!). Harper, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, A Bridge Too Far, Misery, Maverick, Absolute Power: the guy knew what he was doing. And he was a novelist first – not only did he write the screenplay for The Princess Bride, he adapted it from his own novel.

In 1983, Goldman published the best-selling Adventures in the Screen Trade. It is simply a FANTASTIC book. It is an honest, compelling memoir from a Hollywood insider who remained an outsider (he never lived in California. He would go there to work, but he always returned to NYC). And the book contains insights into screenwriting, as well. I read it about twenty years ago when I decided to teach myself how to write screenplays (I’ve written a couple. That’s all we need to say about that). I really liked it.

And last week, re-reading it, I liked it even more. In 2000, there was a followup: Which Lie Did I Tell?. And it is also a fun, absorbing read. Anybody who enjoys movies should read these books.

Goldman was sure The Great Waldo Pepper was going to be huge. And as he’s sitting in a screening, he realizes why it didn’t fly (see what I did there? Helps if you actually saw the movie). He dishes the inside scoop on the battle over the hobbling scene in Misery (if you haven’t read King’s story, the source material is brutal). We learn that Clint Eastwood stood in line to get his lunch at the cafeteria while filming and producing Absolute Power. Just like a normal person. Goldman explains why he walked out on The Right Stuff (the only time he quit a project).

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Steven H Silver Asks ‘Can You Name This Hardboiled Flick?’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Steven H Silver Asks ‘Can You Name This Hardboiled Flick?’

SilverMarx_Todd2EDITEDA hallmark of my success here at Black Gate has been to get other writers, with actual talent, to write for my column. I accomplish that feat again today as fellow Black Gater Steven H Silver takes a look at a classic film and gives it a hardboiled review. You may not immediately guess what film he’s looking at, although I’d bet you’ve heard of it before. Take it away, Steven!

I’m going to look at one of the stranger “Gat” films. With action taking place in a variety of places, ranging from a state room on an ocean liner to a swanky long island party to a rousing conclusion in a barn.

Rockliffe Fellows plays “Big Joe” Helton, an older mob boss who is returned from Europe aboard an ocean liner with his daughter, Mary, played by Ruth Hall. Also on board the ship is Alky Briggs, played by Harry Woods, Briggs is accompanied by his wife, Lucille, portrayed by Thelma Todd, right at the midpoint of her career. Oddly enough, aside from these women, both of these men seem to be traveling without any members of their gangs, although they both are able to rectify that oversight.

We’re first introduced to Briggs in his cabin, where his wife, Lucille is complaining that he has been ignoring her on the voyage. Briggs makes it clear that he isn’t making a play for any other woman, rather his purpose for being on the ship is because he has determined that being alone on the ocean is the perfect time to attempt to muscle in on Helton’s territory. Here is a huge difference between Lucille’s language and Briggs. The writers have given Thelma Todd natural dialogue and she delivers it well. Briggs’ lines are written almost as a parody of a movie gangster, with no recognition that he and Lucille are in an actual relationship and Woods delivers them in a such a stereotypical manner that the only conclusion a viewer can have is that he’s decided to play tough-guy Briggs as a satire.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Talking about Philip Marlowe

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Talking about Philip Marlowe

Marlowe_MitchumLovely2EDITED

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era termsp for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I got in a bit of a Philip Marlowe mood when I wrote that A (Black) Gat in the Hand post on Powers Boothe’s excellent HBO series a few months ago. Now, I normally did pretty deep when I pick a subject for a Black Gate post. Which is why more than one never actually gets written. Yet, anyways. I’m going to try a different tack and write less in-depth on several different Marlowe projects. We’ll see how that goes.

Robert Mitchum’s Farewell My Lovely.

In 1975, two years after Eliot Gould’s The Long Goodbye (which I do NOT like), Mitchum was an older, world-weary Philip Marlowe. In 1978, he followed it up with The Big Sleep. It was a mess and his first movie as Marlowe is definitely the better of the two.

I’ve not been much of a fan of his Marlowe . It’s a combination of his age, and him seeming too stiff. Kinda like watching Charlton Heston play Sherlock Holmes in Crucifer of Blood (which isn’t actually too bad, overall). Re-watching Farewell My Lovely on WatchTCM, I did like him a bit better this time. I think his voice-over narration is the strength of his performance.

Charlotte Rampling is Velma/Mrs. Grayle. She played Irene Adler opposite Roger Moore in Sherlock Holmes in New York. And she was a regular for season two of Broadchurch a couple years ago. Velma’s inner nature really comes through in the showdown on the boat.

Jack O’Halloran plays Moose Malloy. Now, I have a hard time picturing anybody being Moose Malloy better than Mike Mazurki was in 1944’s Murder My Sweet. But O’Halloran is pretty darn good. He went on to be Emil Muzz, the goon in the Tom Hanks/Dan Akroyd Dragnet (which I love). He also played villain Non in Christopher Reeve’s first two Superman movies.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ ‘Have One on the House’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ ‘Have One on the House’

DimeDetective_March1942EDITED“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era termsp for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I’ve said many times that Norbert Davis is on my Hardboiled Mt. Rushmore. He’s not the first face carved in hardboiled stone, but he’s one of only four that are. Max Latin is my favorite Davis character, and he appeared in five issues of Dime Detective. There were five Benjamin Martin stories – all in Detective Tales. It was William (Bail Bond) Dodd that was Davis’ frequently recurring character. There were eight stories in Dime Detective between February, 1940 through December, 1943.

Dodd is a physically unprepossessing bail bondsman. He doesn’t actively seek out trouble. You can’t even call his adventures cases. “Have one on the House” was in the March, 1942 issue of Dime Detective. That issue also included a Steve Midnight story from John K. Butler. Midnight was a broke former playboy who found adventures as a night shift cabbie. There was also a Bookie Barnes story from Robert Reeves. Reeves broke into Black Mask in 1940 at the age of 28. He was serving with a bomber unit in the Philippines when he died in 1945, only one month before the war ended. He had continued to write while in the service. His budding career was cut tragically short.

Back to Dodd! Norbert Davis is remembered as perhaps the best at screwball hardboiled. However, then and now, that carries a stigma and he is generally dismissed because of it. And it’s both inaccurate and unfair. He could write straight hardboiled, like “The Red Goose,” which Raymond Chandler praised as influencing him when he decided to become a writer. But what Davis did so well was inject humor into his hardboiled stories, without overwhelming them with it. That’s the case with the Bail-Bond Dodd stories. It’s not that the characters are funny – it’s the situations that Dodd (and his assistant, Meekins) find themselves in.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: C.M. Kornbluth’s Pulp

Kornbluth_PolkaEDITEDSteven H Silver and I shared office space in the dungeon…cellar…basement….journalist’s suite (yeah, that’s it) at the Black Gate World Headquarters. Then, Steven published his cool new novel, After Hastings, and got moved above ground level. He tapped out a message to me on the pipes and said that it has taken a while for his eyes to get used to all that natural light. But before he moved on up, we worked on the joint post you are now reading. I look at a hardboiled PI story by C. M. Kornbluth. Then Steven follows with one of the author’s science fiction stories. Kornbluth wrote a lot more of the latter, than the former. So, read on from the pride of the BG World Headquarters underground offices!

C.M. Kornbluth started to emerge as a science fiction star, then went off and earned a Bronze Star for service in The Battle of the Bulge. He resumed his writing career and died at the young age of thirty-four. Primarily in the late forties, he wrote sixteen mystery stories for the pulps. Two of those appeared in Black Mask in 1946. “Beer-Bottle Polka” introduced tough PI Tim Skeat in the September issue, and he made a return appearance in November with “The Brooklyn Eye.” All of his other mystery stories were one-offs, without a recurring character.

Skeat gets a phone call from Detective Lieutenant Angonides, telling him to come to the crime scene, where a dead body has been found. The stiff had been tied to a bed and seriously tortured with a broken beer bottle. It ain’t pretty. One of Skeats’ business cards had been found in the deceased’s hat band, prompting the call. Skeat tells him the man was a nut who visited his office, tried to sell him a secret, and was sent packing.

Angonides doesn’t like that answer. He has Skeat taken down to the station. And when he still doesn’t like that answer, down into the basement. First he sweats Skeat with a hot spotlight. And when that doesn’t work, he punches him over and over, right below a rib. Then moves about six inches to the side and repeats the process. Skeat isn’t a suspect in the killing. Angonides is just convinced he knows more than he’s telling. So he works him over. Skeat doesn’t change his story and is beaten into unconsciousness. And told not to bother filing a complaint. He takes his undeserved beating and heads to a Turkish bath for treatment, and falls asleep there.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Don’t You Cry for Me’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Don’t You Cry for Me’

Davis_Don'tCry“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

On my Hardboiled Mount Rushmore, it’s Dashiell Hammett, Frederick Nebel, and then Norbert Davis. The fourth spot is a bit fluid, though the Jo Gar series often has Raoul Whitfield in that fourth spot. But today, we’re going to look at a Davis short story.

Davis was in law school at Stanford when he wrote his first story and sent it to Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw, the legendary editor of Black Mask. It was accepted, and by the time he graduated law school, he was successfully writing for the pulps. In fact, he was doing so well, he never sat for the bar, and spent the rest of his life as a writer, moving from the pulps to the higher-paying slicks. Sadly, took his own life at only the age of 40.

I’ve already written an essay on his Ben Shaley stories, which constituted two of the five Davis tales Shaw printed in Black Mask under his watch. After Shaw left, Davis appeared in Black Mask eight more times. I’m working on what I hope will be THE definitive essay on his Max Latin stories. I absolutely love that five-story series. They’re fantastic.

Between May 1942 and May 1943, Black Mask ran three stories featuring John Collins. Collins was a piano player who had done some investigation work on the side in Europe before World War II. “Don’t You Cry for Me” was the first of the three stories.
Picking Iron (trivia) – In May, 1942, Give the Devil His Due” ran in Dime Detective.

Of course, America was drawn into World War II on December 7, 1941.The story blurb for this one reads, “The brawny piano-player had had his run-ins with the ghoulish Gestapo in the beer halls of Europe, but when he promised Myra Martin’s mother to find the girl in the Mecca of the movie-struck, he ran foul of a plot as fantastic as any Hitler pipe-dream.” Pulp magazines used bombast long before Donald Trump did.

“John Collins was playing the Beale Street Blues and playing it soft and sad because that was the way he felt. The notes dripped through the dimness of the room like molasses and provided an appropriate accompaniment to his thoughts. He had a hangover.”

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: A Hardboiled August on TCM

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: A Hardboiled August on TCM

Bogart_TwoCarrollsEDITEDHopefully you’re used to my monthly look at some hardboiled/noir coming up for the month over at TCM. August is a little different. There is no Star of the Month. Instead a different person is featured every night for a ‘Summer under the Stars.’ I’ll include the star of the day, as it’s almost a day-long tribute to that star. As usual, the month features some hardboiled and noir:

SATURDAY AUGUST 1 (Barbara Stanwyck)

4:00 PM – The Two Mrs. Carrolls
This is a creepy Humphrey Bogart movie, with Stanwyck as his second wife. It also features Alexis Smith, who had a key role in the underrated Conflict. Nigel Bruce, Basil Rathbone’s Dr. Watson, plays a bit of a doofus (that was a real stretch for him). I find all the scenes with Bogart’s daughter annoying. Worth seeing once, but not in my top half of Bogart flicks.

10:00 PM – Double Indemnity
This was just on back in June. One of the greatest noirs of them all, with Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson all terrific. Great movie. Great novel.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2

6:00 AM – Winchester ‘73
Since I’m the one writing this post, I add in movies from other genres that I think are good to watch. This is a different kind of western from director Anthony Mann, starring James Stewart, Shelly Winters, and noir star Dan Duryea. I don’t list this in my Westerns Top 10, but it’s a good one in the field.

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 (Rita Hayworth)

8:00 PM – The Lady from Shanghai
Orson Welles directed, wrote the screenplay, and costarred in this Hayworth vehicle.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – Bogart and Bacall’s ‘Bold Venture’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – Bogart and Bacall’s ‘Bold Venture’

Bogart_BoldVEntureAd“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era termsp for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

In 1951 and 1952, a radio series named Bold Venture was a syndicated radio show, under the aegis of Santana Productions. Santana, named after his boat, was Humphrey Bogart’s company, to create and produce projects he wanted to make; not beholden to a big studio like Warners. Bold Venture was notable because he and wife Lauren Bacall starred. You can listen to the whole thing here.

There is some confusion regarding some episode names, and the actual number of shows is uncertain. Their number seems to be between fifty-seven and seventy-eight, and it aired on between four and five hundred stations. There are fifty-seven existing episodes, of good recording quality. Frederic Ziv (see below) reported that all seventy-eight shows were made, per the contracts.

Bogie Bits – Santana produced seven films – six of them distributed by Columbia. Bogart starred in five, with In a Lonely Place the most successful, and critically acclaimed.

Bogart plays Slate Shannon, owner of a low-key hotel in pre-Revolution Havana. He also has a boat, the Bold Venture. Bacall is Sailor Duval, the Vassar-educated daughter of a good friend of Shannon’s. When her father had died, Shannon agreed to take her on as his ward. A romance develops between the two over the course of the series. They have adventures on land and on sea, inevitably crossing paths with criminals each week.

Bogart didn’t like doing network radio. He felt it was too much work for too little money. He enjoyed sailing, and his home life with Bacall. Frederic Ziv had achieved great success in putting together syndicated radio shows, competing with the networks’ offerings. Ziv had some scripts prepared and met with the Bogarts, who liked the idea, but they asked to record two shows, to see how it sounded. So, in stead of an actor auditioning for a radio show, a radio show auditioned for two actors!

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Richard Diamond, Private Eye – The Betty Moran Case

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Richard Diamond, Private Eye – The Betty Moran Case

Diamond_PowellGregg“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era termsp for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

The Betty Moran Case (Click here to listen to it before reading the essay) aired on May 26, 1949. It was the fourth episode, and it opened up with the typical PI voice-over, in what is one big info dump. Richard Diamond is in his one-room office on Broadway, explaining that he does just enough work to pay the bills and take his (rich) girlfriend, Helen Asher, out once in awhile. Diamond, who was in the military, and was also a New York City cop, works hard for his clients, but doesn’t want to work too hard, or too often. Quite a few episodes begin with Powell in his office, bored, when a client comes in. Sometimes, it’s a thug with a warning.

In February of 1945, the film Murder My Sweet transformed song and dance man Dick Powell into a hardboiled tough guy. That summer, he starred as a radio detective in Rogue’s Gallery. He stayed in the part for two more runs, though 1946, then left the show, while hardboiled/noir films continued in 1947 and 1948. That second year, he also recorded an audition episode for a new radio series, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. It went on to a long run as a show about a free-lance insurance investigator. Bob Bailey became the most successful actor in the role, which Powell passed on. He had something else in mind.

April 24, 1949, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, aired over NBC radio. Powell largely recreated his Richard Rogue character, adding in a song every episode. But the new show dropped the part where he got knocked out and talked to his subconscious, helping solve the case. That (odd) bit was at the heart of Richard Rogue. Powell recorded somewhere around 150 shows as Richard Diamond, and it’s just about my favorite series. He later produced a television version, starring David Jansen. It was sorely lacking the humor of the radio show.

This episode opens with a woman being visited by the guy who is blackmailing her. She’s had enough, and fortified by liquor, blasts him with a gun. Then, she takes a drink, says “Here’s to nothing” and we hear another gunshot. Her name is Betty Moran, and she’s front page news. Literally, as a seedy-sounding character buys a paper on the street and, talking to himself (a lot of that in radio shows), says that her husband is ripe for more blackmailing.

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: YTJD – The Emily Braddock Matter (John Lund)

Dollar_Lund

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, was a very popular radio show that ran from 1949 – 1962. Dollar was a free-lance insurance investigator – maybe the best in the business — who traveled all over the United States and beyond, to help insurance companies stay on the right side of the financial ledger. He’s famous for fully expensing his trips: claiming ten cents for an aspirin for a job-induced headache is standard. Each episode opens with some company hiring him to look into a claim on their behalf. He usually has a quip early on (“Hi Johnny, are you free?” “Available, yes. Free, no.”), and then travels to the scene of the affair.

Dick Powell recorded the first audition for the part, but passed on the show to make Richard Diamond, Private Eye (a show I thoroughly enjoy). Charles Russell (Inner Sanctum) became the first Dollar, succeed not long after by Edmond O’Brien (White HeatThe Wild Bunch), and then John Lund (Foreign Affair, High Society). Bob Bailey had the longest, and most successful, run. When the show moved from Hollywood to New York, he quit to remain on the West coast. Robert Readick (his career spanned over five decades in radio) took over in New York, and finally, it was Mandel Kramer (The Edge of Night). Today, we’ll look at a John Lund episode.

One of the Lund episodes which I really like, because it has a Raymond Chandler feel to it, is The Emily Braddock Matter, which aired on May 19, 1953. You can listen to the episode here: scroll down to number 24.

A woman is passing bad checks out on the West coast, and the Baltimore Liability insurance company calls on Dollar to fly out to California to stop her. She’s hit three of their covered hotels. Of course, Philip Marlowe – and his prototypes, such as Johnny Dalmas – operated out of southern California, with the fictional Bay City being Santa Barbara. But Dollar has cases all over the world, so that wasn’t really a Chandler trigger.

“Expense account item one, $158.16; Plane fare and incidentals, Hartford to Santa Barbara.” And off we go!

His local police contact is out, so Dollar heads to the Harbor Inn, where Glenn Sheridan is the hotel operator who had been taken in by the crook. He has twenty years experience in the business, but said she was the best he’s seen. She bluffed her way through a four-day stay, giving Sheridan a forged check for $813 when she left. She had been well dressed, with fancy luggage (which she probably bought with a forged check), spending big money in the dining room every evening. She totally fooled him.

Read More Read More