My original posting on this thread was facetious, but I've
been thinking about it. Consider this plot: The protagonist
is ordered by his boss(or hired by his client) to go into a
potentially dangerous situation. He makes precautions to
insure against something going badly. Along with a female
companion he ventures forth. They fall into a trap set by the
villain and are captured and imprisoned. By luck, guile and
force they manage to overcome and kill the villain. It sounds
like many of the Matt Helm plots, for example. It also
happens to be the plot of Hansel and Gretel.
Many of the original versions of fairy tales are very grim.
There must be a lot of source material in the Norse and Greek
myths too. know this is not an original discovery, but it
might serve us to explore the bases of hard boiled.
Mark
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