In a message dated 1/1/03 12:15:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<< In the post-war era, this changes. Lawrence
Treat
makes a concerted effort to find out what police
work
in NYC is really like before sitting down to write
V
AS IN VICTIM (and in his review of this book,
Anthony
Boucher uses the word "procedural" but doesn't
quite
define it as a separate sub-genre, yet; he WOULD do
so
in 1956). Likewise playwright Sidney Kingsley in
his
1949 stage play DETECTIVE STORY. Likewise Stewart
Sterling in his novels about an NYC arson
investigator. Likewise MacKinlay Kantor in his
screenplay-turned-novel SIGNAL 32. Likewise Jack
Webb
in his 1949 radio series DRAGNET. >>
Excellent posting Jim! Lawrence Treat's short stories
featuring his police cast members are superb. Look for the
digest sized collection P AS IN POLICE.
Did not know MacKinlay Kantor's SIGNAL THIRTY-TWO (1950)
began life as a screenplay. I do know that he joined the New
York City Police Department
(23rd Precinct) and served with them 1948-1949 to gather
background. When his son mentioned this in a "Mommie Dearest"
type reference to his father's alledged racism, I doubted
that such a successful writer would do this at the height of
his career. But I was wrong. Kantor did, despite having
earned big bucks in Hollywood both as a screenwriter as well
as in selling his stories to the movies ("The Best Year's of
Our Lives," "Romance of Rosy Ridge," "Voice of Bugle Anne,"
and etc.).
One addition to your list that I believe is widely overlooked
but was very influencial. That is Mark Hellinger's final
movie "The Naked City" in 1948. It followed the police point
of view, featured NYC location filming (rare in those days),
and had to have been a big influence on Jack Webb. It was in
this movie that the "Dum-De-Dum-Dum music theme had its
birth.
Richard Moore
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