RARA-AVIS: Humour and Guess What? It's Hammer Time!

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@total.net)
Mon, 2 Mar 1998 07:51:17 -0500 What's happened? Where did everybody go? Oh well...

Two other noteworthy pieces of hardboiled humour/parody, both by S.J.
Perelman, are "Somewhere a Roscoe...", not so much a parody, as a humourous
salute to Dan Turner and Robert Leslie Bellem, and "Farewell, My Lovely
Appetizer," a spoof of the hardboiled, PI genre, complete with both red and
pink herring. They're both quite short pieces, and both are quite a hoot.
You can probably find them in a collection of Perelman's shorter works.

Also, thanks for the pointer on "Kiss Me, Dudley." I managed to find a copy
in an Manhunt I picked up for a dime at a garage sale years ago, and it is
indeed a treat. Spillane is definitively hoisted and roasted in this one.
Which makes me wonder: how do you guys feel about Spillane and Mike Hammer?
Except for a few mentions of the TV show (which I always found rather lame,
despite some decent scripts), I don't remember any discussion of the big
palooka. As someone who probably ranks as one of the major forces in the
hardboiled genre, Spillane's absence on this list is sort of glaring. I
wouldn't rank him as high as Hammett and Chandler, but as an influence he's
got to be right up there with Macdonald.

What say youse?

But I digress...

Kevin Smith
Web Guy for The Thrilling Detective Web Site
For info, mailto:kvnsmith@total.net

"Everybody loves a loser,
They wanna see him pay his dues,
Everybody loves a loser,
But they don't wanna stand in his shoes."
-Murray McLauchlan

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