I found the discussion about that blonde actress from the
1970s cop show
interesting because I once met a scriptwriter in LA who wrote
for the
show. According to him, the producers tried writing scripts
with her
personality in mind, but the stories weren't hard-boiled
enough. Someone
had a brilliant idea: when writers wrote from the show, they
wrote her
part as if it were played by the butch-est lesbian on the
police force.
The actress's true femininity "softened" the hard-boiled, and
the show
became a hit.
And that Random House-Modern Library top 100 list from the
summer? That
had everything to do with the soon-to-be-expiring copyrights
on most of
those books than with any real literary merit. Once the books
entered
public domain, the house couldn't make any scratch. So, one
last hustle.
I'm teaching The Postman right now. Its original title was
"Barbecue."
The publisher changed it. If you consider "adultery" as its
main theme,
then the lady of the house knows her lover is here when he
knocks twice.
Like the Dog Who Didn't Bark, the title is supposed to make
you wonder why
the Postman Knocks at all.
It's the lovely satire about two tramps, each with the
American dream in
their hearts. One is the figurative descendent of Huckleberry
Finn, who
wants only "the open road." the other is the descendent of
Ben Franklin,
who wants "respectability." Cain wrote for The New Yorker; he
was dissing
the lower classes.
Frederick Zackel
author of
"Darling, I missed you, she cried, and fired again"
a hard-boiled noir tale of a boy and his dog
And i need my morning coffee
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