I happened to see a staged interview with Westlake tonight.
He said
that original director Helgeland, co-writer of LA
Confidential, was a
very nice young man, which he said is not a compliment in
this context.
Helgeland sent him the script and two earlier cuts of the
movie before
it was taken away from him. According to Westlake, about a
half hour of
the film was shot after that, which he said made it better,
but still
didn't help much. He thinks Point Blank is one of the "great
movies."
He said he envisioned Jack Palance when he first wrote
Parker, but after
the movie, Marvin was it.
One other thing about The Hunter. Westlake said he wrote it
originally
as a PBO and sent it to Gold Medal. In that version, Parker
got his
comeuppance at the end. Since he saw it as a one-shot, in
which the
crook got it in the end, Westlake said he felt free to make
Parker as
much of a son of a bitch as he wanted. Gold Medal passed, so
his agent
sent it on to Pocket Books. The editor there called Westlake
and asked,
Is there any way he could live inthe end and you could make
it a series?
Of course, Westlake said, Yes. And I always thought the first
four
books in the series were plotted together.
Mark
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