There is a reference book solely devoted to the film Shoot
The Piano Player,
edited by Peter Brunette, and published by Roundhouse,
Oxford, 1993. 263pp
Although it has an introduction which discusses the film's
'postmodern text'
(a phrase I always dread) there is plenty to enjoy including
the full script,
3 interviews with Truffaut and 2 articles BY Truffaut, 9
contemporaneous
reviews of the film, and 11 articles about the film,
Truffaut, New Wave etc.
There are also lots of lovely photos.
I found a pile of these in a shop (in the UK) about a year
ago and have never
seen it elsewhere. If anyone is interested in me picking up a
copy for them if
there are any left (I plan to visit the shop again in a
month) please e-mail
me privately.
Of course, this kind of book always ignores the source novel,
although an
interesting point was made that the conversation between
Plyne and Charlie
that opens the film, and the dialogue between the bandits
Momo and Ernest,
have actually been lifted wholesale from another Goodis book,
Nightfall.
There is another book on the film: Focus On 'Shoot The Piano
Player' by Leo
Braudy, Prentice-Hall, 1972 which I have not seen, but it
seems to also
contain interviews with Truffaut - perhaps the same
ones.
The Goodis Movies
To update Mark Sullivan's list published in the last
digest:
1947 -- The Unfaithful (Vincent Sherman, dir), Goodis
co-screenplay from The
Letter by W Somerset Maugham
1947 -- Dark Passage (Delmer Daves), Goodis co-screenplay
from his novel
1956 -- Section des Disparus (Pierre Chenal), from Of Missing
Persons
1956 -- Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur), from the novel
1957 -- The Burglar (Paul Wendkos), Goodis screenplay from
his novel
1960 -- Tirez sur le Pianiste, AKA Shoot the Piano Player
(Truffaut), from
Down There (and Nightfall)
1971 -- Le Casse AKA The Burglars (Henri Verneuil), from
Burglar
1972 -- La Course du Lievre a Travers les Champs, AKA And
Hope to Die
(Rene Clement), from Black Friday and The Raving
Beauty/Somebody's Done
For
1983 -- La Lune Dans Le Canivaux, AKA Moon in the Gutter
(Jean-Jacques
Beineix), from the novel
1984 -- Rue Barbare, AKA Street Of The Damned (Gilles Behat),
from Street Of
The Lost
1986 -- Descente Aux Enfers (Francis Girod), from The Wounded
And The Slain
1989 -- Sans Espoir De Retour AKA Street Of No Return (Sam
Fuller), from the
novel
I've seen six of these movies and they range from the great
(Tirez, Nightfall)
to the good (Dark Passage, Burglar) to the appalling (Sans
Espoir). Stick to
the books if you can find them.
This information was gathered from David Goodis/Pulps
Pictured, a BFI
companion brochure to a season of films based on Goodis
books. Included are
articles by Adrian Wootton, Nick Kimberley, Fran篩s Guerif and
Samuel Fuller
about Goodis' life, books and films, profusely
illustrated.
Talking About Goodis
James Sallis has written a long essay on Goodis, which is
published in
Difficult Lives (his other two essays are about Jim Thompson
and Chester
Himes, so worth picking up), available for $12 (plus post I
guess) from Gyphon
Publications, PO Box 209, Brooklyn, NY 11228-0209, USA.
Our own Eddie Duggan wrote Life's A Bitch - David Goodis
which appeared in
Crime Time 2.1. www.crimetime.demon.co.uk
David Goodis - Poet Of The Losers by Dave Moore was in
Paperbacks, Pulps And
Comics Volume 3, which includes a novel and short story
bibliography.
Available for £4 from Zardoz Books, 20 Whitecroft, Dilton
Marsh, Westbury,
Wilts BA13 4DJ, UK.
And finally, we still await the translation into English of
Philippe Garnier's
biography Goodis: La Vie En Noir Et Blanc (1994) which I'm
sure helped to
continue the recent French run of film adaptations. I believe
someone on this
list said they were considering publishing this book in
translation. C'est
vrai?
Speaking as someone who has all but one of Goodis' books, I
look forward to a
definitive reference book about him and his work.
- paul
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