Kevin Burton Smith (kvnsmith@colba.net)
Mon, 27 Dec 1999 12:09:29 -0400
>I recieved an on-topic gift, coincidentally enough.
It's a little art book
>by Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa entitled
HARD-BOILED, Great Lines from
>Classic Noir Films. While some of the titles they
choose to quote from are
>just a little difficult to justify as being noirs...
(BODY AND SOUL? TO HAVE
>AND HAVE NOT? Huh?
Well, it says "HARD-BOILED," not "NOIR."
I think this is the third time Thompson and Usukawa (Sounds
like a great name for a literary critic, huh?) have done
this.
And Mark wrote:
>Although I am certainly addicted to the fast-paced
movies that would
>fall in your category of Fast Food For TV Addicts
(Wild Things, Face-Off
>and Hong Kong movies in general, etc.), I agree with
you that films with
>slow builds have been left by the wayside and are
alien to most
>contemporary viewers.
Check out THE INSIDER. No car chases, no rock soundtrack, no
sex, no explosions and not even any nipple shots. Slow to
build, three hours long and as unrelenting as death. Not
exactly hard-boiled, though questions of toughness, courage,
honour and integrity, and the corruption of everything we
know could have been lifted right out of a Chandler novel.
Part of the nastiness, indeed.
And in another post, Mark wrote:
>Add another fan. Some may think it sacrilege, but I
like Harry O even
>more than Rockford Files. I am such a sucker for
weary PIs and few come
>wearier than Harry. I'd also like to know if they are
in rerun. This
>time I would be sure to tape them all.
It's not sacrilege, it's a fact, though Rockford was so close
behind sometimes, it's barely worth deciding. Week by week,
it would change, I'm sure. 1974 was one helluva year for P.I.
shows. Of course, Rockford is re-run often, and tapes of
shows are widely available. Harry-O has disappeared, as far
as I know, a loser to the end. Shit, it was even cancelled
despite very good ratings, because the new network head (Fred
Silverman, was it?) didn't like David Janssen personally.
Which may be a first. A television network decision that was
stupid on both artistic and commercial grounds!
And Eddie wrote
>There's been some neat stuff on UK TV recently ... in
a series called
>'Fallen Angels' on BBC2 there were a couple of
shorts, back-to-back:
>first was a Spillane story called 'Tomorrow we die',
which was much
>better than I expected given the Spillanne tag.
Second was a Goodis
>story, the title of which I forget, but which had a
interesting
>structure.
I wonder if this is a re-broadcast of the original American
Showtime series from the early nineties, or new episodes (I
thought there were only six). Or just a show with the same
title. Is it a British production? The premise certainly
sounds similar. Half hour adaptations of old hardboiled crime
short stories?
Oh, and the votes are trickling in for the Thrillies on my
site. There's some pretty interesting stuff going on. If you
haven't already, do so now!
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
It's Time for the 1999 Cheap Thrills P.I. Poll! Vote now!
Vote often!
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