Carrie wrote:
> it was kind of a stupid article because the author
missed the point
that the
> Bogey and Bacall "racehorse" scene is the least noir
thing about
Hawks'
> film. I guess the reasoning is that "The Big Sleep"
is a classic noir
> flick, so everything about it must be
quintessentially noir. I
personally
> think that Bacall's beefed-up part in the newer
version, while
perfectly
> entertaining in its own right, detracts from the
noir-ness of the
movie.
>
I noticed at least a couple of myths being propagated by
these folks.
(By the way, I've heard of Lethem but who are the other dudes
when they're at home?) The only one I can still recall is the
notion that James M Cain was a "pulp" author. These guys were
surprised at how well Cain wrote, for a "pulp writer". The
fact is that Cain was never published in the pulps. To the
best of my knowledge, his stuff came out in hardback (novels)
& the "slick" magazines (short stories). Right at the end
of his career he had a couple of shorts published in Manhunt
magazine in the 1950's, presumably because he couldn't place
them elsewhere. Manhunt was a digest format magazine,
arguably the successor to hardboiled pulps such as Black Mask
& Dime Detective but not a pulp magazine.I think those
may be the only occasions that Cain was published in a genre
magazine. It's becoming a more & more common error these
days, as terms such as "pulp fiction" & "noir" replace
older broad categories such as "mystery" & "thriller"
& begin to become as meaningless as the terms that they
are replacing. On the subject of noir & Spielberg. A few
times in recent months I've mentioned my belief that
noir/hardboiled style of crime thrillers could become the
next big explosion in genre fiction, the way SF exploded in
the wake of STAR WARS. The people I mentioned it to very
politely refrained from total guffaws but I'm sure they
thought I'd been smoking wacky weed but I still think it's
possible & if someone with a proven track record of
making mountains of money out of anticipating what people
want to watch on movie screens starts talking about noir I
think it's time to sit up & take notice. Do I think it'll
be a good thing? Probably not but maybe it'll create enough
interest to unearth some old classics for reprint (maybe with
covers that scream out "in the tradition of Tarantino!" or
the greatest noir since Spielberg (yeesh!). The hardboiled
equivalent of interminable elf-molesting 12-part epics?
Howsabout Ellroy churning - perhaps I should have said,
"shagging" - out an endless "American History" epic (THE COLD
SIX THOUSAND being the prototype) full of crooked cops,
enforcers, bagmen & organised crime figures shagging
their way through guts, gore & unlikely sexual
peccadilloes, while a supporting cast of ethnic minorities
boogie, caper, cavort, jitterbug & jive in the
background, providing musical/comedy relief as well as most
of the viscera used as decoration. In the meantime, the King
of Noir himself could dispense largesse amongst the new
aristocracy of noir in the form of heartfelt endorsements
such as: "the czar of Russian noir", "the king of refugee
post-punk noir", "the top banana of Costa Rican noir" &
so forth.
(On the topic of Ellroy's "recommendations" I recently read
list-guy Terrill Lankford's ANGRY MOON. I also liked it but I
did read it, something I'm not at all sure Ellroy could say.
Nice work, Terrill. It's funny, I saw a photo of Terrill
& miker together but I had them confused. Seeing the pic
on the dustcover I realise Terrill is the one with the beard.
(miker's caption said that he was the "fat one" but I
couldn't work out which one that was meant to be. Not that
they both looked fat, they both look pretty average).
Rene
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