----- Original Message ----- From: "Vince Keenan" <
vpkeenan@hotmail.com> To: <
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, February
28, 2005 10:37 AM Subject: RARA-AVIS: RED HARVEST
article
>
> Salon features an article by Allan Barra on
Hammett's RED HARVEST, which
> is
> called "one of the most influential American novels
of the 20th century."
> Barra focuses on the many aborted attempts to bring
the novel to the
> screen
> and the surprising number of unofficial adaptations,
the most recent being
> HBO's DEADWOOD.
Here's what I just emailed to Allan Barra regarding his
article:
I'm not sure I get the connection, plot-wise, between Red
Harvest and Deadwood. Milieu, yes. Corrupt sides in
opposition, yes. But from there? I've been in almost every
episode and I've yet to see the central protagonist in
Deadwood (who would be who? Bullock?) play the two sides
against each other in the manner of Hammett (or even Kurosawa
or Walter Hill -- who coincidentally directed Deadwood's
pilot). Bullock, now the sheriff, has had comparatively
little interaction with one side of the pair of whoremasters
who run the town (Tolliver). I'm glad for the publicity for
the show, but I just don't see the connection, beyond the
western mining town with venal antagonists.
By the way, it's not The Bad Sleep Well that Kurosawa adapted
from an Ed McBain novel. It's High and Low (Tengoku to
jigoku), based on McBain's King's Ransom. The Bad Sleep Well
is much more closely akin to Hamlet.
(But that's another article, I guess.)
Jim Beaver
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