Film Noir Review: The Hoodlum

This is a competent, low budget B film noir starring tough guy Lawrence Tiereny made in 1951. I liked it. Tierney later appeared in one of my Seinfeld episodes titled "The Jacket" as Alton Benes, Elaine's tough, gruff father. (Jerry wore the candy-striped jacket that Alton took exception to seeing.) Anyway, Hoodlum is about as gritty as the early films noir ever get, especially the very grim opening scene. Tierney plays an ex-con whose mama helps to win his parole. He goes to work at his brother's (Tierney's real life brother Edward) filling station which happens to be across the street from the local bank. Of course, this gives the crooked Tierney certain ideas, and he's soon recruiting his old gang to make the bank heist. Meantime the cad Tierney moves in on his brother's girlfriend. The bank heist is interesting with a funeral playing a big part in it. The run time is a little over an hour, and the film is a public domain one that can be viewed as streamed online in several places. Worthwhile to check it out if you're a noir fan.

Friday's Forgotten Books: Eleven Days by Donald Harstad

Eleven Days by former deputy sheriff Donald Harstad was published in 1999, fourteen years ago which is a good while, and I guess qualifies as a forgotten book. It's a cop novel of very exceptional merit and gets my recommendation. Deputy Carl Houseman works is Maitland, Iowa, which qualifies as the truest American heartland. He encounters a multiple homicide which is traced to the handiwork of a local Satanic cult. Ghoulish, yes. Carl plainly sees he's overmatched here, but he plugs away in his investigation. I believe he surprises himself with his dogged tenacity and country boy smarts to solve what happened at the farmhouse of death. It takes him eleven days before he's finished. As with most police procedurals, I want to find the protagonist a likeable and sympathetic character. Carl is both. He's married to Sue, and they have their differences over his long work hours and his cop job's dangers. Still, they love each other, and that makes for a satisfying read. There is also a strong sense of authenticity to the narrative as Carl relates it to us. This makes sense because of the author's extensive law enforcement background in rural Iowa. The voice is Carl's frank, straightforward speaking style. He has a cop's often earthy sense of humor, and generally he gets along with his fellow cops, even the hot shot psychological profiler sent out from the New York City PD. The cult leader's identity was a surprise to me. The tension mounts at a nice pace, and Carl collects his share of hard knocks. All in all, I enjoyed my reading week riding alongside Deputy Carl on the job that turns bloody over eleven days before it ends.

Movie Review: "42"

I've been wanting to see 42 for a good while, and it was everything I could ever hope for, and plenty more. The film tells the story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) and his 1947 rookie year playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers and breaking the racial color barrier in MLB. Dodgers owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) offers Jackie a $600 contract with $3,500 signing bonus, and he accepts it. The film's baseball scenes are well done depicting Jackie's scrappy hustle and tremendous baseball talent. Of course, he went on to do other great things. Chadwick Boseman is sensitive while tough as Jackie. I have a new respect for Harrison Ford who does a convincing crusty and wise Branch Rickey. I was glad to see Max Gail from the Barney Miller TV cop sitcom (loved that show) play the Dodgers manager. The 2+ hour movie flew by for me, so it gets my high recommendation.

Film Noir Review: Behind Locked Doors

There is a subgenre of film noir that might be called "insane asylum noir," for the lack of a better term. You know the films where our hero enters a private mental hospital, and all sorts of nasty things befall him. So, I decided to check out this lurid 1948 B-film which runs a scant 63 minutes. Budd Boetticher directed it, and he went on to direct the better known Randolph Scott Westerns. Lucille Bremer playing a newspaper reporter, and Richard Carlson as the slick-talking private eye she hires to go into the nuthouse are the two stars. I must confess I'd never heard of either of them before. The only actor I recognized was the uncredited Tor Johnson who starred in a few Ed Wood movies. Tor plays a violent boxer who is beyond any treatment and is kept in the locked ward. Anyway, Carlson is searching for a corrupt judge who's laying low in the nuthouse. The $10,000 reward money for the judge's capture is what motivates our two protagonists to carry out their crazy caper. The acting is competent, and the story is entertaining enough. I read it was an inspiration for Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor which I haven't watched. IMDb.com rates Behind Locked Doors as 6.5/10.0, and I'd agree with that score. I saw the version on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUoapa2lAZ4

Guest Blog: P.I. Frank Johnson

My name is Frank Johnson, and I worked as a licensed private investigator in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Ed Lynskey asked me if I might contribute a guest post on his Cracked Rearview Mirror Blog. My dislike to talk about myself gave me some pause, but Ed is a good guy, so I agreed to do it. Things have been slow for me of late although Ed tells me that will soon change. I understand he's going to re-release his backlist novels as Kindle ebooks which is pretty cool. Many of them are about the  hairiest cases I've taken yet.

I broke into the private eye racket as it's chronicled in Pelham Fell Here. Pelham, Virginia, is my native town where I live in case you're wondering. My next outing is The Dirt-Brown Derby where I tangled with an out-of-town murder case. That one almost did me in. Luckily, I have a sharp and rich criminal lawyer, Robert Gatlin, in my corner. Not long after that, I decided to move from Pelham to Scarab, West Virginia, where I bought a remote cabin in the seemingly tranquil Blue Ridge Mountains. Little did I know that trouble had followed me, all of it recounted in The Blue Cheer. Gerald Peyton, the brawny bounty hunter and my best friend, gave me a big assist there. Finally, I took on a case that sent me to Turkey where I was once stationed as an Army MP. Troglodytesis the name of that nasty, little adventure.

So, give my private investigator tales a read, and keep your eyes alert for the next ones in Ed's books coming down the road. Later, all.

The Final Resting Places of Two Great Crime Writers

A few years ago, there was discussion thread on the rara-avis message board about the grave of Raymond Chandler. A fan had gone in search of it and recounted his experiences while doing it. I remember many years ago of my seeing the grave of Billy the Kid which was enclosed behind steel bars to keep the souvenir hunters from taking away pieces of his tombstone. Or that's what the tour guide told us. Of course, avid rock fans make their pilgrimages to the graves of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. I was curious about the final resting spots of hardboiled/noir crime fiction's Big Three. The internet makes it fairly easy to track down such answers. All of their tombstones are simple but elegant markers.  

Raymond Chandler is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego, California.
This is the new stone placed at his plot after he was united with his wife Cissy's ashes brought there in 2010.
   

 

This is the old stone placed at the foot of their grave, according to Wikipedia.

 

 

Dashiell Hammett "is buried in Section 12 of Arlington National Cemetery (VA). At one point, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover attempted to block the burial but was overruled in that attempt." (Source: Arlington National Cemetery Website).

 

 

 

 

Film Noir Review: They Live By Night

T
hieves Like Us a few years ago which serves as the basis for this bittersweet film noir released in 1948 and was Director Nicholas Ray's debut feature film. You can't help but think while watching it of the Bonnie and Clyde movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Here we find a young married couple on the dodge after robbing a bank. Farley Granger stars as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell is "Keechie" Mobley. They're both very innocent and vulnerable looking, but they're on the wrong side of the law. Farley has murdered a cop, so he's a killer. Since this is noir, we know they're headed for a doomed end. The sound quality of the DVD I watched included lots of static that was distracting, especially trying to hear the spoken dialogue, but I liked the movie just the same. The gritty Depression-era atmosphere is nicely done. The camera work shot from a helicopter of the fleeing car was the first time ever done in a movie. If you can find a better copy than the one I watched, then I'd recommend this film noir.

Picking Names For My Novels' Characters

I've named a few more characters in my various novels, and I decided it was a good time to revisit this seemingly easy but very difficult (for me) writing task. I've listed my latest thoughts to share with you.

1. Colorful or odd nicknames, first names, and surnames give me pause. Just visualize how the other kids would've teased your poor character, sort of like the picked on dude named Sue in the old Johnny Cash song.

2. I know localities are discontinuing to print the white phone pages. Pity. It's a mine of name possibilities. The online phone directories haven't been a suitable replacement for me.

3. I like to use Google and find surveys of which first names were the most popular when my character was born. I may or may not go with the trend.

4. Picking names off gravestones is an intriguing idea. Of course you can't be trespassing on cemetery property. Maybe when attending a graveside service is a good time to do a little, discrete snooping.

5. Be careful when using real people's names. We heard Reynolds Price say he asked his lawyer approach the real Blue Calhoun for permission to use his name for a novel's protagonist/title.

6. Consulting obituaries from where your character hails from is fair game. George Pelecanos said he does that. The trick is to MIX the names to avoid the problem in No. 5.

7. Saying your character's name out loud should help you to avoid picking a tongue-twister or hard to pronounce name.

8. I'm finding that less is more in my characters' name selections. Multi-syllable names just don't ring as true in my crime fiction.

9. Something else I've been doing is to give myself permission to change the character names while I'm writing the first draft.

10. Constant tinkering is also okay even during the subsequent editing rounds, especially for the protagonist(s). Sleep on a name choice before you run the global search, delete, and insert.

11. Sometimes the names will pop into your mind, but I've yet to wake up in the middle of the night with a burning choice. I know a novel title (The Dirt-Brown Derby) occurred to me while chowing down on a blooming onion at Outback.

12. I prefer to name any character that has a speaking role in my novels, even if it's just by their first name.

13. None of the rules above have to apply, at all. Just go with your gut feeling.

PELHAM FELL HERE: First E-book Release of My Private Eye Series Debut Title

It's taken long enough, but it's finally happened. The first e-book version of PELHAM FELL HERE, my debut title in the P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery Series, has just been released as a Kindle. PELHAM FELL HERE was also my first published novel made extra special by the James Crumley cover blurb it earned. I've included excerpts from some of the reviews written for PELHAM FELL HERE.

"Wow. If you are a Lee Childs fan, then plan on grabbing this one to keep you going between Jack Reacher adventures...we want to see more of this guy." --Jack Quick, bookbitch.com and 4 Mystery Addicts (4MA) Yahoo Group

"Gritty." --Faye Dasen, Southern Pines (NC) Pilot

"Fast-paced...strong characterization...Lynskey has created a gritty, violence-packed tale of murder and mayhem...quite entertaining." --Ray Walsh, Lansing State Journal

"He has woven a mystery that has layers of intrigue, unanswered questions, characters that make you cringe and some that are endeared to your heart, and a plot as thick as molasses." --Shirley Johnson, Top 1,000 Amazon Reviewer

As always, Frank and I thank you for your interest!

Jobs Going Extinct: My Morning Newspaper Deliveryman

"I sell the morning paper, sir, my name is Jimmy Brown.
Everybody knows that I'm the newsboy of the town."
Written by Bill Monroe, "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy," 1959, performed by Flatt & Scruggs: You can listen to them by clicking on this link.

I thought of this old timey bluegrass music song while sitting at my laptop working this morning. I'm up way before the roosters, and I can hear the guy driving around the streets in my still and quiet neighborhood. The distinctive "plops" I hear come from his pitching out the bundled newspapers into my and my fellow subscribers' driveways as he passes by us. He must have a bazooka of a throwing arm by now. He's not exactly like Jimmy Brown the newsboy in the Bill Monroe song because my delivery guy drives a car and covers a much longer route.

Fewer and fewer of us troglodytes are getting the dead trees version of the newspaper. I strongly suspect our newspaper will eventually discontinue offering their product in the paper version. It's cheaper going digital, and saving money is the name of the profitable game nowadays. The guy who does the pre-dawn deliveries will be out of a job. I'll probably miss reading the Sports section on old-fashion paper even if I sell my novels and short story collections as e-books.

I'm thinking I might do a series of blog posts on the different jobs out there that seem to be going the way of the passenger pigeon and dinosaur. Maybe newer technologies emerge and displace such workers as the newspaper deliveryman I hear every morning driving around distributing his wares. Perhaps you can think of the jobs you've noticed slipping away from the scene. Drop me a comment, if you will.

Film Noir Review: David Goodis' The Burglar Starring Dan Duryea

This film noir very much interested me. Noir icon David Goodis wrote the book and the film script for the movie shot in 1953 and not released until 1957. The always reliable Dan Duryea stars as the leader of a robbery ring who pulls a jewelry heist in Philly. Jayne Maynesfield in a subdued role is part of the gang and his female ward. Martha Vickers plays his girlfriend with other things on her mind. Since this is noir, there are double-crosses and infighting over the hot emerald necklace. The low budget film also takes place in Atlantic City where the ending is much like Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai. IMDb.com rates The Burglar 6.7/10.0, but I like Duryea plus Goodis' heavy involvement in the film also appeals to me. He kept the movie script faithful to his novel by the same name. I viewed it on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnfpwM..

Major League Baseball Opens Today in Washington, D.C.

I'm working at home this afternoon with the baseball game on between the Nats and Marlins. Opening day is always fun to watch, or even better to be there at the ballpark. We fans in Washington, D.C. had a long, dry period before a professional club came here. We inherited the Montreal Expos, a fabulous club. The first several years were lean ones, but I still enjoyed the game as a fan. I don't know if the Nats will do the great things predicted and expected of them, but I do know it's a lot of thrills to have baseball to watch. I have four book reviews to finish this week along with my own work, so I probably won't make it downtown to see the game in person. But there will be 164 other games to watch and some of those games will be at home.