There’s a scene in my romantic comedy novella, The Wedding Routine, where the good Fr. Burke tells his niece, Celia, “Your mother invited me for dinner and a Christmas movie. I lost the coin toss and had to watch Going My Way.”
“What did you want?” Celia asks.
“Die Hard,” the priest responds, tossing in a “Yippee-ki-yay!”
While the exchange might earn an “Amen, brother,” from a large swath of the male population, rebelling against their significant other’s binge of Hallmark pablum, it’s likely to scandalize holiday purists, who insist on gentler fare. The purists naturally expect any priest worth his collar to stand athwart the inclusion of a mayhem-rich shoot ‘em up in the Yuletide viewing canon. Of course, the question of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie is not as cut and dried as the pine clippings its stalwart opponents weave into seasonal wreaths. The question has divided households across the country ever since Bruce Willis exploded on the scene as John McClane in July 1988.
“Well, see, there you have it,” the naysayers will neigh. “The producers didn’t even think it was a Christmas movie. They released it as a summer blockbuster.” Yet, a cursory look at film history reveals that Miracle on 34th Street was released on June 4, 1946, and It’s a Wonderful Life was released on January 7, 1947. So, release dates are far from definitive. Twentieth Century Fox released Hoffa on December 25, 1992. I doubt they meant it as a stocking stuffer.
“No,” the purists riposte, “what matters is the spirit of the film! Peace on Earth and good will towards men!” I couldn’t agree more, except that the scripture quoted can also be read “Peace on Earth to men of good will.” Men of bad will are asking for retributive justice, and this they shall receive, courtesy of John McClane. In spades. Moreover, peace, considered in isolation, is a bland concept; it only takes on meaning when contrasted with the cruel, violent and chaotic world that exists most of the time. The Christ Child entered a violent world. You’ll recall that one of the Wise Men brought myrrh to the cradle, which is the Biblical era equivalent of bringing embalming fluid to a baby shower. Herod quickly demonstrated this world was not safe for children, and if it had been, the nativity would have had little meaning. And it hasn’t proven ipso facto impossible to tell a Christmas tale with violent elements, as in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, where beloved characters face the peril of being eaten alive, and Home Alone, where brutal violence is played for laughs. As an annual feast, Christmas often falls on violent settings, as the brilliant French film Joyeux Noelle demonstrates.
So, why do I think Die Hard might qualify as a Christmas movie? Not because it takes place on Christmas Eve, but because it delivers a Christmas message of reconciliation and restoration. In this film we see how, because of one’s man’s actions, evil is thwarted, lives are saved, and people are made whole again. True, John McClane’s actions are violent, but they are not unchristian. Taking up arms and suffering the rigors of battle in defense of innocent life is an act of Christian charity.
On Christmas Eve, New York City cop John McClane arrives in Los Angeles. He’s a tough-nosed detective who wouldn’t follow his wife out west because he had work to finish in his hometown. He is a public servant who bears the burden of others’ sins to protect his community. His dedication to his work has caused a rift between himself and his wife, Holly, who has chosen to climb the corporate ladder, depicted as a veritable tower of Babel at Nakatomi Plaza. As a reward for her worldly pursuits, she’s given a gold watch as a Christmas present. Yet, Holly’s heart is torn, because she desires a reconciliation with her stubborn husband.
Enter Hans Gruber with his crew of murderous thieves, who have taken the pursuit of worldly wealth to its mortal extreme. Gruber is truly “the prince of this world,” from whom John McClane, the suffering servant, must rescue it. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.” (Jn. 10:10) Such is the contrast in Die Hard between Hans Gruber, the thief, and John McClane, the cop.
Gruber is a proud and haughty evil doer who fittingly meets his end by being cast from his lofty height. Of course, before Hans makes his drop, he threatens to take Holly with him. He’s caught on her shiny, new wrist watch; only when John is able to unlatch the bracelet, breaking Holly’s attachment to worldly wealth, is she saved. Thus, we see play out before our eyes this passage of Mary’s Magnificat from Luke 1: 52: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.” At the close of the crisis, John and Holly seem on their way to reconciliation, which is a very Christmassy theme.
We must also consider the plight of Sgt. Al Powell, who becomes John McClane’s partner on the outside. Having accidentally shot a child, Al cannot bring himself to draw his gun. Once a promising young cop, Al retreated behind a desk and now must answer to the ignorant and corrupt men who rose above him. Yet, through the experience he shares with McClane, Al finds the strength of spirit to draw his gun in a righteous moment and terminate a threat to innocent life. If the restoration of a generous and courageous spirit isn’t central to Christmas, what was Dickens thinking when he wrote A Christmas Carole?
Of course, on the other hand, action movies that dress up blood lust in vestments of virtue are doing a bait and switch. They draw the audience in by presenting a dire situation that demands manly valor, then continually up the stakes until you’re rooting for the hero to disembowel the villain and feast on his vital organs. When a film manipulates the audience into demanding a graphic cinematic execution as catharsis, we are now wallowing in that which our spirits had risen to oppose. The spectacle has dehumanized us in a way incongruous to the spirit of Christmas. Thus, after the last body drops, the seasonal music that’s suddenly piped in is not just ironic but jarring. Our nervous giggles, as the ultra-cool Dean Martin invites us to “Let it Snow,” underscore what we know in our hearts: these two hours were not exactly what Christmas is all about. We’ve been indulging a guilty pleasure that could land us on the Naughty List.
Ultimately, given the contrary, yet well-founded arguments, it’s safe to say the debate will rage on. So, if we really want to enjoy Peace on Earth this Christmas, we’ll have to learn to agree to disagree and limit our holiday conversations to safe topics like national politics.
Disclaimer: Links in this column may be affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, the website receives a small commission at no extra charge to you. These commissions help to subsidize the website and support future writing. Thank you.
P.S. If you’re one of the way-too-many people who haven’t scene this Christmas gem, click now, and get it in time for Christmas. You’ll thank me.
P.D. James emasculates a planet in Children of Men; Cormac McCarthy seeks salvation on The Road. By Kevin Rush
Released in 2006, but set in 2027, Alfonso Cuarón’s dystopian thriller, Children of Men is frenetic and at times intense, though ultimately incoherent and unfocused. In a near future where all women have become infertile, a disenchanted bureaucrat or journalist—it’s not clear—falls in with a band of violent extremists who needs his help to smuggle out of the country the first woman to become pregnant in a quarter century.
I saw this film when it first came out and didn’t much care for it. Cuarón was too busy weaving in themes of the Iraq War to focus on the central premise of the film: How would the world react to a global crisis of infertility? The fact that the human race is headed for extinction is incidental to Cuarón’s film, because, following 21st century trends of globalist adventurism, illegal immigration and terrorist reprisals, we’re going to kill each other anyway. Cuarón was also so seduced by the potential of emerging film technology to drop an audience into the middle of a video game, that he didn’t bother to immerse us in a story. Owen’s central character is mostly a hostage or bystander, dodging whiz-bang effects and only once rising to—not quite heroic, but stealthy—action.
The 1993 novel by British writer P.D. James is much more cerebral and clearly plotted than the film. Set in 2021, (how’s that for dystopian?) the premise remains the same, but the story is focused on the effects of the central phenomenon: infertility. The problem is not that women are barren, but that men cannot produce viable sperm. James’ dystopian future is a world of emasculated men, of which her Theo is emblematic. Though his name means ‘God,’ he is thoroughly impotent. Mourning the tragic loss of a child (an intense event rendered mundane in the film) and a subsequent divorce, Theo occupies a position as a university academic. And as if academics weren’t inconsequential enough, Theo hasn’t any students to teach. Although he’s mostly isolated within his shrinking community, the men around him are similarly useless.
James’ narrative does not match the film’s break-neck pace, as she paints her world in meticulous detail. Yet, that world is capable of erupting in sudden, senseless and brutal violence, even among those who are ostensibly trying to save it. In this way, James’ novel is a study on the consequences of eroding masculinity. Not peace and harmony as the “new man” advocates of the 70s promised, but downward spiraling disorder. This is a lesson for our age, where traditional masculine virtues are disdained, enabling the rise of venal, vain and scheming individuals, who have brought us to our current state of kakistocracy and civil unrest.
Ms. James does not provide an epigram indicating the source of her title. IMDB cites Psalm 90, which reads in pertinent part:
“Thou [God] turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.”
James is more than hinting that our straying from the natural order has led us to ruin.
In my search for a possible source of the title, I came across this quotation attributed to Helen Keller, which I also found apropos:
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
Seeking illusory safety emasculates men who must strive, even at great risk, to remain vital. A society cheering the bravery of boys who steal track medals from girls needs to be reminded of the necessity of authentic masculinity. Children of Men jogs that memory, and for this I give it a mild nod. It’s thoughtful and creative, though in the final analysis, I think the awesome concept deserves both a better book and a better film.
Similar to Children of Men, The Roadbegins after an unexplained catastrophe has permanently altered the world. In The Road, we assume a nuclear war scorched the Earth, killing all plant and, eventually, animal life. All that’s left are a handful of human survivors, running short on food and time. In this setting, a terminally ill father takes his young son on a trek down a road towards the sea.
Released in 2009, The Road went nowhere. Despite a strong cast, which included Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce, and bolstered by newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, the film suffered from B-movie scripting and pedestrian direction. The script relies on voiceover exposition that reveals the horrors to come, robbing us of the surprises that were so devastating in the book. John Hillcoat, an Australian director mostly known for pop music videos, just doesn’t seem to have been up to the subject matter. I’d say he was painting by numbers, but like a child’s watercolor, all tones merged into a dull grey. His defenders might say that’s the world he was required to depict. Fair enough. Yet Cormac McCarthy depicts that world vibrantly and urgently in his novel, and Hillcoat was not able to transfer those emotions to film.
So, here’s where I confess I read the book before I saw the film. And I’m glad I did. Because, while the movie is not bad, the book is a masterpiece of American literature. Not that I thought it would be. When the book first came out, I passed on it, wondering why someone of McCarthy’s immense talent would care to revisit a tired scenario of the 1950s and 60s. But The Road is not a retread of On the Beachor Cat’s Cradle. It is a unique tale of a father’s love for his son, and his determination to protect him from rampant evil, preserve his innocence, and provide him a dignified life even among the ashes of civilization.
McCarthy’s book, which has been hailed as a great Catholic novel, brilliantly depicts the salvific purpose of remaining virtuous in a realm where evil is more seemingly advantageous. And unlike Hillcoat’s frontloaded film, McCarthy lets no detail of his world drop until the precise moment when it will have its most devastating emotional effect. The Road is a great story greatly told. These days, many people joke about hoping for the sweet meteor of death to snuff out what’s become of our world. The Road teaches us to be careful what we wish for, but also to make the most of it.
Disclaimer: Links in this column may be affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, the website receives a small commission, at no additional cost to you. These commissions help support future writing, like the book you see below.
You can freely support the success of my new book, The Wedding Routine, by entering our Goodreads Giveaway now!
Principals collaborate for 2001: A Space Odyssey; director smears writer of Starship Troopers. By Kevin Rush
Boldly enigmatic, notoriously inscrutable, and featuring a grandiose fusion of classical music and cinematic images, Stanley Kubrick’s dazzling science fiction epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey has mesmerized and confounded audiences for decades. Released in 1968, 2001 was largely ignored at Oscar time. But today, the American Film Institute ranks it as the greatest science fiction film of all time.
2001 began as a collaboration between producer/director Kubrick and the famed sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. The plot is drawn from Clarke’s 1951 short story, The Sentinel of Eternity, and deals with the essential theme of his 1953 novel, Childhood’s End, wherein extraterrestrial beings nudge along the final evolution of humankind. Childhood’s End solidified Clarke’s reputation, and he was eventually ranked as one of the ‘Big Three’ sci-fi writers of his generation, along with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. But with 2001, Kubrick and Clarke worked together to pen the screenplay. Clarke did not begin work on the novel, or the ‘novelization,’ until the film was already in the can. Yet, the success of the film, and the subsequent book, led to three more literary installments, as well as a movie sequel, 2010: the Year We Make Contact.
2001’s story is structured in three parts, starting in the prehistoric world of man-apes on the brink of starvation, because they lack the tools to survive in their hostile environment. One day, a strange, black monolith appears in their territory, then emits a piercing tone that agitates the man-apes. Soon after, their leader conceives of using the bleached bone of a fallen animal as a weapon. The man-apes then hunt, vanquish their enemies, and ensure the survival of their species. Fast-forward three million years, which passes in the toss of a bone and the blink of an eye, and the evolved man-apes, now fully human and capable of space flight, have found an identical monolith on the moon. Triggered by the light of the sun, the monolith sends a signal into space, and the curious humans dispatch a space ship to find the source.
Thus begins the second story segment, aboard the spaceship Discovery, nominally piloted by two astronauts, but actually under the control of a supercomputer, the HAL 9000. In a twist that mirrors the evolutionary jump of the man-apes, HAL imagines he must kill to survive. It’s the up to a surviving astronaut, played by Canadian actor Keir Dullea, to take the ship back from HAL and continue the mission. (At the time of his casting, Dullea seemed on the brink of stardom. But even though he gave a strong performance, 2001 did not propel his career to celestial heights. In fact, he soon retreated in obscurity. Thus was coined the Hollywood aphorism, “Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow.”)
The third segment follows Dullea’s character as he traces the signal to a moon of Saturn, on which an elder of the galaxy lies prone in a queen-sized bed in a hotel room decked out like a giant chess board, from which he mystically transforms Dullea into a giant, galactic fetus which drifts slowly back to Earth.
Although Clarke once said, “If you understand ‘2001’ completely, we failed,” he was concerned that the film was too hard to follow, and set out in his novelization to provide clearer explanations for the action . The final effect is the loss of the visual and aural wonder of Kubrick’s film, for which Clarke’s pedestrian prose is a poor substitute. Reading 2001 reminded me why I’ve only dabbled in Clarke’s writings, rather than devouring them. While his ideas are fascinating and intellectually stimulating, his storytelling doesn’t stir passion. His characters, all nice, conventional, bland folks, lack depth. And, while Clarke’s plots delve into the rich mysteries at the center of the universe, there’s no struggle between good and evil, no conflict of vice and virtue.
I also find Clarke’s atheistic vision deflating. If there is a supreme force in Clarke’s universe, it’s not a Creator God, but an evolved intelligence. This reminds me of a conversation I had once with an irreligious friend, who said the stumbling block for him was this question: If God created everything, what created God? That’s a mystery my religion doesn’t seek to answer, and the mantra that God ‘always was and always will be’ is unsatisfying to the analytical mind. But even less satisfying is the notion of human destiny being one part random evolution and one part alien manipulation. Clarke’s premise begs the question, ‘Who manipulated the first aliens?’ If no one, then how did they make their evolutionary jump? And if they could make it all on their own, why shouldn’t we be given the same freedom?
Ultimately, there’s little to be gleaned from Clarke’s book that’s not in the film. Clarke redresses a great wrong in the first sequence: the monolith is not the black slab the film’s art directors constructed, but the crystal prism Kubrick and Clarke had envisioned. But that tidbit is hardly worth slogging through what amounts to a mostly dull viewing guide for the movie. My recommendation for anyone who wants to understand the film is to forget the book. Just keep watching this magnificent movie until your own evolutionary switch flips and everything starts to click. If you want to go deeper, you can always pick up one of the sequels.
I must confess I didn’t see the 1997 version of Starship Troopers when it was first released, even though I had enjoyed director Paul Verhoeven’s previous sci-fi actioner Robocop. I skipped Troopers mostly because the trailer made it look like two hours of mindless bed-hopping and bug-zapping and because The Puppet Masters, the 1994 film of a Robert A. Heinlein novel, had been a ridiculous disappointment not worth the price of admission. Starship Troopers was popular enough to spawn a few sequels, but no one has ever seriously suggested it’s a great, or even a very good, film. Having seen it recently on cable, I’d call it a dull, noisy, directionless mess. The novel, however, is regarded as a science fiction classic. So, how do we explain that disconnect?
First, some context. Robert A. Heinlein is often called the Dean of American Science Fiction, having had a prolific career in which he established many of the sci-fi tropes that have become mainstays of the genre. A left-wing Democrat early in his career, Heinlein gravitated towards libertarianism and infused much of his writing with the politics of individualism. Some of his themes, such as plural marriage in his classic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, created significant controversy. Yet, like most radicals, Heinlein was intensely interested in the edification of youth. He wrote a series of juvenile novels for Charles Scribner’s Sons that combined sci-fi with moral instruction (e.g., Red Planet, Starman Jones, The Star Beast). Starship Troopers was supposed to fit into that Scribner series, but the publisher rejected the book, and Heinlein took it to Putnam.
Thus, anyone picking up Troopers should understand it’s a YA book, meant to inculcate civic virtue in young readers. Thus, there is much inartful, “on the nose” dialogue that does not sound the way people actually talk. There are lectures galore from high school teachers and military superiors. And there is abundant moral reasoning that is sensible and provocative, including an ardent, well-reasoned defense of corporal punishment. Perhaps the best way to describe Troopers is as a dissertation on duty, played out against an interstellar war against marauding arachnids.
Unfortunately, Verhoeven did not give Heinlein’s views a fair airing. In fact, his film seems determined to undermine the principles Heinlein sought to promote. For example, the society of Heinlein’s Troopers is multi-ethnic, encompassing all of a united Earth. Yet, Verhoeven’s cast is almost uniformly white, including Nordic beauty Denise Richards as the Latina Carmen Ibanez and Casper Van Dein (as Caucasian as that name would suggest) as the tale’s narrator/protagonist, Johnny Rico, who is a Filipino in the book. Critics have noted that Verhoeven intended to depict Earth as a utopian Nazi Germany—Because the military, duh—which is a lazy, myopic calumny against military service that is far too common among contemporary Hollywood elites.
Almost always, Hollywood gets center-right politics deliberately wrong, as perverse payback for the industry’s completely reasonable response to the Soviet Union’s determined attempts to commandeer the American dream machine. Carrying an unquenchable torch for “the blacklist,” Hollywood Leftists gleefully portray anyone who believes in individual liberty as a fascist. This despite the obvious fact that fascism is a collectivist ideology that subverts individual identity by demanding subservience to an all-powerful leader. Y’know, like Communism. As for Heinlein’s novel, collectivism (could be Fascism or Communism) is the enemy, as depicted by the hive-mind of the bugs attempting to destroy humanity. Far from being fascists, the Troopers are volunteers—free to opt out at any moment—who risk all, not for an ideology, but for the people they love.
Starship Troopers is worth reading if only so that Heinlein’s ideas, which are worthy of consideration, can come through unfiltered and undistorted. Verhoeven’s film smears Heinlein, and in doing so contributes to what is currently the dominant deceitful narrative of the political Left: that America is an imperialist nation driven by white supremacy. People who want the truth should read the book.
Disclaimer: Links in the article may be affiliate links. If you click on the link and make a purchase, the author gets a slight commission, at no extra cost to you. These commissions help support the operation of this website. Thank you.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, please look at some of our other pieces examining the books behind the moves, here, here, and here…
Twisted psychology and dark humor in The Talented Mr. Ripley and Fight Club. By Kevin Rush.
If you’ve ever gotten into a roommate situation you’ve regretted, you can probably appreciate this week’s two books. In each, a new acquaintance appears mysteriously, moves in and creates mayhem. Sure, there are plenty of bad iterations of this basic plot—I’m looking at you, Single White Female—but our featured authors masterfully elevate their tales with haunting portrayals of human psychology at the breaking point.
Patricia Highsmith, whom we’ve discussed before, began her writing career authoring “real life” comic books, but gained prominence after her modestly successful first novel, Strangers on a Train, (1950) caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who quickly turned it into a solid thriller in 1951. In Strangers, Highsmith gave readers a glimpse into the mind of a creepy sociopath with ambiguous sexuality. Highsmith penned The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955, again portraying a homicidal sociopath, but this time making his homosexuality more overt and audaciously placing him in the center of an antihero drama as the protagonist.
French filmmaker René Clément was first to bring Ripley to the screen as Plein Soleil in 1960, starring 25-year-old Alain Delon, who went on to have a very good career. It was also the screen debut of 20-year-old singer-actress Marie Laforêt, who later scored pop hits in France covering Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind and The Rolling Stones’ Paint it Black. Although the title means Broad Daylight, an apt descriptor for a brazen murder in the sunny Mediterranean, the film was released in America as Purple Noon.
Director Clément made several choices that turned what might have been a great film into only a serviceable crime drama. First, he cast French actors to play Americans, so the feeling of ex-pats in voluntary exile was lost. Clément also took many liberties with the plot; the story concludes with a nifty twist that is nevertheless 180 degrees from where Highsmith’s book ends. Clément does direct Delon’s portrayal of Tom Ripley to be enigmatic and self-involved, but in choosing to drop Tom’s homosexuality in favor of a heterosexual love triangle, he dilutes much of Tom’s motivation for his crimes.
American audiences are more familiar with Anthony Minghella’s 1999 version, The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Matt Damon in the title role. The strong cast also included Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. More faithful to Highsmith’s novel, the film was moderately successful, but did not generate sufficient excitement for a Damon-as-Ripley franchise. Still, of Highsmith’s four subsequent Ripley books, two have garnered film adaptations and, at this writing, a Ripley TV series is in preproduction.
Ripley was a daring novel in its time. Despite a wealth of mainstream homosexual writers and a gay literary subculture featuring prominent homosexual characters, overt homosexuality was still very much taboo in mainstream fiction. Gore Vidal’s third novel, The City and the Pillar caused something of a scandal in 1948, by presenting a loving homosexual relationship as natural. In that respect, Ripley represents a step backward; homosexuality is again taboo. But Tom Ripley is the central figure, and Highsmith invites us to root for him, in spite his crimes.
Yet, in a post-Stonewall, post-Angels-in-America, post-Obergefell world, is Mr. Ripley still relevant? If this were an age where reasonable minds were allowed to disagree, readers could debate the validity of the implied nexus of homosexuality, narcissism, and sociopathy manifest in Tom Ripley. Today, surely, there will be voices in the Wokeratti calling Highsmith’s novel a dangerous slur and demanding that Ripley be cancelled. On the other hand, readers willing to accept Tom Ripley as Highsmith’s attempt at a unique, multilayered character, rather than a blunt, artless stereotype, are in for a treat.
This is a superbly crafted novel with tension throughout. It is horror on a grotesquely human level, as the author invites you into the mind of a sociopath, and entices you to pull for him. The reader, against his own will, finds himself emotionally invested in Ripley, and hoping for his best possible outcome.
If you’ve seen the 1999 film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, you know I’m breaking the first two rules, but Fight Club, a bitter, shocking and often hilarious satire of maleness unmoored from positive masculinity, cries out for discussion. Directed by David Fincher, the movie got mixed reviews for its combination of tongue-in-cheek philosophizing and brutal violence but has proved popular with viewers. I haven’t seen the film since it first came out, but I remember enjoying it immensely until the ludicrous ending left me totally deflated. Shortly thereafter, many people, including some of my high school students, told me the book was much better. I declined to read it until this summer, specifically for this blog.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering whether—if you’ve seen the movie and already know who Tyler Durden is—there will be enough left from the bizarre characters and twisty-turny plot to hold your interest.
My answer is an enthusiastic yes. If you like a novel that grabs you by the throat and does not let go until you have feverishly devoured the last page, this book is for you. Stylistically, there’s much to admire in its art and construction: the staccato stream of consciousness, the jittery neurosis that pulses in every line, and layer upon layer of complications building like an anxiety dream you cannot awaken from. All these elements lead me to conclude that if Joseph Heller and Jack Kerouac had had a lovechild that they whipped with an electrical cord, he’d have grown up to be Chuck Palahniuk. But Fight Club is also a very timely novel that taps into millennial dysfunction. If you were disappointed by the movie’s ending, be assured the novel’s conclusion is much more satisfying. Finally, the book is short enough to tackle in a weekend, so there’s really no excuse not to dive in. Just don’t tell anyone where you heard about it.
Disclaimer: Links in this column may be affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link, the author receives a small commission on purchases for a limited time at no additional cost to you. These commissions help ensure future posts. Thank you
Ladd and Wayne craft icons in Shane and The Searchers. By Kevin Rush.
The Western is the archetypal American story. Its roots go back at least to the early 19th century and James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. In those five novels, Cooper laid out the rules that future writers would assiduously follow: the unyielding land, the Noble Savage and his ruthless counterpart, and the frontiersman, whose identity is so closely tied to a changing landscape that once he tames the land, he finds he can no longer inhabit it. Drawing on existential struggles with nature and against our own human nature, Westerns gained popularity the world over. In Hollywood, they have made an indelible impact that has bled into other film genres as well. I’ve watched Western movies and TV shows all my life, but I’ve read very few Western novels. Today I look at two which served as source material for two of the greatest Western films ever made: Shane and The Searchers.
Shane: Mysterious stranger rights wrongs and moves on
Theatrical trailer for Shane.
Nominated for six Academy Awards, the classic 1953 film, starring Alan Ladd as the eponymous gunslinger, is thought by many to be a perfect western movie. This is largely thanks to Director George Stevens’ relentless tinkering in the editing room which delayed the film’s release for two years. Originally intended as a B picture, Shane benefited from Stevens’ meticulous, one might say obsessive, perfectionism, which ballooned the budget and forced the studio to promote the film as a major release. Thus, a classic was born.
An Oscar winner for cinematography in 1954, Shane is beautifully shot on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in breath-taking color. The solid cast includes Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, Brandon De Wilde (who scored a Best Supporting Actor nomination for a performance given at the tender age of nine), Edgar Buchanan, Elisha Cook Jr., and Jack Palance (also nominated for Best Supporting Actor).
I tend to be more critical than most about the casting of Ladd. He might squint and set his jaw like Randolph Scott or Gary Cooper, but his stature was no more imposing than Mickey Rooney’s. In the book, Shane is described as a slender man, not tall like the boy’s father, played to perfection by Van Heflin. But neither was Shane a shrimp. Shane is a man whose intensity and lithe animal reflexes make up for his spare frame. He’s also described as dark haired, unlike the blondish Ladd. Physical dimensions aside, Ladd does capture the essence of Shane as rendered in the novel, so I’m not going to be too critical. I just think there were better choices, such as Montgomery Clift, who unfortunately wasn’t interested. Clift passed on the role, forcing Stevens to settle for Ladd, who exploited the opportunity to forge his signature role.
Stevens also had to coax Jean Arthur out of retirement. He had directed her in The More the Merrier (1943), for which Arthur received her only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress. She agreed to play the mother, Marian, even though at fifty, she was well past the character’s age. That isn’t an issue for me. I’ve always enjoyed Jean Arthur, and she gives a fine performance, looking very much like a care-worn wife and mother of the Plains. Sadly, Arthur immediately went back into retirement, emerging only for an episode of Gunsmoke in 1965 and a short-lived 1966 TV program, The Jean Arthur Show.
I found the novel Shane in the YA section of my local public library, where it had sat, judging from the paperback binding, unread since its purchase. Appropriate shelving, since author Jack Schaefer dedicates the work:
To Carl
For my first son
My first book
The fact that it hadn’t been read strikes me as a sad. Although Schaefer’s novel doesn’t break any new ground—his hero is cut from the Natty Bumpo mold, hewn from the frontier and destined to move West once the evil forces are thwarted and the area becomes too civilized—the book is eminently readable.
Click image to order Shane
The action sequences mix edge-of-the-seat suspense with abrupt and brutal violence that is vivid, but not gratuitous. The characters are well-drawn and multi-layered. It’s an engrossing, quick read. But should you bother, if you’ve seen Stevens’ film? I would say yes, because of the extra depth given the characters.
In true YA form, the narrator of Shane is a boy, named Bob Starrett, but called Joey in the movie. Well, that’s not quite accurate; the narrator is the mature Bob Starrett recalling the drama of his youth. Bob is an observant and imaginative lad, but there is much going on in the triangular relationship between the father, Joe, his wife, Marian, and Shane than exists in the movie, and much of it goes over the head of the juvenile witness. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say, its heavy stuff for a YA book.
My only complaint is that the elegiac descriptions of Shane are often over the top, beyond a boy’s hero worship. Reading certain passages, I was aware that Schaefer was consciously trying to create an iconic, one-name legend, and maybe working too hard at it. But, he obviously succeeded, so maybe I should keep that criticism, like my misgivings about Alan Ladd, to myself.
The Searchers: Relentless pursuit challenges the human soul
Theatrical trailer for John Ford’s The Searchers
Asked to name his three favorite directors, Orson Wells famously responded, “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” But while other gifted auteurs might expound on his artistry, Ford summed up his craft in three simple words: “I make westerns.” Born John Martin Feeney in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in 1894, John Ford had already collected four Best Director Oscars by the time he made The Searchers. Only one, 1939’s Stagecoach, had been a western. But two of them, the aforementioned Stagecoach and 1952’s The Quiet Man, had starred John Wayne. So the 1956 re-pairing of Ford and Wayne in an epic western based on a recent popular novel was big news in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, The Academy did not get the memo. The Searchers was shut out of the 1957 Oscars, denied even a single nomination. Not that it was a banner year. George Stevens won Best Director for Giant, a film that has not held up nearly as well, and the Best Picture Winner was Around the World in 80 Days, which seems to have been shot in real time. Yul Brynner took home the Best Actor trophy for The King and I. Wayne would wait 12 more years for the recognition his turn as Ethan Edwards could easily have earned.
The snub mystified those involved, including Wayne who thought “Ethan Edwards was probably the most fascinating character I ever played in a John Ford Western.” Ford commented stoically that it “was a good picture. It made a lot of money and that’s the ultimate end.”
But today, The Searchers is generally viewed as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, Western ever made. More than a chase story, its narrative of relentless pursuit plumbs the depths of the human soul, exposing ugliness we’d prefer to keep hidden before stumbling upon the redemption we desperately need. Its tough subject matter, starkly depicted, may have made too many demands on audiences in its time. The hero’s all-consuming hatred of the Indians was discordant ten years after the desegregation of baseball and immediately after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when enlightened minds were waking up to racial injustice, or at least denying they played any role in it. The comic hijinks, at times bidding us to laugh at abject cruelty, didn’t seem to nest well within the framework of a tragic tale. Yet, with the passage of time, a classic has emerged, a legend laced with ambiguities that keep calling us back for further examination.
I had seen The Searchers often on TV, in black and white and carved up for commercials, but never appreciated its greatness until college, when I saw a full-color, uncut version on the (reasonably) big screen. Though not a perfect film, with various parts seeming to struggle against the whole, The Searchers is an eloquent, complex and often enigmatic masterpiece. But even though Ford is the chief architect of the film (he discarded much of screenwriter Frank Nugent’s exposition-heavy dialogue), the lion’s share of the credit should go to the novelist Alan LeMay.
LeMay began his career as a journalist, but was soon able to make his fiction writing sell. A descendant of plains pioneers, LeMay wrote tales of the American West. After a divorce and remarriage, with three growing children, LeMay decided to go where the money was for writers: Hollywood. He arrived fortuitously in the wake of Stagecoach, which sparked a revival in the Western genre, and went to work as a story consultant for the sumptuously entertaining, yet oft-abusive Cecil B. DeMille. After his contract with DeMille expired, LeMay freelanced, eking out a living that careened from comfortable to destitute, never breaking out of the B-Movie rut, and always searching for the elusive next job that would elevate his stature. After more than a decade, he vented his frustration, declaring, “All I want of this business and this town is out of it.”
LeMay decided to go back to novel writing. He recalled hearing the legend of Cynthia Ann Parker, a young Texas girl kidnapped by Comanches in 1836 and rescued in 1860, after she’d lived as a spouse to the chief who had abducted her, borne him children, and adapted completely to Comanche life. LeMay plunged into meticulous research of the Parker story, discovering how the girl’s uncle had stubbornly and fruitlessly tracked her for years over countless miles of barren wilderness. LeMay changed various elements of the Parker history, such as setting his story after the Civil War. Focusing on the relatives’ quest to restore their family and exact justice, LeMay called his book The Searchers.
A few differences between the book and film are worth noting. The book’s narrative unfolds through the eyes of Martin Pauley, who is the central character. The uncle is Amos Edwards, not Ethan. Ford’s team changed the name to avoid any association with the popular Amos ‘n’ Andy radio show. The epic fight between Martin and Charlie McCorry does not take place before a scheduled wedding.
Parts were rewritten and enhanced to fit the talents of John Ford’s stock acting company: Ward Bond’s character is not a preacher in the book, and Hank Worden’s role as Mose Harper is a distillation of two characters. Both roles were tailored to the talents and personalities of the actors, and are less important to the book. The cameo given to John Wayne’s son Patrick does not come from the book.
The novel was a commercial success, selling more than 14,000 hardcover editions and garnering $50,000 from Reader’s Digest for serialization. The movie rights went for $60,000, the highest sum paid that year. But has the book held up?
I can say unequivocally that I loved it. LeMay’s prose is simple, but powerful. His characters are genuine and multifaceted. His narrative is well paced (perhaps better paced than the film), suspenseful, and utterly haunting. What stands out most for me is the way the land itself becomes a character, a relentless force to be reckoned with, compelling the characters to go beyond the physical and emotional limits of human existence. A worse enemy than any band of savages, the cruel and uncaring land must be mastered. In such a context, simply enduring is an act of redemptive heroism.
LeMay is also unsparing in his criticism of well-intentioned but ineffectual federal government peace policies that do little more than fatten hostiles up during the winter so they can resume raiding white settlements in the spring, summer and fall. As Indian policy is transferred from the gentle incompetence of the Society of Friends to the iron fist of the U.S. Cavalry, the narrative races to its conclusion.
That conclusion is less patently restorative and naively hopeful than in the film; LeMay opts for an uneasy ambiguity, which more closely resembles his source material. The fate of the uncle is also different. In Ford’s final tableau, the rescued Debbie is ushered into the Jorgensen home, and Ethan stands alone outside. Having poured out his essence in the search, Ethan has no place in the reunion. As the iconic Western hero, he cannot live in a tamed land. The fate of Amos in the novel is more tangible and its irony is more immediately dramatic.
Finally, I’m happy to say the book is an enjoyable read; it’s 272 pages are less than you’d expect for an onscreen epic, and they go by very quickly. Altogether, The Searchers is an engrossing experience for any fan of the film.
I can also heartily recommend the extensive examination of the saga from historical event to classic film, written by Glenn Frankel. The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend is a well-researched, thoughtful and thorough account, starting with the tragedy of Cynthia Ann Parker, including the life of her Comanche Chief son Quanah, and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Ford production. If you’re a serious fan of the movie, Frankel’s book is a treasure trove of information you’ll greatly appreciate.
Disclaimer: Links in this column may be affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link, the author receives a small commission on purchases for a limited time at no additional cost to you. These commissions help ensure future posts. Thank you.
Redford and Costner score with crowd-pleasing films, after novelists strike out. By Kevin Rush
The first year I followed baseball was a fantasy season worthy of the old Hollywood dream machine. The lowly New York Mets, my father’s team since returning east from grad school in 1964, pulled off the greatest miracle in professional sports history, winning 100 games en route to an upset of the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. My dad, who’d grown up following the Brooklyn Dodgers, had suffered through two decades of disappointment before “Dem Bums” finally vanquished the “Damned Yankees” and won baseball’s ultimate prize. He looked at me celebrating and just shook his head. “Now he’ll expect this every year.” Unfortunately, no. What every Met fan my age learned at the knee of his Dodger fan father was how to say, “Wait ’til next year.”
And so, as this baseball season ends, Yankee fans are once again looking forward to the playoffs and Met fans have their sights set on Winter Meetings and Spring Training. Which is why, for us, baseball and fantasy are so intertwined. Winning, for us, is a rare, transformative, and even metaphysical experience. Our relationship to the game is a romance in the Shakespearean sense. It’s the kind of drama the two movies I’m discussing today delivered, making them hits at the box office. But how do the books they’re based on measure up?
The Natural, 1984
The Natural released in 1984 is a film imbued with wonder. I wondered if 49-year-old Robert Redford had ever played baseball before. I wondered how far he could actually hit a ball with that rusty gate swing, and why in the world director Barry Levinson would let us scrutinize its every hitch in super slow motion. But I also got caught up in a lush fable about love, destiny, and a determined soul overcoming evil. Nominated for four Academy Awards, The Natural was a pretty popcorn movie about a simpler time in sports, as uplifting as a cotton-candy sugar-high, and stayed with me about as long.
As for the book, Bernard Malamud’s 1952 debut novel is to Barry Levinson’s 1984 film what the Grimms’ fairytale Cinderellais to the 1950 Walt Disney cartoon. Walt excised a few details while sanitizing the story for a post-war American family audience. For example, in the Grimm version, the evil stepmother goes to great lengths to force her daughters’ oversized hooves into the glass slipper; she cuts the heel off of one, and lops toes off the other. The prince brings each back in turn, after the slipper fills with blood revealing the deception. A grim tale indeed. Just so, screenwriters Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry gloss over many of the unsavory aspects of Malamud’s book, including Roy’s sexual dalliances, which are generally opportunistic and cynical. Despite Malamud’s feverish attempt to elevate the scenes of coupling with magical realism that would strain the credulity of Isabelle Allende, Roy’s sexual encounters lack any romance to stir the soul. The hero’s journey Malamud traces out for Roy takes myriad rough turns through a cynical, exploitative and corrupt world.
Young Arthur draws the sword from the stone. Malamud claims to have borrowed from this myth for Roy Hobbs’ bat.
This seems to be Malamud’s intention. Critics have seen in Malamud’s novel parallels with Homer’s Odyssey and Arthurian legends, and have noted how his various characters reflect those in classical literature. I felt myself transported back to English Lit 101, where a deeply depressed professor stroked his graying beard as he dourly explicated Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, pointing out each of the seven deadly sins the knights of virtue encountered along their way. (Roy Hobbs plays for a team called the New York Knights.) And as with my Spenser class, I found myself crying to get out. Arcane references are fine fodder for eggheads and bookworms. The true measure of a work isn’t how deftly the author has embedded the threading of Scylla and Charybdis, but whether the book entertains on its own terms.
Levinson’s film succeeds because it serves up a gentler allegory. Using costumes, settings, and lighting—sometimes subtly and sometimes heavy-handedly—Levinson conveys a world that exists like memory on the fringes of mysticism. Redford’s Roy Hobbs is a callow youth, cruelly robbed of his life’s purpose, who returns late in life to reclaim what is rightfully his. His Roy loves the game he was blessed with supernatural ability to play, but aside from the exploding stadium lights when Roy hits his triumphant home run, the story tends more towards romance than fantasy. We, the audience, like this Roy Hobbs, despite the slightly jarring hubris that threatens to undo him, and we root for him in his struggles. It’s hard to say the same about the Hobbs of Malamud’s novel, who personifies each of the Seven Deadlies in turn, starting with pride and proceeding through greed, lust, wrath, etc. until gluttony nearly kills him. Roy is so selfish, egotistical, and grasping that he exhausts our sympathy before the seventh inning stretch.
A reader who approaches Malamud’s The Natural after seeing Levinson’s film might at least hope that the purity of baseball (the game if not the business) and a boy’s love for it would redeem the cold world in which it must be played. Sadly, that’s not the case. The beauty of the game is lost in a too long litany of wins and losses, slumps and hot streaks, where the hero ultimately falls short and walks away unfilled. Closing the book, I felt the same way.
Field of Dreams, 1989
The Natural opened the floodgates for baseball movies, so in quick succession there were Eight Men Out (1988), Bull Durham (1988) and Major League (1989). The first, I loved for the in-depth history. The second turned me off for various reasons, including its failed attempt to reconcile cinematic romantic comedy with the mores of the sexual revolution. RomComs are about the frustrated pursuit of love and the myriad obstacles overcome. When the obstacle to being with the object of your desire is the guy ahead of you banging her, who is just the latest in a long line of bangers, the bloom is off the rose. When Crash finally gets with Annie, his career is done, she’s tired of bed-hopping, and they just seem ready to settle, because their routines have worn them out. That’s not much of a payoff for the audience who’s hung with them for ninety minutes, because there’s no special trick to “getting the girl,” when the rest of the town has already had her. The film also suffered from Costner’s low-key performance, which I felt lacked charm, and a lot of way-too-obvious humor that fell flat. I know a lot of people love Bull Durham (Rotten Tomatoes has it ranked as the second greatest baseball movie of all time behind Moneyball), but upon its release, I dubbed it Dull Bore ‘em, and I stand by that assessment.
As for Major League, the trailer was so packed, I assumed it had shown all the best jokes. So since I had already seen Slap Shot, I figured I didn’t need to spend seven dollars.
But from my first glimpse of the theatrical trailer for Field of Dreams, I was hooked. Yeah, I was chagrined slightly that it starred Costner, because everything he’d done to that point including Eliot Ness in The Untouchables, had left me slightly disappointed. I did not see the onscreen magnetism of an A List movie star; I saw a tall, not so bad looking guy getting paid millions to learn how to act on the job. But the Hollywood machine seemed determined to make Costner a star, so what could I do about it? I decided to keep an open mind about Costner; I put down my seven or eight dollars and entered into the fantasy of an Iowa farmer who heard a voice telling him that “If you build it, he will come.” Costner turned out to be fine, though I still had my quibbles, but the film really spoke to me about where I was in my life: unsure what my path should be, stuck somewhere between prolonged adolescence and adulthood, and most importantly, uneasy in my relationship with my father, with whom I could not talk openly about anything except baseball. So, yes, I went along for the ride, I shared Farmer Ray’s urgency to get to the heart of the mystery, and, yes, I cried when he asked his dad to play catch.
At the time, Costner had called the film “It’s a Wonderful Life for our generation,” which seemed plausible, since I’m pretty sure many baby boomers secretly regret their youthful radicalism and yearn for reconciliation with their parents. But I don’t think Field of Dreams has held up. Whereas each viewing of Capra’s classic, tied into my celebration of Christmas, endears me further to the Bedford Falls milieu with its many well-drawn characters and the all-too-human struggles of George Baily, Field is not anchored to any recurring observance and subsequent viewings, for me at least, have simply exposed its flaws. I get impatient watching Field, annoyed that I ever let it get to me that first time, and so I don’t think I’ve ever sat all the way through a second showing. Once again, I’m sure I’m in the minority. So much so, that readers of this column might choose to disregard what I have to say about the book, but here goes anyway.
Shoeless Joe by Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella was the inspiration for Field of Dreams. Published in 1982, the novel, which won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, tells the story of Ray Kinsella, an Iowa insurance salesman turned farmer, who hears the voice of a baseball announcer instructing him to turn his cornfield into a baseball stadium, because, “If you build it, he will come.”
The book is far more expansive, and dare I say meandering, than the film, featuring characters the screenwriters dropped to get a cleaner, more focused narrative. One such character is Eddie Scissons, the former owner of Ray’s farm, who bills himself as the Oldest Living Chicago Cub. Another is Ray’s identical twin Richard, whom he hasn’t seen for 15 years, since at the age of 16, he had a fistfight with their father and left home.
The writer whom Ray Kinsella kidnaps in Shoeless Joe is a fictional version of J.D. Salinger
But the most consequential character change from the book is that Ray does not “kidnap” the fictional writer Terrence Mann, author of the radical novel, The Boat Rocker, but a fictionalized version of the real-life writer, J.D. Salinger, who wrote A Cather in the Rye. In fact, Kinsella once told The Des Moines Register that the working title of the book was The Kidnapping of J.D. Salinger. This choice creates problems for Kinsella’s narrative which he never completely overcomes. That is, the portrayal of Salinger must be human enough for the reader to believe, but benign enough so Salinger would not sue for infringement. Thus, J.D. Salinger, whose name suggests edgy and subversive, is rendered bland enough to fade into the kitchen wallpaper.
If you admire Field of Dreams, as I do, for the clarity of Ray’s internal conflict, i.e., the regret he harbors over the distance he put between himself and his father, and how they never understood each other, and how Ray has a burning desire to bridge eternity to close that gap, be aware that such clarity does not exist in Kinsella’s book. The novel’s Ray had a warm relationship with Dad. The antagonism was entirely between his twin brother Richard and the dad. Unfortunately, his pugnacious twin comes very late to the narrative, and what he might be thinking is not explored or resolved. As far as the dramatic thru-line is concerned, that character might as well not have existed. Obviously, the film’s developers felt likewise, and made the wise choice of incorporating Richard’s daddy issues into Ray’s character. However, the book, because of the lack of tension between Ray and his dad, fails to deliver the movie’s emotional pay off when the two finally meet.
Now, if you’re a fan of dramatic thru-lines generally, good luck with Shoeless Joe. The novel, at 265 pages is roughly 90 pages of fluff I could have done without. That fluff includes effusive, treacly, yet vague paeans to the love he and his wife, Annie, share. Often. Like constantly. The characters are also a bit frustrating to deal with. If you thought Amy Madigan’s portrayal of the ever-so-chipper-never-complaining-always-supportive wife lacked depth, she’s James Dean in East of Eden compared to Annie in the book. Our narrator, Ray, is a wordy son of a gun with a touch of ADHD. He’s also a far cry from Kevin Costner, who was always a hunk and has matured into a first-rate leading man with intense gravitas, as shown in some fine performances in Open Range, Yellowstone, et al. Ray in the book is very much a beta male, and we get the impression that no matter how much his hair recedes or his frame fills out, he’ll always be a beta. Here’s how Ray Kinsella describes himself:
…it’s just that I’m uncomfortable with most men, especially “men’s men,” who know all about gears, rifles, and how to splice rope. They always make me feel like the new kid on the block, tolerated but not accepted, and they always act as though they have a common secret that I will never be party to.”
It’s hard to imagine Kevin Costner ever harboring such insecurities.
But, you might ask, is Shoeless Joe at least a fun read? Well, it’s not going to hurt you. The book, as you would expect from the film, is imaginative, and at times humorous and heartfelt. But it suffers from Kinsella’s too earnest desire to construct mythology out of snippets of baseball lore laced with random Americana and bound up in weak sentiment. His narrator often (and gratuitously) expresses his disdain for religion, and it’s clear Kinsella (either Ray or W.P. or both) would like to replace church rituals with ritual attendance of baseball games. At one point “Kid” Scissons goes on a rant about baseball as “word” which more than implies a desire for baseball fanaticism to usurp the vaunted station held by sacred scripture in the public consciousness. How a diversionary pastime might form the basis for a moral society while providing a salvific vision giving hope to the hopeless is not explained in the character’s flimsy tirade. And yes, I know, this is light fantasy, so we don’t want to crush dandelion fluff under the weight of eschatological ponderings, but the writer who deliberately raises questions cannot retreat behind pleas to his readers “not to think too hard.”
Which brings us to another grating point of style, which is the weird self-referential tone that Kinsella the writer has in relation to Ray Kinsella the narrator, as though the novel is in some measure a fantasy biography that only close relations and insiders can truly appreciate. It also gives the book an aura of an all-too-precious vanity project. And precious, unfortunately, aptly describes much of the prose. So, if you are a fan of masculine writing, and approach Shoeless Joe as a baseball book, you’re going to have a tough time sifting through a seemingly endless procession of saccharine similes, as Ray tells you how something he preciously feels or observes is preciously like something else.
Still, some of the writing is quite good. There’s a wonderful passage towards the very end, a speech given by Salinger about how visitors will come from all over drawn by their dreams, that rivals the prose of Jack Kerouac, whose influence is felt throughout.
My bottom line for Shoeless Joe is that the inspiration for the story deserves a better book, and W.P. Kinsella is lucky to have gotten so good a film made from it. Today, perhaps the only use for Kinsella’s novel is to instruct would-be screenwriters on how to take a cluttered, meandering story with potential and help it find its heart for the big screen.
Disclaimer: Links in this column may be affiliate links. If you click on an affiliate link, the author receives a small commission on purchasesfor a limited time at no additional cost to you. These commissions help ensure future posts. Thank you.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, I invited you to read the other posts on books made into film, including two by Hitchcock and two noir-ish Bogeys.
Recent Comments