FILM STARS: Barbara Eden, Dan Haggerty, Steve Forrest, Ralph Bellamy, Stuart Whitman, Richard Anderson, Larry Bishop, Macdonald Carey, Dane Clark, Linda Cristal, Don Galloway, Arte Johnson, Jack Jones, Dorothy Malone, Nehemiah Persoff,
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: John D. MacDonald
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Fawcett Crest
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1980
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1977
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Disaster, Drama
WORDS: The mini series I watched with my mother when it came out. It was, as most mini-series were then, an “event”. It had a large ensemble cast made up of Hollywood former stars and TV stars … Barbara Eden (stunning as always) was one reason I watched it as a kid and also, for altogether different reasons, for the much underrated Stuart Whitman and Dan Haggerty (every kid loved Grizzly Adams). It may have been 70s TV (it was filmed in 1979) with cheesy clothes and funky faux disco music but it was riveting … or at least that’s how I recollect it. I haven’t seen it since.
Generally hard to find, I turned to the book. This was an easy ask as John D Macdonald I love. He has taken himself out of his usual crime setting but there is a enough mystery, money, local corruption and Sunshine State (Florida not Queensland though it could be set in the latter) developer shenanigans going on yo recall any number of his Travis McGee private eye novels. Perhaps Macdonald wrote this to cash in on the disaster films of the 70s (Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, and the later When Time Ran Out and Meteor) which predate the film but not the novel but it doesn’t matter. This is superior corn. MacDonald’s novel is long with many characters (most given a “life”) and the mini-series, by length alone (3 hours), gives enough to each character to do justice to the novel. It’s a page turner of a book … now I just have to watch the mini-series again.
FILM STARS: Cybill Shepherd, Barry Brown, Cloris Leachman, Mildred Natwick, Eileen Brennan, James McMurtry, Duilio Del Prete
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Henry James
TYPE: Novella
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1974
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1878
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Period Drama
WORDS: Henry James classic novella about Americans (in this case a young attractive woman) abroad in late 19th century. A favourite theme of his. Along with women in society, social conventions, old world new world, young versus old, innocence and vulgarity, class. It’s a good read. The film, directed by the great Peter Bogdanovich, starring his then girlfriend Cybil Shepherd has the pacing and attention to detail of a 1930s “prestige” film, and the look, despite the colour, of a 70s meets 30s films which is, very Bogdanovich (especially around this time). It was filmed in Italy and Switzerland and has, director John Ford regular Mildred Natwick in a supporting role. I only mention that because Bogdanovich was a Ford aficionado.
FILM STARS: Richard Todd, Eva Bartok, John Gregson, George Coulouris, Margot Grahame, David Hurst, Walter Rilla, Sid James, Eric Pohlmann
COUNTRY: Great Britain
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Victor Canning
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Pan
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1957
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1950
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Crime
WORDS: The book by Canning has its twists and turns (many of them) but could have been set anywhere. Canning sets his novel in post war Italy (specifically Venice) but the politics and intrigue that was cold war Northern Italy circa 1950 isn’t really captured. The hero, a detective, if from the familiar worldly, weary but still searching and honourable deep down school.
The film (also known as “The Assassin” in the US) is wonderful in capturing in time and place, mainly because the exteriors were shot entirely on location in Venice. The story is more straightforward, or comes across that way, so we end up with a great whodunit mystery which also serves as a travelogue of Venice of 1952. What’s there not to like. Richard Todd is, great. Much underrated and, largely, forgotten today.
Love the cover art … Bond before Bond?
FILM EXTRACT
Venice at night circa 1952, romantic and alternatively dangerous (and a nice lack of tourists in cargo shorts with bum bags)
SCREENWRITER: Stanley Mann, Ronald Harwood, Denis Cannan FILM STARS: Anthony Quinn, James Coburn, Deborah Baxter, Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova, Nigel Davenport, Isabel Dean, Gert Fröbe
COUNTRY: Great Britain
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Richard Hughes
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1965
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1929
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Adventure
WORDS: I saw this film many moons ago, in 1984, and I recall liking it. I haven’t seen it since. I love Anthony Quinn, and James Coburn is only a smidge below the love level. I watch all their films. The bonus here is, the film is directed by Alexander Mackendrick (Sweet Smell of Success, Don’t Make Waves). I haven’t read the novel.
FILM STARS: Tony Curtis, James Franciscus, Gregory Walcott, Bruce Bennett, Vivian Nathan, Edmund Hashim, Paul Comi, Ralph Moody
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: William Bradford Huie
TYPE: Biography
PUBLISHER: Panther
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1961
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1959
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The Outsider and Other Stories
NOTES
GENRE: War
WORDS: A New York Hungarian Jew playing a Native American? Why not? I would have been happy if he played a Croatian (I would be happy if anyone played a Croatian in the mainstream Hollywood of the time). Tony Curtis (perhaps one of the most underrated of all the big Hollywood stars) plays WW2 war hero, native American, Ira Hayes. The films is a straight bio but Curtis is earnest, sympathetic, and the film has a point to make. If it was made today it would be wildly different. Author, Huie, wrote many articles as a journalist (as well as a few novels) and this is a collection of four, including the title piece. His journalism hits harder than the film.
Ira Hayes was one of the six marines who became famous for having raised the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. He returned home to face discomfort, hostility and lack of interest from white and native American communities. Perhaps, as a result he descended into alcoholism and died at 32.
In 1949, Hayes appeared briefly as himself in the film “Sands of Iwo Jima”, starring John Wayne. In the movie, Wayne hands the American flag to Hayes and two other marines. In the 1960 telefilm “The American”, he was played by World War II Marine veteran Lee Marvin and in the 2006 movie Flags of Our Fathers he was portrayed by Adam Beach.
Though Hayes was well known the success of the 1961 film may have led to Hayes’s story was immortalized in the song “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” by Peter LaFarge, which was subsequently covered by many artists including Johnny Cash (in 1964), Kris Kristofferson, Pete Seeger, Townes Van Zandt, and Bob Dylan.
STARS: Vanessa Redgrave, George Hamilton, Susan Engel, Donald Sutherland, Laurence Payne
COUNTRY: Great Britain
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Ernest Hemingway
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1966
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1929
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: War
WORDS: I would like to say this is Hemingway’s great novel of love and war. And I will, but it’s not said as a result of my reading. Everyone else says it. I went through a big Hemingway phase in my late teens and twenties (didn’t we all?) and have read all his fiction (not counting the posthumous manuscripts) except for one book …. this one. On top of that I have seen every film version of the book (the excellent 1932 film with Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes and Adolph Menjou, the sprawling though underrated, 1957 film with Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones and Vittorio De Sica) except for one version … this one. I didn’t even know this existed. In fact it seems to be, like much BBC product of the time, lost. I assume, knowing what they spent on their budgets it would have been all indoors anyway. Strictly speaking it’s a mini series for television (3×45 minute episodes) rather than a movie. A “tie-in” nevertheless.
FILM STARS: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney, John McGiver, Miss Beverly Hills, Orangey the cat.
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Truman Capote
TYPE: Novella
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1961
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1958
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title (the book was a book of unrelated short stories)
NOTES
GENRE: Romantic Comedy
WORDS: Capote’s melancholy novella is a masterpiece of short-ish fiction. In paragraphs he rounds out entire characters and gives life to months of events. You read a page and you come out feeling you have read a chapter, and it’s never tiresome.
A classic it is but it will always be overshadowed by the 1961 film, a masterpiece of the romantic comedy genre, with perfect direction by Blake Edwards, an iconic Audrey Hepburn, magnificent early 60s fashions and the memorable music of Henry Mancini. Blake Edwards could do no wrong (despite all his fame he is still quite undervalued) and George Axelrod’s screenplays always had bite (Bus Stop, The Manchurian Candidate, How to Murder Your Wife, Lord Love a Duck). The cast work perfectly, Hepburn became an even bigger icon and George Peppard’s career was established. Special mention to Orangey the cat, the only cat to win two PATSY Awards (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year, an animal actor’s version of an Oscar), the first for the title role in a favourite film of mine, Rhubarb (1951) (though he could have been one of several cats used in the film) and the second for his portrayal of “Cat” in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And on top of it all Henry Mancini’s theme song (with lyrics by Johnny Mercer) “Moon River” which went to #1 in the easy Listening Charts. Many vocal versions were done, the most familiar one by Andy Williams who never released the song as a single, but his LP “Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes” was certified gold and went to #3 in the pop charts in 1962.
The book (a classic) is (sadly) almost superfluous to the film … it reads easily though, with the usual, astute, Capote observations. The novella is set in 1940s New York City, a place Capote knew well. Many people have been named or claim to be the inspiration to the central character Holly Golightly, but the character is probably a composite of a number of people Capote knew. Holly (in her late teens) is a New York café society girl who lives off wealthy men who take her to clubs, restaurants and the theatre, and give her money, jewellery and expensive gifts. According to Capote she is not a prostitute, but an “American geisha”. The film is lighter and more romantic than the book. though it does hint at or check all the “scandalous” elements in the book. There are, inevitably, some differences – the fairy-tale love in the film gets more teeth in the book where love is complicated, messy, and painful. The narrator in the book becomes Paul Varjak (played by George Peppard) and he is in some ways no different to Holly because he is a “kept man” taking money from older Mrs Emily Eustace Failenson played by Patricia Neal (the Failenson character doesn’t exist in the book and the narrator doesn’t have a female “benefactor”). Many assume the narrator is gay, because Capote was, but in the book, despite not having a girlfriend, that is not mentioned. The Mr. Yunioshi character played by Mickey Rooney is larger and more comedic in the film, the characters of Mag Wildwood and Rusty Trawler are more central in the book, the characters Joe Bell (a bartender) at a bar they regularly drink at, and Madame Sapphia Spanella (another tenant in the building) do not exist in the film, central symbols like the “birdcage” aren’t central in the film and even the cat finds a home with someone else rather than a return to Holly. Dramatic twists and turns, like Holly hearing of the death of her brother Fred, and her arrest and subsequent flight from the USA not to be seen again, don’t feature. Holly has gone from a Bette Grable blonde in the book (Capote would have cast Marilyn Monroe, or her type, in the film) to a stylish brunette in Audrey Hepburn (still from Tulip, Texas though!). The Holly of the film is a free spirit whereas the Holly of the book is wild, crazy, destructive, crass, a little racist, self-absorbed, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a tease, and, perhaps a fantasist. There are many contradictions in her. Females want to be Audrey’s Holly and complain of the unattainability of it whereas Capote’s original Holly is one all more real and attainable. I would take the film’s Holly, if she exists.
FILM STARS: Stacy Keach, Pia Zadora, Orson Welles, Lois Nettleton, Edward Albert, James Franciscus, Stuart Whitman, June Lockhart, Ed McMahon, Paul Hampton, George ‘Buck’ Flower
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: James M. Cain
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Vintage
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1979
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1946
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The Butterfly
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: Pia Zadora. There was a time when she was going to the next big thing (well there seemed to be a lot of hype about her). She always seemed she was from some far off exotic land … maybe Hoboken, New Jersey is a far off exotic land because that’s where Pia Alfreda Schipani was born on May 4, 1953. I was only a early teen when this film came out but this film was the one you wanted to sneak into to see … there was nudity. I don’t recall seeing the film then. I haven’t seen it recently. I should … any film with Orson Welles, Stuart Whitman, James Franciscus and a nude Pia Zadora I will see. Director Matt Cimber’s background was in exploitation B cinema – it just gets better. Music by Ennio Morricone – how good is that.
The film was universally derided.
I must watch it again. Such is masochism.
Cain took pulp with sex and violence to high literature. Here, it’s as if William Faulkner were writing for Hustler. I’m not sure how a story about a drunken father, and a flirtatious and promiscuous daughter and (apparent) incest would go down now, but it was a best seller at the time.
FILM STARS: John Wayne, Richard Boone, Maureen O’Hara, Patrick Wayne, Christopher Mitchum, Bruce Cabot, Bobby Vinton, Glenn Corbett, Ethan Wayne, John Doucette, Jim Davis, John Agar, Harry Carey Jr., Dean Smith, Hank Worden, Chuck Roberson
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: Richard Deming
TYPE: Novelization
PUBLISHER: Paperback Library
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1971
COUNTRY: USA
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1971
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Western
WORDS: One of my favourite John Wayne films from the 1970s. A lot of humour amongst the action. The closing of the west / turn of the century films have always intrigued me. That point where horses and cars shared streets together. There is a lot of humour in the film, and humour that works, especially in the first half. The director, George Sherman. was an old hand on action westerns like this. It can be clunky but if you know enough about John Wayne and get the in jokes it’s a lot of fun. The cast is populated with Wayne regulars (let’s call it “Wayne’s stock company”) and included Robert Mitchum’s son, Christopher, in a showy role (his third Wayne film). Two of Wayne’s sons (to different wives), Patrick and Ethan, appear, and Patrick’s older brother Michael produces.
Bandits kidnap Wayne’s grandson (played by real life son Ethan) for ransom and someone has to recover him. This is Wayne as the patriarch, a man of action and one liners and determination in a world which is black and white. Did that world exist? Probably not, but if it did and you needed to get something unpleasant done you would want Wayne’s character, Jake McCandles. As Maureen O’Hara’s estranged wife character, Martha McCandles, says “It is I think going to be a very harsh and unpleasant kind of business and will I think require an extremely harsh and unpleasant kind of man to see to it”.
The novelisation is based on the script. A lot of the films dialogue has been changed to suit Wayne, and then, of course inevitably it is changed again. Richard Deming (1915-1983) was a solid and reliable pro whose crime-writing career extended from late 1940s pulps to early 1980s digests. He also wrote several volumes of popular non-fiction late in his life. He is most likely to be remembered as one of the most prolific contributors to Manhunt and the early days of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and as a paperback original writer, sometimes of novels based on TV shows (Dragnet, The Mod Squad, and under the pseudonym Max Franklin, Starsky and Hutch). He was also a frequent ghost for the Ellery Queen team on paperback originals and for Brett Halliday on lead novelettes for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
FILM STARS: Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos, Michael Lerner, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: James M. Cain
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Pan
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1981
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1934
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: Famous for its steamy sex scenes, this tale of lust and murder was scripted by David Mamet, directed by Bob Rafelson and stars Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. How can it go wrong? It doesn’t. But I still prefer (by a country mile) the 1946 version by Tay Garnett with John Garfield and Lana Turner (Jessica is a babe but Lana sizzles with heat) or the Italian (unofficial) version, Ossessione (Obsession), from 1943 film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Clara Calamai and Massimo Girotti. The book is typical Cain – always readable and always torrid with sex and violence. If you want to know what the title means there are theories, but it seem the postman is “fate” and the character escapes with his actions the first time but not the second.
THE FILM (Mini Series)
The TTSS movie is inferior to the Alec Guinness tv series. Gary Oldman holds the movie together, he really is…