Film Pairing — 1940s Brothers Noir

Not all films that I’ve enjoyed are actually good movies.  Redeeming qualities — a glimpse into history, extraordinary cinematography, interesting actors — can easily erase even the most serious flaws.  In my case, I’m curious about what audiences looked at in the late 1940s when I was just becoming aware of the world?  Cars, clothing, interiors — much of which is distantly familiar.  The added mystery and danger are pluses.

Lawrence Tierney

Scott Brady (Tierney)

I paired these two films because, beyond the closeness of the times and the dark nature of the stories, because each starred one of two brothers, Lawrence Tierney and Scott Brady (Gerard Kenneth Tierney), who were significant stars of “B” movies.  Both transitioned to TV at the same time the world did. I suspect both were able to keep food on the table by taking supporting roles in a whole range of popular TV shows and in the occasional film.  Brady was a regular on Police Story and later made an appearance in All In The Family. Brother Lawrence, who was the bad guy in many movies, continued to play the heavy as recently as an appearance on Seinfeld.

 

Before you begin the evening, a warning: If you want to watch Born to Kill (1947) you have to give in to the melodrama. Some of it is improbable.  Much of it is overacted or poorly acted.  It is difficult to tell whether Tierney has more than one octave or facial expression, but his character’s essential meanness is never in doubt. I kept thinking his lines were meant for Humphrey Bogart — and things might have turned out better if Bogart had delivered them.  Claire Trevor nearly makes up for Tierney’s shortcomings. She matches his nastiness word for word and deed for deed, except with a slightly more subtle portrayal. Trevor is one good reason to watch the film.  The other is that the plot is extremely clever and timeless. If there was ever a film that deserved a remake, I vote for this one.  Walter Slezak plays a corrupt P.I.  Robert Wise directed.

 

Scott Brady plays a good cop in He Walked By Night (1948), documentary-styled film about a multiple murderer.  Richard Basehart, who had been pretty invisible to me as a star, turns in great performance as the cold-blooded killer.  And a pre-Dragnet Jack Webb plays what might have been the first CSI-type character in a crime drama. (I’m sure I will be corrected).  If you can believe cops who talk like they never heard a curse word, you will find yourself being seduced by the film. And the end makes any investment you made worthwhile.  A fantastic bit of cinematography comes at the end in a chase through vast storm drain system of L.A.  Webb and Basehart are fun to watch (Scarcely a woman in sight).  Brady seems to do a spot-on impression of his brother.  This isn’t necessarily good.

Incidentally, a third brother, Edward Tierney, also made a few films, one with his brother Lawrence called Hoodlum. Edward never quite achieved significant notice.

Observations — A Little Bit of Paris in San Francisco

French presence in San Francisco is notable.  There are similarities, of course — the focus on food and wine being the most obvious.  Great restaurants, La Folie and Fleur de Lys are two always high on the critics’ lists.  There are many others around town.  Downtown, near the front, formal gates of Chinatown is a small area with a high concentration of things Francais.  Not as large as New Orleans’ French Quarter, I call it San Francisco’s French Nickel — a bad joke I continue to tell despite the groans. Here are some photos taken near there.

Gitane, A Restaurant on Claude Lane

A Boutique on Claude Lane

Le Central, The Place For A Power Lunch, On Bush Street

Notre Dame Des Victoires, A Church on Bush Street

Cafe de la Presse, Grant and Bush Street

Cafe Claude, on Claude Lane

Book Notes — French Noir, Questions of Translation and Existence

My brother once made the suggestion that I pick one of my books, have it translated into another language, find another translator, who is unaware of its source, to translate it back. Of course, I would risk the possibility that the final translation back into English would be better than the original — an unnecessarily humbling notion.  Even so, I think this is a remarkable idea.

I could test it with one of the books already translated into another language. Concrete Pillow (Il Cuscino Di Pietra) exists in Italian, for example.  My desktop translator says the title means The Pillow of Stone.  Close Enough.  Another book of mine was translated into German.  Eclipse of the Heart became Die Tequila Falle, or The Tequila Case, which scares me a little. Though parts of it took place in Mexico, I’m not sure tequila was even mentioned.  How was the rest of the book translated? The tasty beverage certainly had nothing to do with the plot. Given the limited and sad stereotypical nature of the translation, it could have been worse — maybe The Burrito Caper or The Sinister Siesta. It makes me wonder how the rest of the book was rendered.

However, the important thing is that if you find a really fine book, originally written in a language not your own, surely the translator deserves considerably more credit than he or she usually gets.  Such is the case with Reticence by acclaimed Belgian writer Jean-Philippe Toussaint and translated by Vancouver native John Lambert, who now lives in Berlin.  I have no idea what it might be like to read the book in French. But it was a pure delight in English.  I don’t use the word “delight” lightly.  The beauty of the book is not exactly what it says as much as how it says it, whatever it actually is.

What Reticence does, among other things, is illustrate that a translator does not just substitute words from one language into another.  Anyone who has tried to use an on-line translation understands how sentences are regularly and often hilariously butchered. 

Here is an example taken from the book jacket of the German translation of my own book translated back to English: “Ronald Tierney could be gay son of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, the doyens of the voltage the pair had been. Tierney draws the reader into its spell, cultivates voltage up, up to the last its notion, and he saves not with joke and mockery.” I’m sure the publisher meant all of this as an enticement from the publisher to buy the book.  No doubt it sounded better in German.

Jean-Philippe Toussaint

But in Reticence we not only have translation of words, a deep sensitivity for the intent of the word, but also for the creation of mood. Here, these abilities are critical. The translator of this book had still another challenge, that of subtext, an essential nuance that if missed, would miss the reason for the book’s existence.  I could have said that in French, I suppose. They have a perfectly good phrase for that.

What should I tell you about the book?  I’m not sure I should say anything.  Bare bones description: A man, accompanied by a child, arrives in a village to meet a man.  We quickly understand that the man may or may not be there and that our narrator/protagonist may or may not be stalked by the man who may or may not be there. It seems that there has been a murder or maybe not?  Could be that the murder is about to happen. Could the victim be the possible stalker or the narrator? And the murderer?  Same possibility. Then we have the rain and the gray Mercedes. And phone booths, not to mention a lighthouse?

There is lots of darkness.  There is much foreboding.  There are endless noirish descriptions and tons of suspense.

“The moon was almost full in the sky, veiled in part by long wisps of black cloud that slid across its halo like lacerated strips of cloth….I could see the port in front of me now,  lit by the long beam of light from the lighthouse on Sasuelo Island that appeared fleetingly in the night and swept over the jetty for an instant before disappearing immediately beyond the horizon.  I advanced silently along the dock with my hands dug deep in my pockets and looked at the dead cat floating in the darkness a couple of yards from the jetty.”

If the translator were some sort of journeyman wordsmith, we would get nothing from the book.  All that can be gotten is gotten (suddenly I sound German) from the very specific choice of words and the imagery they produce. The very fact that the story goes nowhere is somewhere. And that is, perhaps, saying more than I should.

The Paris Review called Reticence, “Dreamy and funny and haunted in a way all his own.”  I would think that lovers of noir will either be insulted or be highly amused by it.

Either way, the translator deserves considerable praise.

Film Pairings — The Razor’s Edge: Between Comedy And Tragedy.

Fargo is far more gruesome than Affliction, but one leaves you with a smile even as a body goes through the wood chipper.  The theme here is winter, one last look at snow as irises bloom in our gardens and the barbeques dot the green lawns of suburbia.

Nolte, Coburn and Dafoe

What we have for your frosty double bill today are two Academy Award winning films — Affliction and Fargo.  Part of the interest, I think, in seeing these two in tandem is looking at both sides of the mask — tragedy and comedy — as they are presented in stories of similar tones, in relatively similar settings, and with highly talented actors, directors and writers.  The interest for me is, given the darkness they reveal about human nature, how the two are actually very different? 

Affliction, based on the novel by Russell Banks, is actually less gruesome, but far darker.  Not better, but more “serious.”  Nick Nolte and James Coburn give extraordinary performances as a troubled failure as a son and a cold, brutal father, respectively. Willem Dafoe gives a masterful understated interpretation as Coburn’s other son. Both sons, even as adults, were cowed by their abusive alcoholic father. Dafoe’s character escapes, physically at least.  Nolte’s character doesn’t. He   remains pretty much badgered by the father and also, as the part-time cop in a small town in New Hampshire, by the town manager. Paul Schrader wrote and directed this powerful and relentlessly fascinating drama. The movie is about a deal gone wrong, a murder, integrity friendship and power.  But the central focus is becoming whole. And what the cost of that might be.  Sissy Spacek, as Nolte’s loyal girlfriend, is excellent.

Speaking of a deal gone wrong and a murder, well several of them, let’s end the evening on a lighter note  — sort of.  At least we will laugh. A lot.  Of all the Joel and Ethan Coen’s great films, this might be at the top of the list.   Where Nolte and Coburn propel the story in Affliction, Frances McDormand and William Macy are the essence of this one.  Steve Buscemi gives us still another well-drawn, well-acted character.

Macy’s character wants to rid himself of his wife.  He hires two goofballs to carry out the plan.  McDormand, from all appearances, including being seven months pregnant, isn’t exactly fear inspiring and, at first, one might not believe she has the savvy to ferret out the culprits as incompetent as they are.  But first impressions are deceiving.  Much like Affliction, we’re not in urban America. No subways, traffic jams and high-rises. Instead, we get cafeterias, used car lots, tacky motels, long lonely snow-laden highways, lots of blood and glimpses of our police chief with her stay-at-home poet of a husband.

Fargo won a ton of awards, including multiple awards for McDormand and the Coen Brothers.  Affliction was recognized as well.  Coburn picked up an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Nolte was nominated for best actor awards, including the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actor.

The drink of the night?  Brandy, preferably brought to you by a big St. Bernard.

Observations — Indianapolis, The Formal Side

The State Capitol

The World War Memorial (As seen from University Park)

Detail of the New Addition of the Central Library

A View of a Section of the Downtown Canal

Observations — In Indy, Not Naptown.

An Italian Poster for "Winning"

Yesterday, the world focused on the city of Indianapolis for the second time this year.  The Superbowl was played there a few months ago.  And on Sunday, there was the running of the Indianapolis 500, the “granddaddy” of auto racing, as it was once called.  It is also called the “Greatest Spectacle of Racing,” drawing as many as 400,000 spectators, roughly 10 times that of the Superbowl.

It is a big event, an international event.  Racing enthusiast Paul Newman once made a movie about the race, called Winning.  And the race itself attracts not only international racing champions but also celebrities from around the world.  When I lived in the “Circle City,” I attended with my father, who considered it a challenge to sneak into the track on race day. An otherwise law-abiding and honorable man he did so in his early days when he was impoverished.  Despite the fact that he could afford it later and against increasing odds of getting caught through better security, my father refused to give up the tradition.  We would sneak in and make our way to the infield where amidst the circus-like environment (this area inside the track was also called “the snake pit) we weren’t likely to be tracked down.

In honor of the celebration of this Midwestern City, I’d like to call your attention to my hometown.  Long ago Booth Tarkington wrote his famous book, The Magnificent Ambersons (later a movie), which focused on the wealthy class that lived in an area known as Woodruff Place. That area of the city, though no longer the home of the city’s current upper crust, still exists — wide streets with center strips of grass and sculptured fountains. The homes, many of them subdivided for inexpensive apartments years ago suggest an earlier grandeur. And, in fact, many are being restored.  Kurt Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis.  His family ran a chain of hardware stores.  Wes Montgomery, considered one of the greatest jazz guitarists that ever lived, anchored Indiana Avenue, the city’s premiere black neighborhood. Some disreputable business folks tore down chunk of this historic district. However, there are bits and pieces left near downtown, including the Madame Walker Theater.  Born in 1867, Madam C. J. Walker was one of the country’s first successful black businesswomen.  She started a cosmetics company in Indianapolis and went on to develop a line of popular beauty products. She later became a philanthropist, using her wealth to advance the NAACP and the YMCA.

Comedian David Letterman as well as actors James Dean and Clifton Webb were also born in what used to be the nation’s largest inland city as was John Dillinger and Dan Quayle.

The First of the Samson Novels

Because this is a crime fiction blog, it’s important we mention a few mystery writers who continue to use Indianapolis as a setting.  The first is Michael Z. Lewin.  Lewin may have invented the regional private eye series with his creation of Indianapolis-based Albert Samson in 1971.  The fictional Samson lived in Fountain Square, another fascinating city neighborhood.  Until that time, private eyes only walked the streets of metropolises like New York, L.A. and San Francisco. The most recent to use of Indianapolis as a backdrop is screenwriter David Levien, who has had a couple of best sellers with his character Frank Behr.  As for me, why have a blog if I can’t engage in a bit of self-promotion.  The 10 novels I’ve written about a P.I. named “Deets” Shanahan take place in Indianapolis. And I’ve just finished a novella with Shanahan at the fore. (More on that later.)

I was back in Indianapolis from time to time — when I can.  I was fortunate enough to get back for the 15^th Annual Magna Cum Murder Conference, sponsored by Ball State University in nearby Muncie. (S.J. Rozan is the guest of honor this coming October). It is a wonderful and intimate conference. And in 2009, I was a panelist at Bouchercon, the Mystery Writers of America’s major mystery conference (3,000 or so writers and fans), held that year in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis Public Library, Central Branch

What I discovered when I went back was a city that has continued to take its once neglected downtown very seriously.  Instead of a parade of chain restaurants, which used to be the situation, there were a number of fine new eateries, new hotels and all sorts of interesting nightlife.  The Massachusetts Avenue area continues to add a distinctive and exciting flavor to the city once called “Naptown.” The city also hosts a fine zoo, an increasingly bustling and beautiful area area along the canal, museums, and, my all-time favorite — the Indianapolis Public Library.  The central branch was my resource, inspiration and hideaway during my young adult years. Their recent expansion shows how modern and traditional could blend in a splendid way.

Thanks for reading my less than poetic ode.  It just seemed appropriate to honor my hometown on its grandest day of the year and where my first published book took place. By the way, it used to be considered rude to call Indianapolis, “Indy.”  I think those days have passed. It’s a tribute to its reemergence as a destination.  However, of my current town, San Francisco, it’s still not all right to call it “Frisco.”

Film Pairings — Casino Jack, Crimes Against The Country

With the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, lobbyists have never been more powerful and the power of money to corrupt democracy more felt.  So, in some ways, the corruption that surrounded this one super lobbyist Jack Abramhoff less than a decade ago may seem quaint. 

Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramhoff

Essentially Abramoff put the screws to various tribes of Native Americans who were trying to build and operate casinos on their own land.  His purpose was to enrich himself by paying off legislators to pass or kill laws that respectively benefitted or hurt his clients.  Two films, one a documentary, have been made that focus on those years when the young Republican warrior became one of the most powerful forces on Washington D.C.’s all-too influential K Street.  Both films were released in 2010.

Kevin Spacey played Abramoff in the Hollywood version.  There is disagreement among the critics about Spacey and about the film. The actor seemed to soften the hard edges of the character that emerged in the documentary.  The real Abramoff, as portrayed in the documentary, appeared far less likable or even tolerable than the character Spacey drew.

However, for those who shy away from documentaries, Casino Jack is, in my mind, a fine film that nonetheless gets to the core of the kind of corruption that has only escalated after the Supreme Court decision.  It shows how this behavior — the selling of influence — distorts the promise of democracy and especially how we pick a few villains to throw in jail so the public will think the evil that is caught has been dealt with and no longer exists.  Actors portraying Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist do a decent job getting the characters across. Barry  Pepper is fantastic as Abramoff’s partner in crime, Michael Scanlon, who has pretty much avoided public awareness, let alone censure.

Jack Abramhoff

If you have the time and have some interest in politics and or how your government works, I’d definitely watch both films, together if possible.  But if you were forced to choose, my suggestion is to see Casino Jack and the United States of Money.  Frankly, Abramoff, Scanlon, Reed, DeLay, Rove and Norquist do a much better job playing themselves. And the road to corpocracy is drawn more clearly.

The time period is roughly the same, though the documentary picks up Abramoff much earlier  — first, his youthful political transformation, and second as he turns his political power into money and money into still more power.  Slices of footage from speeches and interviews move us through these fascinatingly cynical times.

 

Much is made of John McCain’s leading a committee to ferret out all these evil doings, especially in the defrauding of the tribes running reservation casinos.  However, the documentary shows how McCain, once he found out how many legislators were getting donations from Abramoff, shut down the committee before it could expand its investigation into the behavior of all but one of the U.S. representatives, who was tossed, sacrificially, to the wolves.  After all, McCain would need party support to run for president.  Only a few paid any price for the fraud. Abramoff and a few others went to jail.  Suddenly Abramoff, whose product was access and influence, was later cropped out of photos in which he appeared with Bush the Younger.  Others did the same thing, pretending not to know the man they all but worshipped.  One of the most popular presences in DC suddenly became an unknown.

Clearly, money and favors flowed all too freely, and I seriously doubt if the Democrats are immune from the temptation.  The truth, for me, is that it is hard imagine how we, as society, don’t equate huge donations by corporations as bribery anyway. However in the Abramoff case money for favors was clearly documented. And even a spiritually corrupt Supreme Court wouldn’t have been able to ignore that.

Both films show how greed and ego kill. In an earlier decade (Bonfire of the Vanities) it was called being “masters of the universe.”  Today, the creed that Abramoff and his friends appear to follow is the latest form of Republican politics, the cult that truly embraces survival of the fittest.  In the Republican warrior mentality, as the right-wing religious fundamentalists have yet to learn, right and wrong have no place in the achievement of their goals. And in fact, the “born again” politicians, the Ralph Reeds and Tom Delays of the world, assume the mantle only to dupe the pious.

If you don’t believe me, make sure you watch the end of the documentary when the “join me in prayer” Tom DeLay, shakes his ass on Dancing The Stars to “Wild Thing, I Thing I Love You.”

It is sad that DeLay is considered a celebrity, however minor, that Grover Norquist still dominates Republican legislators and Ralph Reed’s reputation has been rehabilitated to the extent he is currently a talking head on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

For drinks, indulge lightly the first film if you plan on watching both, then switch to something like a Martini for the second.  For some reason I think of a Martini as non-sentimental.  It’s kind of “I’ll take my truth straight,” kind of drink — unlike a romantic, sensuous red wine, innocent peach Daiquiri or or a nostalgic (I repeat myself) Old Fashioned.

Observations — Still More San Francisco Street Art

Book Notes — A Poor Player Who Struts And Frets His Hours Off The Stage

I have committed a crime.  I have purchased a book on the remainder stack.  As a writer, I am aware that the author will get none of the few dollars I paid for his book.  I can only suggest that Philip Roth is no doubt far wealthier than I am.  Certainly, his sales and public esteem are far, far greater than I can ever hope for. I toss off the guilt.

Though he is regarded by many as one of the greatest living novelists — and I recall seeing his name on the best seller lists many times — I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never read Philip Roth before. Correcting that oversight and the fact that The Humbling is a novella — a form I’m obsessed with at the moment — appealed to me. It is fiction, but unlike most books on my blog, it isn’t really crime fiction.  A murder is committed during the course of the story, so I squeeze by here on a technicality.

But about the book? The Humbling is obscene.  I wasn’t offended so much as put off.  That, in itself, caused more than a little introspection.  Simon Axler, the main character and through whose eyes the story is told, is old (about my age).  He is a celebrated actor who has suddenly and shockingly, to him, lost his ability to act. After enduring the pride-shattering period in a mental hospital, he moves away from civilization to suffer his humiliation out of the public eye.

A younger woman (the daughter of a fellow actor of Axler’s vintage) moves nearby. She contacts the old friend of the family and the two begin an affair, explicitly described for the reader’s pleasure or discomfort.  I won’t divulge the end and I have neglected many nuances that add to the rich and unpleasant nature of the book.  In fact, though I didn’t know it at the time of purchase, many respected reviewers were harshly critical of the work.  Some reviewers seemed angry with the author, I suspect for the same reasons I found the book to be a depressing read.  However, like most well told stories, The Humbling asks questions.  The answers are your responsibility.  When I was done I tried to toss it off as an appropriate exposure to a highly regarded talent even though it was, for me, a waste of time.  The book had a mind of its own, it seems.  It stayed with me.  Maybe it’s not the story that was so unpleasant, but the questions it forced me to consider.

One of those questions, less specifically personal than the others that I still think about, had to do with identity.  At some point in a long and dedicated actor’s career does the assumption of fictional roles become real and the real person become fictional, or worse, non-existent?  If something then renders the actor unable to act, what is left? 

Various reports suggest that Al Pacino has bought rights for the book and is planning a film with an expected release in 2014.