Short Story Break: “Risico”

Writer: Ian Fleming 1959
Due to the deserved success of “Casino Royale,” the army of James Bond bloggers is alive with the rumor that the next Bond film will be based on Fleming’s short story, “Risico,” which was part of the five stories included in “For Your Eyes Only.” I thought I would reread the story, and pulled off the shelf my Signet paperback, second printing June 1962. I was eleven when I first read this book. So much for Franklin W. Dixon. This is an interesting collection. In some stories, Fleming owes a debt to his friend Somerset Maugham (really a friend of Fleming’s aristocratic wife, Ann). Others are straight-out adventures. “Risico” follows Bond to Rome and Venice, tracking a drug kingpin. Fleming was an excellent travel writer, and this skill shows in “Risico.” There’s also a nice chase on a beach and assault by sea on the kingpin’s warehouse. Plus a few colorful characters. Obviously, the screenwriters will have to expand the premise, and heroin is too unexciting to work as a 21st Century McGuffin. No doubt, these problems will be hurdled. Still, it’s nice to think that the Bond people are looking to Fleming for inspiration.

Book Break: Bestselling Writers

Writers: Michael Crichton, Thomas Harris
Another bookish memory (indulge me). It’s the summer of 1969. I’m working as a messenger for Quality Photo-Engraving on East 45th St., saving money for college, which begins in the fall. Unable to resist temptation, I stop after work at the E.J. Korvette’s on 45th St. near Grand Central (Korvette’s was a discount department store). They had a book section, and I was looking for a first novel by a doctor-turned-writer named Michael Crichton. His book, “The Andromeda Strain” had gotten a good review in The Times and I was intrigued. I bought it, started reading on the subway and finished at home that night. I became a Crichton fan.
No one would ever accuse Crichton of being much of a stylist. He writes in a flat, emotionless tone, almost like a lab report. His characters are thin. But his stories—fueled by whatever intriguing topic has bewitched Crichton’s intelligence—generally move quickly. In his best books, he entertains and educates.
In his latest, “Next,” Crichton tackles the ethical questions behind genetic engineering. There are so many issues here that the novel is overpopulated with bland characters who disappear for chapters, then pop up and challenge the reader to remember who the hell they were. The most memorable characters are a chimp and a parrot, both infused with human genes. They’re smart, particularly the parrot. The last 75 pages pick up a lagging narrative, but if you want to read Crichton at his best, try “The Great Train Robbery” or “Eaters of the Dead.”
Years ago, Thomas Harris wrote inventive thrillers with the precision of the AP reporter he was early in his career. “Black Sunday,” “Red Dragon,” and “The Silence of the Lambs” are superlative examples of their genre (pick up any of the many pale imitators of Harris and you’ll realize how good he once was). Hannibal Lecter was an inspired creation, and although he really has but extended cameos in “Dragon” and “Lambs,” he was the character who caught a reader’s attention. Seven years ago, Harris produced “Hannibal,” a black comedy peppered with Grand Guignol touches he obviously believed his fans wanted. The ending was so ridiculous and unsatisfying that the screenwriters actually came up with a much better climax. “Hannibal” wasn’t a very good novel, but it kept your attention.
Now Harris has returned to Lecter in a prequel titled “Hannibal Rising.” There’s not much I can add to Janet Maslin’s withering review in Friday’s Times. Except this: I haven’t thrown a book across a room in a long, long time, but I did halfway through “Hannibal Rising.” The beauty of Lecter as a character was we didn’t know what made him tick. He just was. “Hannibal Rising” wants us to know why he does the terrible things he does. This is so unnecessary, particularly since Harris already told us in the earlier “Hannibal.” Thomas Harris really needs to forget about Lecter—and he needs to get back to the AP stylebook, so pretentious is his current style. Don’t bother with this book—and don’t go to the movie version in February. Thomas Harris doesn’t need the money. He’s a bestselling writer.

Movie: “Night Nurse”

Director: William Wellman 1931
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (hey, this is my blog): Turner Classic Movies is the best network on TV. These are people who love movies, and their intelligence shines in their selections. Even the Hopperesque interstitials are impressive.
The other night, TCM repeated a documentary on Pre-Code Hollywood. This was followed by several PC movies, including “Night Nurse.” What a terrific movie, still watchable after 75 years, in large part due to Wellman’s no-nonsense direction and Barbara Stanwyck’s no-nonsense acting. Stanwyck is my favorite star of the 30s and 40s: tough, spirited, smart, sexy. Watch her go up against a young Clark Gable, who plays the bad guy. When she defies him, Gable flattens her with a sock to the chin. But that doesn’t scare her. At stake here are the lives of two children in Stanwyck’s care (she’s their nurse at night, hence the title). Good, of course, triumphs. But this is Pre-Code, so Stanwyck’s bootlegging love interest has Gable literally taken for a ride—Gable’s next seen being wheeled into the morgue. There is no retribution for the killing, as there would be Post-Code. There’s also quite a bit of undressing from street garb to nurse’s uniform. A sassy Joan Blondell adds her charm. TiVo “Night Nurse” for the next time TCM airs it.

Book Break: “Jimmy Stewart: A Biography” Movies: "Rope" "The Far Country"

Author: Marc Eliot 2006
Directors: Alfred Hitchcock 1948 Anthony Mann 1955
When Jimmy Stewart returned home from World War ll, he was understandably a changed man. The actor had flown 20 bombing missions over Germany, an experience that left its mark. Even “It’s A Wonderful Life” shows a darker side to Stewart’s persona—it starts, after all, with Stewart’s character contemplating suicide and questioning the meaning of his small town life.
Post war, Stewart embarked on a series of remarkable performances, often guided by the same directors. He made four films with Hitchcock (“Rope,” “Rear Window,” “The Man Who Knew Much,” and “Vertigo”). Eight with Mann, including five memorable westerns noted for the toughness—even cruelty--of Stewart’s characters. Throw in 1959’s “Anatomy of a Murder” (Otto Preminger), a role that should have won Stewart his second Oscar, and you have a resume any actor would envy.
Marc Elliot’s biography is thorough, often fascinating. Stewart, like George Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” was a small town boy, in his case the town was Indiana, Pa. His father owned a successful hardware business. Stewart went to Princeton, where he abandoned architecture for acting. As a young man struggling on Broadway, he befriended another young actor named Henry Fonda. Despite their political differences—Stewart’s conservative, Fonda’s liberal—they remained friends until Fonda’s death in 1981.
After Hollywood beckoned, tall, gangly Jimmy Stewart became quite a ladies’ man, romancing many a star, including Ginger Rogers and Marlene Dietrich. He didn’t marry until 1949. He was 41.
“Rope,” his first for Hitchcock, was based on a play clearly inspired by the Leopold-Loeb case. There is one set, an elegant Manhattan apartment. Hitchcock experimented by shooting the movie in uninterrupted, 10-minute takes. Ten minutes was the maximum amount of film in the camera. There are no edits, save awkward ones when it’s clear the ten minutes are up and more film has to feed the camera (Fifty-eight years later, there is a cut right out of “Rope” in “Mission: Impossible: lll”—it comes at the 50:17 minute-mark on the DVD, if you’re really interested in such things). Despite Hitchcock’s efforts—or perhaps because of them—the film is static, interesting for the excellent acting and none-too-subtle hints that the killers are gay (this was 1948, remember).
“The Far Country” is not the best of the Stewart-Mann westerns, but it’s a solid example of the genre, notable for breathtaking, on-location shooting in the Canadian Rockies. Stewart’s character has little use for people—until, of course, the climax. If you’ve never seen a Stewart-Mann western, start with “Winchester ‘73” or “The Naked Spur” or “Bend in the River.”
Stewart died in 1997. The New York Daily News front page used a picture of Stewart as George Bailey. The headline read: “A Wonderful Life.”