Smiley Faces*

Before Sir Alec Guinness took possession of John le Carré’s spymaster George Smiley in two brilliant miniseries, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (1979) and “Smiley’s People” (1982)—a possession that Gary Oldman has at least partially exorcized via his acclaimed take on Smiley in the current “Tinker, Tailor” remake--there were Rupert Davies and James Mason.
Davies plays Smiley opposite Richard Burton (as Alec Leamas) in 1965’s “The Spy Who Came Who Came In From The Cold,” an excellent adaptation of le Carré ‘s third—and breakout—novel. In his few scenes, a disheveled Davies fulfills le Carré’s description of his most famous creation: “Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.” Davies’ Smiley has little to say, and his importance as a spy comes to light only in his absence: East German interrogators hammer Leamas about his relationship with Smiley, clearly a major player before retiring from the Circus, le Carré’s name for the British Secret Service. If you parse the complicated plot of both book and film, you realize how cold-hearted Smiley has been.
In “The Deadly Affair,” a 1966 adaptation of le Carré’s first novel, “Call For The Dead,” James Mason’s Smiley is called Charles Dobbs because Paramount owned the rights to the Smiley name (Columbia distributed “The Deadly Affair”). Mason portrays Smiley as besotted by his philandering wife and wearied by the many betrayals he’s confronted personally and professionally. Famed cinematographer Freddie Young deliberately muted the color in “The Deadly Affair” to mirror the overall grimness as Smiley/Dobbs peels away layer after layer of treachery. A deadly affair, indeed.
Nine years after Guinness’ final turn in “Smiley’s People,” the gifted Denholm Elliott took a crack at Smiley in “A Murder of Quality,” le Carré’s second novel and the only Smiley story to shuck the cloak-and-dagger in favor of a more traditional murder mystery. Elliott’s Smiley employs a certain shy precision while conducting his investigation, an approach consistent with le Carré’s view of Smiley. The supporting cast includes a young Christian Bale and the always memorable Joss Ackland, who beautifully stole a scene from Guinness in the original “Tinker, Tailor,” playing Jerry Westerby, the title character of another Smiley novel, “The Honourable Schoolboy.”
Novelist William Boyd has said that Smiley is “le Carré's Mr. Pickwick – in the sense that this fictional character seems to have leaped the bounds of the novels he has appeared in and has achieved a life of his own.” Certainly there are other such characters: Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, the anti-Smiley, quickly come to mind, as does Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, who has been portrayed by more than ten actors over six decades (feel free to suggest others).
If you’re smitten by Oldman’s performance but haven’t seen other Smiley incarnations, you must check out Guinness’ interpretation, or perhaps produce your own George Smiley Film Festival by adding Davies, Mason and Elliott to the mix.
Or just curl up with le Carré’s novels, where Smiley first began that life of his own.
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This originally appeared on the New York Daily News book blog, Page Views.

Shameless Self Promotion

The good folk at the New York Daily News, where I once worked as a reporter and editor, have asked me to write a column for Page Views (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews), a new and exciting blog on the paper’s website which covers books, the publishing business and the literary scene.
I’ll be writing a column called Rear Window, considering books and movies from the past that deserve second looks or somehow resonate with the present. The first column ran today under the headline, “Smiley Faces: The Secret Lives of le Carré’s Most Famous Spy.”
As for my own blog, I’ll be doing whatever it is I’ve been doing for the last six years, having a blast writing about books and movies, old and new. A day after Rear Window runs on Page Views, I’ll “reprint” the column on this blog, as well as writing about stuff not related to the Daily News column.
So check out Page Views. Not only is it great to have a major newspaper invest in the idea that books and writers are still important, but Page Views is a fun, provocative read. Booklovers owe editors Sherryl Connelly and Alexander Nazaryan thanks for making the effort in a world often too addicted to the detritus of the passing parade (Kim Kardashian, anyone?). Good books matter, perhaps now more than ever given a world of endless distractions.
Read Page Views. Please keep reading this blog. But above all, keep reading books

"Light Sleeper"

Writer/Director: Paul Schrader 1992
SPOILERS
I’ve been a fan of Paul Schrader’s work since “Taxi Driver,” which he wrote. By my unofficial tally, Schrader has directed 17 movies, and written 20 produced screenplays, an impressive record given most of the films demand a level of audience attention not normally required. It’s unlikely Schrader will ever direct in 3-D, but I’d love to see him try, perhaps adapting one of his own “man in a room” scripts in the vein of “Taxi Driver” or “Light Sleeper,” a film he considers his most personal. Maybe it's time for a cerebral 3-D movie. Maybe Martin Scorsese, Schrader's former collaborator, has already made one with "Hugo." But I haven't seen "Hugo,"and I like the idea--no matter how far-fetched--of Schrader directing in 3-D
In “Light Sleeper,” Willem Dafoe plays John LeTour, a former addict who has worked as a dealer for years for Ann, a flamboyant, high-end supplier played by Susan Sarandon. LeTour struggles to keep his soul—for want of a better word--alive. Like Travis Bickle, he packs notebooks with his thoughts, trying to come to grips with his past and grapple with his questionable future. Despite his occupation and sins, LeTour is a flawed but good man.
He reunites with his ex-lover (a memorable Dana Delany), only to lose her to drugs. Like many Schrader scripts, there is a violent, cathartic climax, but LeTour survives. He’ll go to jail, but there’s reason to believe he may have a decent life when he gets out.
Before he broke into the movie business, Schrader worked as a critic, and wrote “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.” I read the book last year, primarily because of my interest in Robert Bresson. Schrader’s book is not an easy read, and I’d be lying if I said I understood every word. But it’s clear how Schrader has been influenced by Bresson, whose protagonists—be they priest, pickpocket or donkey (yes, a donkey)—are innocents struggling in a corrupt and ugly world (there’s a sanitation strike throughout “Light Sleeper” and Manhattan’s streets are piled high with garbage). LeTour may be a dealer, but there’s an innocence to him, too, and Dafoe is terrific in revealing LeTour's complexity.
Give “Light Sleeper” a chance. It may lead you to more of Schrader's work. And as long as you’re at it, why not give Bresson a shot? Not easy material, perhaps, but worth the effort. And you won’t need 3-D glasses.

“The Brasher Doubloon”

From The Associated Press, Published: December 12
NEW ORLEANS — An exceedingly rare 1787 gold Brasher doubloon has been sold for $7.4 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a gold coin.
Blanchard and Co., the New Orleans-based coin and precious metals company that brokered the deal, told The Associated Press the doubloon was purchased by a Wall Street investment firm. Identities of the buyer and seller were not disclosed.
Minted by Ephraim Brasher, a goldsmith and neighbor of George Washington, the coin contains 26.66 grams of gold — slightly less than an ounce. Worth about $15 when it was minted, the gold value today would be more than $1,500.
The Brasher doubloon is considered the first American-made gold coin denominated in dollars; the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia didn’t begin striking coins until the 1790s, and foreign coins of various currencies were in use in the nation’s early years.
The Brasher coin was called a doubloon because it is approximately the weight of a Spanish gold doubloon, a common coin in colonial America.

Seven point four million bucks! Not bad, considering that in 1942 a character in Raymond Chandler’s “The High Window” wants Philip Marlowe to track down a stolen Brasher doubloon:
“What was taken was a coin. A rare coin called a Brasher Doubloon. It was the pride of my [late] husband’s collection. The coin is said to be worth more than ten thousand dollars. It’s a mint specimen.”
From ten grand to seven million in 70 years represents a decent return on your investment, although I’m sure any amateur economist could quickly come up with even better ways to have invested $10,000 in ’42. Still, $7.4 million for a coin is obviously for the one-percenters out there. I wonder if the doubloon will be donated to a museum or the Smithsonian Institute. Doubtful.
“The High Window” was Chandler’s third novel, following “The Big Sleep” and “Farewell, My Lovely” (see below). Chandler packs the novel with interesting characters and his lauded style, that hardboiled patois honed from observing the passing parade of glamour and grotesquery that made up southern California—and still does. Here’s Marlowe meeting his rich client, Elizabeth Bright Murdock:
“She had a lot of face and chin. She had pewter-colored hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones. There was lace at her throat, but it was the kind of throat that would have looked better in a football sweater.”
Take a look at last Sunday’s Times Book Review bestseller lists and tell me if any genre writer writes as well. Hell, forget genre writers. Just look at the fiction lists. I doubt you could make a case for more than two or three authors with distinctive, original styles, and none would be called genre writers. Have you ever read a book by James Patterson?
“The High Window” was made into a 1947 movie called “The Brasher Doubloon.” George Montgomery played Marlowe. I’ve never seen the film, never seen TCM schedule it, but I’d love to catch it and compare Montgomery to all those other actors who took at shot at Marlowe, including Bogart, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, James Garner, Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Danny Glover and Powers Boothe.
There’s something about Marlowe that appeals to multiple interpretations on film, despite Chandler painting a clear portrait of his tough yet philosophical hero over the course of seven novels. Check out, say, an excellent Dick Powell in 1944's “Murder, My Sweet” with Gould’s equally excellent but unique approach to Marlowe in “The Long Goodbye.” Surely some Hollywood producer is down there peddling yet another Marlowe. How ‘bout George Clooney? Johnny Depp? Tom Hanks? The possibilities are limitless. All I’d ask is that Marlowe remain in his period of the late 1930s to mid 50s. It’s where he belongs, with all due respect to Robert Altman and Elliott Gould, who set their film in 1973.

Farewell, My Lovely 626

After years of loyal service, I watched slightly misty-eyed the other day as a tow-truck pulled my Mazda 626 down Prince Street to go wherever vehicles donated to KQED go, perhaps Mexico or some junkyard where it could be carved up for parts. The 626 was 18 with 142,000 miles, and although still chugging along it had failed its latest smog-test. Coupled with an inability to open the driver’s window and a predilection to leak more fluids than I thought a car possessed weakened any argument I could make to keep it going.
A bit of history: in the fall of ’93, after a year of badgering my wife that my mid-life crisis demanded that she agree it was a great idea for me to buy a Mazda Miata, a car I loved from the day it hit the showroom, she reluctantly relented after warning me that in her opinion the Miata “was a coffin on wheels.” The next day, I hit Oakland Mazda and bought a red Miata. When I pulled into the driveway, my wife took one look and said that I had a choice: “The car or the marriage.” Apparently, she never believed I’d actually go out and buy the coffin on wheels.
Now a stronger man would have continued to make his case, or ignored his wife’s unhappiness, or maybe agreed to a divorce.
I am not that kind of guy. I actually loved my wife more than the Miata (still do; yesterday marked the 34th anniversary of the night we met by chance in Manhattan). So the next day, with my tailgate between my legs, I returned to Oakland Mazda and tried to return the Miata, which had all of eight miles on it. After some boloney from a salesman about how he couldn’t possibly take the car back, we cut a deal: they accepted the Miata if I bought another Mazda, which is how I ended up with the 626. In retrospect, I got a lucky break: the car never gave me trouble until its final three years, and it reliably took me all over Los Angeles and southern California during the 10 years I worked down there for TV Guide (commuting via Southwest back to Berkeley on weekends, an arrangement I now look back and wonder how I did it (there were more than 800 flights), although I do have a large collection of tiny packs of honey-roasted peanuts).
An astute reader (and I know I have only astute readers) may wonder what’s the movie or book connection here. Well, AR, I’ll tell you: for most of those 18 years, I kept a copy of Raymond Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” under the 626’s front seat—and over the years I read the book twice as I waited at car washes, oil- changing places, doctor offices, even in traffic jams, of which there are many, not only on the freeways but throughout LA at any time of the day and often for no discernable reason. “Farewell, My Lovely,” my favorite Chandler novel, was my backup whenever I failed to bring along other reading material.
I remembered to snatch the book out from the front seat before the tow-truck drove off. It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way—but not as far as Velma had gone. *
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*If you’ve never read “Farewell, My Lovely,” you really should give it a try. And the last two sentences of the above entry are the last two of Chandler’s great novel. Read the book and you’ll find out all about Velma.

Dr. Crichton Meets Dr. Cyclops

SPOILERS ABOUND
“Micro,” partially written by Michael Crichton and completed by Richard Preston, is the second Crichton novel published posthumously, following 2009’s “Pirate Latitudes.” While an improvement on that woeful enterprise, which read like an extended movie treatment, “Micro” suffers from a silly premise for a techno-thriller, particularly one created by the king of the genre: lured to a jungle in Hawaii, young Harvard researchers run afoul of a crazed venture capitalist (a redundancy, perhaps) who had hoped to engage their expert services for a top-secret project his company is conducting at its jungle facility.
The first hundred or so pages set the plot in motion through a series of ridiculous machinations that introduce characters so thin as to appear nearly transparent (which might have made for a better story, come to think of it; it could have been Crichton’s take on “The Invisible Man”). The dialogue is packed with so much scientific jargon that it sounds like people reciting from arcane academic papers. All this effort to lure the reader into believing a new technology has been created that allows for miniaturization of everything, including people, which is exactly what happens to our intrepid, sniping band of researchers forced to work its way through the dangers of the jungle after reduction to the size of fingernail.
Reviewers have mentioned sections of “Gulliver’s Travels,” Richard Matheson’s classic 1956 novel, “The Shrinking Man,” and Disney’s 1989 fun family film, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” as possible inspirations for “Micro.” And who could forget Raquel Welch in skin-tight scuba gear swimming through some guy's arteries in 1966's "Fantastic Voyage"? I’ll throw in a wonderful episode of “The Avengers” from 1967 entitled “Mission . . . Highly Improbable” in which Steed and Mrs. Peel are miniaturized.
But the true inspiration—and one I’ve yet to see mentioned in reviews—has to be 1940’s “Dr. Cyclops,” likely the first science-fiction film made in Technicolor, and a bounty of decent effects in an era when such work was still in the gestating stage. The plot* alone reads like a blueprint for “Micro”: A mad scientist, Dr. Alexander Thorkel (an excellent Albert Dekker) invites three colleagues to his lab in the Peruvian jungle. They are accompanied by a local miner who suspects that Thorkel is secretly mining ore. The scientists discover that Thorkel has brought them there only to identify some crystals under his microscope, since his eyesight is too poor for him to see them himself (hence Dr. Cyclops). Their job done, he now wants them to leave.
They discover that Thorkel is attempting to shrink living organisms using radiation. When he finds them snooping in his laboratory, he locks them inside his radiation chamber, shrinking them to twelve inches.
The movie details their trek as they hack their way through a jungle of gigantic foliage and do battle with oversize wildlife.
If this isn’t the basic plot of “Micro,” I don’t know what else out there is.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, “Dr. Cyclops” aired regularly on local stations in the New York area (as well, I’m sure, in other major cities). Michael Crichton grew up on Long Island, and given Crichton’s imagination I would think “Dr. Cyclops” would be a film he’d have seen, and probably remembered fondly—as I remember so many of Crichton’s earlier entertainments. The late Michael Crichton sold more than 200 million books, a testament to his skills as a storyteller who often injected interesting ethical questions about science and nature. “Micro” is not one of his best efforts. Instead of reading the novel, I’d microwave some popcorn (speaking of micro), rent “Dr. Cyclops” and see what magic Hollywood could conjure more than 70 years ago.
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* Thanks to Wikipedia for the movie’s plot points. It's been a few decades since I've seen "Dr. Cyclops"--and these days I'm lucky if it doesn't take ten minutes to find my car keys.