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THE DARK PAGESUN 5 AUG – WED 5 SEP home home box office mcr. 0161 200 1500 org The Killing, 1956 Elmore Leonard (1925 – 2013) The Killer Inside Me being undoubtedly the most Born in Dallas but relocating to Detroit early in his faithful. My favourite Thompson adaptation is Maggie A BRIEF NOTE ON THE GLOSSARY OF life and becoming synonymous with the city, Elmore Greenwald’s The Kill-Off, a film I tried desperately hard Leonard began writing after studying literature and to track down for this season. We include here instead FILM SELECTIONS FEATURED WRITERS leaving the navy. Initially working in the western genre Kubrick’s The Killing, a commissioned adaptation of in the 1950s (Valdez Is Coming, Hombre and Three- Lionel White’s Clean Break. The best way to think of this season is perhaps Here is a very brief snapshot of all the writers included Ten To Yuma were all filmed), Leonard switched to Raymond Chandler (1888 – 1959) in the manner of a music compilation that offers in the season. For further reading it is very much worth crime fiction and became one of the most prolific and a career overview with some hits, a couple of seeking out Into The Badlands by John Williams, a vital Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on acclaimed practitioners of the genre. Martin Amis and B-sides and a few lesser-known curiosities and mix of literary criticism, geography, politics and author American popular literature, and is considered by many Stephen King were both evangelical in their praise of his outtakes. All of the selections are morally and profile in which Williams interviews some of America’s to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. works. Despite the taut economy of his writing with its spiritually ambiguous and feature compromised greatest living crime writers. Robert Politto’s Savage Art: Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled particular eye for the American underbelly, Leonard was protagonists doing questionable things in The Life of Jim Thompson is also highly recommended. school of detective fiction. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, badly served in terms of big screen adaptations with difficult circumstances. This is after all the dark along with Hammett’s Sam Spade, are considered to Cornell Woolrich (1903 – 1968) big screen tilts at Mr. Majestyk, Glitz and Cat Chaser and sometimes delirious underworld of film noir be the archetypal private detectives. Chandler, who (amongst many others) all widely missing the mark. Get and pulp fiction. Widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s finest published just seven novels during his lifetime, came writers of pure suspense fiction, Woolrich is the author Shorty and Out of Sight fared far better. to writing at the age of forty-four, turning to detective As well as covering some of the staples we also of numerous classic novels and short stories. Incredibly George V. Higgins (1939 – 1999) fiction after losing his job as an oil company executive very much wanted to include work written by prolific, Woolrich published under multiple pseudonyms Alongside Joe Gores (the author of Hammett, which during the Depression. Chandler’s first novel, The Big different voices. The hope was that we could and lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any was brought to the screen by Wim Wenders), George Sleep was published in 1939 and was an immediate offer a new perspective on relatively well- of his characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan V. Higgins is amongst the finest but less celebrated success. Filmed by Howard Hawks, it would be one of trodden terrain. Sadly, many of the films we very hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous contemporary American crime writers. A respected numerous Chandler novels to be realised as motion much wanted to include were unavailable, either leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million journalist, Higgins was also a practising US lawyer and pictures. Chandler also delivered the screenplay for due to rights issues or due to a lack of materials dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for this understanding of the legal system and forensic Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. fit for screening. This lack of preservation young writers. A regular source of material for cinema, attention to detail informs his best work. The Friends of Patricia Highsmith (1921 – 1995) perhaps offers a perspective in itself. I should other notable Woolrich works adapted for the screen Eddie Coyle inspired a new cycle of Boston-set thrillers. also point out that for economic reasons, we include The Bride Wore Black and The Night Has A Born in Forth Worth, Texas, Patricia Highsmith’s first Cogan’s Trade was adapted for the screen by Andrew were unable to import materials from the U.S. Thousand Eyes. suspense novel Strangers on a Train was adapted for Dominik as the excellent Killing Them Softly. the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. A writer of (the season is American in its focus). David Goodis (1917 – 1967) James M. Cain (1892 – 1977) incredible intelligence, insight and intellect, Highsmith Whenever we present a season of this nature Born and bred in Philadelphia, a city to which he Born James Mallahan Cain in Maryland, Cain was a specialised in psychological crime thrillers, many of we inevitably always face questions of the retained a deep identification during his professional former journalist who served in France with the U.S which featured the sociopathic anti-hero Tom Ripley. ‘Why aren’t you screening INSERT TITLE HERE?’ life, Goodis began his career after completing a army in the final year of World War I. Cain initially The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley’s variety. Quite often the answer can be found degree in journalism in 1937. A writer known for his turned his hand to screenplays in Hollywood, with Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley in my paragraph above or, as is increasingly observational skills, Goodis frequently portrayed urban only modest success, and then later fiction following Under Water all featured the character. Tom Ripley common given that we screen over 580 titles landscapes gone wrong and was particularly eloquent a short stint as managing editor of The New Yorker. would prove a rich though not always happy hunting each year, that we recently presented it under at capturing human despair. Dark Passage, Nightfall The publication of The Postman Always Rings Twice in ground for directors, with Wim Wenders undoubtedly different circumstances. I always find it can be and The Burglar are other notable Goodis big screen 1934 signalled his literary breakthrough. Cain proved getting closest to the essence of the character in The instructive to list some of the titles we were adaptations. a fertile source of material during the 1940s film noir American Friend. Considered as existing as part of an hell-bent on securing but which sadly got away, Dorothy B. Hughes (1904 – 1993) heyday with Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce proving existentialist tradition represented by her own favourite so listed below are a number of them. They are Born in Kansas City, Hughes studied at Columbia particularly influential. writers, in particular Dostoevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, listed by author. and Camus, Highsmith’s The Price of Salt was recently University, and won an award from the Yale Series of Jim Thompson (1909 – 1977) Jason Wood, Curator of The Dark Page and Younger Poets for her first book, the poetry collection directed as Carol by Todd Haynes. Thompson wrote more than thirty novels, the majority Artistic Director: Film, HOME Dark Certainty (1931). After writing several unsuccessful Walter Mosley (1952 – present) of which were original paperback publications by pulp manuscripts, she published The So Blue Marble in 1940. fiction houses, from the late-1940s through mid-1950s. A writer who has written science fiction, erotica, works A New York–based mystery, it won praise for its hard- Dashiell Hammett – The Maltese Falcon Despite some positive critical notice, notably by for young adults and political monographs, Mosley is boiled prose, which was due, in part, to Hughes’s editor, Anthony Boucher in the New York Times, he was little- perhaps most acclaimed for a series of hard-boiled Jim Thompson – The Kill-Off who demanded she cut 25,000 words from the book. recognised in his lifetime but his stature accelerated novels featuring black private investigator and WWII Donald Westlake – Point Blank A contemporary of Margaret Millar, Vera Caspary and during the 1980s when several of his works were veteran Easy Rawlins. A resident of New York City and Charles Willeford – Cockfighter, The Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, Woman Chaser re-published in the Black Lizard series of re-discovered a recipient of the PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Oscar Micheaux – Murder in Harlem Hughes published thirteen novels, with Ride the Pink crime fiction. An admirer of Dostoevsky, Thompson Award, Mosley stands alongside Chester Himes as one of the relatively few black writers associated with the Joe Gores – Hammett Horse and The Fallen Sparrow also being adapted frequently imbued his work with unreliable, dislikeable for the screen. Hughes later became a literary critic, crime/pulp movement. The Easy Rawlins mysteries, Chester Himes – A Rage in Harlem, Cotton and psychopathic narrators entirely lacking in morality. winning an Edgar Award. In 1978, the Mystery Writers which as well as Devil In A Blue Dress also include Comes to Harlem His most highly regarded works include The Killer Inside of America presented Hughes with the Grand Master Me, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman and Pop. 1280. the exceptional A Red Death and White Butterfly, Mickey Spillane – Kiss me Deadly Award for literary achievement.