My latest piece for the US site CrimeReads looks at the director Sidney Lumet and why 1973 in particular was the year that he took on the subject of police corruption in not one but two films. The first Serpico, is a deservedly well known classic. The second, The Offense, should be far better known. You can read the piece in full on the CrimeReads site here.
Regular readers will have read previous posts on this site in which I have publicised the work of Bob Deis on the roughly 160 men’s pulp magazines that blossomed on American newsstands in the 1950s and 1960s. Or what Deis refers to as men’s adventure magazines. These magazines combined brilliant, often over the top illustrations, with hard-hitting fiction and lurid ‘non-fiction’ exposes of various mid-century cultural obsessions.
For the last year or so, Deis has been working with Bill Cunningham on a quarterly publication called Men’s Adventure Quarterly. Issue 7, is now out and has the theme of ‘gang girls’. It covers some similar territory to that dealt with in the 2016 book I coedited, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950-1980.
Indeed, I contributed an introduction on the sensational world of midcentury delinquent gangs and its reflection in pulp culture. It’s a beautiful physical publication, full of original art from the magazines and wonderfully designed and laid out by Cunningham. I am also impressed by the evolution of this magazine into an increasingly serious work of pulp fan scholarship. If this looks like your thing I would really encourage you to pick up a copy via Amazon.
You can find it on Amazon Australia here, Amazon UK here, and Amazon America at this link.… Read more
Posted in Crime fiction, Crime film, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Men's Adventure Magazines, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, True crime
Tagged Bill Cunningham, Bob Deis, Gang Girls, juvenile delinquents and pulp fiction, mens adventure magazines, Mens Adventure Quarterly
Love him or loathe him, it is impossible to ignore James Ellroy’s impact on crime fiction. Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, by Steven Powell, makes a good case for the historical significance of his influence, not just on the crime genre but literature more generally. The first biography of one of America’s most controversial contemporary crime writers, researched and written with his full cooperation, Love Me Fierce in Danger also contributes a wealth of material and insight into Ellroy’s private life and personal struggles. I am tempted to say that it includes far more detail than I wanted to know. But that that would be a complete lie. I wanted to know it all, as I am damn sure many of you do, too.
Love Me Fierce In Danger is a substantial work of literary scholarship. Powell, who has written two previous critical works on Ellroy, interrogates in detail what has effectively been the three writing careers of Ellroy: his published fiction and non-fiction books, his script writing work for Hollywood – which is far more substantial than I had realised – and his work as a columnist for GQ magazine in the 1990s, which in itself was quite significant.
The exploration of Ellroy’s career is supplemented by detail and insight into Ellroy the person, based on conversations with the man himself, and friends and colleagues.… Read more
Late year I chaired a panel in which several American crime writers discussed their most memorable discoveries in terms of noir television and film during the various COVID lockdowns we have all endured. As the moderator I did not get any time to discuss my own discovery, but if I had it would have been the Australian/American television production, Mr Inbetween.
My first piece for the US CrimeReads site for 2023 is a love letter to one of my favourite Australian television shows, Mr InBetween. You can read it in full on their site at this link.
… Read moreThe end of the year nears. That means it is time for my year cultural highlights of 2022. So, without further introduction, let’s get into it.
Film
Possibly the best new release I saw in the past 12 months was Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s The Holy Spider (2022). The story of a young female journalist (a powerhouse performance by Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) investigating a religious serial killer in a rural Iranian city, little did I know when I saw it as part of Melbourne International Film Festival in September that it’s damning commentary on the male dominated nature of Iranian society, would find such a strong real world echo in the female led protest movement shaking the country to its foundations today. While The Holy Spider is not for the faint hearted, its horror is brilliantly conveyed through show don’t tell storytelling. Seriously, a lot of directors could learn from watching this film that you don’t always have to hit the audience over the head with a narrative sledgehammer.
Two other 2022 releases make my best of film list for the year. The first is Emily the Criminal. This is a whip smart neo noir about a young woman who falls into crime, featuring Aubrey Plaza in the lead role. I call it a millennial revenge film, which I think is THE upcoming crime genre with a bullet.… Read more
Posted in 1970s American crime films, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, Burt Lancaster, Crime fiction, Crime film, David Peace, David Whish-Wilson, French crime fiction, Georges Simenon, Horror, Joel Edgerton, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir, Spies, True crime, Yaphet Kotto
Tagged Algiers Third World capital, Ali Abbasi, Archive 81 (2022), Aubrey Plaza, Black Bird (2022), Blue-Tongue Films, David Peace, Desert Fury (1947), Eliane Mokhtefi, Emily the Criminal (2022), Georges Simenon, Joel Edgerton, Jumpin Jack Flash David Litvinoff and the Rock n Roll Underworld, Kireon Pim, Michael Moriarty, Pascal Garnier, Ray Liotta, Report to the Commissioner (1975), Taron Edgerton, The Holy Spider (2022), The Stranger (2022), Zar Amir-Ebrahimi
