Category: FF

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FF / Revisions

16 Jun, 2015

Reading For the Movies by Ray Olson 2

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Reading After the Movies: William Wister Haines By Ray Olson Every so often, instead of reading a book before I see the movie made of it, I’ll read it afterward because I want to see whether it’s as good or better. Often the same kind of clue that gets me to read before—the writer’s reputation, the book’s, or even, in the case I’m going to present, a name—boosts my curiosity to read after. In Command Decision (1948), bomb group CO K. C. Dennis (Clark Gable) is sending his planes deep into Germany to destroy three separate facilities involved in producing jet aircraft....

3

FF / Revisions

28 May, 2015

Reading for the Movies

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Revisions 1:  Reading for the movies: A. I. Bezzerides by Ray Olson It’s my habit, ever since reviewing movies in the Sixties for the Minnesota Daily, campus paper of the University of Minnesota, to read the book a movie’s based on before I see the movie.  Not always, but whenever the book’s or its author’s reputation piques my interest, I give it a try. A. I. Bezzerides is well-known as the writer of a handful of very good films noir. The screenplay of Kiss Me Deadly is his, based on one of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer mysteries and, says James...

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FF / Fleming

17 May, 2015

The Measure of All Things

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Remember when a “Conservative” was someone opposed to change? “Any change, at any time, for any reason is to be deplored,” as The Duke of Cambridge (Victoria’s uncle) once declared. Back in the 1950’s, the word got restricted to the meaning “anti-communist/capitalists who believed in a strong defense and a free economy, and it was embodied in the unlikely person of Barry Goldwater. By the election of 1980, Conservatives had taken the initiative and were now the bold innovators in economic and foreign policy. Most conservatives were delighted with the change of image—from Tory squire to progressive, from curmudgeon to...