- Tantor Media will release an unabridged audio version of GONE 'TIL NOVEMBER in January, read by actress Karen White.
- Thorndike Press will publish a Large Print edition of GTN in 2010 as well (might be needing that one soon myself).
- I'm now on Facebook!
- I'll have a poem, titled "Independence Day, 1976," in the next edition of THE LINEUP: POEMS ON CRIME, due out in April. That issue will also include works by James W. Hall, James Sallis, Reed Farrel Coleman and Patti Abbott, among others.
- On Dec. 14, I'll be guesting on Steve Eifert's great Noir of the Week blog, with a piece on 1973's THE OUTFIT, the Robert Duvall film based on the Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark novel of the same name. All I have to do now is finish writing it.- There's a little bit of a tour taking shape, bit by bit, more info soon.
- Speaking of noir, this week I finally caught up with Peter Yates' THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (also released in 1973, a good year for noir and films in general - SERPICO, BADLANDS, CHARLEY VARRICK, DILLINGER, EMPEROR OF THE NORTH, THE LONG GOODBYE, MEAN STREETS and THE SEVEN-UPS all came out that year). I'd seen bits and pieces of it on television, but never the film in its entirety. Criterion just put out a DVD version a few months back, with a restored print and a commentary by Yates (he also directed BULLITT, the Brit noir ROBBERY and Westlake's THE HOT ROCK, and was developing the Stark novel DEADLY EDGE before the project fell through).
COYLE is the antidote to most gangster films - it's low-key and downbeat, as chilly as its late-November Boston locales. But it's quite brilliant too, and steadfastly faithful to the George V. Higgins novel. It does for the underworld what REQUIEM FOR A DREAM does for heroin addiction - it makes you very happy not to be part of it.
6 comments:
Never saw Emperor of the North, have to try that.
There was a lot of testosterone onscreen in 1973.
If you haven't seen it, check out Mitchum in THE YAKUZA from a year later. More tough-guy early-'70s stuff, this time in Japan, but ultimately a very good movie about male friendship.
Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, Mitchum had a pretty interesting '70s career. Though even in EDDIE COYLE you can see his old-style acting bumping up against the performances of the younger Method-trained actors, and not always meshing.
I'm glad a Jersey boy can appreciate a good Boston-based crime thriller. Number 4 BOBBY ORR!
Steve-O said...
I'm glad a Jersey boy can appreciate a good Boston-based crime thriller. Number 4 BOBBY ORR!/
The real stuff is the real stuff, regardless of geography. And EDDIE COYLE is the real stuff.
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