Talking Pictures (Free subscription) | 06/26/2009
Just as there’s no business like show business, there’s no suspense like carnal suspense. “Jerichow,” writer-director Christian Petzold’s imaginative, free-handed variation on “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” relocates the 1934 James M. Cain tale of lust and murder to a...
The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 06/23/2009
Salinger might be better off taking the view of James M. Cain, the author of several hot 1940s chart items. Cain, asked once how he felt about what Hollywood had done to his books, said, "Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books. There they all are, up on the shelf."
The Guardian Books Blog (Free subscription) | 06/09/2009
There's something deeply satisfying about seeing writers sneaking into their work on screen Something that began as a mild curiosity about the absence of George Orwell in recorded sound and vision , has now collided with another literary puzzle: the mysterious case of Raymond Chandler. It's hard to recall this now in the era of festivals, and author appearances, but writers used to be shy beasts,...
Bryan Appleyard (Free subscription) | 06/09/2009
To return to more important matters - thanks, Frank, for this, a scene from Double Indemnity in which Raymond Chandler appears. It is fifty years since Chandler died and sixty-five years since this great film - script by Chandler from a James M.Cain novel, directed by Billy Wilder - was released. I have watched this movie dozens of time. The sheer perfection is overpowering and addictive. It has
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 06/05/2009
Adrian Wootton on a writer's secret cameo This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of legendary American crime scribe Raymond Chandler, whose seven completed novels, including The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye profoundly changed crime fiction and crime movies. The success of his novels - The Big Sleep was first to be published in 1939 - led Chandler to try his hand at...
New York Times (Free subscription) | 05/01/2009
With “Three Monkeys,” Nuri Bilge Ceylan trains his cool, detached sensibility on a ripe and pulpy melodrama that might have originated in a James M. Cain novel.
Baltimore Sun (Free subscription) | 04/05/2009
Get pithy, get cynical, get noir in honor of anniversary of author's death O n March 26, the literary world marked the 50th anniversary of Raymond Chandler's death. The author of The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely was, along with Marylanders Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, a creator of the cynical, hard-edged private eye. His characters knew that politicians had something to hide, cops were...
Only The Cinema (Free subscription) | 02/28/2009
Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice , adapted from the James M. Cain novel of the same name, is film noir boiled down to its rawest essence. Its plot is frankly preposterous, twisty and packed with one absurd contrivance after another, and yet there's something strangely irresistible about this odd, emotionally draining roller coaster ride. This is a noir where everything is increasingly centered...
Crime Always Pays (Free subscription) | 02/27/2009
Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ... What crime novel would you most like to have written? DOUBLE INDEMNITY, by James M. Cain. Lean, mean, spare despair. To those who have only seen the splendid Billy Wilder film, you still have a treat in store and a surprise or two. What fictional character would you most like to have been? George...
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
• Picking up on my Rap Sheet post of the other day, in which I compiled the front covers of different editions of Turn on the Heat, by A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner), blogger-author Patti Abbott has done the same thing with jackets from James M. Cain’s Serenade, a novel originally published in 1937. You can see her collection here. If anyone else would like to tag onto this meme, please...
Dark Party Review (Free subscription) | 12/12/2008
The First Sentences of 12 Classic Mystery & Crime Novels The Postman Always Rings Twice By James M. Cain “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” The Pale Horse By Agatha Christie “The espresso machine behind my shoulder hissed like an angry snake.” Flynn’s In By Gregory McDonald “Flynn answered the telephone saying, ‘I’ll tell him when he come...
The Rap Sheet (Free subscription) | 11/21/2008
Wow! It seems there’s a real bumper crop of terrific “forgotten books” choices spreading over the Web today. Not only do we have Simon Wood’s pick of A Clubbable Woman on this page, but elsewhere you’ll find write-ups about Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain; The Last Man Standing, by Jim Wright; The Dada Caper, by Ross H. Spencer (man, I remember laughing my way through...
Dialogic (Free subscription) | 11/08/2008
Pulp Fiction To the Best of Our Knowledge (Wisconsin Public Radio) SEGMENT 1: Nelson Algren reads from his book "Chicago, City on the Make." And, Studs Terkel tells Steve Paulson why his friend Nelson Algren is one of America's great literary secrets. Among Terkel's latest books is "Hope Dies Last." Also, Neda Ulaby, NPR reporter and cultural critic, talks with Jim Fleming about...
Metroblogging Los Angeles (Free subscription) | 10/29/2008
WHAT: Esotouric’s The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare tour WHEN: Saturday November 8, 12pm-4pm WHERE: Departing from Philippe The Original, 1001 Alameda, LA COST: $58/person (15% off for KCRW or KPCC members, or save $39 on any three of five Esotouric Noir November Saturday tours with a $135 pass) INFO: http://www.esotouric.com, 323-223-2767
DVD Talk (Free subscription) | 09/27/2008
Skip It Or Make Room for Daddy . Industrial Entertainment has released for the first time on DVD, Butterfly , the notorious 1982 Pia Zadora-starrer based on James M. Cain's incest novel, The Butterfly , with Stacy Keach, Orson Welles (in his last screen appearance), Lois Nettleton, Edward Albert, Stuart Whitman, James Franciscus, and Ed McMahon (hi-oooooh!) along for the ride. If the title sounds...
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