Movie Themes: Chisum, Hallelujah Trail, Dirty Dingus Magee

 .

Here's a movie theme Triple Feature. What are your favorite Western themes? I'll feature any I can in future posts.

Chisum

The Hallelujah Trail

Dirty Dingus Magee

Sam Spade: The Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail Caper

Sam's back, this time teamed up with a detective named Crockett - Fritz Crockett, whom Davy assures me is no relation. Crockett promises Sam a hundred bucks to wear a rabbit suit. Trouble ensues. From Dec. 4, 1949. Enjoy.

The Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail Caper Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Visit our Sam Spade Archives:
The Stopped Watch Caper
The Apple of Eve Caper
The Prodigal Daughter Caper
The Battles of Belvedere Caper
The Vaphio Cup Caper
The Betrayal in Bumpass Hell Caper
The Bow Window Caper
The Adam Figg Caper
The Calcutta Trunk Caper 

(click to enlarge)

Forgotten Books: Murder Wears a Halo by John Evans/Howard Browne

.

This book was published in 1997 by Gryphon Books (in what I assume was a small print run) and promptly forgotten. But that was the second time it had been forgotten.

“Murder Wears a Halo” made its first appearance in the Feb. 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective, then lay wasting away for 53 years before Gryphon got hold of it.

Why? I’m not sure.

Howard Browne is fondly remembered for his four Chandleresque Paul Pine novels (Halo in Blood, Halo for Satan, and Halo in Brass by John Evans, and The Taste of Ashes under his own name). Among his other novels is If You Have Tears, which he once referred to as his “James M. Cain book”.  Well, I’d have to call Murder Wears a Halo his James M. Cain/Erle Stanley Gardner book.

For the first half the novel, Browne is in Cain mode. Chicago pulp writer and nightclub denizen Don Hearn meets 18-year-old Loa, lovely, innocent, and straight off the farm, who is obsessed with writers - and he in turn becomes obsessed with her. Their relationship is on-again/off-again, and Loa goes out with other guys, but that’s really all that happens. No crimes are committed. There isn’t even a mystery.

Then, precisely at the mid-point, everything changes. Another writer (who writes for the slicks) is killed, and Hearn and Loa take a backseat to a Perry Mason-like attorney named Edicott Overend (End Overend).  The rest of the book is a Mason-style courtroom drama.

Both halves of the book are good. Browne’s writing is tight, smart and consistently entertaining. I read the whole thing in a day, and my attention never flagged.

But what makes this novel really special is that the narrator is a pulp writer. How many books can you name, written by a top-notch pulp writer, where the hero is also a pulp writer?

The first half of the book (the Cain half) is packed with pulp talk. Don Hearn talks to the reader about his writing, he and his friends talk writing, and when the girl Loa comes along, he discovers the subject of writing makes her dreamy-eyed - so he talks about writing even more.

Some of the pulp talk is clever and thinly disguised. Hearn sells a couple of stories (“Blood on the Sun” and “Sunken Sub”) to a mag called Argonaux. At one point the shows Loa a copy of Sleuth Stories, “a Green Star weekly of the Mooney line,” where his story “Death in Brass” is featured on the cover. The cover blurb reads “Also stories by Hugh Sale, Burt B. Cave, Richard Collier and others” (I’ll let you transpose those for yourself). Later, he sells a story called “Guns Along the Hudson” to Mammoth Detective, and mentions other real writers and magazines, so the line between fiction and reality is blurred. 

But that’s not all.

When Loa starts asking serious questions about writing, Don Hearn holds forth on the business of being a pulp writer. And while this is technically a fictional character talking, it’s clear Howard Browne is giving us the real lowdown on what it’s like, and what it takes to write for the pulps.

At the time this story appeared in Mammoth Detective, Browne was assistant editor for the magazine (a novelette, featuring series character Wilbur Peddie, skip tracer, appeared in the same issue under Browne’s name). He also had editorial duties at Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.  So when it came to pulps, he knew what he was talking about.

For those of you who’ve read this far, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that this book is not easy to come by. There are a few copies offered on the ‘net, but I didn’t see one for less than $35. I don’t own a copy myself. I read the story in Mammoth.

The good news is . . . there’s enough serious pulp talk here to put together a short memoir/how to piece of Howard Browne's views on writing for the pulps. So early next week (look for it Monday or Tuesday) I’ll be posting a thing called “Howard Browne on Pulp Writing”, all culled from Murder Wears a Halo.  See you there, I hope.

P.S. Does anyone know where/why Browne got this fascination with "Halo" titles? This story predates the three Paul Pine "Halo" books. And I have another Mammoth with a novelette called "Halo 'Round My Head", also predating Pine. The mystery is - I found no reference to a halo in Murder Wears a Halo. I suppose the girl Loa could be thought of as angelic, but the point is never pressed. The title just seems to make no sense.

(click to enlarge)

For links to this week's other Forgotten Books, see Patti  Abbot's pattinase.

Meme: Five Favorite Internet Stores

.
Laurie Powers started this one yesterday - What are your five favorite internet stores (other than Amazon)? Well, here they are, in no particular order:

GEMM
When I'm hunting hard-to-find vinyl or CDs, such as "Be Sure You're Right/Old Betsy" by Jimmie Dodd or "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" by Steve Allen (yep, the old talk show guy), this is where I start. They claim to have listings of 30 million records and CDs from thousands of dealers around the world. I haven't counted them, but there are a lot.

LULU
All sorts of amazing publications find a home on Lulu. Of special interest to me: Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective collections by Robert Leslie Bellem - and reprints of the rare Lone Ranger pulp novels. It's also one source for the great Express Westerns anthology Where Legends Ride, and the upcoming A Fistful of Legends (available Jan. 31).

ADVENTURE HOUSE
Every so often I go on a pulp reprint bender, and there are two places I look. One of those is John Gunnison's Adventure House. In addition to carrying great stuff from other publishers, John has had his own line of reprints going for over ten years. My favorite of his publications is High Adventure. The latest issue (#109!) features H. Bedford-Jones.

THE VINTAGE LIBRARY
Vintage Library carries a lot of the same books as Adventure House, but also has a selection of pulp-related OTR and movies - plus a selection of rare books and stories available for download. Where else could you find The Race Williams novels of Carroll John Daly?

POWELL'S BOOKS
This may be cheating. I have ordered by mail from this site, but since I'm lucky enough to have the largest new & used bookstore in the country right here in Portland, I use the site mainly to check their stock, then visit the branch with the book I want or have it brought out from one of their warehouses. (The Strand in NYC claims to be the America's largest, but I checked it out last year. You could fit four Strands inside the main Powell's store.)

Meming on... I'd be interested in what my fellow Owlhoots Cap'n Bob Napier, Bill Crider and James Reasoner have to say on the subject.

Western Roundup: SWNN 18 by Cap'n Bob Napier, A Fistful of Legends, More!

THE STORY WITH NO NAME
OWLHOOT editor (and celebrated mystery writer) Robert S. Napier brings a touch of old-time religion to Part 18 of the round-robin Story With No Name this week on The Cap'n's Blog. Parts 1-16 of this thrilling saga have been assembled on The Culbin Trail, and Part 17 appears on Open Range. Watch for next week's installment, penned by Richard Prosch, on Meridian Bridge.

A FISTFUL OF LEGENDS
Express Western's follow-up anthology to Where Legends Ride takes another step forward with the announcement it will be available for online purchase on January 31. For more info see The Culbin Trail and Writealot. Still more details, including the cover art, will be released Dec. 12.

ONLINE FICTION
Another fine tale in the Haxan series by Kenneth Mark Hoover has popped up on The Western Online. And Frontier Tales Magazine has new stories by Kathi Sprayberry and Elmer Fralick, Jr. Check them out!

WESTERN MOVIE HISTORY
Laurie Powers' fascinating "Movies in the Santa Clara Valley" series is at 11 chapters and counting on Laurie's Wild West.

SHERLOCK HOLMES MEETS CALAMITY JANE?
Howard Hopkins fills us in on his upcoming crossover story on Dark Bits.

BOOK REVIEWS
Duane Spurlock turns in a fine review of David Robbin's "Ralph Compton" novel For the Brand over at Spur & Lock.  And in the past week alone, Steve M has posted reviews of books by James Reasoner, David Thompson, Billy Hall and Bill Williams at Western Fiction Review.

ARE YOU AN OWLHOOT?
As mentioned a couple weeks back, the Old West APA (amateur press association) OWLHOOT is open to new members. Now preparing for its 30th issue, OWLHOOT is a quarterly publication featuring wide-ranging discussions of all things West: Books, movies, TV, pulps, history, OTR, comics, music and more. And it's done the old fashioned way - in print. Each member prints their own pages (a minimum of four for every other mailing) and mails them to Cap'n Bob Napier, who assembles the issue and mails it back. The current roster includes: Fred Blosser, Bill Crider, Paul Dellinger, Frank Denton, Dale Goble, Jim Griffin, A.P. McQuiddy, Richard Moore, Bob Napier, James Reasoner, Thom Walls and me, and with #30 we're pleased to welcome Laurie Powers and Richard Prosch.  Interested? Comment here or shoot me an email.

NaNoWriMo Bites the Dust

Yeah, I whipped its butt, along with about 30,000 other maniacs.

I topped the 50,000 word mark yesterday afternoon, and it took me another 1,126 to reach a semi-satisfying conclusion.

What that really got me, other than exhaustion, a lot of eyestrain and a print-it-yourself winner's certificate, remains to be seen. Some of those 51,126 words are good, some are bad, some indifferent. They'll have to sit a while before I sort them out, but it feels good to have them in the can.

I definitely have a better feel for plot. No matter how many books I read on it, how many chronological charts I looked at, or how many outlines I made, plot structure was nothing more than an idea until I got my hands around its neck and mashed it into an actual manuscript. 

I became more focused. There wasn't time to wait for ideal writing conditions, so I made do with what I had. I already alluded to writing 700 words while cooking macoroni and cheese. Well, last week I popped out 500 during the commercials of Ugly Betty. If this thing had gone another week I'd probably be writing while cleaning the litter box.

I've done a lot of whining about eyestrain. It really was pretty bad, but I'm sure it didn't help that yesterday, the last day of NaNoWriMo, I also read all 30-odd stories in the Walmart Flash Fiction Challenge (I couldn't resist - and they were all good!). Staring at the computer monitor almost most makes me long for those olden days of typewriter and paper. Almost.

I feel I should be writing right now, and I'm probably right. But I ain't going to. I'm going to put the computer on hibernate and read a good old-fashioned book. But thanks to NaNoWriMo, I'll probably feel a little guilty about it. And that's probably good.

Walmart Flash Fiction Challenge: Skyler Hobbs and the Rollback Bandit

This story has been removed because it now appears in the Untreed Reads ebook collection Discount Noir. Buy it HERE!

The Art of Raymond Chandler: Finger Man

A number of Raymond Chandler's works made their first paperback appearance in Avon books, and the covers were always stunning. This one is by Lionel Gelb. Finger Man and Other Stories (yeah, I know the cover says "The", but on the title page it's gone), published in 1946, includes the title story and "Smart-Aleck Kill" from Black Mask, "The Simple Art of Murder" from Atlantic Monthly, and "The Bronze Door" from Unknown. The text of "Finger Man" and "Smart-Aleck Kill" in this volume may differ from other versions now in print. Chandler is said to have revised several of his stories for the 1950 hardcover collection The Simple Art of Murder.