Thu 20 May 2010
Mike Nevins on CORNUCOPIA OF CRIME, Cornell Woolrich, Cameron Kay, Johnny Staccato & more.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Columns[8] Comments
by Francis M. Nevins
My apologies for the delay between columns. I was on the road for two and a half weeks, when I wasn’t traveling, proofreading my next book took up all my writing time.
Cornucopia of Crime, which Ramble House will be doing, will probably run about 450 closely printed pages when the index is finished. It will bring together a ton of long and short pieces I’ve written about mystery writers over the past 40-odd years, including some bits from this column.
The cover is by New Zealander Gavin O’Keefe, and as anyone can see from the attached image, it’s a knockout.
Part of my recent week in New York I spent at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where Fred Dannay’s papers are archived, looking into whether Fred had saved anything written to him by Cornell Woolrich that I wasn’t already aware of.
My most interesting find was a brief undated note that accompanied Woolrich’s last story.”Just consider it on its merits, like you always have all stories,” he wrote. “Don’t feel sorry; I’ve had it better than most guys. I’d like one last publication, before I kiss it off. I’m a writer to the end. And glad I was one.”
Clearly the story accompanying this note was “New York Blues,” which Fred purchased in May or June of 1967 but didn’t publish in EQMM until the December 1970 issue, more than two years after Woolrich’s death.
There’s a penciled note on Woolrich’s covering letter which looks to me like Fred’s handwriting and suggests an alternate title for the story, one I actually like more than Woolrich’s: “The Last Hours.”
In the end, of course, Fred went with Woolrich’s title.
Stopping off in Cincinnati on the way home from my little odyssey, I happened upon a nice copy of Thieves Fall Out (Gold Medal pb #311, 1953), an obscure paperback original bearing the byline of Cameron Kay, which has never been seen on any other book before or since.
The true author? Gore Vidal. It’s an ordinary little number, set in Egypt in the days of King Farouk, with minimal action or suspense and not a bit of the satiric wit that enlivened the three whodunits Vidal wrote as Edgar Box during the same time period.
Among all the TV private eye series of the Fifties and Sixties that never caught on and were quickly cancelled, perhaps the finest was Johnny Staccato (NBC, 1959-60), starring John Cassavetes as a jazz pianist who makes ends meet by working as an apparently unlicensed PI.
Even in my late teens the music of my life was classical music, but I was still very fond of this series in first run and watched it from the first episode to the 27th and last.
Half a century later I’ve found the complete series on DVD and it’s still first-rate: evocative streets-of-New-York photography, fine performances (guests included Michael Landon, Martin Landau, Gena Rowlands, Elizabeth Montgomery, Elisha Cook and Mary Tyler Moore), excellent direction (with five episodes helmed by Cassavetes himself), offbeat scripts (including some by Fifties PI novelist Henry Kane), and of course tons of jazz, with a young hepcat then known as Johnny and later as John Williams—like yeah, man, that John Williams— doing the honors on piano.
The series must have been planned as a sort of Peter Gunn clone but turned out quite different, mainly, I think, because the cool-jazz sound of Gunn was replaced by a hotter, more passionate music style.
Something I read recently (I won’t say where) suggested to me that there ought to be an annual award for most eye-popping boner in or about mystery fiction. My first candidate for this honor, who shall remain nameless, wrote of Nero Wolfe that he “tended a rose garden on his roof….”
Ouch! That’s a thorn from one of those roses.
May 20th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Mike, your next book, CORNUCOPIA OF CRIME, sounds interesting. I hope you will have copies available at PulpFest in Columbus, Ohio.
I agree absolutely about JOHNNY STACCATO, an excellent TV series with a nice jazz background. It’s available on bootleg dvds.
May 20th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
As I understand it, various publishing worthies have approached Gore Vidal about reprinting THIEVES FALL OUT. Apparently, he’s adamant about keeping the book out of circulation.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
I never had much patience with Cassavettes performance in anything else (if he had been any worse in Don Siegel’s THE KILLERS he would have fallen asleep on film), but JOHNNY STACCATO was different, and somehow caught that jazz vibe perfectly. Wasn’t there also a STACCATO LP released?
Frank Boyd, who wrote the novelization was Frank Kane of the Johnny Liddel series and wrote numerous episodes of the Darren McGavin MIKE HAMMER series — which Henry Kane also wrote one episode of as he did STACCATO.
Henry Kane also wrote screenplays for two films based on novels by Ed McBain, THE MUGGER, and COP HATER.
Mediocre or not, a ‘lost’ Gore Vidal is worth checking out (and a Gold Medal to boot), thanks for the tip. The three Edgar Box novels were great fun, and, despite their topical nature, still worth reading.
Fred Dannay changing someone’s title? Say it ain’t so. Of course that makes for half the fun trying to track down stories that appeared in EQMM. All editors and publications do it, but it was virtually a mania at EQMM.
In this case I would agree the Dannay title was better, they often were, but it can make for some frustrating hunts for some stories.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Walker
Mike told me that he will be coming to PulpFest, but also, alas:
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Cornucopia were available by then? But I wouldn’t count on it.”
May 20th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
I wonder if there’s any chance the JOHNNY STACCATO series will ever be released on commercial DVD. I think it would sell, but what do I know about that?
There’s also the problem of getting rights. I have a set of the bootleg DVDs also, which are OK, but they could stand some improvement.
I found a blog with some photos taken from the series. Take a look. If you’re either a jazz fan or a mystery fan, how could you resist seeing more?
http://likedreamsville.blogspot.com/2010/02/beats-on-tv-johnny-staccato.html
And to David, yes, there is indeed a STACCATO LP. For the cover and a track listing, go here:
http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=18797
— Steve
May 21st, 2010 at 12:29 am
Not a big Cassavetes fan–especially not a fan of the films he directed all of which I find unbelievably actor-indulgent. (Hmmm…I seem to have coined an awkward film studies term of art there.)
That being said I too liked him as “Johnny Staccato” growing up.
And I enjoyed his performances in THE DIRTY DOZEN and particularly his turn as Guy Woodhouse in ROSEMARY’S BABY. Interesting that other than Staccato, I only liked him as a murderous psychopath, and as an actor who sells his soul and wife to the Devil for fame…
May 21st, 2010 at 7:07 am
CULT RETRO’S TV CLASSIC DETECTIVE SERIES (9 VOLUMES) features five episodes per DVD of classic late fifties and early sixties private eyes and cops including RICHARD DIAMOND, 77 SUNSET STRIP, JOHNNY STACCATO, MARKHAM (Ray Milland), PETER GUNN, MR. LUCKY, SHANNON (George Nader), PETER GUNN, THE DETECTIVES, NAKED CITY, HONEY WEST, TIGHTROPE, HAWAIIAN EYE, the Darren McGavin MIKE HAMMER, and others. These have been remastered and in most cases a bit better looking than some copies I’ve seen. They also feature the pilot film for Frank Gruber’s SIMON LASH with Jock Mahoney, and other extras.
It’s an attractive product and reasonably priced considering some effort has been made to restore them. They also carry classic serials such as the DICK TRACY series form Republic, HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS, THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL,SPY SMASHER, and many more. And some films of their own based on Bill Black’s good girl art comics FEMFORCE and THE RETURN OF NYOKA JUNGLE GIRL.
All in all a nice collection.
October 14th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
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