KILL ME AGAIN. 1989. Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Michael Madsen. Screenwriters: John Dahl & David W. Warfield. Director: John Dahl.

   Whee-oooh! For fans of modern noir drama, this movie will take you for quite a ride. Flawed though it may be, there are scenes in this movie that seem to come straight from those beloved yellowed old Gold Medal paperbacks from the 1950s, updated only a little – and thinking back, perhaps not even at all.

   Jack Andrews, played by Val Kilmer, is one of those down-at-the-heels Reno private eyes who exist only in fiction, who’s hired by a beautiful client to take on a slightly illegal job for her. The client, Fay Forrester (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), claims that she is on the run from a former boy friend who’s stalking her and that police cannot do anything about it with no solid evidence that he means her harm.

   Her solution? To have Jack create a murder scene, with herself as the victim, so that she can take on a new identity and start a new life. She does not mention that she has a small suitcase in her possession filled with hundred dollar bills, and the “boy friend” is her former partner in crime, Vince Miller, played to perfect psychopathic perfection by Michael Madsen.

   As it so happens, Jack has some seriously due gambling debts – so seriously that he has a broken little finger to show for it – and after thinking over for all of a minute and a half – not to mention that Faye is seriously beautiful – he agrees to take the job.

   I forgot to mention the mob from whom Vince and Fay have stolen the money, nor have I said anything about the rock that Fay bashed over Vince’s head when she made her departure from him. Neither one will take their losses sitting down – neither the mob, nor Vince.

   The murder scene that Jack creates is only moderately successful, and when he catches up with Fay again – yes, figure that out – they both find that their trail has not been terribly difficult to follow. Hence the title, and I wouldn’t have told you quite so much about the story if I hadn’t have thought that the title needed an explanation.

   Beautifully photographed in color rather than black and white, the movie still manages to demonstrate its noir roots in shadows and shading and even broad daylight. Nicely done, and there are some nice twists to the tale that I have not been even close to telling you about.

   Flaws? There may be a twist or two too many for some, but they worked for me, all but perhaps the very last one. (I’m still thinking that one over.) Michael Madsen plays lunatic madmen as well as anybody, and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer is not only savagely beautiful, with curves galore, but she is (or her character is) also seriously loopy in the head. You can almost hear the wheels moving in her mind, with a lusty gleam in her eyes, whenever she’s contemplating her next course of action.

   Val Kilmer, on the other hand, seems to be the only one not seriously up to his part. His face is too innocent, too much of choir boy’s, to be first of all, a down-at-the-heels Reno private eye who exist only in fiction. That he’d get caught up in the grip of lust for Fay Forrester goes without saying – or is only interested in the money – or is he trying for both? His facial expressions do not give it away, which in some sense is good, but after a while you begin to wonder as you start to realize that he only has two or three facial expressions to give.

   An almost forgettable flaw, perhaps, but perhaps not, and I thought I’d better warn you. All in all, I thought the movie was terrific, or mostly so, but there are others who don’t. My recommendation: Don’t listen to them.

   Having cleaned and sorted out half of the garage earlier this winter, I’m now tackling the boxes of books that have been stored in the basement for several years. One of these happened to be filled with gothic romances, and what you see below are the bits of information that will show up in the next installment of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. (Consider this a sneak preview.)

ARLISS, JOEN. Pseudonym of Ian Martin, q.v. Under this pen name, none under his own name, the author of five gothic or romantic suspense novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, all published in a short period of two years, 1979 to 1980. Series character Kate Graham appears in two of them, both of them published in the Zebra Mystery Puzzler series. (The last chapters of books in this series were sealed to keep the solutions from being read too early.)
      Shadow Over Seventh Heaven. Popular Library, pb, 1980. Add setting: California (Big Sur area).

BAKER, W. J. Pseudonym: John Churchward, q.v.

BRONTE, LOUISA. Pseudonym of Janet Louise Roberts, 1925-1984, q.v.
      Lord Satan. Avon, pb, 1972. Setting: England; 1815. Add: reprinted as by Janet Louise Roberts (Pocket, 1979).

CHURCHWARD, JOHN. Pseudonym of W. J. Baker, q.v. Under this pen name, none under his own, the author of one novel previously included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. To this title, add the one indicated by an asterisk (*) below.
      The Rainbow Deaths. New English Library, UK, hc, 1977. “A secret agent finds a super weapon and plot to overthrow the government in rural English village.”
      * What Beck’ning Ghost? New English Library, UK, hc, 1975. US title: What Beckoning Ghost? (Berkley, 1977) Setting: England. [A ghost story spanning over a hundred years in time, with murder at the root.]
      _What Beckoning Ghost? Berkley, US, pb, 1977. See What Beck’ning Ghost?

DANTON, REBECCA. Pseudonym of Janet Louise Roberts, 1925-1984, q.v.
      Black Horse Tavern. Popular Library, pb, 1972. Add: reprinted as by Janet Louise Roberts (Pocket, 1980). Add setting: Boston; 1773.

DEVON, LYNN. Pseudonym of David A. Kaufelt, 1939- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of one romantic suspense novel included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. See below.
      Jade. Gold Medal, pb, 1978. Add setting: Long Island, NY [Sag(g) Harbor]; 1850.
[ “…a beautiful young bride [is] abandoned on her wedding night.” ]

KAUFELT, DAVID A(LLAN). 1939- . Pseudonym: Lynn Devon, q.v. Under his own name, the author of five novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, including three with series character Wynsome “Wyn” Lewis, a real-estate broker living on Long Island.

MARTIN, IAN. Pseudonyn: Joen Arliss, q.v.

ØVSTEDAL, BARBARA KATHLEEN. 1925- . Pseudonyms: Barbara Paul, q.v.; Barbara Douglas & Rosalind Laker.

PAUL, BARBARA. Pseudonym of Barbara Kathleen Øvstedal, 1925- , q.v.; other pseudonyms Barbara Douglas & Rosalind Laker. Under this pen name, none under her own, the author of four romantic suspense novels included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. [Note: This Barbara Paul is not the same author as American mystery writer Barbara (Jeanne) Paul, 1931- , who wrote the “Sgt. Marian Larch” detective novels, among many others.]
      The Seventeenth Stair. Macdonald, UK, hc, 1975. St. Martin’s, US, hc, 1975. Setting: France; add to setting: past (appears to be late 1800s: reference to carriages, steam-packets and tram rails). [The cover show is that of the Ballantine paperback reprint.]

ROBERTS, JANET LOUISE. 1925-1984. Pseudonyms: Louisa Bronte, Rebecca Danton & Janette Radcliffe. Under her several pen names and her own, the author of many gothic and romantic suspense novels. [A short profile of this author, including a complete bibliography, appears earlier on the Mystery*File blog.]
      _Black Horse Tavern. Pocket, pb, 1980. Add as a new title under this byline; previously published (Pop. Library, 1972) as by Rebecca Danton, q.v. Setting: Boston; 1773.
      _Lord Satan. Pocket, pb, 1979. Add as a new title under this byline; previously published (Avon, 1974) as by Louisa Bronte, q.v.

ROSS, CLARISSA. Pseudonym of W. E. D. Ross, 1912-1995, q.v.; other pseudonyms Laura Frances Brooks, Lydia Colby, Rose Dana, Jan Daniels, Diane Randall, Ellen Randolph, Dan Ross, Dana Ross & Marilyn Ross. Under this pen name, the author of some 45 novels cited in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, most of them gothics or romantic suspense fiction.
      Jade Princess. Correction: Delete the opening “The.” Pyramid, pb, 1977. Setting: Hong Kong.

ROSS, W(ILLIAM) E(DWARD) D(ANIEL). 1912-1995. Pseudonym: Clarissa Ross, q.v.; other pseudonyms: Laura Frances Brooks, Lydia Colby, Rose Dana, Jan Daniels, Diane Randall, Ellen Randolph, Dan Ross, Dana Ross & Marilyn Ross. Prolific author of many books included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV, most of them published as gothic or romantic suspense novels.

SALVATO, SHARON ANN (née JOSEPH). 1938- . Author of at least six novels under her own name, three of which are included in the (Revised) Crime Fiction IV. The first two listed below are gothic romances, the third historical fiction. Four additional historical romances were written with Cornelia M. Parkinson as Day Taylor.
      Briarcliff Manor. Stein & Day, hc, 1974. Setting: New York. Add to setting: 1867. [Shown is the cover of the Dell paperback reprint.]

      The Meredith Legacy. Stein & Day, hc, 1975.
      Scarborough House. Stein & Day, hc, 1975. Collins, UK, hc, 1976.

LAWRENCE BLOCK – Mona

Gold Medal s1085. Paperback original; 1st printing, February 1961. [Reprinted in paperback as Sweet Slow Death (Jove, August 1986), as Mona (Carroll & Graf, 1994), and as Grifters Game (Hard Case Crime, 2004). Hardcover reprint as Mona: Five Star, 1999.]

   All my sources seem to indicate that this was Block’s first mystery novel, and you may have some trouble finding a copy. Mine is pretty well battered, but it’s the only one I’ve ever come across.

   Is it worth looking for? No, not if you’re a Michael Innes fan, say. Yes, if you enjoy your crime fiction both smooth and tough. It’s a familiar story — a smart alecky con man meets a girl he could love and leave, but he does and he doesn’t, and he ends up trying to get away with murder. The husband is an obstacle, you see, but he’s a crook, it turns out, which helps…

   But what about those last two chapters? Block suddenly jabs the reader with a bit of cruel desperation not expected even of his amoral but likable hero. Maybe crime is a dirty business, after all.    [B minus]

[UPDATE] 02-16-08.   Also published under Block’s own name in 1961 were Death Pulls a Doublecross (Gold Medal, Sept 1961) and The Case of the Pornographic Photos (Belmont). I don’t have a copy of the latter, I have just discovered, but since Mona came out in February, I am 99.99% sure that the first half of my first statement is correct, with only one possible reservation:

   There may have been a book published under a pseudonym that came earlier, one of those paperbacks considered sleazy at the time, but reprinted more recently by a line such as Hard Case Crime and considered respectable now, and rightfully so.

   But why don’t I have a copy of The Case of the Pornographic Photos? It was a paperback based on the PI character Roy Markham who had a TV show of his own called Markham. It was on ABC during the 1959-60 season, and I never saw it once. Ray Milland played Markham, and the book was reprinted later by Foul Play Press as You Could Call It Murder. For some strange reason, I don’t seem to have a copy of that one either.

   To get back to my first statement, the second half, it is no longer true that you will have trouble finding a copy of this book, as it has been reprinted so many times now that it has to be considered a classic in noir literature, the so-so letter grade that I assigned to it notwithstanding.

   One more thing. I’m going to quote Curt Purcell as to something he said on the rara-avis Yahoo group about three of Lawrence Block’s early books, Grifter’s Game, The Girl with the Long Green Heart and Lucky with Cards, all available under these titles from Hard Case Crime: “… in each of these three stories, the grifter debates how best to part the rich guy from his money and put him out of the way, and each time he arrives at a solution he rejects in the other two.”

   Now that’s pretty neat, isn’t it? (You can read my review of Lucky at Cards here.)

LUCIEN AGNIEL – Code Name: “Icy”

Paperback Library 63-310; paperback original, May 1970.

   Of the three books I have by Mr. Agniel, none are copyright in his name, only by either Coronet Publications, who owned Paperback Library, or Warner Brothers. (More about the latter in a minute.) That’s usually a fairly broad hint that the author didn’t exist, that it was a pen name or, more likely, a house name.

   Not so in this case. First of all, and I just noticed this, my copy of Code Name: “Icy” has a handwritten inscription on the first inside blurb page, dedicating the book to Elizabeth. I’ll refrain from repeating the entire inscription. It’s not embarrassing, but I think it should remain private.

   Then, looking in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, we find not only dates for Mr. Lucien (1919-1988), but a note that he’s included in Contemporary Authors. Pulling up the CA web page, I found that Elizabeth was his first wife, who died in 1973.

   Over the years Lucien Agniel served in World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star, among other honors; worked for the Charlotte News, the US Information Agency, Radio Free Europe, and US News and World Report, among other jobs and occupations.

   There are two books listed in CFIV for Mr. Agniel, this one in hand, plus Pressure Point, also from Paperback Library (November, 1970). Arguably there should be another, and I will send the suggestion on to Al in my next email to him: a book entitled Zeppelin (Paperback Library; May 1971), an adaptation of the Warner Brothers movie of the same title.

   I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, starring Michael York and Elke Sommer, but since I haven’t, I looked up the story line on IMBD, which reads as follows: [An allied spy who has pretended to defect to Germany in World War I] “finds himself aboard the maiden voyage of a powerful new prototype Zeppelin, headed for Scotland on a secret mission that could decide the outcome of the war.”

   Most of Code Name: “Icy” takes place in Paris, where the paths of the following characters converge: Eric Eis, an East German assassin who is working with the Russians but who apparently is a former American soldier presumably dead but whose body was never recovered. Fred Sherman of the CIA, who has received an anonymous letter reporting that Eric Hendricks, an American deserter, is still alive; Dr. Richard Hendricks of St. Louis, the brother of the man presumed dead; “Gloria,” who sent the anonymous letter to Fred Sherman; and Nicole, of Birmingham, England, working as a gold-digging stripper in a Parisian night spot, and whom Fred Sherman appears to becoming excessively fond of.

   There is one other incidental participant in the tale, one unnamed, but suitably snooty President of France. It will come as no surprise that he survives. None of the others’ plan work out exactly as they had planned, however, except perhaps Nicole’s.

   All in all, a rather modest affair, one that can be read in a couple of nights before turning off the light. Fred Sherman seems a fairly sappy guy for a CIA agent at first, but he redeems himself reasonably well toward the end. A quick skim through Pressure Point doesn’t turn up his name as an active participant, so it looks like this was his one and only outing – the only one worth recording in book form, that is.

   Following the recent review I posted of Catch a Killer, by Ursula Curtiss, also known as The Noonday Devil, a lengthy discussion has developed between Juri Nummelin and myself in the comments section.

   Part of the conversation deals with “female noir” as a subcategory of crime fiction — what is it and what books might qualify — and specifically if that’s what Ursula Curtiss’s early books might be called.

   And where do “gothic romances” fit into the picture, if at all?

L A. CONFIDENTIAL. Unsold television pilot, 2003. Keifer Sutherland, Josh Hopkins, Melissa George, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Eric Roberts. Director: Eric Laneuville. Based on the novel by James Ellroy.

   Filmed in 1999, says IMDB, as part of a deal with HBO in 2000 as the first installment of a 13-part mini-series. When that didn’t happen, Fox took interest, but in the end, they also turned it down. Their loss, and ours.

   The date 2003, by the way, is when the cable network Trio finally aired it as part of a long marathon of similar bankrupt and cancelled projects.

   I’ve not read the book, which is number three in Ellroy’s series of 1950s L.A.-based novels: The Black Dahlia was the first; number two was The Big Nowhere; and the fourth was White Jazz. I’ve also not seen the full-length movie version of L. A. Confidential (1997), a huge gap or gaffe on my part (take your pick), but at least you can say that this review of the TV version is unbiased in terms of any sort of comparisons, or any other kind of useful information.

   This TV film, all that was ever made, is only 50 minutes long, and it ends with a large TO BE CONTINUED across the screen. Just as all of the pieces were coming together! Utter frustration.

   Keifer Sutherland, not yet a 24-carat star, is Det.-Sgt. Jack Vincennes in this one, the role played by Kevin Spacey in the film. Melissa George is would-be movie starlet Lynn Bracken, played by Kim Basinger in the movie. I could go on and on like this, but the TV version is not the same story as the earlier version (or so I’m told), but essentially a different (and ultimately longer) adaptation of the book, produced and created by men with different ideas, limitations and goals in mind.

   Basic story: Vincennes, having killed an innocent man during a drug bust gone bad, tries to make up for it by anonymously sending money to the dead man’s widow. This means that he needs more money than he makes, which means in turn that he has to go on the take. Not a good idea when Internal Affairs is watching, not to mention the editor and publisher of Hush Hush Magazine.

   The TV version is visually striking in color, but in terms of overall production values, I doubt that it holds up in that regard to the movie. Note to self: watch the movie, and report back.

[UPDATE]   I haven’t found any images to add to this review, but for as long as it’s there, you can watch this short pilot online in five parts, beginning with http://www.truveo.com/Part-1of-5-LA-Confidential-TV-pilot-Kiefer/id/1356656397

[UPDATE #2] 03-07-12. As suspected, the video above is no longer there. See the comments, though, for information as to how to find a copy.

URSULA CURTISS – Catch a Killer.

Pocket 940; 1st pr., June 1953. Hardcover edition: Dodd Mead, 1951, as The Noonday Devil.

   It’s my guess that every time one of Ursula Curtiss’s books is reviewed today, it begins with the observation that her mother was mystery writer Helen Reilly, and that her sister was mystery writer Mary McMullen. (And equally obviously, I’m no exception.)

   It must have been in the genes, but during the time when all three were actively writing (Reilly from 1930 to 1962; Curtiss from 1948 to 1985, with a posthumous collection of short stories; and McMullen from 1951 to 1986), do you suppose that anyone ever asked them what was in the water they were drinking?

   While Helen Reilly had a series detective who appeared in most of her books – Inspector McKee of Manhattan Homicide – Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, from all I know, gained largely from reading about them, were heavy practitioners of (suburban?) domestic malice and/or romantic suspense, and neither of them used a repeating character in any of their books.

   For me, this is largely hearsay, especially as far as Curtiss is concerned, as this is the only book of hers I’ve read. So far. In any case, what you expect is not always what you get. In Catch a Killer, for example, I was surprised (although far from nonplussed) to discover that the leading character is male, and that the story begins in Manhattan. I had the uneasy feeling that I was leaning one way, and the book, with Curtiss in charge, was going another.

   In the second half of the book, the scene changes, however, and rather drastically. Under some pretext or another, all of the leading characters seem to find their way to the same small country town in New England, and when they do, everything seems to revert to normal. (By which I mean, closer to what was expected, if not anticipated.) And as a direct consequence, most probably with the characters’ closer proximity to each other, the action seems to pick up as well.

   The atmosphere is black, introspective and moody throughout. And as you well know, or you should, coincidences simply thrive in such climates – beginning as they do here, in Chapter One. When you walk into an unfamiliar bar for the first time, for example, you never know whom you’ll meet, and that’s where Andrew Sentry finds a man who’d been in the same Japanese prison camp as his brother Nick – an encounter occurring solely by chance.

   Nick had died in a subsequent attempt to escape, and his death, Andrew for the first time is now told, was no accident. There was an informer in the camp – someone Nick knew – who told their guards of Nick’s plans, which were then foiled. This is an unusual (if not unique) means of killing someone, but who was the mysterious man who called himself Sands? And what was his motive?

   More coincidences begin to pile up. Every male in Andrew’s small circle of friends and acquaintances suddenly seems to have been a Japanese prisoner in the Philippines at some time or another during the war. Nick’s fiancée Sarah Devany may have received a postcard in code from him just before he died, but when a simple question might have unraveled the mystery before it has even begun, there are barriers which by fate have carefully been laid in the way.

   When Andrew came to break the news of Nick’s death to Sarah, it is revealed, he found her kissing another man, and he has not spoken to her ever since. And since the case for murder is so flimsy, the police cannot be called in, which limits Andrew’s resources to himself and whoever he feels he can trust, the list of those in this category changing chapter by chapter.

   And in similar fashion does the reader’s grip on the story, or vice versa, the story’s grip on the reader. Excellent characterizations are mixed helter-skelter with a plot that’s held together with a strong, industrial brand of duct tape. Nonetheless, New England summer towns can be filled with as much malice as large population centers such as Manhattan, and the generally capable touch of Ursula Curtiss goes a long way in proving it.

[UPDATE] 02-13-08.   I read and reviewed this book four years ago, and do you think I remember it? If I hadn’t written this review, I don’t believe I would even have remembered reading it, if you’d asked me.

   But after reading and slightly revising the review, it all came back to me — everything, that is, except whodunit. I’m willing to wager that if I started to read the book again now, I still wouldn’t remember who the killer was.

   I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not.

   But in any case, I mentioned in the course of the review that this was the first mystery I’d read that Ursula Curtiss had written. It’s also still the only one, not through any fault of hers!

THE LONE WOLF IN PARIS. Columbia, 1938. Francis Lederer, Frances Drake, Walter Kingsford, Leona Maricle, Albert Dekker. Director: Albert S. Rogell. Based on the character created by Louis Joseph Vance.

   Michael Lanyard, also known as The Lone Wolf, appeared in eight novels written by Vance between 1914 and 1934; in 24 movies between 1917 and 1949; in a 1948 radio show on Mutual; and in a 1954-55 syndicated TV series. (I didn’t want you to think we were talking about any old fly-by-night sort of character here.)

   By the end, he was essentially a good guy, almost but not quite a private eye, I believe, but he didn’t start out that way. In the beginning he was a gentleman European jewel thief, pure and simple, but his penchant for helping beautiful women in distress eventually convinced him that working for the law instead of against not only had the advantage of being able to continue his narrow-escape adventures, but without the disadvantage of always having the police close behind his heels. At least theoretically, anyway.

   In The Lone Wolf in Paris, suave Czechoslovakian-born Francis Lederer’s only opportunity to play him, Lanyard is on the edge of reform. He has letters from heads of police departments from all over Europe to vouch for him, but the hapless manager of the Paris hotel where he is staying immediately has a suspect in hand when robberies begin taking place in several rooms of his establishment.

   In the hotel at the same time, it seems, are three rich members of Arvonne royalty, who between them have the crown jewels of their country. (Arvonne is a small country found somewhere on the map near France, we are led to believe.) Princess Thania (Frances Drake) desperately needs them back. Once the people of Arvonne learn that they are missing – a good deed gone bad – the Queen will be forced to abdicate.

   There is a lot of pleasant thievery and derring-do packing into the 66 minutes of this movie. There are also a few brief opportunities for romance between all of the switches back and forth between the real gems and fake ones made of paste. It’s a minor film, but a very enjoyable one nonetheless. The hour and change in running time goes by very quickly.

NEXT. 2007. Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel, Julianne Moore; Peter Falk. Director: Lee Tamahori. Based on the short story “The Golden Man,” by Philip K. Dick.

   When I was growing up in the middle to late 1950s, my favorite SF author was Philip K. Dick. I was way ahead of my time, I think, because nobody I knew had ever heard of him. Then I learned of SF fandom, that would have been in the early 60s, and suddenly I wasn’t alone any more. He wasn’t everybody’s favorite author then, but in that crowd at least he was read, and his stories were talked about.

   And now, ever since the movie Blade Runner, I would imagine – I’m talking now 1982 – everybody who goes to the movies and pays attention to the authors that wrote the stories that movies are made of has heard of Philip K. Dick. He had ideas – many of them solidly paranoiac and/or hallucinogenic – ideas that no one ever had then and no one seems to have now, and often questioning the meaning of reality itself. Is the world a stage, our surrounding only sets? And so on and et cetera.

   The premise of Next is that its hero, an obscure and not very successful Las Vegas stage magician named Cris Johnson [Nicolas Cage], has the ability to see exactly two minutes into his future. Now you know and I know that this can’t be done, but given the premise, how might a man having such a ability deal with it? Superheroes, says Stan Lee, have great responsibilities. Is it not so?

   Cris Johnson tries to hide his behind the facade of his magic act, performing before small audiences in rundown clubs. So far, up to the time the movie begins, he has succeeded. But this is a crime film, a top notch action thriller – some of it choreographed so well that I had to stop the DVD, backtrack and watch it again. [Insert a small “heh” here.] The second premise at work is that a very sophisticated gang of terrorists going to set off a nuclear bomb somewhere in the Los Angeles area.

   It is difficult to know exactly what they hope to gain from this – or maybe it was explained and I missed it – but that’s OK. I have an imagination, and I can use it. It is federal agent Callie Ferriss’s job – she’s played by Julianne Moore – to convince Cris Johnson to use his ability to save the lives of eight million people. Cris Johnson is sympathetic, of course, but he knows that once he does, his life as he knows it is gone forever.

   Not only is this an action thriller, but it is also a romantic film. Jessica Biel – oh so beautiful, and he, Nicolas Cage, such a magnificent scarecrow of a man – plays Liz Cooper, and somehow she is part of Cris’s future. He knows it, and he doesn’t know how, but of course she is… Have you seen the previews? Should I tell you? No, but keep in mind that this is also an action thriller, and she is very much a part of the action…

   …as an innocent victim. I just simply have to tell you that. No one as young and innocent and beautiful as Liz Cooper is could be anything but an innocent victim in a movie.

   The men who made this film did an absolutely smashing job of making the first part of it, the first two or three acts or so. It could not have been easy task in figuring out ways to make the science-fictional premise understandable to mainstream audiences, but they did.

   Unfortunately premises such this one lead easily to all kinds of unanswered questions, and I will not bore you with mine, largely because I do not have answers to them. If you watch the movie, I suspect you will come up with as many of yours as I did, and there may not even be any overlap.

   There is another “unfortunately” coming up here in my comments on the film, and unfortunately I am running out of wind, if not space. And this one involves the ending. All movies have to have endings. I wish this one didn’t, in one sense, and in another, I wish it didn’t have the ending it has. I have the feeling that I am not alone in feeling this way.

   [LATER ON THE SAME DAY.]   I have been thinking the ending over, and feeling an inch (perhaps a foot but probably not a yard) more positive about it, I think I would like to revise my comments a bit, or add to them in this fashion. If I am right, and I now believe I am, the ending of the movie is really rather clever.

   I am naturally reluctant to say that I was wrong before, of course. The fact remains that for the kind of audience who would be most attracted to this movie, I am sure the ending will disappoint them greatly. Action-minded audiences do not enjoy being taken lightly.

   [EVEN LATER.]   I was right. After posting my comments, I went to read what some of the people on IMDB had to say. I didn’t get far. Here are three. You can go read the rest for yourselves.

    “I DON’T WANT TO IMAGINE A FILM, I WANT TO WATCH IT!!!!!”

    “I see 4-5 movies a month in a theater, but when Next ended tonight, it was the first time I’d ever heard a crowd ‘BOO’ a movie.”

    “This is the kind of movie that doesn’t seem so bad until you find out that there are people who actually liked it.”

Dear Steve,

   I am aware of “Gun-Witch of Hoodoo Range” by Emmett McDowell [mentioned in the comments posted after my last letter to you] and even have read it. The title, supplied by Fiction House, was derived from “Gun-Witch from Wyoming” by Les Savage, Jr., in Lariat Story Magazine (11/47). Based on the underlying correspondence, Malcolm Reiss was desperate to get another Señorita Scorpion story from Savage, and this was meant as an interim attempt to keep interest in the character because Savage at the time was writing his first novel.

   Savage’s first three Señorita Scorpion stories do work as a trio of interrelated stories, similar to the trios of short novels Max Brand had written for Western Story Magazine, and for this reason could be combined into a stand-along book as we did initially. After “Secret of the Santiago,” Savage no longer wanted to do more stories, and only “The Curse of Montezuma” preserved the principal characters introduced in the first three short novels. After the fourth story, Savage introduced other characters, excluded Chisos Owens as he went along, and the sixth story even has a first-person narrator who is a new character to the series. For this reason, among others, we never thought it a good idea to collect these later four stories into a single volume.

   The ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FRONTIER AND WESTERN FICTION (McGraw-Hill, 1983) is the primary reason Golden West Literary Agency came into being. Bill Regier, then director of the University of Nebraska Press, in 1989 proposed that Vicki and I prepare a second edition of this reference book. We set about contacting Western writers or their estates to update our bibliographies. We also added several authors who were not included in the first edition.

   T.V. Olsen, who I had known for years, urged me to include Les Savage, Jr., and lamented he had not been included in the first edition. He felt Savage was one of the most talented Western writers and deserved an entry. I read a number of Savage’s stories and agreed. I then contacted Marian R. Savage, Les’s widow, for biographical and bibliographical information. She pleaded with me to find an agent for Les’s work.

   The same thing happened with L. P. Holmes’s son. Lew Holmes had died after the first edition came out and he had been most helpful with his entry. Contacting New York agents, I was amazed that no one wanted to represent a deceased author unless he had been a client while alive. In the end we had such a number of client estates that needed representation that we founded Golden West to represent them. T.V. Olsen became our first living client.

   Until 1994 we still planned on doing the second edition, but Bill Regier had left Nebraska, and with the launch of the Five Star Westerns, our hardcover Western fiction series co-published by Thorndike Press, then a division of Macmillan, we no longer had the time to work on the second edition. Now it would be impossible to do it simply because there still is no time.

   We edit and co-publish twenty-four new Western titles a year in the Five Star Westerns and three new Western titles in the Circle V Westerns. Some of the material we prepared for entries in the second edition has been used instead as Forewords to Five Star Westerns editions, for example that which I wrote for RANGE OF NO RETURN: A WESTERN DUO by D.B. Newton, with a Foreword by Jon Tuska. [Dec 2005].

   In the end, I think this decision not to continue with the second edition was the right one. We both changed from the passive rôle of being literary historians to the active rôle of being publishers of and agents for Western fiction in the present and future.

   All Savage would have had would have been a first-time entry in the second edition. Instead, we have been doing one and two new books by him every year, beginning with FIRE DANCE AT SPIDER ROCK by Les Savage, Jr. with a Foreword by T.V. Olsen [Nov 1995]. Instead of being a footnote in the literary history of the Western story in the 1940s and 1950s, Les Savage’s work is being read and enjoyed by readers who were not alive when he was, and so has won a longevity for himself that his early death would otherwise have precluded.

   We have also introduced new authors to readers of Westerns and represent some of the most talented of the current generation such as Johnny D. Boggs, Stephen Overholser, and William A. Luckey. We have restored many of Zane Grey’s finest Western stories in authentic texts based on his holographic manuscripts and have several yet to go; we publish six new Max Brand titles a year (some of these also restorations), have launched publishing programs for Will Henry, Frank Bonham, Lauran Paine, Ray Hogan, T.T. Flynn, Peter Dawson, Robert J. Horton, Dane Coolidge, Lewis B. Patten, Wayne D. Overholser – the list goes on and on. Almost six hundred Western titles are sold by Golden West every year worldwide.