Thu 2 Oct 2014
JOHN McPARTLAND – Big Red’s Daughter. Gold Medal 354, paperback original, November 1953. Macfadden, paperback, 1968. Black Curtain Press, softcover, POD, 2013. Also: Stark House Press, trade paperback, 2017, 2-in-1 edition with Tokyo Doll (added March 2018).
Her name is Wild Kearny, and for young Jim Work, fresh out of the war in Korea and attending a small college in southern California, it is love at first sight. There are two problems, though, besides the young and hip crowd of friends she hangs out with, and the first is the man she is with, a tough guy named Buddy Brown, who is apparently a good friend, and as happenstance would have it, he makes quick work of Jim Work in a couple of very short rounds of fisticuffs.
Not the best impression to make on a first meeting, but Wild Kearney must see something in Jim Work who tells the story, because it is not Buddy Brown she takes to the airport to meet her father flying in from the East Coast. No, it is Jim Work whom she introduces to her father as her current live-in boy friend, a guy she has met only four hours earlier.
And her father is the second problem: Broadway Red Kearny, last of the big gamblers, a honest and tough headline-making fellow whom you know does not want just anyone making hay with his daughter. Ever meet the father of the woman you love for the first time? Double that, or quadruple it, and you’ll know how Jim Work feels.
This all happens with the space of 22 pages, and to tell you the truth, it’s the best part, but the rest of the book is no slouch ether. There’s a murder involved, and while Buddy Brown may be the killer, it is Jim Work who is accused, locked up, and who with the help of a magician friend in the same cell, makes his escape, only to confront Buddy Brown again, and this time the tables are turned, which merely makes Jim Work’s predicament all the worse.
Only this time he has Wild Kearny on his side.
The story is plagued with what seems like gigantic coincidences, but somehow or another, McPartland, a writer with a smooth and easy way with words, pulls all of the threads together and more or less makes a coherent whole of them, I think.
It would make one heck of a movie, that’s for sure. From the cover, I’d say that Robert Mitchum might have made a good choice to play Jim Work, a young Robert Mitchum, though, and I’d to qualify that to say it would work only if you could ever picture a young Robert Mitchum as a serious-minded college student.
Take a look at that cover again. I’ll let you decide who should play Wild Kearny, if you’d care to.
October 2nd, 2014 at 9:47 pm
Good book, and McPartland was an exceptional novelist with a handful of exceptional novels. I enjoyed this one and it is available free online for anyone who would be satisfied with an e-book version.
This suffers from a bit of haste, but that’s not uncommon with paperback originals of the period. Considering the relative rates per word or in a standard contract a writer needed to turn out copy to make it, not spend time tightening and eliminating plot problems. The quality of so many Gold Medal books is always a shock considering all the factors.
Re Mitchum as a college student he played both doctors and lawyers in films and even Philip Marlowe is a college man. He plays an intern in at least two films, WHERE DANGER LIVES and NOT AS A STRANGER. Granted he isn’t exactly the collegiate type, but when he was making movies in that era many college students were veterans quite a bit older than the norm.
October 2nd, 2014 at 10:41 pm
It isn’t too farfetched that somebody might have made a film of this one. A grand total of three movies were made of his books:
JOHNNY COOL, based on The Kingdom of Johnny Cool, a Gold Medal paperback original. Stars: Henry Silva and Elizabeth Montgomery.
NO DOWN PAYMENT, based on McPartland’s only crime novel to be published in hardcover, and starring Joanne Woodward among others.
and THE WILD PARTY, based on another Gold Medal original, starring Anthony Quinn.
According to IMDb, McPartland wrote the story and/or screenplay for three other films. He died in 1959, only 48 years old.
October 3rd, 2014 at 10:11 am
Casting for Wild Kearny — try Rhonda Fleming for size. Or, for anything else.
October 3rd, 2014 at 12:03 pm
I second the motion!
Should we vote on it?
And I suppose that everyone knows which film this scene comes from?
March 8th, 2018 at 6:49 pm
I have a copy of this book with a totally different cover – published by Mcfadden -Bartell Books
c 1953
Published 1968
I can’t find any info on it.
If you like, I can post a picture of the book.
Thanks!
March 8th, 2018 at 7:20 pm
Hi Karen
That’s a reprint edition published by a small publisher who probably didn’t sell many copies of it. I found one used copy for sale at abebooks.com along with a photo. The seller is in Scotland, of all places. What you have is a rare book, but unfortunately I don’t believe there’s any demand for it. Wish I could tell you otherwise!
But now that I’ve gone looking for information about it, I see that I should add last year’s edition from Stark House to its publishing history, which I’ll go do right now.