Thu 10 Mar 2022
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: JEROME WEIDMAN – I’ll Never Go There Any More.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[14] Comments
JEROME WEIDMAN – I’ll Never Go There Any More. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1941. Reprinted in paperback several times, including Avon T-153, 1956, shown below:
Two Summers and a lifetime ago, I picked up a novel at a Used Book Store just to be polite; I wasn’t really looking for it, but it seemed interesting and the shopkeeper looked bored, so I figured to brighten her day for two dollars and fifty cents.
The book was I’ll Never Go There Any More, by Jerome Weidman, and it’s a young-man-in-New-York novel, a colorful, sprawling thing about Arthur Thacker coming to the big city, meeting lots of colorful, sprawling people, and learning about Life in all its sprawling color.
And it ain’t bad, either. The characters are well-drawn, the story moves apace, and the ending seems fateful and natural, profound and shocking, all at once, just the right coda for a young-man-in-New York novel. It looks to have been published just before America entered World War II, which is probably why it isn’t better remembered today – after December 7, readers had a lot more on their minds than the adventures of a young man in New York.
But as I was reading this thing, getting the background on the various characters popping in and out, I came upon six or eight pages that seemed kind of familiar: something about an Italian banker and his sons, and how they all turned out. Damn, it just kept reminding me of something.
So I did some research and found that this was the basis of Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1949 movie House of Strangers. Not the book: just these six or eight pages. That’s right, Twentieth Century Fox bought I’ll Never Go There Any More, tossed out three hundred and thirty pages of it, and filmed what was left. House of Strangers is an okay noir drama, but I always felt it lacked a proper pay-off at the end, and it’s certainly very far removed from Weidman’s novel.
But that’s not the end of our story. No, friends. Because in 1954 the studio did what studios always did in those days: they took the script of House of Strangers, added some guns and horses and re-made it as Broken Lance. And that’s how Jerome Weidman’s young-man-in-New-York novel ended up as a Western.
March 10th, 2022 at 10:55 am
Nice piece, Dan. Not unheard of in the film world, but always of interest.
March 10th, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Just a reminder about Hollywood and adaptations.
Weidman wrote I Can get It For You Wholesale, a book filmed in 1951 about as dishonestly as any adaptation could be. I leave it to others for a further definition.
March 10th, 2022 at 4:09 pm
What a classic Hollywood story!
March 10th, 2022 at 5:08 pm
Similarly a section of Harold Robbins THE CARETAKERS ended up NEVADA SMITH, but at least it started as a Western.
March 10th, 2022 at 6:09 pm
That’s Harold Robbins’s The Carpetbaggers, which also yielded the Mad magazine takeoff “The Carpetsweepers” – but that’s another story …
The greatest line Alan Ladd never said in a movie:
“My obvious double is about to give your obvious double the movie beating of a lifetime!”
March 10th, 2022 at 7:41 pm
Mike, thanks, momentary amnesia.
I’m trying to think, but there are a couple of films based on relatively minor characters or portions of larger works, but usually as spinoffs from films of the original like Flashman’s ties to TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS.
Irene Adler has gotten a lot of press from one appearance in a short story.
March 10th, 2022 at 8:20 pm
Yeah. Actor 5’7″(?) Alan Ladd’s character manhandling actor 6’2″ George Peppard’s character is really something.
Film protagonists based on minor characters spun-off from other films: that’s a brain-teaser. H’mmm. Probably found more in comedy than any other genre?
I’ll try some.
horror: ‘Doctor Van Helsing’
espionage: ‘George Smiley’
drama: ‘Falstaff’
western: ‘Doc’ (Holliday?)
comedy: ‘Ensign Pulver’
March 10th, 2022 at 8:47 pm
Ah!
George Kennedy plays Joe Patroni in Airport, Airport ’75, and Airport ’77 until he finally gets a captain’s seat in Airport ’79.
March 11th, 2022 at 3:20 pm
Flashman’s ties to Tom Brown’s Schooldays are literary – George MacDonald Fraser thought Flashman was the most interesting character in the book and gave him his own very good series. Fraser also wrote The Hollywood History of the World – a superb combination of film book and history, among other things.
When Gerald Kersh’s novel Night and the City was adapted for a (good, actually, it’s just got nothing to do with the book) film he was paid £12,000 and boasted that £3,000 per word was probably the highest fee any writer ever received.
March 11th, 2022 at 5:49 pm
George MacDonald Fraser was a friend of mine, and I have a signed copy of The Hollywood History of the World 2nd edition, as the initial publication had omitted Louis Hayward.
Personal favorite Flashman books.
Royal Flash
Flashman and the Tiger
Flashman in the Great Game.
Least
Flashman and The Redkins
Non-Flashman
Mr. American
Black Ajax
It was seriously discussed that Louis play D’Artagan’s father in the initial Musketeer film, but that obviously did not work.
March 11th, 2022 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for the insight, Barry. I’m actually tickled that — just as Weidman’s quintessentially urban novel morphed into a Western — the discussion around my review of it morphed into swordplay.
If only I could get paid for this!
March 11th, 2022 at 7:56 pm
Oh, Dan, what good thinking.
March 12th, 2022 at 11:21 am
Regarding Alan Ladd, Lazy.
He is a soft target for the online crowd, but he was roughly the same height as James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, but more fit and with a better voice. For that matter, other than the obesity factor, not much smaller or shorter than Spencer Tracy.
March 13th, 2022 at 12:55 am
And with that, it looks as though Comment #14 is up to me.