Paperback Celluloid: Elmore Leonard on Film – Review

Elmore ‘Dutch’ Leonard was one of the most influential crime writers of the twentieth century, and his work has been adapted for the small and silver screen dozens of times, with results ranging from the sublime Jackie Brown to the ridiculous Stick. In his new book Paperback Celluloid: Elmore Leonard on Film, Andy Rohmer gives us an overview of Leonard’s life and career, and then analyses, one by one, every novel by Leonard that was adapted for the screen and its subsequent film adaptation. Frequently he finds that great Leonard novels make for lousy movies. In some rare cases, the adaptation exceeds the source material.

Rohmer has painstakingly researched his subject. He divulges key details about the production of the films and the writing of the novels, for example, whether it was written during Leonard’s early Western phase, or was it influenced by the author’s embrace of sobriety and rejection of Catholicism. The author also engages with the key biographies and literary criticism. Rohmer’s own style of film criticism is modelled on Cahiers du Cinema, being both generous in its appraisal of films that work well and scathingly witty about the ones that don’t, with plenty of fascinating trivia in between. I highly recommend this book. It’s an arresting look at Leonard’s filmography/bibliography which is often bitingly funny in a way that embraces what Elmore Leonard fans will recognise as Dutch’s sense of ‘Cool’.

Now for the final Leonardian twist… Andy Rohmer is the pseudonym of Eduardo Ramos.

Ramos is a Portuguese diplomat who has served his country in Tokyo, Beijing, Berlin, and most recently, New York City. And, like the last man standing in an Elmore Leonard novel, he has run off with the writing honours as Paperback Celluloid: Elmore Leonard on Film is a terrific book which will appeal to fans of Leonard’s work as well as Western and Crime film enthusiasts. The even better news is that it is the first volume of a new series written by Rohmer/Ramos called Writers-on-Film. I heartily recommend that you buy this book and keep an eye for future volumes in the series.