Reeling Bullets: W.R. Burnett on Film by Andy Rohmer

When William Riley Burnett moved from his hometown of Springfield, Ohio to Chicago he got a job as a night clerk at the seedy Northmere Hotel. He spent his evenings in the company of hookers, hustlers and grafters which inspired his first published novel Little Caesar in 1929. The novel was a critical and commercial hit and the film adaptation which followed two years, with Edward G. Robinson in the title role, launched WR Burnett’s screenwriting career.

Andy Rohmer has been writing the excellent Writers-On-Film series for several years now. He employs a critical technique he dubs ‘reverse auteurism’, examining every film adaptation of Burnett’s work from the perspective of the writer, challenging the autonomy of the director, but at the same time acknowledging that film is a director’s medium. He has already written excellent volumes on Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake and James M. Cain. This new volume on Burnett is the fourth addition in the series, and might just be the best yet.

For me, the best parts of Rohmer’s books are often the gossip and tidbits he reveals about authors lives or the production of the films. We learn that Burnett’s ideal form of government was democracy that ‘verges on anarchy’, and that Raoul Walsh, who directed four adaptations of Burnett’s work, had an ongoing feud with John Ford as to which one of them made a star of John Wayne.

All in all, Reeling Bullets lives up to its title as a punchy, hard-hitting tribute to WR Burnett’s contribution to literature and cinema, and is essential reading to students of both art forms.