James Ellroy, the Playboy Channel and an Internet Controversy
James Ellroy recently took part in a controversial publicity video for the Playboy channel, which has achieved a minor level of notoriety. In a split second scene, Ellroy mimes masturbation when he is describing his past history of voyeurism and burglaries. The entire episode is just the sort of thing which gets overblown by angry responses on chat forums and internet threads.
Although Playboy is regarded as a soft-porn magazine, it has also achieved distinction through its long history of publishing interviews with prominent literary figures. Ellroy is one of the most prominent novelists in the US today, and Playboy is currently serialising his forthcoming memoir The Hilliker Curse. Ellroy also likes to shock and entertain through his Demon Dog persona, and the masturbation mime is a part of that persona.
The video itself is brilliant: it is the first in Playboy’s new writers series ‘Walkabout’. Ellroy explores all of his old haunts, including the houses he use to break into and then do things such as sniff women’s underwear and make himself sandwiches. Ellroy also visits nearby El Monte and stands at the spot where his mother’s strangled corpse was found outside Arroyo High School.
The masturbation mime is only one brief part of a seven minute video. You can watch the video here.
Stieg Larsson’s Girl Who
I recently finished reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third installment of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium Trilogy’. While I don’t think the third book is quite as compelling as the previous two–a decline that may be explained by the state of the three manuscripts when their author Stieg Larsson died suddenly aged 50, in 2004–taken together these books represent a great achievement in crime fiction. The writing is not always as sharp as it could be, but the scope of the story is enormous. Christopher Hitchens, writing in Vanity Fair, agrees:
In life, Stieg Larsson described himself as, among other things, “a feminist,” and his character surrogate, Mikael Blomkvist, takes an ostentatiously severe line against the male domination of society and indeed of his own profession. (The original grim and Swedish title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is Men Who Hate Women, while the trilogy’s third book bore the more fairy-tale-like name The Castle in the Air That Blew Up: the clever rebranding of the series with the word “girl” on every cover was obviously critical.) Blomkvist’s moral righteousness comes in very useful for the action of the novels, because it allows the depiction of a great deal of cruelty to women, smuggled through customs under the disguise of a strong disapproval. Sweden used to be notorious, in the late 1960s, as the homeland of the film I Am Curious (Yellow), which went all the way to the Supreme Court when distributed in the United States and gave Sweden a world reputation as a place of smiling nudity and guilt-free sex. What a world of nursery innocence that was, compared with the child slavery and exploitation that are evoked with perhaps slightly too much relish by the crusading Blomkvist. [More]
Orson Welles and Film Noir
Orson Welles is usually overlooked as one of the great directors of film noir. There may be good reasons for this. Welles was accomplished in so many fields–as an actor, director, radio star, magician and bullfighter– it would be too reductive to classify him as merely a film noir director. However, Welles directed two of the greatest film noir movies, The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Touch of Evil (1958), and his contribution to the genre should not be forgotten.
Welles divided the critics and was frequently dismissed as an overrated has-been. His contribution to film noir is also divisive, as neither The Lady from Shanghai or Touch or Evil bears any resemblance to the novels they were adapted from. Both movies were also subject to significant studio interference, and Welles was unhappy with their final cuts.
Then, there is Wells’ unfinished projects. Welles started filming adaptations of Don Quixote and The Deep amongst others, but funding and legal problems left his projects unfinished. Welles did finish shooting The Other Side of the Wind, the story of an aging, cantankerous film director (played by John Huston and modelled on Ernest Hemingway), who is trying to shoot one last picture which he intends to fill with scenes of sex and violence. Filming for The Other Side of the Wind was completed but the editing process was not. The project was never finished because of complex legal problems which included Welles’ daughter Beatrice, his partner Oja Kodar and the brother of the Shah of Iran! Welles.net has an excellent breakdown of the history of the project, and the recent efforts of the director, actor and friend of Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, who acts in the film, to finish and release the film on Welles’ behalf.
Two scenes of The Other Side of the Wind have been released, and are now widely available on the internet. The scene below features the actors Oja Kodar and Bob Random having sex in a car (viewer discretion is advised). Again, I will not try to categorise this film as noir, but the scene certainly has noirish undertones:
Jack Webb on the Tonight Show
Jack Webb was the creator, producer and star of the radio and television series Dragnet. Webb is acknowledged as the man who first brought realism to television portrayals of police procedural drama. Webb also wrote The Badge (1958), a spin-off to Dragnet which featured ‘True and Terrifying Crime Stories That Could Not Be Presented on TV’. James Ellroy was given a copy of The Badge for his eleventh birthday and has named the book as being a major influence on his literary career.
Webb was a complex character who had a reputation for being utterly businesslike in his behaviour on set. Married four times, a chain-smoker and heavy drinker, Webb worked eighteen- hour days. An episode of Dragnet was usually shot and completed in a single day, and most scenes were completed in a single take. Given his reputation for strict, somewhat humourless professionalism, Webb’s appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1968 is now a part of comedy legend. In the ‘Copper Clappers’ sketch, Webb plays Sergeant Joe Friday of the LAPD to whom Carson is reporting a robbery. Many comedians had performed skits of Dragnet, but this was the first time Webb had taken part in one himself. The sketch lampoons the deadpan expressions and monotone verbal rhythms which had become idiosyncratically a part of Dragnet.
Webb’s biographer, Michael Hayde has made a transcript of another Dragnet parody in which Webb appeared on Jack Benny’s Second Farewell Special in 1974. You can read it at Badge714.com.
James Ellroy UK Tour
I’ve just returned home after seeing James Ellroy give a talk and book reading at the Dancehouse theatre, Manchester as part of the UK publicity tour for his new novel Blood’ a Rover. Few novelists today have the stage presence of Ellroy: he begins with quickfire quotes from TS Eliot and Anne Sexton, then moves on to more quotes from WH Auden and AE Houseman, the latter of whom he labels as ‘British poofters’. There were plenty of politically incorrect and very funny jokes. When asked if he has ever been sued by the families of the many prominent figures he has scandalously portrayed in his novels, Ellroy responded that if the Kennedy family ever tried to sue him they would have to spend so much time in the courtroom: ‘They’d have no time to get drunk, rape and kill women.’ But behind the Demon Dog persona there was a generous, courteous side to Ellroy as he gave in-depth and revealing answers to any question from the audience. It was very clear from his performance that Ellroy is a man who loves people and loves to perform for his readers.
If you want to see Ellroy on tour you will have to move quickly as there are only two more UK dates. Ellroy is in Glasgow tomorrow, and Belfast on Saturday.
George Pelecanos in The Rumpus on Hard Rain Falling
Washington, D.C. crime novelist George Pelecanos has an excellent consideration of Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling in the increasingly marvellous The Rumpus:
While many debut novels boil and sometimes overboil with a voice edging towards manifesto, few hit their mark with such assuredness, maturity, and authority as Hard Rain Falling. It is not, as it has been often described, a crime novel, though it does concern itself peripherally with criminals and their milieu. I hesitate to call it either a literary or genre work because I’m not sure Mr. Carpenter would have cared about the distinction. By his own admission he aimed to write cleanly, with his intended audience the general public rather than the gatekeepers of academia. Hard Rain Falling is populist fiction at its best. It is not just a good novel. It might be the most unheralded important American novel of the 1960s.
Joseph Wambaugh Roasts Truman Capote
Recently, I’ve been enjoying watching the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. The concept of the television series is simple, a prominent celebrity is subjected to a ‘roast’, a tribute in the form of good natured ribbing and comical insults, from a panel of fellow celebrities and friends. Whole episodes of the original series have been uploaded onto Youtube.
In this episode from 1974, an inebriated Truman Capote is roasted by a group of celebrity friends, one of whom is Joseph Wambaugh, then at the beginning of his literary career and still a Detective Sergeant in the LAPD. Wambaugh’s first truly great work, The Onion Field (1973) is hugely influenced by Capote’s In Cold Blood (1965), which is arguably the first non-fiction novel. Wambaugh had written two previous novels to moderate success but it was The Onion Field, a factual account of the kidnapping of two plain-clothes LAPD Officers and the subsequent murder of Officer Ian Campbell, which established Wambaugh as one of the most important crime writers of his generation.
In the clip below, Wambaugh gives a funny and touching tribute to Capote. There is also something rather sad amidst the laughter, as Capote’s alcoholism and mental deterioration are already becoming self-evident.
Dean Martin introduces Wambaugh four minutes into the clip:
Not So Great Adaptations
Channel 4’s recent Great Adaptations series sought to promote classic films that had the distinction of being as critically well-received and as successful as the book they were adapted from. I have my doubts about the list they came up with, and I am inclined to think that it is more interesting to explore why so many film and television adaptations frequently go so very wrong.
There are many great novels that Hollywood and the BBC have bungled and botched in their transition to the screen. The BBC’s 1987 adaptation of John Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy has always struck me as a good example of how to ruin a great novel. Spread over seven episodes, A Perfect Spy takes its time in bringing Le Carré’s complex narrative to life. But unlike the novel, the story never becomes riveting on screen. The adaptation is faithful to Le Carré’s work, but there is some narrative reordering which gets things off to a bad start. The mini-series tells the life story of the double agent Magnus Pym sequentially from childhood to death. Whereas the novel begins with Pym’s disappearance, and then is told through a series of confessional letters Pym writes to his loved ones, thus enabling the action to jump back to significant moments in his life. Also another narrative strain follows, Pym’s superior in British Intelligence, Jack Brotherhood, who has started his own manhunt for the missing spy. Aspects of Pym’s life are revealed through Brotherhood’s interviews with people who have known and worked with Pym over the years. The mystery of Pym’s identity begins to unravel as Brotherhood’s investigation progresses, and Pym’s own episalatory accounts fill in the details.
All this sense of mystery and character development is lost in the BBC adaptation, as it slowly shows Pym’s life year by year. When the narrative finally gets to Brotherhood’s desperate search for Pym, the suspense is diminished as he is obtaining information which the viewer already knows.
No adaptation is without merit. Alan Howard is superb as Brotherhood (if only he’d been given more time on screen!) as is Ray McAnally as Pym’s father, a professional con man. Peter Egan becomes more convincing as Magnus Pym as the series goes on but at times he seems rather wooden. The series was nominated for two Emmy’s and four Bafta’s, but it will never make a great adaptations list!
James Ellroy and ‘Dog Humour’
James Ellroy is coming to the UK in November on a book tour to promote his latest novel Blood’s a Rover. Whenever he is on tour Ellroy is a wildly entertaining figure who destroys the cliche that book tours are dull and stuffy affairs. Ellroy is essentially a performer who shocks and offends and sometimes delights audiences with his unique schtick he dubs ‘Dog Humour’, an offshoot of his ‘Demon Dog of American Literature’ persona. Ellroy first developed Dog Humour with Randy Rice, his best friend in Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a form of brash, crass and vile verbal monologues expressed through the form of frequently improvised onomatapoeic and alliterative sentences. I find Dog Humour to be hysterical, although it is very hit and miss. Once you get beyond the initial shock you see there is a level of outrageousness in Ellroy’s performance which stops you from being offended or taking things too seriously. On the other hand, by being deliberately shocking Ellroy is lampooning political correctness and the stifling of free speech.
Below is a clip of Dog Humour at its best. This is taken from an interview with Ellroy in 1999 on Late Night with Conan O’ Brien. O’Brien is a big fan of Ellroy, but he has some trouble persuading him to respect the censors!
Bazaar Bizarre and the Demon Dogs
Probably the worst project James Ellroy has ever been involved in would be the documentary on Kansas City serial killer Bob Berdella, Bazaar Bizarre (2004). It is not often that documentaries achieve notoriety, but Bazaar Bizarre really is a nasty piece of work. The film contains graphic reenactments of Berdella’s torture-murders, which are horrible to watch and completely disrespectful to the memory of the victims. Why did Ellroy do it? He certainly hates the film and has blamed his near nervous-breakdown and the self-medicating that followed the exhausting The Cold Six Thousand (2001) publicity tour for his involvement.
Ellroy has addressed the subject of serial killers with more distinction in his excellent novel Killer on the Road (1986) also published as Silent Terror, the introduction to Murder and Mayhem (1992) and the DVD commentary to David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007).
One of many tasteless moments of the film is the intermittent musical narration of the rock band The Demon Dogs who sing songs about Berdella. The Demon Dogs formed specifically for Bazaar Bizarre and named themselves in Ellroy’s honour. This makes Ellroy the only crime fiction writer to my knowledge who has ever had a rock band named after him. Ironically, Ellroy has always hated rock music. Listening to The Demon Dogs it is not difficult to see why.
The Venetian Vase 