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douxreviews · 5 years

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Quantum Leap - Season One Review

"Oh, boy."

Quantum Leap began as a mid-season replacement in early 1989, ran for five seasons (1989-1993), and made a television star out of Scott Bakula. While it was running, it was one of my two favorite shows (the other was Star Trek: The Next Generation). There wasn't much good science fiction on television back then. Actually, there wasn't much sci-fi on television at all, unlike today's sci-fi-rich television environment.

What happens

A brilliant scientist named Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) invents time travel. Pressured to produce results or lose funding, he tries it on himself — and wakes up in 1956 in someone else's body. With the help of his Quantum Leap Project partner Al (Dean Stockwell) who visits Sam in the form of a neurological hologram, Sam discovers that he must correct whatever it was that "went wrong" in the original timeline before he can leap out again. It is theorized by Ziggy, the artificial intelligence back at the Project, that if Sam can't make the appropriate correction in each leap, he'll be stuck in that person's body forever.

What works

There is so much to love about Quantum Leap. Fortunately, the two best things about the show are the main characters, Sam and Al, and the actors who played them. I've always thought that Sam Beckett is a dream role for an actor, and Scott Bakula was more than up to the challenge of playing a new character in a new situation every week. Okay, not exactly a new character, but he still had to play Sam's interpretation of that character, which added some acting layers while still preserving the integrity of Sam himself as a character.

Yes, Sam Beckett is just too perfect. A genius with six doctorates, his massive intellect made him capable of stepping into nearly anyone's life. What helped make Sam less perfect was that the Quantum Leap process made "swiss cheese" out of his memory. His partial amnesia also helped disconnect him from his old life, making it easier to immerse himself in the lives of the people he leaped into, an excellent plot device.

And then there is Al, who is also brilliant and multi-talented, and whatever Sam can't do while living someone else's life, like fly a plane or speak Italian, Al can step in and help. Al is also the king of double entendres and references to scoring with women, and under other circumstances, I would have found such a character repulsive. But Dean Stockwell is just so lovable in this part. He made it easy to see the humanity and goodness inside Al, right from the start. And Bakula and Stockwell played so well off each other. Even though Sam and Al were totally different people, they were believable as close friends.

The basic premise of the series is great, too; it's a fascinating framework for a time travel series. The only real limitation is that Sam couldn't travel to the future or to a time earlier than 1953. Setting episodes in the fifties, sixties or seventies made Quantum Leap all about the nostalgia, though. Gender roles, period music, historical events woven into the story like the east coast blackout and the streaking fad in the early seventies, you name it.

And then there were the clothes. I have little interest in fashion, but I love the costumes on this show. Scott Bakula looked so comfortable and natural, so right in those period outfits. Sometimes they were yummy; occasionally they were hilarious. What I enjoyed just as much was Al showing up in bizarre futuristic outfits in outrageous colors, which fortunately never became fashionable in real life. Like Bakula with the period clothes, Dean Stockwell simply made that wardrobe work. Al is a colorful character, and his wardrobe matches his personality.

What doesn't work

There isn't much I don't like about Quantum Leap. Maybe it would have been interesting if they hadn't been limited to Sam's lifespan, and the United States (and yes, brief spoiler, they do get around that occasionally in future episodes). And yes, it tends toward the procedural, since most of the episodes are Leaps of the Week, but hey, it was the nineties.

One thing did leap :) out at me during this rewatch — the show's tendency to lecture. In this abbreviated first season, we got "The Color of Truth," the first time that Sam leaped into the body of someone who wasn't a white guy like himself. Instead of just being a person of color with an important life experience that Sam had to figure out and change, "The Color of Truth" is a sixty-minute lecture on the evils of racial segregation in 1955 Alabama. Not that there's anything wrong with the topic: it was a huge and important part of the recent past, and the episode was both well-intentioned and well done. But preachiness can be a turnoff, and this wasn't the only time it happened.

Another thing I didn't like was that every episode ended in a cliffhanger as Sam leaped into his next challenge, in what always appeared to be dire circumstances. Yes, I get it, cliffhangers help bring the audience back. But I would have been a lot happier if they had simply ended each episode with Sam leaping out, who knows where.

The music replacement controversy

When Quantum Leap was initially released on DVD way back when, Universal decided not to buy the rights to a number of the songs featured on the series simply because it was prohibitively expensive. Changing the music changed the series, though, and many fans were livid about it. The worst offenders were the season two episodes "M.I.A." and "Good Morning, Peoria." (I'll talk more about why fans were upset in my review of season two.)

After some research, I can report that Amazon and Netflix fixed this serious problem; the original music is intact. (I'm writing this review in December 2016, and I live in the U.S.) Unfortunately, Netflix decided to stop carrying Quantum Leap as of January 1, 2017, when I hadn't quite finished my rewatch, so I had to move to Hulu. And unfortunately, Hulu does not feature the original music. I have no idea what is going on with the music in the DVD sets. If you plan to buy Quantum Leap on DVD, you might want to find out about the music replacement situation before purchasing, if it matters to you.

Important episodes

1.1/1.2 "Genesis (September 13, 1956)": This is a decent two-part pilot. The brave test pilots and their long suffering wives waiting at home kept reminding me of the 1983 movie The Right Stuff, which might have been their intention. (In fact, many Quantum Leap episodes remind me of specific movies.) Maybe it shouldn't have been a two-parter, though, because honestly, while Sam's "wife" was doing the laundry, I got a little bored.

This pilot does mention the possibility that Sam's leaping is being directed by God. You'd think God would have the power to fix things Herself without having to use Sam, but okay. Maybe God employs other people like Sam, too.

1.6 "Double Identity (November 8, 1965)": Best episode of the season, and an obvious tribute to The Godfather. The wedding scene where Sam had to sing and Al gave Sam the Italian lyrics to "Volare" was funny, and kept getting funnier as Sam channeled his inner lounge lizard and really got into it. In fact, it went on so long that you'd think it would stop being funny, but it didn't.

(This might be a good time to mention that Scott Bakula has a beautiful, professional singing voice that they often featured in the series.)

Later, during a life and death situation and wearing hair clips and shaving cream, Sam had to converse in Al-prompted Italian. Bakula spoke the lines Sam didn't understand as if he were reciting poetry. And the ending with the thousand watt hair dryer in Buffalo causing the east coast blackout of 1965 was practically perfect.

1.9 "Play It Again, Seymour (April 14, 1953)": A very Sam Spade sort of episode with bits of Casablanca, with Sam in the body of a private eye who looked like Bogart investigating the murder of his partner. Of course, there was a dame — his partner's slinky wife, Alison (Claudia Christian, one of my favorites from Babylon 5). There was also a poorly written novel called Dead Men Don't Die, a dropper named Klapper, and every hardboiled detective cliche you can imagine.

Much of "Play It Again, Seymour" was filmed in the Bradbury Building, a Los Angeles landmark that was also used as a major location in my favorite science fiction movie, Blade Runner. When I was living in L.A., I went to see the building in person. It's gorgeous.

Sam was born in August 1953, and this final leap of the season was set in April 1953. I can only assume the leap range was defined by Sam's conception, not his birth?

Bits and pieces:

-- In season one, Sam leaps into and must become: a test pilot, a professor of literature, a boxer, a veterinarian, a chauffeur, a drag-racing teenager, and a private eye.

-- There are many references to three characters we don't get to meet in this first season: Ziggy, the artificial intelligence that gives Al projections on what Sam is supposed to change; Gooshie, a little guy with bad breath who also works on the Project; and Al's current girlfriend Tina. (Okay, oops, I'm wrong. According to IMDb, Tina is the woman with the flashing earrings that Al picked up in his car.)

-- The person that Sam replaces turns up in the imaging chamber, and Sam only knows how others see him by looking in a mirror. The synchronized mirror scenes are okay, although the motions were never choreographed well enough for me to suspend belief. Maybe those scenes should have been done more simply.

-- In the pilot, Sam wanted desperately to contact his late father but couldn't remember his own last name. Later in the season, in a lovely scene, Sam did speak with his father on the phone but of course, didn't tell him who he was.

-- It is established in season one that animals can see Al, that Al had been raised in an orphanage, had participated in protests during the civil rights movement, and has been married five times.

-- Famous people: Sam gives teen Buddy Holly the lyrics to "Peggy Sue," and shows a tiny Michael Jackson how to moon walk.

-- Notable actors: Teri Hatcher as Sam's first love in "Star-Crossed," Mark Margolis from Breaking Bad in "Double Identity," and Claudia Christian in "Play it Again, Seymour."

-- The saga sell is fun and so are the opening credits and theme music. But come on. A little "caca"? That's childish. I'm glad they didn't retain that.

-- Scott Bakula has a streak of white in his hair. It's not artificial; he has said during interviews that he's had it since childhood.

-- We're told that you cannot fix your own life. Why?

Season one is all "leap of the week" episodes, but it's a short first season and there's nothing wrong with that. By the end, we still don't know much about Sam, Al, or the Quantum Leap Project, so there's a lot of story left to tell.

On to season two!

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

#Quantum Leap #Sam Beckett #Al Calavicci #Scott Bakula #Dean Stockwell #Quantum Leap Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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thefloorisbalaclava · 7 years

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Tagged by @kardeshood

RULES:

Answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people!

THE LAST

1. Drink: Tea

2. Phone call: my sister

3. Text message: I texted “I’m such a fiend” to Rikki

4. Song you listened to: Water Into Wine by Window to the Abbey

5. Time you cried: last night while listening to Afterglow by Troy Baker

6. Dated someone twice: ….

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: A little over a month ago

9. Lost someone special: last year

8. Been cheated on: I don’t think i’ve ever been cheated on

10. Been depressed: I’m always depressed.

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Last year’s Super bowl

3 FAVOURITE COLOURS

12. blue

13. green

14. red

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. Made new friends: Yes

16. Fallen out of love: Yup

17. Laughed until you cried: Yes thanks to my little sister

18. Found out someone was talking about you: Yup and they’re long gone now

19. Met someone who changed you: Yup..guess who? lol

20. Found out who your friends are: Yes…like last week lol

21. Kissed someone on your facebook list: NO

GENERAL

22. How many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: Yes because they’re mostly people from high school and college

23. Do you have any pets: No

24. Do you want to change your name: No

25. What did you do for your last birthday: Went to a concert and got wasted

26. What time did you wake up: 6am

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: Sleeping

28. Name something you can’t wait for: NYCC next month and Walker Stalker Con in December!

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: This morning

31. What are you listening to right now: The telly…Impractical Jokers is on

32. Have you ever talked to a person named tom: I think so??

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: My life

34. Most visited website: tumblr and google

35. Hair colour: dark brown

36. Long or short hair: long

37. Do you have a crush on someone: yes, on fictional characters and people I can’t have

38. What do you like about yourself: not much

39. Want any piercings: I want my nose pierced again

40. Blood type: O+

41. Nickname: Cassie

42. Relationship status: Single

43. Zodiac: Cancer

44. Pronouns: She/Her

45. Favourite tv show(s): Downton Abbey, Hell on Wheels, Outlander, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, OUAT, Victoria, Versailles, Lucifer, Impractical Jokers, Ripper Street, Copper…LOTS

46. Tattoos: I have 6 and I have lots more planned

47. Right or left handed: Right

48. Surgery: I’ve had three surgeries on my left eye and a major sinus surgery

49. Piercing: I have plugs in my ears… that’s about it

50. Sport: HA!

51. Vacation: I love going down south to visit family and I’m planning a trip to Ireland with my bestie

52. Pair of trainers: TOO MANY because I LOVE SHOES

MORE GENERAL

53. Eating: I just had two hardboiled eggs

54. Drinking: Tea

55. I’m about to: listen to music til I fall asleep

56. Waiting for: happiness

57. Want: everything I can’t have

58. Get married: I don’t know

59. Career: archivist or anthropologist

WHICH IS BETTER

60. Hugs or kisses: Both

61. Lips or eyes: Eyes

62. Shorter or taller: Taller

63. Older or younger: older

64. Nice arms or nice stomach: arms I guess. i dunno

65. Hook up or relationship: Relationship

66. Troublemaker or hesitant: a little bit of both

HAVE YOU EVER

67. Kissed a stranger: Uh…

68. Drank hard liquor: duh lol

69. Lost glasses/contact lenses: No

70. Turned someone down: Yes

71. Sex on the first date: Yes

72. Broken someone’s heart: Yes

73. Had your heart broken: fuck yeah

74. Been arrested: Nah

75. Cried when someone died: DUH

76. Fallen for a friend: YES

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

77. Yourself: NEVER

78. Miracles: somewhat

79. Love at first sight: yes

80. Santa Claus: I wish

81. Kiss on the first date: sure if it happens, it happens

82. Angels: yup, my friends and family are my angels

OTHER

83. Current best friend’s name: Pe’lar, Rikki, Elysia, Bea, and Ashlea. They’re all the best. I wouldn’t be who I am without them!

84. Eye colour: Brown

85. Favorite movie: So many. I’m not even gonna list em here!

I’m not tagging anyone. I need to go to bed.

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flamenoircandleco-blog · 7 years

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Philip Marlowe – American Icon – Smells like Coffee?

From the moment I first had the idea to create a candle store that was dedicated to the greatest detectives of film and print, I knew Philip Marlowe would be featured. While there is little doubt of how important European detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, (or to the hardboiled genre specifically, private investigators like Three Gun Mack, Sam Spade, Race Williams and Mike Hammer), have been to the detective fiction genre – no other literary detective has had the level of impact of Philip Marlowe.

Shades of the man are everywhere. From Who Framed Roger Rabbit, to Star Trek: The Next Generation, (episode – “the Big Goodbye”), to Chinatown, to Blade Runner – The Marlowe character’s influence is undeniable. Marlowe embodied a fatalistic, romantic persona that gave the 1920s German Expressionist film movement the sultriness it needed to become Film Noir. Marlowe gave life to Jim Rockford and Lew Archer. He gave soul to Sam Spade. Without Marlowe, there would be no “noir detective” Halloween costumes in the party shops every year.

I was searching for a way to create a candle scent that would marry perfectly with the Philip Marlowe books, films, TV shows and old radio programs that I am constantly pouring over. I needed to boil this complex character down into a scent that would cast the perfect mood when companioned with existing Marlowe media.

So, how do you summarize, in a limited medium, a man who was hard living, but loved a good shower and shave and always made time for breakfast? A man who was surprisingly contemplative and jadedly romantic, talked tough, pushed buttons and was doomed to an almost compulsive sarcasm, (even when facing the business end of a gun)? A man who smoked a pipe and played himself at chess in his free time, that is - whatever free time he had in between getting drugged, sandbagged, tied up or lied to?

What does a man like that smell of? Well – obviously, he smells of coffee.

THE EVIDENCE:

“I went out the kitchen to make coffee - yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life blood of tired men.” – Philip Marlowe, The Long Goodbye / Raymond Chandler, 1953

“I'm now going to eat breakfast in the coffee shop across the street: orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast, honey, three or four cups of coffee, and a toothpick.” - Philip Marlowe, The Big Sleep / Raymond Chandler, 1939

“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.” Philip Marlowe, Farewell, My Lovely / Raymond Chandler, 1940

“I'm not a young man. I'm old, tired and full of no coffee.” Philip Marlowe, Playback / Raymond Chandler, 1958 “I got up at nine, drank three cups of black coffee, bathed the back of my head with ice-water and read the two morning papers that had been thrown against the apartment door.” Philip Marlowe, Farewell, My Lovely / Raymond Chandler, 1940

"I'd rather drink some hot black coffee as bitter as sin." Philip Marlowe, The Little Sister / Raymond Chandler, 1949

COFFEE COUNT:

The Big Sleep – references 16 / 8-9 cups consumed Farewell, My Lovely – references 17 / 10+ cups consumed The High Window – references 5 / 1 cup consumed The Lady in the Lake – references 9 / 3 2/3 cups consumed The Little Sister – references 13 / 7+ cups consumed The Long Goodbye – references 72 / 16 cups consumed Playback – references 21 / 6+ cups consumed

So there you have it. Light a candle, pour some coffee, and read a detective novel!

Flame Noir Candle Co. “Cahuenga 615″ / Philip Marlowe Inspired Candle – A mysterious blend of rich Colombian coffee, Cuban tobacco, and the masculine scents of a noir-era barbershop

#philip marlowe #coffee #soy wax candles #detective fiction #noir detective #private investigator #raymond chandler #gumshoe

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celestialmazer · 5 years

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FAIRY TALES ARE REALLY JUST HARD-BOILED CRIME STORIESExploring the Dark, Twisted World of Classic Fairy Tales - Steph Post

Source https://crimereads.com/fairy-tales-are-really-just-hard-boiled-crime-stories/?

Bad things happen in fairy tales. To good people. To bad people. To dragons and witches and princesses and bastard children. Usually they end with a happily ever after—the guy gets the girl or the girl gets revenge, the kingdom awakens, the peasants aren’t eaten but can go on with their miserable peasant lives—but to get that happy ending, a crime must be committed first. Epic betrayals, such as adultery and infanticide, but minor crimes too. Trespassing and petty theft and disorderly conduct. And then there are the exotic ones, the cases of bestiality and necrophilia and the like.

Modern crime fiction has nothing on the ingenuity, brutality and sheer bizarreness of the offenses committed in classic fairy tales. Moreover, fairy tales are ruthless. Our contemporary crime novels have the monopoly on moral ambiguity, true, but fairy tales take no prisoners and often offer no redemption. Mercy is not a hallmark of the genre and even the kindest, most benevolent maid-turned-princess isn’t afraid to take out her wicked stepmother.

Strip away the fairy godmothers and the helpful goblins, the magic trees and the singing bones, and you’re left with an array of hardboiled crimes straight out of Chandler or Highsmith, Christie or Connelly, and everyone in-between. Here are a few of my favorites, from fairy tales across the globe.

“Daughter Kills Family with Flaming Skull, Gets No Jail Time”

I’ve recently discovered Slavic folk and fairy tales and have become obsessed with the stories of Baba Yaga. One of the most popular is the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful. In true fairy tale fashion, Vasilisa is gorgeous, industrious, and the bane of her stepmother’s and sister’s existence. They try to snuff her out by sending her to Baba Yaga, the witch in the woods, for a light. Vasilisa is so perfect, however, that Baba Yaga can’t stand her and instead of gobbling her up, sends her back home with a skull full of fire. When Vasilisa hands over the light her stepmother requested, it burns her alive. And her stepsisters. And destroys the house as well. Vasilisa, though, like Daenerys Targaryen emerging with her dragons, comes through unscathed and eventually snags a king for a husband.

“Lost Children Murder Old Woman by Baking Her Alive”

This would be, of course, the tale of Hansel and Gretel from the Brothers Grimm collection. This story has everything—an evil stepmother, forced marching, greedy kids lost in the woods, an edible house, and a not-so-bright witch who meets her demise in the end. Women often get a bad rap when it comes to fairy tales; they’re thought of as passive, prizes to be won, and sometimes they are. But unmarried girls, however, have a surprising amount of agency. They survive by their wits, and Hansel and Gretel is a perfect example of the cunning of girls in fairy tales. While Hansel is kept in a pen, fattening up for the witch’s supper, Gretel manages to trick the witch into getting inside her own oven, where she is promptly burnt to a crisp. Gretel saves the day and gets a candy house to boot.

“Princess Cheated of Husband Uses Dead Horse to Get Revenge on Rivals

It would be tough to pick a favorite Grimm’s fairy tale, considering there are over two hundred to choose from, but if you held my feet to the fire, I’d have to choose The Goose Girl. It’s both morbid and terrifyingly strange, and definitely not suited for children. Self-mutilation, prophesizing drops of blood, decapitated horses and medieval forms of torture are rife from start to finish. It’s a meandering tale, but in essence it follows the trials of a princess who is forced by her chambermaid to switch places with her on the way to her wedding. The king is deceived and the true princess winds up herding geese and talking to the mounted head of her dead horse who, incidentally, talks back and eventually spills the beans on the chambermaid’s gold-digging scheme. The king then tricks his false bride into choosing her own punishment—being stripped naked, shoved in a barrel studded with nails and rolled down a hill—as the real princess takes her rightful place and becomes queen of all the realm. If that’s not a tabloid story fit for a crime novel, I don’t what is

“GAMBLING ADDICT PARTICIPATES IN CHILD-KIDNAPPING RING WITH TERRIFYING GIANT”

In Nepalese legend, Gurumapa is a hideous, fanged giant who collects children who have disobeyed their parents. In the story of Kesh Chandra, we have an old man who is cast out of his sister’s house after he can’t stop gambling, going so far as to steal her flatware to sell and feed his habit. He wanders Kathmandu for a while until some pigeons take pity on him and turn their own shit into gold. Being messy birds, there is a lot of gold and Kesh, being a greedy man, had to have it all. He persuades Gurumapa, a fierce, man-eating giant who just happens to be wandering around nearby, to carry all the gold for him by promising to throw him a feast. Kesh Chandra also tells the giant that he has permission to kidnap any disobedient children in the area. Our gambling addict is taken in by Gurumapa and allowed to live in the giant’s attic, so long as he placates the village parents when the children stop coming home from school. It’s a match made in heaven and the two get on splendidly—Kesh enjoying his gold and gambling and Gurumapa enjoying his children.

“MOTHER COMMITS SUICIDE AFTER STEPDAUGHTER IS BLESSED BY TALKING HEADS, DISAPPOINTED IN OFFSPRING”

Death by suicide is the only real crime in the bizarre tale of The Three Heads of the Well, but in our current area of overly-ambitious stage parents, I think it’s both apt and deliciously strange. As expected, you’ve got a king, a stepmother, a stepdaughter and, of course, a mother-less daughter who goes out into the world to seek her fortune away from her bratty new family. An old man she is kind to repays the favor by telling her to visit a well where three heads—yep—are hanging out, waiting for someone to wash them and comb their hair. Upon doing so, they grant her the gifts of being beautiful, having a wonderful voice and becoming a queen. When she leaves the well she just so happens to run into a king who is charmed by her beauty and her voice and immediately marries her. Now, the stepmother, upon hearing this, sends out her own daughter, determined that she should make an even better match. This girl, however, is rude to the old man and the three heads and they blight her with leprosy, a terrible voice and a marriage to a mere cobbler. The jealous stepmother, however, is so mortified by her daughter’s humble marriage that she goes insane and eventually hangs herself. The story ends with the king celebrating the death of his wife and the ugliness of his stepdaughter. Yikes.

“MAN STEALS DUCK, SPROUTS FEATHER, TURNS MASOCHIST”

This strange tale hails from China and, while short, hinges on a simple crime. In Theft of a Duck, a man does just that—steals a duck from a farmer. The following morning, he wakes to discover that he has grown feathers all over his body in the night. They itch terribly but the next night the thief dreams that he will be granted relief if he returns to the farmer and the farmer calls him what he is, “a dirty thief.” The next day the thief goes to the farmer and tries to trick him into calling a neighbor a dirty thief, so the words will be spoken. The trick fails, as the farmer refuses to be so mean. Finally, desperate, the thief rips open his shirt to display his feathers and begs the farmer to call him a dirty thief. The farmer, being a good man, takes pity on the thief and berates him until his feathers disappear.

“PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BETRAYS FATHER, BECOMES VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND IS FALSELY PRESUMED DEAD”

Pinocchio. I’m not sure which Disney film was more disturbing to me as child—Pinocchio or Dumbo. I think I’ve blocked much of the Disney version out, but in reading the original serialized novel as an adult, I’ve realized just how disturbing this Italian fairy tale actually is. We all know the basics from the cartoon: the wooden puppet, his kind father, the blue fairy and Jiminy Cricket, wishing upon a star. But then you’ve got Pinocchio compulsively telling lies, killing his helpful cricket-sprit-guide, running away from home, being tricked and trapped into a grotesque puppet show on a ‘pleasure island,’ being swallowed by a whale, discovering his whale-swallowed father, dying and then being brought back to life as a human boy. And that’s the Disney version! In the original, Pinocchio is even more of a jackass (reference intended) than he is in the film. Our cruel puppet not only lies, cheats and swindles, but mutilates animals, physically abuses Geppeto, and is an all-around jerk, even as everyone continues to give him second chances. Pinocchio is the ultimate conman—faking his death, playing up his ‘puppet angle’ to gain sympathy and indulging in every possible vice from drinking to gambling to ogling other puppets. In short, Pinocchio is a hotbed of crimes and sin. Especially as, in the end, Pinocchio gets away with it all.

***

And then you’ve got Snow White (rape), Rapunzel (false imprisonment), Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty(breaking and entering), Fitcher’s Bird/Bluebeard(serial killing), Little Red Cap/Red Riding Hood(animal abuse), The Robber Bridegroom, (cannibalism) and The Juniper Tree (child abuse)—and that’s just circling back around to the Grimm Brothers. Crime writers, if you ever need inspiration for a plot, you need look no further than the fairy tales we all grew up on. All the crimes you could ever want are there—right up to the happily ever after.

#fairy tales #fairy tale #grimm brothers #brothers grimm #pinocchio #hansel and gretel #the three heads of the well #theft of the duck #kesh chandra #the goose girl #baba yaga #crime fiction #snow white #rapunzel #sleeping beauty

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bluewatsons · 7 years

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James Ellroy, The poet of collusion, The Guardian (Sep. 29, 2007)

Dashiell Hammett was allegedly offered five Gs to perform a contract hit. It is most likely a mythic premise. He was a Pinkerton operative at the time. A stooge for Anaconda Copper made the offer. The intended victim was a union organiser. The stooge had every reason to believe Hammett would take the job - post-first-world-war Pinkertons were a goon squad paranoically fearful of all perceived reds. Hammett's mythic refusal is a primer on situational ethics. He knew it was wrong and didn't do it. He stayed with an organisation that in part suppressed dissent and entertained murderous offers on occasion. He stayed because he loved the work and figured he could chart a moral course through it. He was right and wrong. That disjuncture is the great theme of his work.

It explains why Hammett's vision is more complex than that of his near-contemporary Raymond Chandler. Chandler wrote the man he wanted to be - gallant and with a lively satirist's wit. Hammett wrote the man he feared he might be - tenuous and sceptical in all human dealings, corruptible and addicted to violent intrigue. He stayed on the job. The job defined him. His job description was in some part "Oppression". That made him in large part a fascist tool. He knew it. He later embraced Marxist thought as a rightwing toady and used leftist dialectic for ironic definition. Detective work both fuelled and countermanded his chaotic moral state and gave him something consistently engaging to do.

The critic David T Bazelon wrote of Hammett: "The core of his art is the masculine figure in American society. He is primarily a job holder. He goes at his job with a blood-thirsty determination that proceeds from an unwillingness to go beyond it. This relationship to the job is perhaps typically American. The idea of doing or not doing a job competently has replaced the whole larger issue of good and evil."

Hammett lived and wrote in the agitated condition this implies. Detective work was a job. Writing was a job. The craft within both was The Manoeuvre. The workday Hammett stealth-walked through a world of laudanum-guzzling grifters and bent cops susceptible to night sweats and visions. It was The Boom. The mechanised horror of the first world war roiled in recent memory. The Manoeuvre was steeped in drudge work punctuated by brief bursts of action. Read files, tail, surveil. Write reports, proffer bribes, track down suspects and on occasion risk danger. Speak the language of duplicity and male one-upmanship. Solve cases in a rigorously circumscribed fashion and wonder how they ramify beyond final-report status. Observe how crime seamlessly pervades the body politic and defines a whole culture. Take The Manoeuvre and exalt its language and turn it into popular fiction.

This presented Hammett with a second - and wildly challenging - disjuncture. Detective work was by nature prosaic. File prowls, blown tails, attenuated stakeouts. Crime stories demanded near-continuous action. File prowls must yield revelation. Blown tails must provide climax. Stakeouts must further plot. Hammett knew this going in: crime fiction was preposterous melodrama with a gnat-sized reality base. Never had there been a single case rife with multiple shootouts, homicidal seductresses and wall-to-wall mayhem succinctly resolved at tale's end. Hammett had to fit social realism into a suffocatingly contrived form. He did it with language - densely spare exposition and multilayered dialogue. He gave us a spell-binding male discourse - The Manoeuvre as moral crusade, the job holders' aria and torch song. Hammett's male-speak is the gab of the grift, the scam, the dime hustle. It's the poke, the probe, the veiled query, the grab for advantage. It's the threat, the dim sanction, the offer of friendship cloaked in betrayal. Plot holes pop through Hammett's stories like speed bumps. The body count accretes with no more horror than pratfalls in farce. It doesn't matter. The language is always there.

It's the language of suspicion, alienation and the big grasp for survival. It's a constant jolt of physical movement and conversation. Hammett's heroes move and talk, move and talk, move and talk. They are professional followers, entrappers and interlocutors. They go at professional liars with great zeal and find their own dissembling skills in no way disconcerting. It is a harrowing workday context. They have placed themselves in it consciously. Hammett's workday men risk peril for trifling remuneration and never question the choice. The great satisfactions of the job are the mastery of danger and the culling of facts to form a concluding physical truth. These facts comprise the closing of the case and thus the story. Hammett's men stand hollowly proud in their constant case conclusions. They are in no way affirmed or redeemed. They have survived. They are hopped-up versions of the schmuck clerk who got through one more shift at Wal-Mart. Their mundane world swirls around them and ignores them. The Continental Op is Hammett's ultimate workday drone. He's unnamed and unattractive. He caroms through Hammett's first two novels, subsumed by lunatic events. He tails and talks, lies and lie-detects, plays off factions. He ties up cases and stands dead still, fat and implacable. The next case will show up soon. He'll find the language for it. He'll probably survive it. He'll stand dead still, fat and implacable again. He'll be a bit more ground down and frayed at the soul. He'll go on from there.

The Op speaks the first words of Red Harvest: "I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte." That line stands as the tonal chord for the entire hardboiled canon. Hammett equates human beings with toxic substances and goes south from there.

Red Harvest was published in 1929. It's a coda to the Boom and a prophecy of the Depression. The Op witnesses and largely precipitates a hallucinogenic bloodbath in a Montana mining town. He pits labour against management and cops against crooks. He waddles and bluffs his way through uncountable interrogations and acclimatises himself to fatalities in war-zone numbers. He drinks laudanum and wakes up with a woman knifed to death. His actions create a momentary peace in Poisonville. That peace will soon shatter. It doesn't matter. He's moved on already - to the labyrinthine and largely incomprehensible events of The Dain Curse.

It is the sophomore curse novel that is exemplified by The Dain Curse. Whereas Red Harvest was tight and cohesive and rooted in the recent shock of the Anaconda Copper wars, its sequel is a hodgepodge of religious cult antics and baroque family lore. The story is divided unconvincingly between San Francisco and a small coastal town. Hammett wrote the book for magazine serialisation. The story runs in fits and starts and loopy plot turns, and jerks to an abrupt conclusion. Red Harvest was all dark power. The Dain Curse is all grotesquerie. It lacks context. The colourful geography and a few pithy characters fail to eclipse the what's-going-on-here?, was-this-book-written-on-booze? questions. The Dain Curse is recognisably Hammettian in this manner: a little jazz-age relic and his final ode to the Boom. The Dain Curse is a pure mystery novel written on contract. Red Harvest was a steeped-in-history novel written on spec. It displayed the advantage of personal history linked to politics.

Hammett views politics as crime most cancerous and genteel. It's crime buttressed by unspoken sanction. It's crime facilitated by a callous legal system. It's crime enforced by vicious cops in hobnailed boots. Hammett treats politics-as-crime in deadpan fashion. He assumes that the reader knows this: politics is The Manoeuvre as public spectacle and reverential shuck. That means America was a land grab. That means all political discourse is disingenuous. That means his workmen heroes refuse to soliloquise or indict - they know the game is rigged and they're feeding off scraps of trickle-down graft.

Hammett saw himself as complicit. The realisation may have fuelled his self-destructive path with alcohol and women. He was a Pinkerton. He signed on to work for an enforcement agency that squashed workers flat. He knew it was wrong. He knew he was wrong. He did the job on an ad hoc basis and couched his Manoeuvrings within The Manoeuvre in a personal moral code. The monstrous force of systemic corruption cast his code and his own job holder's life in extreme miniature and rendered everything about him small - except his guilt.

Something other than guilt drives Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key. He never tells us why he's doing what he's doing. His lack of explanation couched in constant action obscures motive and tells us that the absence of introspection is essential to the successful manoeuvre. The plot of The Glass Key is one long manoeuvre - speedballing toward a futile resolution. It's Hammett's flat-affect tale of grasping men who want things and don't know what to do with them when they get them. It's a short novel with epic sweep and a treatise on The Manoeuvre as one long grab for power.

Beaumont is a political fixer. He's a functioning drunk and a compulsive gambler on a losing streak. He works for a ward boss named Paul Madvig. Madvig runs a mid-size burg near New York City. Beaumont and Madvig have a tentative friendship based on interlocking needs within The Manoeuvre. Beaumont lives alone in a hotel suite. Madvig lives with his elderly mother and a 20-year-old daughter from some gone bust marriage. He wants to marry a senator's daughter. It's a two-front Manoeuvre: personal/political. The senator's son is murdered. Madvig's the key suspect. It's an election year. Factions want him voted out, factions want him re-elected. He wants the woman to solidify his political base and to sate an odd and gnawing tenderness within him. A gambler stiffed Ned Beaumont for three grand and change. They're both sleeping with the same woman. Ned wants his gelt. The gambler may have killed the senator's son. Ned sets out to grab his money and exonerate or doom Madvig in the process.

It's a cavalcade of Depression-era fiends in extremis. Hammett gives us dollar-driven DAs, psychopathic hoodlums, women poised with murderous intent. The story is all dialogue and movement. Horrible and heedless self-interest defines every character. The movement within movement exceeds breathlessness. People drink and light cigarettes continually. It's fuel for The Manoeuvre. Politicians blithely consider homicide as a political option. Mentions of kickbacks, bribes, pay-offs, bagmen, feral goons, strumpets, pimps, building contracts and quashed indictments abound. The Glass Key is a conversational epic. Casual talk embraces issues of great moral weight. The who-killed-the-senator's-son? quest pales behind the theme of expediency. The who-gets-the-senator's-daughter? quest ends on a bleak footnote. The survivors retain their survival skills in a diminished fashion. Their journey has stained them in ways they cannot comprehend and has impeded their shots at successful future Manoeuvres. They'll go on anyway. The game is fixed and that's what they do.

The Glass Key is Hammett's last great work of fiction. It's a model of economical storytelling. It's sombre and invigorating in equal measure. It's a predator's vision of the American jungle, and a book with a deep and troubled love for America - this huckster's paradise - itself. Hammett was the great poet of the great American collision - personal honour and corruption, opportunity and fatality.

#literature #fiction #crime fiction #analysis #history #james ellroy #red scare #dashiell hammett #greats #pathos #noir #the great depression #america

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