26 soundtracks: Border Radio

Border Radio the first feature film from Alison Anders (Food, Gas and Lodging) the plot (from Wiki)

      … in which two musicians and a roadie who haven't been paid rob money from a club and one flees to Mexico leaving his wife and daughter behind. 

The film starts LA punk stalwarts Chris D. (of The Flesh Eaters and The Divine Horsemen) and John Doe (of X and now has a very nice solo career going)

 Along with an appearance by Dave Alvin (of the Blasters and who also has a Solo career)… so it’s should be no surprise that the music used in the film is largely drawn from the participants. I have to admit that I was already a big fan of several of the bands, and a couple of the songs used in the film.  The music is largely in that Cowpunk, dusty, C&W mode. The title track is a Balsters song as covered by Tony Kinman of The Dils and pioneering Cowpunkers Rank’n’File. The Green on Red track, Sixteen Ways, is one of those overlooked LA punk classics and I am a sucker for the Divine Horsemen, who are the third of my holy trinity of LA/ Southwest Cowpunk bands (Rank’n’File and Blood on the Saddle are the other two). The rest of the tracks didn’t really stand out to me, but fit the mood and film and sit well with the rest of the tracks. I am not sure if the record is in print, but the film has been issued on DVD by Criterion and is nicely packaged. I hope that if they are going to up grade it to Bluray (which I don’t think is really going to make it look any better) that they add a download of the soundtrack to the package. If you can find a copy of the LP and you like that rootsy, cowpunk, alt country sound I would say pick it up.

The Tonys – Border Radio

Dave Alvin – La Frontera I

The Lazy Cowgirl,– Drugs

Dave Alvin – Burning Guitar

Dave Alvin – Mi Vida Loca

Dave Alvin & John Doe – Little Honey

Divine Horsemen – Mother's Worry

Green On Red – Sixteen Ways

Dave Alvin – La Frontera II

Chris D. – Lilly White Hands

Dave Alvin – Driving To Mexico

Dave Alvin – Mi Vida Loca

26 Films Boiling Point

Boiling Point, 1992

93 minutes

Tag line: He’s a Cop that has reached the… Boling Point

The boiling point of lead is 2022 K and the boiling point of Treasury agent Jimmy Mercer is the murder of one of the agents on his team. The box art for my VHS copy of this film we see Wesley Snipes with his Smith and Wesson Model 13 .357 Magnum pointed outward, his badge barely visible below the pistol. The image is very telling. It’s an outdated duty weapon (or thought to be) from an outdated era of Law Enforcement, or I should say the dregs of the era, as the torch was being passed from the Greatest Generation to their children and the madness of the 80s and 90s.

This is a noir via the James Ellroy explanation of Noir as being ‘Your Fucked!’. The criminals are going to get caught, but so are the treasury agents who after a buy goes wrong find themselves with just 24 hours to catch the killers. In many ways it’s a throwback and a different era of crime film.

The film stars a very miscast Wesley Snipes who can’t seem to pull off the world weary at the end of his rope treasury agent. It’s not that Snipes is bad in the film, just that the role really calls for someone more gritty more worn out.

On the other hand the late Dennis Hopper is perfect as the recently released old school con man with big plans and big ideas. He’s a man out of time a man who has been passed by and who has at least a idea of what is right and wrong. Stealing the film is Viggo Mortensen, playing a psycho thug, the new breed.

The film unfolds as Red and Mercer are set on a path to collide. Along the way the film drags a bit in the middle and there is a muddled sub plot or two that get a little more screen time then they should. Over all it is a solid B Crime film with a couple of great moments, including a final shot that is one of the most pure noir moments in film during the 90s.

Hard Case Crime Alternative: Queenpin

Hard Case Crime Alternative: Queenpin

January 2010 is a month where Hard Case Crime won't have a new book out. For those of you that have read all of them and are looking for something to fill the void I suggest

Queenpin by Megan Abbott

here is my take on the book back in July of 2008
I almost didn’t pick up Megan Abbott's Queenpin. I’d heard an interview
with her a couple of years ago and been inspired to pick up a copy of
her first book… The Song is You, and wasn’t all that impressed….
However after running across a clip of her reading from Queenpin on
Youtube I was inspired to check it out of my library. I am so glad I
did, it radiates that pure Noir rhythm, and feel. I could almost hear
the Jazz, and taste the cocktails as I devoured the book. It’s the
story of a small time gal, who is plucked from the trenches of low
level casino grind and becomes the right hand of the local organization
runner. Soon she is also involved with a louse of a man, one that has
her number and gets her hips twitching…. And it’s all afoot from
there. I really like the sound and the tone, I love the feel of the
book, and I can’t wait to check out what ever Abbott has for us next…
hell I might even go back and check out The Song is You again, or her
second book Die a Little.

Since then:

I've had the chance to meet Megan and talk with her a couple of times. She confirmed that her goal with the book was to write a plot driven crime novel that would fit nicely next to the Hard Case Line. Her follow up book Bury Me Deep came out in 2009 and was a great look into the world of Phoenix in the 1930s, and another story about a man leading a woman astray. I know that she is working on a contemporary mystery currently, and I for one am looking forward to what ever she publishes next.

Thoughts, comments, HCC off Month recommendations?

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

A couple of weeks back I almost had to kick Elmore Leonard out of the lobby at work for smoking. His son Peters beat me to the punch and wrangled him out the door. They were appearing with fellow Michigan writer Loren D Estleman to talk about crime fiction. One of the topics of their event was that the film The Friends of Eddie Coyle getting released on DVD and how it was one of the best crime films ever made. I had never seen the film and it went into my Netflix Queue as soon at I got home.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Robert Mitchum stars as Eddie Coyle a low level criminal who mostly deals in buying and selling guns. He's been busted driving a truck of stolen booze, refused to give up the guys behind the theft of the booze on the truck and is looking at some jail time for his silence. He doesn't think that he can do the time, it's not the Pen that he's worried about, it's his family. He doesn't want them to have to go on welfare, or for his wife to have to work while he is away. He's trying to get out from under as easily as possible, looking for cop Richard Jordan (who I think is a Fed, but it's really never made explicit) to help him out and speak to the judge in the case, but he needs to watch which bridges he burns if he wants to keep on breathing. Here is the trailer

Set and shot in the Boston area the film has a great and real look, no back lot and sound stage stuff here. The location not only geographically but the location in time is really showcased well . The clothes, cars, hair styles and guns were all current in a real way, not in a Hollywood perfect upper middle class way that too many films suffer from.

Boston looks like a city on it's way down, we don't see the ghetto or the inner city and drug culture Apocalypse of the 70s is really missing from the film. One of the strangest things about the film is that lack of overt drug crime, it's as if it wasn't part of what was going down, but I'm left thinking it's more that Eddie is an old timer who's crime world was pre-big time heroin and he had mostly managed to keep it that way.

One thought that I had watching the film was that the cars have more color and pop to them than the clothes. I have vague memories of the earthtone blahs of that era, and this film really showed what that was like. The bars, coffee shops, the parking garages and the shopping centers are all a blast from the past and several of the shots of these places reminded me of films that came later. A shot of Mitchum driving his boat of a car though a new cement slab parking structure to the top made me think of Fargo for instance.

Mitchum is at his best here, this is the older and more world weary Mitchum. Gone is the evil psycho of Night of the Hunter, or the anti hero of Thunder Road (there is a nod of sorts to that film early on), this is the worn down and aging family man who has more to think about than getting a few bucks and a few laughs. His aging is made more dramatic by the distance in time that I have from the film, seeing his youthful co-stars. A young looking Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, not to mention Alex Rocco all of whom I recall from films and TV made a decade or more later. It's been said that this is Mitchums greatest performance, and I have to agree. He's very natural, very solid and understated.

I like the fact that there is an oblique quality to the film, not everything is spelled out and neatly wrapped up. There is no closure on a couple of plot points, there is no big explanation for how somethings come down. A young gun dealer is arrested and we never see him again, the kids who wanted to buy guns from him to rob banks drive away and never are seen again. I can't imagine modern film makers getting away with that--- unless it's the Coen Bros--- and even the end of the film has questions left unanswered.

It's a great film from a great era of film, one that I am going to have to watch again, and would love to see on the big screen.

Michigan Theater Noir Series

The Michigan Theater has been offering a series of Noir films this month, and so far I have taken in viewings of Sunset Boulevard and The Maltese Falcon. Both are classics and were great to see in the historic theater, with the organ being played before Sunset Boulevard the mood was set.

I am not sure if I am going to make it next week on the 20th, for Body Heat but I do plan to take in Chinatown. I've of course seen all of these films before, and while I am glad to get the chance to take them in on the big screen, I have to say that I want more..... and I would rather that the Neo-Noir of Body Heat and Chinatown be left for a Neo-Noir fest (where Blade Runner and The Last Suduction could be shown) and I would love to see some of the lesser known 40s and 50s Noirs on the big screen.

I am teased by the line up for the Noir City fest, with: The Company She Keeps, The October Man, The Prowler and Fly-by-Nite.... all on the slate to be viewed.

I don't expect that the very little know flicks like Noir City mostly traffics in to be shown around these parts, but if I had been programming this series, I think that I would have gone with the following Film's Noir:

Thieves' Highway
The Big Heat

Mystery Street

Crime Wave
all of which I would love to see on the big screen.

For now all I have to say is "Forget it Jake it's Chinatown"

Thieves' Highway

Thieves' Highway

I watched this flick for the first time last year after hearing about it on the top notch Out of the Past Podcast. For what ever reason it's been stuck in my mind and so I just checked the book, Thieves Mark by A. I. Bezzerides.

Noir Pie- Killer in Texas

More grim Noir rock... this time from the great Dallas band Ghoultown. 

Ghoultown.com

Myspace

Noir Pie- The Big Heat

For all you lurkers from the crime/noir fiction world... here is slice of New Wave singer song write Noir Rock..

Baby Shark by Robert Fate

Texas 1952, Pool Hall, Murder, Rape, Bikers are to blame. You can almost hear the Hank Williams on the Juke; you can feel the dusty wind and smell the stale beer and sweat. Baby Shark is the story of a girl left to die, a girl with everything taken from her, and looking for revenge. The stripped down story telling, the simple driving theme, return from trauma, taking vengeance, the long road back, it’s all in this sharp, quick, engrossing story.

In the hands of Fate (groan here pun haters) this material, which let’s face it isn’t exactly original, is crafted into something between the psychological quest for self, and the action adventure Rape Revenge stories of the 1970s and 80s. It drags a little in the middle and the end feels a little rushed. For a debut novel it’s solid and I look forward to reading the next entry.

How much would you bet on the flip of a card?

Lucky at Cards

Lawrence Block

 A Hard Case Crime Novel

             Lucky at Cards is the 3rd Hard Case Crime Book by Block that I have read so far, and like the others (A Diet Of Treacle and Grifter's Game) this book was a fast paced read that follows the adventures of people on the margin of what I like to call the G.I. life, which is to say a ‘normal’ life. In this case the main man on the margin is Bill Maynard, a former magician and current card mechanic. He has just been caught cheating in Chicago and finds himself in a new and unmanned town, where he is invited to a card game and falls in with a couple of guys from the upper middle/ lower upper class set. They take a liking to Bill and help him set up with a straight job, a girl, and the promise of that G.I. life….. only they don’t know about his grifter past, and his lack of comfort with the straight world.

             I enjoyed the book, and am looking forward to the other Lawrence Block Hard Case entry, The Girl With The Long Green Heart (currently sitting on my nightstand)… and I wonder, like the other three will it have the same theme. Over and over though Lucky at cards I was reminded of Block’s other books, and the thread that flows though all of them seems to be exploring the lives of people who are on the margins of the society, who all seem to know that they are on those margins, and all seem to know that they don’t really fit in either world…. And it’s freedom that seems to drive the protagonists of his books, and finding that freedom in many places, drugs, on the road, having lots and lots of money… and then there is the question of the price of that freedom… the rootlessness, the acts committed to get that money.. and of course the toll that drugs take.

             Highly recommended. 

Motherless Brooklyn

I finished reading this one today..  not bad, it took a while to get through, and I did enjoy it...

Games, Games, Games

Grifter’s Game by Lawrence Block

A Hard Case Crime 

            It’s all a con, at least that’s what David Mamet seems to always be on about… and that’s the story of this fast paced page turner from the golden age of pulp… or maybe the end of the golden age of pulp. It’s your basic story about boy is playing the wrong side of the track and meets a girl, who appears to be everything that he wants out of life… and he seems to be everything she wants… only she’d married and her husband has to go bye-bye so they can make off with his money. That’s the basic set up, and it’s a well worn Noir path… but what really set’s this book apart is the end, it’s not the ending that you would expect from this kind of story, maybe it’s that it was from ’61, and it was reflecting the end of the 50’s era, and the entrance into a new era, maybe it’s that Block could see where things were going and was on the cutting edge of where not only crime but social decay was starting.

 

            I should give a few words about Block here. I haven’t read any of this stuff for years, but he has an energy, a style and the occasional turn of a phrase that has made him one of the modern grand masters of the crime novel. He has that page turning energy, and the first half of this book flew by like a great Hi Energy Garage Punk tune.  There is also a slower side to his writing, and in several places he talks about the hypnotic effects of things, the pulse of the waves, the blur of a motion picture, and in some ways his writing has that effect, it draws the reader in and holds them long enough to get what it needs from them, it’s like the Grifter’s Game, it takes you along on this journey and keeps you coming back for more…. And soon enough I will be back, as I have two more of his Hard Case Crime entries sitting on my bedside table.

The Return of Max and Angela

Slide By Kenn Bruen and Jason Starr

This was one of the few books that I have read where you can feel the velocity of the story while reading. It’s fast, it’s fun, and it’s even funny. You have the remaining cast of Bust racing towards meeting once again; the book is filled with unhinged, deluded criminal types getting caught up in their own stupidity and failing to achieve. Not only is the book a fun read, it was obviously a fun book to write… in that it’s very over the top, almost to the point of parody, but never getting too ridiculous… unless you want to think that an assault on one of the authors of the book happening in the book as an act that’s over the line. I do have The Max, which is the third book in the Max and Angela series on my bedside table, and plan to read it soon.

The Mouse in the Mountain

The Mouse in the Mountain

by Norbert Davis

I heard about Norbert Davis on the In for Questioning Podcast (http://inforquestioning.blogspot.com/), and was looking for the book, Sally’s in the Alley, which was recommended by the Podcast (I think it was the Christa Faust episode)… and this was the only book by Davis in the Melcat system (which is the inter library loan system here in Michigan).. so it’s a fast- short- pulpy read. The story takes place in a mountain town in Mexico, where a bus of tourists have arrived, all looking for something different. Quickly there is a couple of murders, and Detective Doan and his dog Carstairs are in the middle of it. Over all there isn’t much to the story, aside from some quick deduction, some snappy dialog and some humor. Most of it’s kinda on the cheesy side, but since the book was written in the early ‘40’s not all of it had become a cliché yet. I enjoyed reading the book, and it moved along nicely. I don’t know that I am going to go all out to find a copy of Sally’s in the Alley, but if I were to stumble across one, I’d give it a read.

Night Walker by Donald Hamilton

Night Walker by Donald Hamilton

A Hard Case Crime Novel

Making my way thought the Hard Case Crime entries so far has had one big lesson for me, and that is that I understand so much more clearly the underlying message of these stories, and their impetus, and that’s the level of distrust of others that really came to the fore in the post WWII era. Now I am sure that it was there before, what with the history of swindlers, shysters, thieves, and politicians who were on the con, but it feels to me like the major social fall out of the war was that you really didn’t know who to trust.

 The story is pretty simple, a Navy Reserve Lieutenant is on his way to report for duty, he’s not looking forward to his having been called back, mostly because he is suffering from Post traumatic Stress Disorder, and when he is picked up hitch hiking to his duty station and kidnapped, he finds himself with what might be an out. He awakes to find himself weakened and playing a role in the plans of a groups of Reds who are under the watch of the feds. Now, this isn’t always the clearest, but that works, as our Lieutenant is in and out of it due to his injuries, and it takes him and the reader a while to figure out what has happened, who he can trust and how to get out of the situation.

The things that I liked most in this book were the little things, the fact that so many people had issues with the nick names they were given, as if they were saying to each other, don’t distill me to just this one little thing, this name that paints me as a child, a hair color, or a profession. I also enjoyed the fact that the book took place in a limited space, just like our hero, was trapped in his head, and in his body that wasn’t always respond ding the way he would have wanted.

 Yes he book isn’t big on action, and it’s kind of a twisted puzzle of a story, but it never drags, and it’s a quick enough read. I am not really sure how this fits into the Hard Case Crime world, but hey they must have had a reason to republish it. I have to admit that I have never read any of Hamilton’s other books, he is most famous for writing the Matt Helm spy novels in the 60’s, and I do have a couple of his Westerns lurking around.

 Over all this was a solid (and I need to find a new word to describe an acceptable, or slightly more than acceptable book) entry in the Hard Case Line.

There are they Now or Death of Innocence

Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas

A Hard Case Crime Novel

The surface of Little Girl Lost is the story of murder and missing money… the standard stuff of pulp… however it’s the underlying story of PI John Blake and his uncovering of not only the truth of the murder of his High School girlfriend on the roof of the strip club that she ended up working it… it’s also his coming to terms with the way the way life doesn’t always work out the way you think. Or want it to. There is action a plenty, there are skuzzy thugs and low life scumbags, fallen women and even a twist ending… which really wasn’t much of a twist. The language is fine, I do wish that it had a little more zing, or edge, but as some who looks back and thinks about the past and often finds the question of …. How did I get here?…. is worth a few hours of contemplation, I found this book to be more than just an diverting time passer. Now I tend to post these reviews on multiple sites, and sometimes I have to come up with a title for my review, and partly out of laziness and partly out of trying to draw the lines of connection I often pick a illusion to another media… in the case of Little Girl Lost, I find myself torn between citing the song ‘Death of Innocence’ by LA Punkers Legal Weapon or ‘Where are they  Now’ by Brit’s Cocksparrer… so I will let you chose your own.. 

Top of the Heap by Earl Stanley Gardner

Top of the Heap by Earl Stanley Gardner

A Cool & Lam mystery

Republished by Hard Case Crime
Originally published in 1952


The Los Angles Detective agency of Cool & Lam are hired to help flesh out a sham alibi, only investigator Don Lam is to smart to just do what he’s asked. Soon he is at work uncovering the real story behind the need of the alibi, and making his way though the underworld of San Francisco. This is a thinking story; it’s a puzzle, with a hard boiled edge. The action in the book is pretty minor, the gun play off stage and the banter of the need to know variety….. all that said, this was a fun and fast read, it perfectly captures the pulp format of it’s era, and while I can sit here more than 50 years later wishing that it was a little tougher, a little more Moonlighting, and a tad more edgy, I am glad to have spent time with Cool & Lam… ok mostly Lam… and look forward to checking out more of their exploits, and seeing how their tales change and morph and they author makes his way through the 50’s and into the 60’s, dealing with and reflecting the changes not only in the expectations from the paperback market, but also the coming of rock and roll and the drug culture.

Pure Noir

Queenpin by Megan Abbott


I almost didn’t pick up Megan Abbotts Queenpin. I’d heard an interview with her a couple of years ago and been inspired to pick up a copy of her first book… The Song is You, and wasn’t all that impressed…. However after running across a clip of her reading from Queenpin on Youtube I was inspired to check it out of my library. I am so glad I did, it’s radiates that pure Noir rhythm, and feel. I could almost hear the Jazz, and taste the cocktails as I devoured the book. It’s the story of a small time gal, who is plucked from the trenches of low level casino grind and becomes the right hand of the local organization runner. Soon she is also involved with a louse of a man, one that has her number and gets her hips twitching…. And it’s all a foot from there. I really like the sound and the tone, I love the feel of the book, and I can’t wait to check out what ever Abbott has for us next… hell I might even go back and check out The Song is You again, or her second book Die a Little.

Karma… or something like it.

Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Wow, talk about a rousing crime adventure. I am reminded of the great Elmore Leonard after reading this tale of a group of ego driven greedy people all trying to get their hands on what they want. For most of the character it’s money, but for those who have money? It’s sex, it’s power and it’s control. The basic plot is rich guy hires out a hit on his wife to get free of her, and everyone wants to shake him down for money afterward. In the end… we all the debts are paid, or mostly paid, and it was a fun enough journey. I think I will be looking up the sequel Slide in the very near future.

Out of the Past

I finally got around to watching all of the classic noir flick Out of the Past. It was great, filled with great images, juxtaposing the city and the country, the east coast and the west, and of course showing that if  in the words of the The Wire's Det. McNulty... if you play in dirt your gonna get dirty..... Robert Mitchum is great as the guy that want's out, but somehow knows he's not going to get out.... of course there are a couple of great lines, the one that I think I like the best is when Mitchum says "you don't get the gas for being the undertaker"....