Category Archives: James Hadley Chase

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

After much thought I have decided that to experiment with moving the focus of my blogging from this site to a new Pulp Curry Substack newsletter.

Why am I doing this?

The first post on this website appeared on July 2010 (about the incredibly underrated 1979 Australian heist film, Money Movers – you can read the post here). I’ve been writing on the site with varying frequency ever since (579 posts in all), and for the most part have enjoyed it immensely.

But for the last 12 or so months I just haven’t been feeling it – or getting the hits to make it seem worthwhile – and have started to wonder whether it’s worth continuing with the effort. Posting on a website has been starting to feel like the equivalent of trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a crowded tram carriage, unwieldy and inconvenient.

And, thinking about it, I suspect the blog format is starting to get a bit stale for me and is actually now a brake on my posting more regularly.

I know that I’m no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. The majority of the blogs I used to follow have gradually fallen by the wayside, as people have moved on, grown weary of the effort, found other interests, adopted other means to get their message out, or, in some cases (gulp), died.… Read more

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, 1990s American crime films, Adrian McKinty, Albert Dekker, Andre De Toth, Angela Savage, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Zerbe, Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Australian television history, Ava Gardner, Beat culture, Belmont Tower Books, Ben Wheatley, Billie Whitelaw, Black pulp fiction, Blaxsploitation, Book cover design, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Bryan Brown, Burt Lancaster, Carter Brown, Charles Durning, Charles Willeford, Chester Himes, Christopher G Moore, Christopher Lee, Cinema culture, Claude Atkins, Coronet Books, Crawford Productions, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Crime fiction and film from China, Crime fiction and film from India, Crime fiction and film from Indonesia, Crime fiction and film from Japan, Crime fiction and film from Laos, Crime fiction and film from Latin and Central America, Crime fiction and film from Malaysia, Crime fiction and film from New Zealand, Crime fiction and film from Scandinavia, Crime fiction and film from Singapore, Crime fiction and film from South Korea, Crime fiction and film from Thailand, Crime fiction and film from the Philippines, Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam, Crime film, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, David Goodis, David Peace, David Whish-Wilson, Derek Raymond, Diana Dors, Dirk Bogarde, Don Siegel, Don Winslow, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Dystopian cinema, Ernest Borgnine, Eurocrime, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Femme fatale, Fernando Di Leo, Filipino genre films, Film Noir, Forgotten Melbourne, French cinema, French crime fiction, Garry Disher, Gene Hackman, George V Higgins, Georges Simenon, Ghost Money, Giallo cinema, Gil Brewer, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gloria Grahame, Gold Star Publications, Gregory Peck, Gunshine State, Heist films, Horror, Horwitz Publications, Humphrey Bogart, Ian Fleming, Interviews, Ira Levin, James Caan, James Crumley, James Ellroy, James Hadley Chase, James Woods, Jim Brown, Jim Thompson, Joel Edgerton, John Frankenheimer, Joseph Losey, Karen Black, Kerry Greenwood, Kinji Fukasaku, Larry Kent, Lee Marvin, Leigh Redhead, Lindy Cameron, M Emmet Walsh, Mad Max, Mafia, Malla Nunn, Martin Limon, Megan Abbott, Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, Men's Adventure Magazines, Michael Caine, Michael Fassbender, Mickey Spillane, Monarch Books, Ned Kelly Awards, Neo Noir, New English Library, Newton Thornburg, Noir Con, Noir fiction, Non-crime reviews, Oren Moverman, Orphan Road, Ozsploitation, Pan Books, Parker, Paul Newman, Peter Boyle, Peter Strickland, Peter Yates, Poliziotteschi, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Qui Xiaolong, Raymond Chandler, Richard Burton, Richard Conte, Robert Aldrich, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Robert Stone, Rock Hudson, Roger Smith, Rollerball, Rosaleen Norton, Roy Scheider, Rural noir, Sam Levene, Sam Peckinpah, Samuel Fuller, Science fiction and fantasy, Scripts Publications, Sidney Lumet, Sidney Poitier, Simon Harvester, Snowtown, Snubnose Press, Spies, Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden, Steve McQueen, Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980, Stuart Rosenberg, Tandem Books, Tart noir, Tartan Noir, Ted Lewis, Toni Johnson Woods, True crime, Vicki Hendricks, Victor Mature, Vintage mug shots, Vintage pulp paperback covers, Wallace Stroby, War film, Westerns, William Friedkin, Woody Strode, Yakuza films, Yaphet Kotto

Book reviews: Deadly dames, midcentury Brit pulp and 1970s science fiction

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Yes, it’s been a while since my last post, and during this time a few pulp and popular fiction related studies have come across my radar that I’m very keen to let Pulp Curry readers know about.

The first is of these is The Trials of Hank Janson by Steve Holland. If you are not familiar with Steve’s work then you need to rectify that and a good way to do this is to visit his site Bear Alley, where you will find a wealth of writing about British comics and pulp fiction. The second step is to pick up a copy of The Trials of Hank Janson, a slightly expanded reissue of a book originally published by Holland in 2004, when it shortlisted for the prestigious Gold Dagger Award by the UK Crime Writers’ Association.

Janson was one of the most successful British pulp writers of the 1940s and early 1950s. His books during this time were violent faux American crime tales in a similar vein to the work of James Hadley Chase and Australia’s Carter Brown: gritty gangster tales, full of American slang and detail, set in large American cities such as Chicago or New York. In the UK context, these books were part of a much larger wave of faux American crime fiction that swept the country in the postwar period (a trend which I wrote about for US site CrimeReads here).… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Book cover design, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Carter Brown, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, James Hadley Chase, Men's Adventure Magazines, Pulp fiction, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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September events: Australian pulp fiction and Dangerous Visions & New Worlds

Posted on August 14, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

September is shaping up to be a busy month for me, with three events that Pulp Curry readers might be interested in.

September 2nd to 4th is the inaugural Port Fairy Literary Weekend, which is being organised by the Wonderful Blarney Books and Art. The entire program, which looks great, can be viewed on-line here. I will be taking part in a panel titled ‘Dangerous Visions’ on the Saturday afternoon of the festivities. ABC journalist Matt Neal will be interviewing me about the book I co-edited with Iain McIntyre, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985, along with Mykaela Saunders and Jack Latimore, two writers who are part of a new anthology of First Nations science fiction, This All Come Back Now. I have a copy of This All Come Back Now and am looking forward to reading it before the event.

I will also have the remaining stock of my science fiction book, as well as copies of the first two in the series, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture 1950-1980 and Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and popular Fiction 1950-1980, for sale at the festival. Tickets for the event can be purchased via the website here.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Book cover design, British pulp fiction, Crime fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, James Hadley Chase, Pan Books, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy, Scripts Publications, Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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My top 10 British gangster films

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Andrew Nette| 10 Comments

One of my favourite British gangster films, Mike Hodges’s Get Carter, is 50 years old. It premiered in the UK in the northern British city of Newcastle, where it was filmed, on March 7, and in the US on March 18. I have penned a piece for a prominent crime fiction/related site on the influence of Get Carter on crime cinema, but am not exactly sure when this will come out. For now, I thought the film’s half century anniversary was as good a time as any to hit you with my top 10 British gangster films.

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

I wrote about They Made Me a Fugitive in some length on this site here. It was one of a trio of early post-war British gangster films that caused a stir with censors, the others being No Orchids for Miss Blandish and Brighton Rock, both of which appeared in 1948. Fugitive stars Trevor Howard as Clem Morgan, a demobbed Royal Air Force pilot who reluctantly joins a criminal gang headed by a flash gangster with a very nasty streak, Narcy, but baulks when his discovers his new employer is into drug trafficking. What I love about this film, and the aspect that attracted the most critical condemnation when it first appeared, is its depiction of the poverty and desperation of post-war British life.… Read more

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Posted in Billie Whitelaw, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Crime film, Heist films, James Hadley Chase, Joseph Losey, Michael Caine, Peter Yates, Richard Burton, Stanley Baker, True crime

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“Every headlight’s a police car, every shadow is a cop”: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

I have been writing a bit this year on the phenomenal popularity of faux American crime fiction in post-war culture in places like Australia and Great Britain. By this I mean crime fiction written and produced in these countries that not only mimicked the atmosphere and tropes of hardboiled American mystery novels and film, but was set in mythical versions of big American cities, such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. This fiction, for example many of the books written by Australian crime fiction author Alan Yates aka Carter Brown, was sometimes even mistaken for the genuine thing.

One of the countless cultural offshoots of the United States’ emergence as the dominant global power after World War II, the success of faux American crime fiction is often associated with the wide penetration of film noir and American writers such as Mickey Spillane. But as I wrote in this piece on the popularity of the controversial 1939 James Hadley Chase novel, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, its roots go much deeper; the influence of pre-war writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and W. R Burnett. Also the private detective and mystery fiction contained in the mass-produced American pulp fiction magazines that flooded into markets such as Australia and Great Britain in the 1930s.… Read more

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Posted in Australian pulp fiction, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Burt Lancaster, Crime fiction, Crime film, Film Noir, James Hadley Chase, Mickey Spillane, Noir fiction, Pulp fiction, Pulp paperback cover art

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