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Recommended reading
The lurid world of pulp
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Category Archives: British crime cinema
Plastic surgery noir
It’s the end of the year and and there’s not much gas left in the tank.
But before I take a break over Christmas and the New Year, I thought Pulp Curry readers might be interested in checking out a guest post I’ve done at the US site, Do Some Damage on plastic surgery noir. Yes, it is a thing. Or, at least, I just said it was.
As those of you who have read my novel Gunshine State are aware, there’s a sub plot involving plastic surgery, the details of which I’ll say no more about. Anyway, the guest post looks my fascination with plastic surgery in books and film, how to successfully put a character under the knife and my top five films dealing with plastic surgery and its variants.
You can view the post on the Do Some Damage site in full here.
That’s it for for Pulp Curry for 2016. Thanks for reading this year. I hope you all have a great break and I wish you all good luck for 2017. Something tells me we’re going to need it.
Oh, and if you are looking for a Christmas present for me, if you’ve read Gunshine State I would really appreciate a review or rating at Amazon or Goodreads.… Read more
Police fictions: Law enforcement involvement in early Crawford crime TV
‘Why was Homicide so successful? One reason was its production values, which was much more advanced than previously made local television dramas. The fact it was shot partly on location was also an Australian first. But the most significant drawcard was the show’s realism. Its settings were Melbourne’s dimly lit streets and alleys, its public bars and cramped workers’ cottages. The show also presented a realistic portrayal of criminals, investigators and the methods used to solve crimes. This authenticity was the chief selling point of Homicide and its successors, Division 4 and Matlock Police. And crucial to this authenticity was the in-depth involvement of the Victorian police.’
Last year, myself and fellow research and friend, Dean Brandum, were lucky to be awarded with a joint fellowship at the Australian Film Institute Research Centre. Our research was on the making of Crawford’s early television crime shows, Homicide, Matlock Police and Division 4. This included the much talked about but little known history of Victorian police involvement in all three shows.
You can read the full text of a article myself and Dean wrote for the literary magazine Overland, about our findings, here.… Read more
Mike Hodges’ Pulp & mass paperback fiction on the big screen
The opening credits of Mike Hodges’ under appreciated 1972 film, Pulp, are a delight for any fan of cheap pulp paperback fiction. As text roles across the screen (in type writer font, of course), the camera pans between the faces of the three female stenographers transcribing the words of sleazy English expat pulp writer, Mickey King (Michael Caine). As Caine’s nasal voice-over recites his latest novel, The Organ Grinder, we see the different reactions of the women, disgust, shock, and excitement. It’s a reminder that once, before it was reduced to an object of outre fascination for its cover art, pulp fiction elicited strong emotions.
The movie shifts to King, in his cheap white suit and big hair, Jack Carter – the character he played in Hodges’ Get Carter only a year earlier – gone to seed, stepping out of the Italian hotel he lives in to hail a cab. As he sits in the reception area waiting for his completed manuscript, King’s voice-over goes: “The writer’s life would be ideal but for the writing. This was a problem I had to overcome. Then I read the Guinness Book of Records about Earl Stanley Gardner, the world’s fastest novelist who would dictate up to the rate of ten thousand words every day.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, British crime cinema, Crime fiction, Crime film, Michael Caine, Pulp fiction, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged Brett Halliday, Davis Dresser, Earl Stanley Gardner, Get Carter (1971), Joseph Cotton, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Lisbeth Scott, London in the Raw (1965), Massino Pupillo, Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Mike Shayne, Nadia Cassini, Pulp (1972), Robert Altman, The Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Third Man (1949)
The 10 essential films of Stanley Baker
Welsh born actor Stanley Baker didn’t live to see his 50th birthday, but he left an impressive body of work. Like his friend Richard Burton, he escaped life as a coalminer for acting after a chance sighting in a school play by the casting director of Ealing Studios led to Baker’s first role in the 1943 war drama, Undercover. His rugged physique and hard grace meant he was most often cast as the tough guy in crime movies and spearheaded the evolution of the British film criminal from the gentlemen thief to more ruthless figures, often working-class, in films such Hell Drivers (1957), Joseph Losey’s The Criminal and Peter Yate’s 1967 heist film, Robbery.
Last weekend he would have been 88, were he still alive. To mark his career, I have a piece on the British Film Institute site looking at his 10 essential films. You can read it in full here.… Read more
Posted in British crime cinema, Heist films, Joseph Losey, Richard Burton, Stanley Baker, War film
Tagged Accident (1967), Anne Heywood, Cy Enfield, David McCullum, David Warner, Dirk Bogarde, Donald Pleasence, Eva (1962), Hell Drivers (1957), Innocent Bystanders (1972), Jacqueline Sassard, James Booth, Jeanne Moreau, Joseph Losey, Michael Caine, Patrick McGoohan, Perfect Friday (1970), Peter Yates, Robbery (1967), Stanley Baker, The Criminal (1960), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Ursula Andress, Violent Playground (1957), Zulu (1964)