Tag Archives: Klute (1971)

Pulp Friday: Klute, the UK paperback tie-ins

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Klute UK final 1973Today’s Pulp Friday offering is a very short addendum to my post a couple of weeks ago about the US paperback tie-in to Alan J Pakula’s 1971 movie, Klute, and the career of its author, William Johnston. As I noted in the post, which you can read in full here, Johnston appears to have been a master of the paper-back tie in, a massively popular form of entertainment before the advent of VHS, as a way for fans to re-live their favourite films and television shows.

Spurred on by a comment by one of my readers, I thought people might be interested in the UK paperback tie-in editions for Klute. There a two that I am aware of. The first is the 1973 Sphere paperback above, the cover for which was kindly sent to me by the reader in question, Stuart Radmore. As he noted, and I agree, it is a much darker and atmospheric cover design than the US 1971 Paperback Library edition. The back cover of this edition is included below.

The second is another Sphere version, this one from 1971, which appears to be the Australian and New Zealand edition of the Sphere tie-in. Until I saw Stuart’s comment, I had totally forgotten that I owned this version.… Read more

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Posted in Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art

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The marathon man: 6 great roles of Roy Scheider

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 8 Comments

Scheider 1I’ve been a long time fan of American actor Roy Scheider. But it was only after a recent viewing of his performance in the Alan J Pakula’s 1971 film, Klute, I realised despite having seen and liked him in a number of films I knew very little about his overall career.

I recently reviewed Klute on this site here, so I won’t go into further detail about the film except to say that Scheider is great as Bree Daniel’s former pimp, Frank Ligourin. His is not a large role, just one or two short scenes, but his presence elevates the entire movie and gives it an additional layer of malevolence. That’s Scheider in every movie I’ve seen him in. He elevates and heightens what’s already present.

Scheider could act and had a great presence, his ropey, perpetually suntanned body and his slightly askew, angular face with the broken nose, a legacy of his time boxing in New Jersey’s Diamond Golden Gloves Competition.The first time I can remember seeing him was when my parents took me to see Steve Speilberg’s Jaws upon its release in 1975. That was probably his best-known role but it was just one among many. He got his start in television and gradually moved into the big screen.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, Gene Hackman, John Frankenheimer, Roy Scheider, Sidney Lumet, William Friedkin

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Pulp Friday: Klute the novel & William Johnson, master of the paperback tie-in

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

Klute paperback frontI had a lot of interest in my post earlier this week on Alan J Pakula’s wonderfully atmospheric 1971 movie, Klute. Given this, I thought Pulp Curry readers may be interested in having a look at this artefact from my pulp collection, the paperback tie-in for the film. It was published by Paperback Library in July 1971, a month after the film was released. I like the tag line on the cover, which reduces what is a remarkably sophisticated film to a classic, 1950s sounding pulp novel: ‘A small-town cop and New York call girl run a collision course with murder’.

I thought this would be a relatively straight forward post, but as is often the case there is a story behind the author of this book. Paperback tie-ins were a massively popular form of entertainment before the advent of VHS, as a way for fans to re-live their favourite films and television shows. The author of Klute, William Johnston, appears to have been somewhat of a master of the paper-back tie in.

According to an article on this site, much of which was taken by a longer piece by author, Lee Goldberg, Johnston penned a large number of them. The best known of these were numerous books for the Get Smart series.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art

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