Tag: raymond chandler

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TV

Mondays with Mason: Chapter One

The Perry Mason Recap: Season One, Episode One

Anyone who has spent some time in lending libraries around Chennai would know that Perry Mason was not just a book that you borrowed, but a whole shelf of paperbacks to get through. 

This is how them shelves be labelled and helped boys (at the time) such as me optimize our time within their premises: 

Romance (skip)

Periodicals (10 mins, mostly Cosmo) 

Comics (10 mins, mostly Phantom) 

And bulk of the time…

Agatha Christie

Perry Mason

So you see reader, Perry Mason was not just a set of books, it was a genre, a name that even blocked its author Erle Stanley Gardner out of memory. Maybe it was easy to label it as just Perry Mason. 

Speaking of names, the books had very intriguing titles, almost always a case attached to it; like the case of the velvet claws or the case of the black-eyed blonde (incidentally the black-eyed blonde part was borrowed for a recent Marlowe novel title, there’s our fun fact) and when the first episode  of the HBO TV series dropped, I was quite disappointed when it read ‘chapter one’. 

But the makers make up for the lack of imagination in titles with the richness of the settings. 

It’s 1930s Los Angeles.

The great depression, the cynics utopia, the golden age of pulp that relished the washed-out wit of detectives, the time when Chandler, Hammett (the Maltese Falcon was exactly 1930, there’s another fun fact), Gardner and a whole lot of others wrote their weight in gold. I could go on, because I love this as my literature and it’s there in this updated series from image one. 

It’s one thing recreating the city visually, it’s another recreating what I thought it was from the books. It begins with a ransom call and a baby kidnapping gone wrong, the unspeakable happens in which even a bit of thread could be so diabolical. 

That’s the case, it’s graphic and I understand why they don’t want to put in the title. 

When we meet our hero, it’s raining and he walks through his name credit, styled to resemble the Warner films of yore into a diner. Perry Mason, detective, not lawyer, detective and currently he is on a tail job. Classic. 

If you are a Depression era detective you must have the some of the following 

🔫 a pistol, because you never know what you get on the job

🤣an unhealthy sense of humor, because life’s bad anyway

👮a healthy hatred of uniformed policemen, ex-job maybe

🔬 an eye for detail, every clue counts

🐌a relentlessness search for an end and maybe the truth

👤a perennial love for social distancing

But more importantly, every detective of the time had their own take on life, a running social commentary that walked along with them that when these writers brought it out with the necessary turn of phrase, it became how readers made sense of the world, their own philosophy. 

If Marlowe was the Arthurian Knight, Mason was the one who stood between the underdog and society’s ills and monsters. 

Not in this episode, no, he is a typical detective, his philosophy will hopefully evolve over the course of the show, because there is space in ten episodes to do a lot of character development. 

Here he is quite clueless, when his partner asks him about life and fun and the next few scenes, we uncover layer after layer, his Great War experience, his marriage or lack of it, his diary farm that precariously sits next to a flying club and his general shabby life. Perry seems pretty empty at this point, clearly he has seen a lot and his motivation, although not his only, seems to be to get over with cases and get paid for it. There’s shockingly a streak of unscrupulousness too which comes out when he goes blackmailing, but I couldn’t read greed in him. Again, not typical Mason. 

But what’s typical in these types of stories is that our hero gets hit by thugs and I forgot to add resistance to thugs in my essential detective checklist. 

After much character development, we now have the kidnapped baby case brought to him by the ever terrific John Litgow who plays a senior lawyer (E.B) and our detective. 

That’s all really what I pine for, in a revival like this. 

The case is definitely high profile for Perry, he has to face off with insulting policemen at the crime scene, a shadowy client with deep pockets and deeper faith, a fidgety father who looks good for the killer on paper and a grieving mother who reminds him of his own son, far far away, separated. Oh yeah, there’s Della Street too. 

As we call to turn the page to chapter 2, our hero literally just has a strand from the case and there are lots of ways in which it could go from here. But is it not the job of the detective to go down the mean streets to get to the truth? 

Stayed tuned, till the next episode of Mondays with Mason. 

Oh yeah, this is a HBO show and it goes without saying.So there’s already at least two scenes that you cannot watch with family, but there’s a certain fun in solo watching of a show which features a lonely detective. 

HBO’s Perry Mason is streaming on Disney+Hotstar in India.

Categories
Books crime fiction

The Galton Case

Top of the heap # 3

For a novel that is hardly 250 pages, I did take a lot of time in finishing Ross Macdonald’s eight novel featuring his private detective Lew Archer.

Anyone who has read Raymond Chandler would recognize the name Ross Macdonald from his quote that appears frequently on the Philip Marlowe books; ” Chandler wrote like a slumming angel” it would say.

I was no stranger to Ross Macdonald, having read the first two novels and seen one of the Paul Newman films; but the novelist’s apparent claim to Chandler’s lineage did not sit well with me.

Until today.

Like most great novels, this appears to be about something and then ultimately about something else, something deeper and filled with true emotion; here the something is a 20 year old missing son case that Archer takes up with little hope.

Social commentary should be your protagonist’s second language if you do wish to find a place in Chandler’s family tree; but Lew Archer is not the detective who has a witticism ready for any occasion- he doesn’t want to prove his worth in words or in wisdom.

The quality of being there and yet not being there is Ross Macdonald’s greatest achievement in creating this protagonist; he balances the novel with the right amount of depth and cool, without ever having to show off. This quality, by no ways a reflection of poor prose but restraint and ultimately treating his characters as though they were real and he caring about them, and yet not trying to get a tear out of us by pumping in pity.

Lew Archer, named one half for the writer of Ben-hur and the other half as a hat-tip (pen-tip?) to another crime writing great, prods along never resorting to unnecessary judgement but carrying on with the case, the Galton case. (I mean)

I often feel that a success of the crime novel lies in the moments that when I stop being the reader and become the detective; the Galton Case is filled with many such excellent moments but there also moments where other characters too become identifiable.

One of the all time greats; it’s the novel where I could relish a distinguished voice of Ross Macdonald and one which I hope to return for years and years.

As fate would have it- in a novel about finding one’s true identity.

Over to the next one.

Categories
Books

Top Of The Heap: The Man Who Went Up In Smoke

Some critic has quipped on one of the Beck novels as follows  “pick up the books, block out a week, lie to your boss, stay in bed and finish the series”.

Normally critic-quips are for the show, but this time I tend to agree.

The Martin Beck novels are the written record of “this is what police work looks like” or as we say in this part of the world “Idhu Dan Da Police”.

A far- cry from the constructed problems that has come to dominate the crime novels or the detective story. Inspector Beck from Stokholm Homicide is no Hercule Poirot, but very much a working man(a character in the novel calls police-work a curse); who is met with walls of problems with every turn.

Sample this from the words of the inspector himself about this case:” Unpleasant. Very unpleasant. Singularly unpleasant. Damned unpleasant. Blasted unpleasant. Almost painfully so.” The disappearance of a person is not a problem for a gentleman detective to solve but a genuine human tragedy.

In their second outing, authors Sjowall and Wahloo send Martin Beck to Budapest to trace a Swedish journalist Alf Matsson who has literally disappeared into thin air. It is said that this writing couple alternate chapters and sometime even paragraphs between themselves, but I was unable to tell the difference.

Shady characters populate Budapest as Beck tries to make sense of what is happening to this case, while he should be vacationing with family on an isolated island and he knows only one thing, that this case cannot be solved alone. Yes, this is a summer holiday book and somehow I took it up at the right moment.

Even at 200 odd pages, the authors are able to convey a world of detail and observation only proves that words, like bullets, only work when used judiciously.

Oh, just realized that the title of this book is a wicked pun. So good these Swedes!

Do check out their Edgar Award winning novel “The Laughing Policeman”

 Top of the heap is an occasional column on books

 

Categories
Books cinema:english Essay Essential viewing Movie Notes Uncategorized

Out of The Past: Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

 

FML6 copyI have concluded that reading Raymond Chandler at an impressionable age has contributed the most to my further life choices, be it ‘literature’, movies, terse sentences and of course typing in the ‘courier new’ font.

Chandler started writing when the oil industry crashed and he had nothing much left to do, his creation reflects himself; being weary is his core competence.

If I could go back and play the irritating game invented for social engagement, ‘describe your creation in just one word’, Chandler would have said “tired”. If he was kind, he would add, “I’m tired. Enough!” As always breaking the rules.

So when there is a delay in our usual blog posts, it is probably because we are generally tired. Tired of ourselves, tired of the world, tired and yet careful not to add the growing empty mass that is film writing.  Readers must be thankful in that case.

We forgot to add one word to the above: growing boring empty mass that is film writing.

Boring.

 

 “You’re a very good-looking man to be in this kinda business”

Enter Robert Mitchum

Marlowe is supposed to be in his mid-thirties in the works, curiously but not unnatural the best portrayals of the private eye has come from very old ‘has-seen-it-all’ men.

Bogart was in his forties and Robert Mitchum almost touching sixty, it’s that kind of a role. It requires that kind of experience, it is the ‘hamlet’ of all detective roles, no I’m not joking. A sequel to the Big Sleep was called ‘Perchance to Dream’ which is from the famous of all famous soliloquies.

People and war have made our hero tired, and out of this tiredness comes sparkling wisdom.

Why does Marlowe still do it?

FML4

For the much quoted “25 dollars a day plus expenses?”

Nah, Marlowe doesn’t snoop around for money, but he doesn’t evoke moral mightiness too, he certainly doesn’t identify with a cause or putting criminal behind bars. Thankfully he is not insufferable with his ‘genius’ and actually very funny, like a real person.

I guess he just likes looking at people and what they do.

Looking brings us to Robert Mitchum, in many ways the spiritual remnant of Bogart’s distant masculinity, but looking at Mitchum’s eyes we know that this present sadness had once seen sparkle, that alone makes me feel that Mitchum is truer as Marlowe.

Marlowe watches because he knows that deep down all the depravity there is some tenderness, that’s all he looks for in a client, not money, not name, not fame. And he will do anything to look at that tiny true part of yourself.

Evil doesn’t startle him as much as innocence and goodness

People first, plot go to hell

 

For Chandler, the plot was secondary, the characters weren’t, he would never describe anyone unfairly nor would he puncture them for the sake of plot.

An open opponent of this whole locked room plotting business made him see people as people and not as clues or alibi to get going to the next page.

Marlowe is the same wise-ass to the police as he is to the crooks. An ending in a Chandler story is not its logical conclusion or hurrah for its hero, but the acceptance of reality.

The thread of Farewell My Lovely the film is very simple and it follows the book closely, just out of jail thug Moose Malloy wants to get his girl back. Will Marlowe do it or not?

And the hits keep on coming

FML1

Marlowe is always narrating his tale, when we meet him he is just out of a case, naturally tired; Mitchum looks like he just wants to go home but cannot when confronted by his innocent of a thug client.

Within moments Marlowe becomes the centre-piece of a worm caught in a web, and all he does is just give a sideward glance.

Very easy to be dismissed as non-acting, especially in the age that we live in (as in the golden age of non-acting); but I think tiredness is difficult to bring out as an emotion without being dramatic.

Mitchum gets hit on the head, shot at, danced with, seduced by, but all through the film but he plays it like a detective who knows the ending every single time, people will be people.

I don’t really care about the twist in the end

There is a twist in the end, but the film (naturally the novel) is not moving towards it a big reveal way, for fans of detective fiction and crime thrillers this could prove dampening.

Many things happen and so does a twist.

Detection truly could be one of the most boring jobs if not for the humongous amounts of exciting literature written about it.

<pause for reflection>

Maybe all jobs are boring or it is the nature of them to become boring. But somehow Marlowe and hence Mitchum(because of his ability to understand the character) seem to have cracked it.

This detective is a seeker of the intangible, something remote and indescribable as human kindness, that is his spiritual quest, something not even the thighs of a femme fatale or the muzzle of a gun could distract him from.

Hamlet of the detective class, indeed.

That’s an admirable state to be in and this is an admirable movie.

FML2

 

Out of the past is our series on movies that are anything but current,new,fresh etc; we find the idea of film writing just for the sake of a movie release distressing and also it demeans the timelessness of film itself. Mad or what, we won’t be reviewing old films,just writing about them.

 

 

 

Categories
cinema cinema:tamil Uncategorized

FRS: Accham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada(AYM)

aym2

Hi

So we all know what FRS is right? right?

-213.33333: Narration.

It ain’t a GVM movie if it doesn’t have narration. STR in Auro 3D

-140: Hero is a wastrel, MBA but still a wastrel

+52: Potential rise in the sales of already rising sales of Royal Enfield bikes, because impression-ables will think “Yo man, that’s who I am, a wanderer” which is good for Royal Enfield, but we are kind.

-17: Movie prances around a bit before getting into a “bikes vs babes” song in which hero explains as to why bikes are true love and life of boys are better without them and all this love shizz. Yo! Boys Im a biker bro.

-1.2K: Hero falls in love exactly 2 seconds later.

-320: Absolutely nothing happens in the first half, absolutely. Ok this is how it goes.

Girl and Boy will be in same room as in TV room, we think they might discuss something which could be interesting, but then we don’t hear it. Why?

Narration

Cut to scene with Hero playing carrom with buddies, who does narration again in real time.

Many movies talk about this kind of love, this love in which the interesting bits are left out and we have to, in good faith of the lead actors cuteness believe that they are love.

-5: F.R.I.E.N.D.S

-10: Actual friends who just rally around hero, nothing to speak also.

-63: Like all heroines, here also made to play cute, but since this is a different film here an extra component of ‘elegance’ is added. No one really knows what elegance means, maybe it is best explained by Conjeevarams and FabIndia kurtas.

+80: Heroine and her friend want to be a writer duo who will make scripts for Kollywood, yet director does not utilize this opportunity.

-29: Hero contemplates on going on a bike trip for 300 days before going on one, hero is worse than me in planning, should he be the hero?

-271: And Number One in our Unbelieveability Index: Girl will keep talking to one guy on daily basis for what seems like almost a year but still will not know his name. DEI and this is the biggest suspense in the movie. #yeppa

-90: Road Trippin

-457: In course of Road Trippin, hero knocks on a villagers house to ask for one night stay which they provide, hero then goes into social commentary on how people in villagers have a big heart and cities are filled with narrow minded folks who will buy tickets to movie which will call them narrow minded.

Has the director not heard of stayzilla?

-15: Forced comedy, based on the fact that girl eats a lot, heroine also puts her ‘elegance’ on hold so that she can lend herself to this joke.

-16: Hero washing his face directly from bisleri bottle sequence which aims to be well shot but actually doesn really make sense, because hero has just come out of upscale road themed dhabba which will surely have well maintained restrooms where hero can wash face. These things, I tell you.

-17: when they finally reach kanyakumari, seems they have reached Antartica only, soooo long the road trip also interspersed with 120 songs

+56: Girl and Boy go to lands end to wait for sun to rise. This is key cinematic event because, first time in Indian history of cinema, both characters on screen and in the theatre are waiting, of course for different reasons.

-2: Couple go to Kanyakumari, but do not go to Vivekananda Rock. I mean why wont you?

+32: Director Favorite Alert: It ain’t GVM movie, if it does not feature Kerala.

+15: Movie features Udupi_Manipal for a fleeting second. #rockkit

-20: heroine stands in Honnavar and says she in Maharastra.

-71: To every reviewer who said the first half is breezy romantic. Dei.

Yah Yah now only we are coming to second half.

Raymond Chandler, the pulp fictionist who fought all his later life for the recognition of his genre once said in a screenwriting TEDx, “when in doubt, have a man come in with a gun”

We can infer that the director of this film attended the TEDx

-20: Something something happens, then we find hero with gun.

-45: Gun has more bullets than my office parking lot (see what i did there)

+22: baba sehgal as raging but clueless villain. First time in history of Indian cinema that both audience and villain dont know what is happening on screen, I meant together.

+100: Whenever Baba Sehgal says Aata Maaji Satakli. Three times i think.

+120: Birth of a new style. In the middle of a high octane chase sequence we get to know that the hero actually had learnt to drive in this chase only, this is what we call the ‘make it up while you go in goa’ type of filmmaking. Very meta reference.

-119: Hero becomes more self aware, almost yogic in his self awareness, his narrations become deep messages to the soul that has lost its way and how it must fight back against the universe, if hero had a bigger beard, maybe they would have called him Sadhguru. Heroine is riding pillion, loss of elegance because now in chase mode.

-40: Tom Cruise method acting type of bruising, hero will get cuts and scars on his face which will never affect his handsomeness, in fact these scars enhance the handsomeness. Heroine is still riding pillion. Not commenting on elegance anymore because it is boring for us only.

-2: dei reviewer boy why using handsomeness again and again

+10: Hero’s name is still a suspense at this point in the movie, we are more frustrated than Baba Sehgal but kudos to the director for keeping up the suspense. Surgical Strike on our curiosity.

OoooooOoooooOoooo

+40: Birth of a new style: last ten minutes of the movie seem to be directed by someone else , is this the birth of outsourcing in direction? Who directed the last ten minutes, was it Hari or Suraaj, nation wants to know.

Also heavy narration at this point and Baba Sehgal looking like the most troubled soul on the  planet.

+5: For us for not giving away the suspense and writing such a post.

-900: Movie actually puts 900 days later as subtitle, hence messing up with my arithmetic while i try to convert it to years, movie still does not end in the time take by my stupid mind to do this basic calculation. Movie also uses days as metric in the first half of the film, sometimes it uses years also.

Damn it, why cant you use one standard unit of time. So problematic.

-100: The End.  Hero plans second road trip. Heroine still riding pillion, refraining from commenting on elegance.

-50: Director says movie inspired by a moment in ‘The Godfather’, but director does not mention if it is the Malayalam film or some other film.

Aata Maaji Satakli MAX

All numbers are irrelevant and arbitrary. All spelling and grammar mistakes are intentional, because we dont know grammar only. Semi-colon. LOL;

The FRS team

Subam