Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024)

We weren’t big fans of the TV series THE FALL GUY. In fact, I can’t remember for sure if we ever even watched an entire episode of it. Maybe there was something on opposite it that we watched instead. Even though we had a VCR by that time, we didn’t record a lot. Blank tapes, you may remember, were expensive starting out!

Anyway, you might think that would make me not exactly the target audience for the movie version that came out a couple of years ago. But hey, I like Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, so why not give it a try.

Even though we didn’t watch the TV show, I knew that Colt Seavers was the name of the character played by Lee Majors, a Hollywood stuntman who also worked from time to time as a bounty hunter/private detective. In the movie, Ryan Gosling plays Seavers, but as the movie opens, he’s just a stuntman who’s badly injured in a stunt gone wrong. It’s only after months of recuperation that he’s dragged back into the movie business as a favor to his former girlfriend, a camera operator who’s directing her first feature (Emily Blunt). The shoot is in Australia, and things quickly go wrong. The star of the movie, an obnoxious action star, goes missing, and Colt Seavers becomes an unofficial private eye, pressured by the film’s producer into tracking the guy down.

Of course, this leads into a complicated plot involving murder and almost non-stop, over-the-top action reminiscent of the Fast and Furious movies. Meaning it’s loud, silly, and totally unrealistic . . . but I, uh, enjoyed it anyway.

Actually, I got a huge kick out of this movie and grinned almost all the way through it. Lots of movie and writing jokes, rapid fire banter, and all that action. I mean, you know my motto: If you’re going over-the-top anyway, you might as well go ’waaayyy over. Really, the only things this movie is missing are quicksand, a swordfight, and (my favorite) a fight on top of a moving train.

I know THE FALL GUY didn’t get very good reviews and flopped at the box office, but I had a good time watching it. It’s no masterpiece of the cinema, but neither are a lot of the movies I like. I may have to hunt up some episodes of the TV series and see if it might be a good candidate for a TV Series I’ve Missed Until Now post.

An Announcement

There are going to be books reviewed here that have AI covers because I wanted to read them, and when I did, I liked them. While I post mixed reviews from time to time and have been known to quibble about a few points here and there, I try to concentrate on books that I've enjoyed. Most of the ones with AI covers I've reviewed have been reprints of older books written long before AI existed. I know for a fact that they're either in the public domain or have been properly licensed from the rights holders. When I've reviewed new books with AI covers, it's usually because I know the author personally or have some reason to trust that the book wasn't written by AI.

I removed a comment from another post where the commenter implied that the publisher was guilty of illegal behavior. If an AI cover makes you not want to buy a book, that's fine, what you buy is entirely up to you. You can skip that post, and if you do, I hope you'll come back the next day for a post about a pulp or an old movie or a vintage paperback, because those things are still going to account for most of the content here. If not, again, that's entirely up to you. As for me, I'd rather have a copy of that 80-year-old Western novel I want to read, even if it has an AI cover.

And as for this blog, AI covers have joined the ranks of politics and religion. FIGHT THAT WAR SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Forgive me for posting in, well, anger is too strong a word. Annoyance, maybe. Forgive me for posting in annoyance. Unfortunately, there have been times in the past when I've backed off on reviewing certain books because I knew people I care about would be upset. I still believe in not going out of my way to cause trouble, but maybe I'm going to worry about it a little less in the future. So if you see something on here you don't like, I hope it won't run you off for good, but if I'm writing about something, I truly think it's worth your time and I want to tell you about it.

Review: The Buffer - J.E. Macdonnell

J.E. Macdonnell was an Australian author who wrote several hundred novels in a variety of genres. Some of his espionage thrillers were reprinted in the United States under the pseudonym James Dark, and I read a couple of those back in the day and enjoyed them. These days, however, Macdonnell is best remembered for the many World War II novels he wrote about the Australian Navy, many of which are available as e-books from Piccadilly Publishing. I recently read THE BUFFER, published originally in paperback by Horwitz in 1963.

From what I gather, Macdonnell’s novels often feature a destroyer known as the Wind Rode, and the books have a continuing cast of characters including the captain, the first lieutenant, and the chief bosun’s mate, a rank nicknamed The Buffer. In this case, The Buffer is William “Hooky” Walker, so called because his right hand was shot off during a battle and replaced with a steel hook. That doesn’t prevent Hooky from carrying out his duties and being much admired by the ship’s crew.

Not everybody gets along with Hooky, though. A new junior sub-lieutenant clashes with him almost immediately because the youngster is very much by-the-book and Hooky is an old vet who knows how to get things done even if he has to bend the regulations a little now and then. One of the sailors also hates Hooky because he’s a slacker and a malingerer and Hooky won’t let him get away with it. He has another reason for hating The Buffer, too, which comes out in time.

In addition to all the details of shipboard life, Macdonnell provides a considerable amount of action as the Wind Rode delivers a load of aviation fuel to an isolated island airfield and is attacked by Japanese bombers; runs into a submarine and trades shots with it; and finally goes into battle against a Japanese cruiser that has our heroes much outgunned. There’s also a very suspenseful scene involved an unexploded bomb. The personal drama that’s been simmering under the surface finally breaks through at the end.

THE BUFFER runs into the same problem as a lot of nautical fiction I read: much of the time, I don’t have a clue what it’s talking about. I am not a boat guy and much of the terminology sails (ha!) right over my head. However, I can figure out most of that stuff from context, and my lack of nautical knowledge isn’t a great drawback. (I do know a considerable amount about Mississippi riverboats, having researched them for numerous books, but even there, I’m far from an expert.)

Despite my comment about the terminology, I really enjoyed THE BUFFER. Hooky is a great protagonist, and Macdonnell’s prose has a blunt, straightforward style that’s very appropriate for the situation and characters. The story drew me along at a fast pace. With its ensemble cast and episodic structure, this novel reminded me a great deal of a good Sixties TV show about World War II. Being a huge fan of COMBAT! and THE RAT PATROL, I consider that high praise. There’s a direct sequel to this book and I already have it, so I plan to read it soon. I also want to go back and pick up some of the earlier books. This is great stuff, and I highly recommend it. You can find it for various platforms here.

A Middle of the Night Music Post: Flight of the Silverbird - Two Steps From Hell

I came across this song by Two Steps From Hell and absolutely love it. I've heard it said of their music that it inspires you to create movies in your head, and that's certainly the case here. This is perfect for the opening credits sequence of an epic Western movie. I'm not a big one for playing music while I'm writing, but I have a hunch I may be listening to this one some while pounding the keyboard.

Sunday Morning Bonus Pulp: Big-Book Detective Magazine, February 1942

I've read several issues of BIG-BOOK WESTERN MAGAZINE over the years, but I've never read or even seen an issue of BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, Popular Publications' attempt to launch another detective pulp. Unlike its Western cousin, BIG-BOOK DETECTIVE MAGAZINE wasn't successful and ran only eight issues from December 1941 to February 1943. This is the second issue, and based on the good cover (don't know who painted it) and the lineup of authors, the magazine's failure wasn't warranted based on its quality. Authors on hand in this issue are T.T. Flynn, W.T. Ballard, Russell Gray (actually Bruno Fischer), Robert Sidney Bowen, Jackson Gregory Jr., and house-names Daniel Winters, Ray P. Shotwell, and David Crewe. The thing about those house-names is that this being Popular Publications, the actual authors were probably pretty darned good. 

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: West, September 10, 1927

William Reusswig did some nice covers, and I like the one on this issue of WEST, when it was still being published by Doubleday and coming out every week. The authors are a mix of familiar names and ones I don't recognize. The familiar: Stephen Payne, Ralph R. Perry, Oscar J. Friend, Kenneth Gilbert, and Homer King Gordon. The ones I don't know: William West Winter, Edwin Hunt Hoover, and Robert V. Carr. Perry wrote a really fine Western novel called NIGHTRIDER DEPUTY. Friend is best remembered probably as an agent and editor, but I've enjoyed the fiction by him that I've read, too. Payne had a long, productive career as a Western pulpster. I don't recall reading anything by Gilbert or Gordon, but they published steadily, too. This looks like a pretty good issue. 

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Stirrup HIgh/Western Word Wrangler - Walt Coburn

I’ve discussed Walt Coburn’s work here before. He’s one of my favorite Western authors, while at the same time being one of the most maddeningly inconsistent. Today, though, I’m talking about his non-fiction, not his hundreds of pulp stories and dozens of novels. Coburn is the author of two memoirs, STIRRUP HIGH and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER, and they’re both well worth reading.

STIRRUP HIGH is the better of the two. It’s the story of Coburn’s life as a boy growing up on his father’s vast ranch in Montana around the turn of the Twentieth Century. Although there were a few modern conveniences, such as cars and telephones, ranch life in Montana at that time hadn’t changed much from the Old West days (which weren’t so old then, only a couple of decades past). Young Walt was a high-spirited kid, and STIRRUP HIGH is full of his adventures, many of them in tandem with the old cowboy who served as his father’s foreman. Even in Coburn’s worst pulp stories, there’s an air of authenticity, a feeling of “this is the way it really was” when it comes to ranch life, and when you read STIRRUP HIGH, you can see why that’s true. Now, you have to remember that Coburn was a born yarn-spinner, and like a lot of fiction-writers who turn their hands to non-fiction, he can’t resist embellishing a little bit. Some of the dates that he gives don’t quite add up, and some of the stories he tells in this book don’t quite jibe with established facts . . . but I’m not sure either of those things matter. The spirit is true, and STIRRUP HIGH is vastly entertaining.

WESTERN WORD WRANGLER covers some of the same ground but also carries the story on into Coburn’s later life and is fairly unstinting in dealing with some of the mental problems that plagued him throughout his adult years, along with the physical problems that made him give up cowboying and turn to writing. Much of the material in this volume is drawn from “The Talley Book”, the long-running column that Coburn wrote for the magazine TRUE WEST. That makes for a pretty episodic narrative, and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER is not nearly as polished as STIRRUP HIGH. It also doesn’t go into the amount of detail about his writing career that I wish it would have. But it’s still entertaining and filled with information.

Walt Coburn came to a bad end, tormented by alcoholism and finally dead by his own hand because he couldn’t sell his work anymore. His stories have made a small comeback in recent years, with several paperback collections of his pulp stories from Leisure, as well as a number of hardback and large print reprints of his novels. Everything he wrote in the Twenties and Thirties is worth reading, at least based on what I’ve read so far, and good stories can be found in his work from the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, as well, although you might have to dig a little harder for it. He deserves to be remembered, and STIRRUP HIGH and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER are pretty good places to start.

(This post originally appeared on February 27, 2009. I've continued to read novels and stories by Walt Coburn, although not as frequently as I was doing back then. I still consider him one of my favorite Western writers, though, despite the inconsistency of his later work. I once had him make a cameo appearance in a house-name novel set in the early 1900s. The protagonist was a friend of Coburn's father, so he stopped at the family ranch while passing through Montana. Mention was made of young Walt, who was already quite a yarn-spinner. I hope some reader, somewhere, caught that reference. I never saw any comment about it in any of the Amazon reviews of the book.)

Review: Just a Johnny Reb - Kirk Hamilton (Keith Hetherington)

Keith Hetherington was one of the best and most prolific of the Australian Western writers who turned out hundreds of books for Cleveland Publishing Company, and the fine folks at Piccadilly Publishing are doing a top-notch job of making his books available for a new generation of readers as well as for long-time fans of Hetherington’s work like myself.

One of the latest releases I read as an ARC is JUST A JOHNNY REB, which will be available August 1 as half of a double volume along with LEGACY OF THE COUGAR. It was published originally by Cleveland in 1996 under Hetherington’s most common pseudonym Kirk Hamilton. The Johnny Reb of the title is Laramie Coyle, a former Confederate soldier who would be content to leave the war behind him, but not everyone is willing to do that. A clash with a Northerner results in a gunfight that leaves a man dead and earns Coyle a mortal enemy whose efforts at revenge dog his trail.

Eventually, to repay an elderly couple who help him out, Coyle takes on the job of finding another former Confederate who was a prisoner of war in a Union prison camp. The trail leads him to San Antonio, Texas, where he runs into more trouble from the Reconstruction forces occupying the town, as well as getting mixed up with a rancher who’s determined the South will rise again, even if it means restarting the war.

As always in a Keith Hetherington novel, there’s plenty of well-written action. He was one of the best at fistfights and shootouts, giving them a suitably gritty and realistic feel. The plot is solid, and Laramie Coyle is a good protagonist. The little bit of romance that crops up in the novel is handled well, too.

I enjoyed JUST A JOHNNY REB, and if you’re a fan of traditional Westerns, I think there’s a good chance you will, too. You can pre-order it at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Bookshop.org.

TV Series I've Missed Until Now: Family Tree (2013)

I really like actor Chris O’Dowd (THE I.T. CROWD and GET SHORTY) and will watch him in almost anything. So when I came across a comedy series starring him called FAMILY TREE, I didn’t hesitate to give it a try. It ran on HBO in 2013 for only one season of 8 half-hour episodes, so it wasn’t going to be much of an investment of time. I was a little leery of the format: it’s a mockumentary, written and directed by Christopher Guest, who is, of course, very well-known for the genre. But sometimes they don’t work great for me. Even so, I wanted to watch this one.

I’m glad I did. O’Dowd plays Tom Chadwick, who grew up in Ireland with his mother after his parents divorced. His sister (Nina Conti) remained in London with their father (Michael McKean) and is, well, a mite eccentric, carrying around a monkey puppet and talking through it. Tom has returned to London after a break-up and has a good but somewhat goofy friend who works in a zoo. All that is established pretty quickly, and then we get to the meat of the series. Tom’s great-aunt has died and left him a box full of family mementoes that pique his interest in his ancestors, and so he sets off to explore the family tree, leading to encounters with all sorts of bizarre relatives he didn’t know he had.

This series is known for being heavily improvised, and you can tell that. It’s also very funny at times, although I’ll admit it took a couple of episodes to grow on me. Most of the comedy is the same gentle, character-driven humor to be found in DETECTORISTS, one of my favorite series of recent years. FAMILY TREE can manage to be hilarious, uncomfortable, and heart-warming, all in the same half-hour. Tom’s dad is a fan of several fake British TV sitcoms, and the clips we see of those are very funny, too.

Quite a few fine comedic actors show up in supporting roles along the way: Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Kevin Pollack, Will Sasso, Joe Lo Truglio, Graham Greene, and Bob Balaban are all on hand. I always enjoy seeing Michael McKean, and as always when I do, I wonder why Lenny went on to have such a long, productive career and Squiggy didn’t, but such are the ways of fame, I suppose.

The ending left me unable to tell if they hoped the series would continue or if it was always intended to be a one-and-done. But it’s sweet and wraps things up well enough. I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy FAMILY TREE, but I wound up liking it a lot. It’s a very nice change from the type of TV we usually watch, and I recommend it if you’re in the mood for an offbeat comedy.

Review: Some Day I'll Kill You - Dana Chambers

Until recently, I’d never heard of hardboiled mystery author Dana Chambers, whose real name was Albert Fear Leffingwell. Looking at his books, though, they seem to be right in my wheelhouse, and since Stark House Press is making it easy by reprinting them, I recently read the first in the Jim Steele series, SOME DAY I’LL KILL YOU, published originally in hardback by Dial Press in 1939 and reprinted twice in paperback by Popular Library in 1949 and 1953, prior to the recent Stark House double volume that also includes the second novel in the series, TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING, and an informative introduction by Curtis Evans.

With a name like Jim Steele, you’d figure the narrator/protagonist of this book is a private detective, but no, he’s actually a writer of radio thrillers, although he’s one of the toughest, most two-fisted radio scripters you’re liable to run across. Hey, he even fought in the Spanish Civil War as a pilot for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. But as this novel opens, he’s back in the States and concerned with the trouble in which an old flame finds herself. Beautiful Lisa Ridgman, married to psychiatrist Mike Ridgman, is being blackmailed over accusations that she murdered her first husband. She’s gotten three anonymous letters so far, not only demanding money but being threatening, as if her own life is in danger.

Well, Jim knows the girl he’s in love with isn’t a killer, of course, and when she asks him to come along to her husband’s country estate in Connecticut for a weekend get-together with some of their wealthy friends, Jim agrees right away. Of course, he doesn’t know that he’ll barely be on the scene before murder strikes—and it won’t be the only killing before the weekend is over, either.

SOME DAY I’LL KILL YOU is a really offbeat blend of an English country house mystery and a rock’em, sock’em hardboiled crime yarn. Sure, you’ve got brittle banter among rich folks, much discussion of wills and inheritances, and some genteel flirtations. But then you’ve also got gangsters and shootings and slugfests (Jim gets hit on the head and knocked out twice in 24 hours), lots of hard drinking, beautiful babes, and surprisingly risque dialogue for the era. Chambers mixes and stirs all these elements in amusing, fast-paced prose that’s also suitably brutal when it needs to be. Jim Steele may spend his days typing scripts, but you don’t want to make an enemy of him.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a Front Porch yarn for sure, the kind of book I grew up loving and still do. Highly recommended. You can find ebook and paperback editions of the double volume on Amazon.