Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: The Longest Day

Last week I posted about the war movie HELL IS FOR HEROES on the day after Memorial Day was observed. Since tomorrow is the anniversary of D-Day, it seemed appropriate to write something about THE LONGEST DAY this week.

This movie is overlooked only in the same sense that HELL IS FOR HEROES was, that is, I've never seen it until now. Don't ask me how that's possible, but it's true. I've seen other movies about D-Day, but not this one. As I'm sure most of you know, it's the sort of big, sprawling, epic production that Hollywood used to turn out, with what they call a "star-studded" cast, meaning that there's not really a single lead but rather a bunch of big-name actors wandering around doing bit parts.

There are little fictional scenes here and there, but for the most part THE LONGEST DAY is a straightforward historical retelling of the events of June 5 and 6, 1944, from the perspective of both the Allies and the Germans. From what I know of the history, it's pretty accurate, too.

John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, and Edmond O'Brien all play American generals. Peter Lawford's a British commando, Richard Burton's a pilot. Sean Connery has a couple of scenes as a Scottish sergeant, and although they're never on screen together, Gert Frobe, who a year later would be opposing Connery's James Bond as Auric Goldfinger, shows up as a somewhat inept German sergeant. In what's probably the movie's best scene, Red Buttons is an American paratrooper whose parachute gets hung up on a church roof, leaving him dangling helplessly over a courtyard full of German soldiers. And that's just a few of the people in this film, which was put together by three different directors and half a dozen writers.

I enjoyed THE LONGEST DAY, but the first half of it sure is slow. The invasion itself doesn't really get cranked up until the final third of the movie, but that saves the film from collapsing under its own weight. There's some spectacular stunt and special effects work, the photography is excellent, and the acting is solid all around. If you're a fan of war films and haven't seen it, you really ought to. I think I prefer a little more fiction mixed in with my history, but that's just me.

New Story at Beat to a Pulp

Tom Roberts is not only a fine artist and the publisher of one of the best pulp reprint lines out there, Black Dog Books, he's also an excellent writer. Check out his story "Hard Time" on BEAT TO A PULP this week.

New This Week

Larry Block was having a sale on signed copies of AFTER HOURS from 1995, which consists of several long interviews with him conducted by Ernie Bulow, a reprint of Block's first published short story, and several short autobiographical essays. Having read Block's AFTERTHOUGHTS, it's going to be interesting to compare what he says in it to the opinions he expressed in this book 17 years ago.

And that's the only thing that came in this week, which is fine because I have plenty to read.

Writing Update

4913 words today. Now that's more like it. Although I probably wouldn't want to do that much every day. Finished the story I was working on, though, so that's a nice feeling of accomplishment.

Dead Man's Brand - Norbert Davis

I first encountered the work of Norbert Davis in Ron Goulart's anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS (one of the most important and influential anthologies of the past fifty years, if you ask me), which included a story featuring Davis's private eye character Max Latin, "Don't Give Your Right Name". Great stuff, and since then I've read many other pulp mystery stories by Davis. He's probably best known for his trio of novels featuring a PI named Doan and a Great Dane known as Carstairs. I have these but haven't gotten around to reading them yet.

I knew Davis had written other things besides mysteries, but I wasn't really aware he had done Westerns until Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books published DEAD MAN'S BRAND, a collection of eight of Davis's stories from various Western pulps. (And that's Tom's artwork on the cover, by the way.) As you might expect if you're familiar with Davis's work, they're all top-notch yarns.

"A Gunsmoke Case for Major Cain" (DIME WESTERN, October 1940) is a frontier legal thriller with an exciting courtroom scene and a neat twist. It was also Davis's lone film sale, serving as the basis for the Wild Bill Elliott vehicle HANDS ACROSS THE ROCKIES, as detailed by Bill Pronzini in his introduction and Ed Hulse in his afterword. "Their Guardian From Hell" (STAR WESTERN, March 1937) is a hardboiled tale featuring a self-loathing gunman who protects a family of settlers from the villains out to steal their land. In "Leetown's One-Man Army" (STAR WESTERN, October 1941), a drifter named California Tracy with a score of his own to settle finds himself in the middle of a war between a cattle baron and some sodbusters, a traditional plot that Davis enlivens with some fine writing and a nice twist. The title story, "Dead Man's Brand", is from the November 1942 issue of STAR WESTERN. In it, drifting cowboy Dave Tully tries to claim an inheritance and finds himself framed for a murder: his own. "The Gunsmoke Banker Rides In" (STAR WESTERN, July 1942) is another well-plotted Western mystery about a banker who's surprisingly fast with a pair of .41 caliber derringers.

This volume also includes three stories from earlier in Davis's career. "Death Creeps" (ACTION STORIES, December 1935) finds troubleshooter Dave Silver being hired to find the Creeper, a mysterious murderer who kills from the darkness. In "Sign of the Sidewinder" (WESTERN ACES, June 1935), Tom Band, an American cowboy framed for a murder he didn't commit, is broken out of a Mexican prison to carry out a mission of vengeance for his benefactor. This is my favorite story in the collection, a great noir adventure yarn. Tom Band returns in the almost as good "Boot-Hill Bait" (WESTERN ACES, November 1935), which finds him on the trail of a fortune in outlaw loot. If there are any more Tom Band stories, I'd love to read them.

In all of these stories, Davis's smooth prose is a joy to read, and he handles humor, emotional torment, and lightning-paced action all with equal ease and effectiveness. These are simply some of the best-written Western tales you'll ever read, and DEAD MAN'S BRAND is a great collection. It gets my highest recommendation.

Writing Update

This was a pretty productive day: 2485 words, some of it rewrites on one story, some of it new pages on a different story. I need to do better than that, but yesterday and today have been a good start to the month.

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Real Western Romances, December 1949

Here's another Columbia Western pulp edited by Robert W. Lowndes, with a cover by Milton Luros. The cowboy hero on this one is really determined to escape! Check out that noose around his neck. The biggest names among the authors in this issue are probably A.A. Baker, who published some Avalon Westerns, and Ben Frank, prolific pulpster and author of the long-running Doc Swap series that appeared as a backup in TEXAS RANGERS. The cover is pretty dynamic, though, so that's why I'm featuring it today.

Writing Update

My wordage total for the day was 1602. However, that's sort of deceptive. 1185 words of that went to finish off the short story I've been working on the past couple of days. That went pretty quickly this morning. The rest of the day was spent rewriting part of a story for another project. The other 417 words were how much that story grew during the day. But I was rewriting so heavily, throwing out big chunks and writing new chunks to replace them, that I probably wrote a couple thousand more words that didn't get counted. And I don't know of any accurate way to count them, so I didn't.

Peacemaker Awards

Western Fictioneers (WF) is pleased to announce the WINNERs for the second annual (2011) Peacemaker Awards.

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT PEACEMAKER:

Jory Sherman

BEST WESTERN SHORT STORY

WINNER:

Troy D. Smith -- “The Sin of Eli”        Publisher: WF anthology Traditional West

FINALISTS:

“Planting Season” by Johnny D Boggs (Cactus Country Anthology, Volume I – High Hill Press)

“The Way of the West” by Larry J. Martin (The Traditional West anthology, WF)

"Blackwell's Run" by Troy D. Smith (Western Trail Blazer)

“Panhandle Freight” by LJ Washburn (The Traditional West anthology, WF)    

“The Death of Delgado” by Rod Miller (The Traditional West anthology, WF)

“Stay of Execution” by Lucia St. Clair Robson (Cactus Country Anthology, Volume I – High Hill Press)

BEST WESTERN NOVEL:

WINNER:

James Reasoner -- Redemption, Kansas  Publisher: Berkley

FINALISTS:

The Sonora Noose by Jackson Lowry (Berkley)

Blood Trails by Lyle Brandt (Berkley)

The Assassination of Governor Boggs by Rod Miller (Bonneville Books)

Between Hell and Texas by Dusty Richards (Kensington Pinnacle imprint)

BEST WESTERN FIRST NOVEL:

WINNER:

Wayne Dundee --  Dismal River        Publisher: Oak Tree Press

FINALISTS:

Unbridled by Tammy Hinton (Roots and Branches Publishing)

The Black Hills by Rod Thompson (Berkley)

Bullets And Bad Bad Men by B.A. Kelly (Oak Tree Press)

The Guerrilla Man by Steven Clark (Solstice Publishing)

Western Fictioneers (WF) was formed in 2010 by Robert J. Randisi, James Reasoner, Frank Roderus, and other professional Western writers, to preserve, honor, and promote traditional Western writing in the 21^st century.  Entries were accepted in both print and electronic forms.  The Peacemaker Awards will be given out annually.  Submissions for the 2012 awards will be open in July, 2012. Submission guidelines will be posted on the WF web site.  For more information about Western Fictioneers (WF) please visit:

http://www.westernfictioneers.com/ or  http://westernfictioneers.blogspot.com/

(I couldn't be more pleased and honored to have REDEMPTION, KANSAS win the Peacemaker for Best Western Novel. I want to thank the membership of WF, my editor Faith Black, my agent Kim Lionetti, my daughters Shayna and Joanna for all their help, and most of all Livia, who really does make it all possible.)

Forgotten Books: The Listening Walls - Margaret Millar

A couple of American women from San Francisco are vacationing in Mexico City. Amy Kellogg is married, but her accountant husband Rupert is back home in San Francisco. Amy's lifelong friend Wilma Wyatt is twice divorced and somewhat bitter, and Amy has reason to suspect that Wilma is having an affair with Rupert. After an evening of drinking with an American grifter who is also in Mexico City, Wilma commits suicide by leaping from the balcony of her fourth-floor hotel room.

Or does she?

Summoned by the American embassy, Rupert goes to Mexico City to pick up a distraught Amy and take her back to San Francisco. But they've been home less than a week when Amy disappears, leaving behind a letter saying that no one should try to find her.

Or does she?

I think you can see where this plot is going. THE LISTENING WALLS is one of those "nothing is what it seems" novels, and it takes Amy's worried brother and the private detective he hires to sort everything out.

This is the first book by Margaret Millar that I recall reading, and while this sort of psychological suspense novel isn't my usual sort of thing, I enjoyed it. Millar writes very well, with nice touches of characterization and droll humor, although the old-fashioned technique of hopping around among different points-of-view within the same scene might bother some modern readers. It bothered me a little until I got used to it. Millar's plot twists are also very skillful. Just when you think you've got everything figured out, some new angle comes along, and I really wasn't sure what was going to happen until the very end of the book.

I don't know if I'll read anything else by Millar, at least not any time soon. I have a hard time keeping my attention on books that are slow to develop, no matter how well-written they are. That impatience is my fault, not the author's. But I think THE LISTENING WALLS is a good book, and I'm glad I read it.