Regan MacArthur Writes

  LE DOS AUR MUR/ BACK TO THE WALL (1958) This movie felt slow, which is a shame, because the story really isn’t half-bad. It comes from a novel by Frederic Dard who, apparently, was a fiction factory to rival Georges Simenon's output in France. One of his most popular product lines was finding fresh spins on the old James M. Cain love-triangle-murder story. I'd love to read the original novel. Yet another spur for me to take French lessons one of these days.

 A comic strip by Dennis Goris that will probably never not be relevant in America.

  You never know where reading will take you. A book about the Crusades has revealed to me that actor Timothy Olyphant's last name means "ivory war horn." Go figure.

  CROSSFIRE TRAIL (2001) I've been watching Louis L'Amour film adaptations as a detour from my quest to read fifty or so novels by L'Amour and all I can say is "Thank God, a good one, at last." I found Crossfire Trail to be very enjoyable. It always helps if the screenwriter actually likes the book he's adapting. A fun and noble attempt at putting Louis L'Amour's work on screen.

I felt like my head was going to explode after reading this bit of an article in The Atlantic:  Sitting inside of her car after a shopping spree at a dollar store, Zuriel Reyes told us she feels “shitty” about having voted for Trump in 2024, her first-ever election. “I don’t really trust our government anymore,” the 19-year-old said, taking a bite from a Slim Jim. She’s signed up to go into the Army next year...  

  LE CHOC (1982) If the poster isn't enough to sell you on the movie, forget it. One thing I appreciated was the action writing: show the hero strapping on the knife-up-the-sleeve gadget, distract the audience long enough to make them forget all about the gadget, put the hero in peril and then....WHOOSH! The knife flies into the baddie. What can I say? I'm a cheap date.

...thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty... My journey through L'Amour Country continues.

For the last couple of months, my alter ego, a fantasy writer named A.R. Callenish, has been nagging at me: "Werewolf story!" No further explanation given and not so much as a hint for how to proceed to carry out this bizarre order. "Do something about a werewolf! Do it! Do it! Do it!" Over and over again. Well, I think I've finally found an interesting take for a werewolf novel. I find it interesting, anyway. The picture is a hint so that I won't be accused of being crueler to you than A.R. Callenish is to me.

  WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957) At two hours, it's a half-hour too long. The star of the show is Charles Laughton, but the actual movie stars, Marlene Dietrich and Tyrone Power, needed something to do to justify their paychecks so what you get is padding when a story like this desperately needs to be sleek. Agatha Christie supplied the plot. I assume all the wisecracks in the dialogue came from Billy Wilder.

  WITNESS IN THE CITY aka UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE (1959) A man's wife is murdered by her lover and the lover gets away with it in the eyes of the law, but the husband has other ideas. What starts out as a simple tale of revenge descends into nightmarish complications. I was reminded of Fredric Brown's classic thriller novel HIS NAME WAS DEATH with all the creeping horror and relentless turns of the plot. The film originates from no less than Boileau-Narcejac, the French writing duo who wrote the source novels for Hitchcock's VERTIGO and Clouzot's LES DIABOLIQUES. Hitchcock would have hit the humorous moments better, but Molinaro was no slouch in the director's chair. This is a good movie.

  A MAN CALLED NOON by Louis L'Amour This book features a minor villain named Lynch Manly - possibly the most over-the-top bad guy handle I have ever encountered in my life. Bravo, Lou!

I'm writing a crime novel and I just made an off-hand reference about the 1980 novel EYE OF THE BEHOLDER by Marc Behm and I am struck by the thought that maybe no one else has ever read it. This doesn't matter the least little bit in the greater scheme of things, but it nags at me all the same.