So Long for Now

       Well, gang, this is my sign-off piece, at least for a while. Why? (I might hope you are asking.) Well, it’s sort of a short story rendered long.

       It all began last fall. In October I flew off to what has been my annual gig teaching a graduate course in the history of transportation at the University of Denver. Last year all went well until the flight home. I, like almost everyone else these days, refuse to check a bag. So when I approached my seat I threw my bag up into the overhead rack. As I did so something clicked -- more like snapped -- in my right shoulder. By the time we landed in D.C. my right arm was in such pain that I could hardly carry off my carry-on. 

       I immediately did what most of us do in such circumstances. I ignored the whole thing. Sure enough after a few weeks the pain lessened, but it didn't go away. So I exercised. Eventually I went to see my chiropractor. That helped but the pain still didn't go away. So a few weeks ago I threw in the towel and went to see a specialist who diagnosed a torn labrum in the shoulder and a rotator cup tear. To fix this I go under the knife on June 10 and, per my doctor, thereafter for perhaps as much as three to four months I will not be able to effectively use my right hand. And after that it will take physical therapy to bring the arm back. 

       So, there goes swimming, piloting the boat, playing the piano -- all for the rest of the summer. Hmm, anything else? Oh, yeah. Typing. 

       I’m a touch typist and I am used to pounding the keyboard at around 100 words per minute (probably the only useful skill that emerged with me from high school).  My writing is heavily dependent on that typing speed, and I always write at the keyboard.  So losing my right hand is going to put a severe crimp in things. Also, I am "write" handed, which sort of rules out reverting to the pen and paper that I otherwise left behind in the 1980s. It did occur to me that I could do some columns using only the left hand side of the keyboard -- a new take on “constrained writing.” A little research, however, shows how daunting that task would be.

       Herbert Spencer Zim, noted for works in the natural sciences arena, also produced one of the definitive treatises on frequencies of letter occurrences in the English language, Codes and Secret Writing. The bottom line from Zim is that, in descending order, the ten letters we most frequently use are ETAON RISHD. It is true that six of these are reachable in touch typing with the left hand, but think of the difficulties. True, a mystery writer could type “dead,” which is, I suppose, encouraging in its own way. But “death” would (because of that “h”) be beyond our reach. And thanks so much for that left-handed “q,” which can’t be used since it requires a right-handed “u.” (Unless, of course, you are writing about Qantas Airlines -- but forget about that, since you avoid the "u" but you still can’t reach the “n”.) Moreover the ten most common letter pairs according to Zim are TH HE AN RE ER IN ON AT ND ST. Of these only RE, ER, AT and ST are typed using the left hand. So, while one might fashion a dying clue typing with only the left hand (Queen did something a bit similar in a mystery the name of which will not be “spoiled” here), it’s simply not that feasible for a series of articles! 

       Okay, I know. I could probably hunt and peck my way through a few pieces, left handed but I suspect that I’m not going to be that up to it in the near term. So instead I am chucking all of this for a while. 

       How best to exit (at least for now)? Well, perhaps (and a tip of the old SleuthSayer hat to our resident list-maker John Floyd) with a list of some memorable final lines from the movies.  Here goes:

I think we should be leaving now. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. -- Pulp Fiction 

Let's just wait here awhile, see what happens. -- The Thing

Goodnight, you princes of Maine. You kings of New England. -- The Cider House Rules

Well, uh, hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. Catch ya further on down the trail. Say, friend - you got any more of that good sarsaparilla? -- The Big Lebowski

Some people say it's forgive and forget. Nah, I don't know. I say forget about forgivin' and just accept - and get the hell outta town. -- Grosse Point Blank

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry: you will someday. -- American Beauty

They say they're going to repeal Prohibition. What will you do then? I think I'll have a drink.-- The Untouchables

Way back, way, way, way back, up high into the right field. That ball is still going. It's way back, high up in there. He did it. Hobbs did it. -- The Natural

I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye. -- The Silence of the Lambs

If not Arizona, then a land not too far away, where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all children are happy and beloved. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.  -- Raising Arizona

That'll do, pig. That'll do. -- Babe

I'm too old for this. -- Lethal Weapon

I'll be right here. -- E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

You met me at a very strange time of my life. -- The Fight Club

He’s still out there! -- Friday the Thirteenth

You're still here? It's over! Go home. Go! -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off

And here is your receipt. -- The Blues Brothers

You're Next.  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (a special one for Stephen Ross and Jim Winter who are brand new Tuesday SleuthSayers) 

         Any one of those (and several in tandem) could comprise a fine fare-thee-well today, but I will admit to a personal favorite. Although it actually appears at the beginning, not the end, of the film, for my taste it works just fine:

       And as Conklin said to Jason Bourne in one of those Berlin flashbacks:  See you on the other side.

2020 Foresight

Congratulations!  If you are reading this you successfully navigated into the year 2020!  We hope the champagne hangover is not too painful.

One of the great traditions of New Year's Day is making predictions for the year to come.  Another is mocking the idiotic predictions people made last year.  Maybe we can try the latter in 2021, but for today a bunch of SleuthSayers and some of our favorite mystery writers have pulled out our Ouija boards and tried to tell you where to invest the rent money.  Or at least give you something to ponder until the Alka-Seltzer kicks in.  Enjoy.

S.J. Rozan: My prediction for crime writing in 2020: the field will continue healthy, getting a new jolt of energy with the continued erosion of the white male as the default character and writer around whom women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and disabled people orbit. We're a long from there but the field will continue to move along the path of everyone's stories being equally valuable and equally interesting. 

For my prediction for myself I turned to that 21st century Magic 8 Ball, the iPhone's predictive text. I typed in "In 2020 my career" and let the phone finish the sentence. Uh-oh. "In 2020 my career is in my mind and I’m not going on the right side because I have a plan."

Marilyn Todd: 
What’s ahead, you want to know.
Noir? Thriller? Short storio?
I predict that from PIs to history
To a nice cozy mystery
Publishers still make all the dough.

Melodie Campbell: 2020 will be a year of great vision.

Josh Pachter: I predict that, truth being stranger than fiction, 2020 will see a whole lot of true-crime books detailing the antics of current and former members of the Trump administration, plus a lot of nasty name-calling during the months leading up to Election Day.

Steve Liskow: First, the traditional publishing industry will double down on what it sees as winners and ignore everything else. Established writers with a large following won’t be affected, but newbies wanting to break in will either write those genres or go indie.

As bookstores need the discount from big houses, they will be less and less inclined to carry work by unknowns or indie writers.  That will drive more Indie writers to publish strictly in digital format. Readers who want more choice than the trads and bookstores offer will push the digital model even farther.

Kenneth Wishnia: I predict that JEWISH NOIR 2 will come out in September!

Steve Hockensmith: I boldly predict that 2020 will be a year of corruption, scandal, zealotry, lies, hyperbole, hypocrisy, vapidity, vulgarity, outrage, spin and animus. In related news, I predict that I will drink a lot.

Gary Phillips: As "Watchmen," "Mr. Robot," and "The Daily Show," have demonstrated, the wall between fantasy and reality will melt completely and only the misguided and misunderstood in crime fiction will be able to point the way out.

John M. Floyd: In 2020 I’ll be publishing a book that’s far from anything I’ve ever done.  More on that later.

Robert Mangeot: 1.We’re living in a glorious age of crime fiction. The genre has never been more diverse and talent-rich. Great authors are treating us to their best work, and in 2020 I’ll read a steady stream of amazing stuff.  2. Much Diet Coke will summon a first draft should actual ideas fail me. 3. I’ve recently bought a working Bat Signal for the writing office. It’s even money that I’ll need it.

Paul D. Marks: Instead of novels about cats and cupcakes, the next new trend in publishing will be slumgullion. The Cat Who Ate the Slumgullion. The Missionary Who Drowned in the Slumgullion. Girl Gone Slumgullion. The Slumgullion in Cabin10. The Slumgullion on the Train. The Slumgullion On the Blue Dress

I also predict that there will be a surge in reading. People will throw away their cell phones in favor of paperback books – about slumgullion. People will stand about staring at paperback books, not looking at the Rembrandt hanging behind them. Not looking at each other. They’ll go to dinner and be reading madly instead of talking to each other.

Rabbi Ilene Schneider: On April 1, 2015, I posted on Facebook: “I was sworn to secrecy until April 1, but I can now announce my Rabbi Aviva Cohen books have been optioned as a movie by Spielberg, as a series by HBO, and as a musical by Sondheim. Bette Midler will star in all 3 productions. And Mel Brooks is teaming up with Gene Wilder and Carl Reiner to adapt my Talk Dirty Yiddish as a PBS special.” I predict that in 2020, my announcement will go from April Fool’s joke to reality.

Travis Richardson: I'm not sure what to predict that's not politically dire. Maybe, due to AI, hacking, and electronic invasion of privacy 2020 will see a surprising demand in typewriters and stationery.

Charles Salzberg: As a kid, when my parents were otherwise engaged—in other words, paying no attention to me--I’d tune into the Tonight Show. One of Johnny Carson’s favorite bits was Karnak who, wearing a garishly bejeweled turban, held a sealed envelope to his temple and mysteriously divined the contents. For some reason, perhaps it’s the alliteration, the one that sticks with me was his prediction of “Tics in Tennessee.”  Knowing there’s no way I can top that one, I can only offer this: as successful as I will be avoiding work in every creative way possible, I will still manage to complete a new novel and it will probably, once again, piss off mystery reader purists.

Mary Fernando: Sex in the New Year:
*Women have spoken out in #MeToo and #TimesUp. Women leaders like New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern have redefined what women do on the world stage: they are strong and they are compassionate. New leaders like Greta Thunberg are showing us what women will do in the future.
*These changes impact men too in the growing #HeforShe movements, where men admire this new, strong and compassionate woman.
*How will this change writing? I suspect that some old roles women and men played in fiction will go the way of ‘Blackface’ portrayals, as a different type of woman and man are written.

Michael Mallory:  I predict the widespread trend of setting mysteries and thrillers in the past will continue, and for one reason: it circumvents the cell phone problem. Who today can disappear, be abducted, or even face danger when all they have to do is call 911 on their cell, or be called by others? What detective needs to follow clues when all he/she has to do is Google information on their smartphone? Cell phones are a hindrance to mystery plotting, and rather than struggling to explain why a character doesn’t use one, it’s just easier to set the story in pre-cellphone times.

Signora Eva di Vesey di Neroni (AKA Eve Fisher): As the definition of what is criminal behavior becomes increasingly elastic, the fiction market will primarily be:
(1) hardcore noir, where everyone knows everyone is rotten;
(2) Amish and Heartland detectives, all male, whose purity and probity are incontestable.  They always catch the criminal, win all the hearts, and then go home to Sarah;
(3) More Presidential vampire / zombie slayers.
(4) More Presidential vampires / zombies, being slain by others

T.K. Thorne:
Bookstores will thrive again as people reconnect with the tactile experience of ‘real’ books. Digital offerings will give more choices for the paths of plot. As for murder, I predict it will continue.

Stephen Ross: I predict for 2020 that I will, once again, fail to come up with an ending for a long-time resident in my short story WIP folder. It's a science fiction story I wrote a couple of years ago. It's a really cool, funny story, with a couple of great characters... but it has no ending.

Kate Thornton: I think we are going to see much in the way of public rebellion against the dismantling of the rule of law which will be reflected in fiery discourse, massive public engagement, and a triumph of reason over mindless greed. This will be a field of dreams for writers of both crime fiction and chroniclers of true crime. The field will sprout with book after successful book, delighting us with engaging characters who may have been deemed boring in the past, villains who would have seemed extreme a few scant years ago, and crimes more complex and insidious than the usual whodunit. I urge my fellow writers to get ready for an explosion of creative crime, as we do what we have always done: use our art to right the world, our words to restore the balance once more.

Craig Faustus Buck: I predict no new books from Agatha Christie in 2020. Once again, the Grand Dame shall be resting on her laurels. The same can most likely be said for my lazy self.

Jan Grape:  I predict, there will be another 392 new authors in the Mystery genre in 2020 that I won't know.  I predict that Harlan Coben, Lee Child, & Michael Connelly all will have block buster thrillers and new movies out on various mediums in 2020. I predict our SleuthSayers authors will have more award wins. Finally, I predict, and this better be in your column, Rob or I might have to call you a Texan, I predict I'll finally learn how to use my new 4 month old laptop and my printer/copier/scanner/ dishwasher/microwave/laundry duo so I may get a short story written, be nominated and win an award in 2020 myself.

James Lincoln Warren: I predict that all the predictions I make about 2020 will be wrong.  And when they all are, the fact that this particular prediction will turn out to be true will result the complete breakdown of causality, and time will cease to exist.  After that, either the universe will explode, or I will win the Oscar for Best Prognostication.

Robert Lopresti: The Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Awards committees will continue to demonstrate their  shameful prejudice against mystery writers who happen to be left-handed Italian-American librarians.

Brendan Dubois: 1. The popularity of novels involving vampires will finally wane, 15 years after I first predicted it.  2. Novels featuring windows, girls, and trains will no longer be popular.  However, novels featuring doors, boys, and Greyhound buses will see an upswing. 3. If you thought the presidential election of 2016 was wild, 2020 will say, "Hold my beer."

Fare Thee Well, Paul D. Marks

Paul D. Marks joined SleuthSayers in 2015 and has been a treasured member of the gang ever since. He died on February 28th of this year. His wife Amy Marks wrote on Facebook: "He died peacefully listening to Beatles and cowboy music. He loved sharing his film noir alerts, his dog walking pictures, his love of writing and his thoughts on life with you. He used to boast that he could go anywhere in the country and would have a Facebook friend he could have lunch with." Some of us had a few thoughts to share:

Eve Fisher: While I never met Paul, I loved his SleuthSayers posts, because they were always centered around L.A. Often the L.A. of the past, which was my stomping grounds back in the very early 1970s. His writing was so time, place and music centered that it enveloped you in the past: time travel for pedestrians. I remember reading the 8/3/20 interview with him on Mystery Playground, where he said, interestingly enough, that, "My favorite book of all time isn't a mystery. It's The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. It's about someone trying to make sense of the world and where they fit into everything, which is something I relate to and which also comes through in Bobby's character. Another favorite book is Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. I like revenge stories and that's the revenge story to end all revenge stories. My favorite mystery would probably be Chandler's The Long Goodbye. Just so good." I love all three myself, which are set in a very specific time / place / mood. At the time I thought, I'll have to talk / write to him about that some time. I never thought that time would run out.

Melodie Campbell: I didn't know Paul well, but I always enjoyed his posts. And he was kind in his comments when responding to my posts, which I always appreciated. I feel so sad. We've lost one of our own.

David Dean: Paul's death affected me far more than I thought it could. After all, we'd only met briefly in NYC and corresponded through email and Facebook for a few short years. Yet, the words we shared revealed him to me as a kind, supportive presence that, over time, became a welcome part of my life. He had an honesty, an integrity, that was palpable even in the virtual sphere of our relationship. Paul seemed to me a quietly passionate man. He was a superb writer, an historian of both noir films and the gritty, decadent Hollywood that produced them, and a proud father to his "boys," the dogs he and Amy raised, both past and present. I'm proud to say that I made him happy once when I wrote a story that featured a relationship between a boy and a dog. They prevailed over adversity, of course, and that pleased him very much. I still have the email he wrote me about it. I miss you, Paul, but I, along with so many others, will remember you.

Janice Law: I am so sorry to hear about Paul. We all knew he was very ill but had hoped that he would recover. I never met him but enjoyed his glimpses of Hollywood old and new and respected him as a fine editor. He will be very much missed.

Leigh Lundin: Paul impressed everyone and me in particular with his historical knowledge of Los Angeles and his childlike love of Hollywood. I couldn’t watch an episode of Bosch without remembering what Paul said about Angel’s Flight or the Bradbury Building, or wanting to ask him something about Gehry’s concert hall. His memory seemed encyclopedic and detailed, knowing who attended which famed restaurant when and where. Paul, loyal to the core, cared about us and worried he might miss an article. His attitude was so positive, I thought he was going to make it and, if it was up to will alone, he would have. I’m grateful he had Amy by his side. Somewhere in old Hollywood, a young Paul still strolls those streets.

Barb Goffman: When I first got to know Paul over Facebook we bonded over our love of dogs. I loved when he shared photos of his dogs, walking them, playing with them, just being with them, especially Pepper, who I think held a special place in his heart. You could see the joy they shared spending time together. When my prior dog, Scout, slowed down with age, Paul was often ready with words of encouragement and support, which I'll never forget. It's often said that if dogs like you, it's a sure sign you're a good person. Paul was the ultimate good person. He'll be missed.

Lawrence Maddox: I met Paul in 2014 after reviewing his short story collection L.A. Late @ Night for All Due Respect Magazine. It was written with the voice of one who "got" L.A., who lived it from the inside out. I gushed about it in my review. Paul and I bonded over our shared Native-Angeleno status. We often reminisced about the city we loved, the places we remembered, and the vagaries of the movie biz. One of my favorite memories of Paul is bringing him to the set of Santa Clarita Diet, a TV show I edited. He was so excited to be there. He'd worked in production years earlier, and all the new tech fascinated him. "A lot is different, but a lot is the same, too," he said. I can still picture him grinning like a kid as he watched the crew shoot a scene. I was looking for the craft service table to get some coffee when Paul grabbed my arm. "Larry, is that her?" He pointed to an actress getting ready for a scene. "Is that Drew Barrymore?" Paul had told me about his own experiences working in Hollywood with weariness, but there he was, in awe. "I can't believe I'm practically standing next to Drew Barrymore! Do you think I can meet her? I can't wait to tell Amy." He was genuinely thrilled. The Drew sighting became a goofy joke between us. It would pop up in our conversations until some of our last emails together while he was fighting cancer. Paul could have a jaundiced view of L.A., as he expressed in his unforgettable novels and short stories. That day on set he was as star struck as any tourist at Grauman's Chinese Theater. It was uncharacteristic, which made it even more endearing. Besides remembering him as a dear friend, as someone who championed my own start as a writer, I'll remember Paul like he was on set that day. Smiling. Happy. Caught up in a dream.

Steve Liskow: I never met Paul, but I loved his stories, especially the ones about "old" Hollywood and L.A. His posts on Sleuthsayers were always both informative and entertaining, and they showed how much he loved and respected writing. Even though I never "really" knew him, I feel like I've lost a great friend. My thoughts and sympathy go out to his family and friends.

Travis Richardson: If you had the opportunity to meet Paul Marks for the first time, you would not have any idea that he had once directed movies and played in a rock band. Humble and soft-spoken, Paul was genuinely kind and caring. He always asked about my wife and daughter, and it was always a pleasure to see him at conferences, book launches, and SoCal MWA and Sisters in Crime meetings. As a crime writer, he wrote compelling stories with a spotlight on his hometown, Los Angeles. His award-winning stories captured various parts of LA, highlighting the city’s beauty as well as its warts. Whether he wrote about the LA riots, wandering ghosts solving murders, or a PI living in a bomb shelter, Paul’s stories always made a lasting impression. I wish his wife, Amy, strength in this time of sorrow. As his constant companion, she knew Paul better than all of us and saw his full greatness while we only caught glimpses of it. Rest in peace, Paul.

John Floyd: Like so many others, I never met Paul face-to-face but felt I knew him from his blog posts and emails. That was especially true for me because of the many notes he and I exchanged over the past few years about our mutual love of movies. I was always amazed and impressed by his firsthand knowledge of film and filmmaking, and we sometimes agreed that NO one else would probably be interested in the kinds of things we talked about. Which somehow made it even more fun.

Paul and I had planned to meet at the Dallas Bouchercon in 2019, and when he was unable to make it and then the pandemic came along we resolved to get together somehow after all this is over. Who could’ve known? it’s still hard to believe that this friend to so many of us was lost so early and unexpectedly. My heartfelt condolences go out to Amy and all of Paul’s family—he will be sorely missed. I’m grateful at least that we will always have his writing—both his novels and his short stories—to enjoy and to remind us of his great talent.

Art Taylor: While I was honored to share space with Paul here at SleuthSayers, we first “met” on another group blog, 7 Criminal Minds, where he and I alternated the Friday posts, batting clean-up each week. Even before I knew Paul as a gifted short story and novelist, I knew him as a dedicated and thoughtful blogger, and his posts there and here were always a marvel to read—whether he was writing about writing and reading or about music or film noir (an enthusiast and expert in both) or about more personal matters or more. Many Fridays at our first blog, I not only left a comment on his post but also reached out by email with an extra note. Over time, those occasional notes became a regular correspondence—and not just a correspondence but a friendship too, one of my best in the mystery community. He was a great supporter of my work—both when it was going well and when it was going poorly—and I was thrilled with every success he had, both at novel length (we talked often about his works-in-progress) and especially with his short stories, which I loved so much. He and I were both finalists for the Macavity Award for Best Short Story in 2018—both of us for stories from the second Coast to Coast anthology he edited—and as Janet Rudolph was on stage announcing the finalists, I kept thinking, “Paul’s story, Paul’s story, please.” An absolute joy to see him win that night, a writer who deserved all honors that came his way, and I just wish there were more books and stories ahead.

Stephen Ross: Paul and I were Facebook friends, but I knew him better through his writing and his posts on Sleuthsayers. We had a mutual love of noir. He will be missed.

Robert Lopresti: I thought Paul might enjoy my reprinting this from Little Big Crimes: "There's an Alligator in my Purse," by Paul D. Marks, in Florida Happens, edited by Greg Herren, Three Rooms Press, 2018. The latest Bouchercon anthology is all about that most interesting state in our southeast. This tale is by my fellow SleuthSayer, Paul D. Marks. Our narrator is Ed, a cheerful professional. He likes to satisfy his customers, so he takes lots of photos of the corpses. Corpses the clients wanted dead, obviously. In this case that client is Ashley Smith - the lady with the titular pocket book reptile. She had expected to inherit a lot of money when her elderly husband died happily due to her enthusiastic ministrations. When she found out the dough was going to the first wife, she went looking for someone with Ed's skill set. It wasn't really his photographic skills that she was interested in… A breezy tale of multiple conspiracies.

Elizabeth Zelvin: I'm shocked to hear about Paul's death. I met him several times in person at New York events—where he was usually getting an award—and both face to face and in cyberspace, he struck me as such a bounce-back kind of person that I fully expected him to beat his illness and get better. He's a great loss to the crime fiction and short story communities and to everyone who knew him personally. I went over to his Facebook page when I heard the news. Tributes hadn't yet started appearing, but a couple of weeks ago, Paul posted, "Don't give up," with a gallery of "famous failures" including Einstein, Michael Jordan, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Oprah, and the Beatles, who'd all been fired, demoted, or told they wouldn't amount to anything at some point. The tag line was, "If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new." What a heartening message to leave us with.

Talk/Don't Talk

Everybody seems to like dialogue. It can do a lot of things for a story, writingwise: advance the plot, deepen characterization, "show" rather than "tell," improve the pacing, etc. Besides, its just fun to read. I think it was Lawrence Block who said nothing engages a reader like listening to the people in a story talking things over.

It's also fun to write. And it's easier to write, I think, than plain old description and exposition, because when my characters speak I can hear them in my head.

Enrolling in discourse

The truth is, most of my short stories are heavy on dialogue. I've even begun a few of them with the intention of writing the whole thing in nothing but dialogue. One such story, "Careers," was published in AHMM years ago and another, "Doctor's Orders," at Amazon Shorts--the first was 1000 words in length, the second 6000--and I can still remember the fun I had writing those. It'll probably be no surprise to you when I say that many of my favorite genre writers--Harlan Coben, Joe Lansdale, Nelson DeMille, Stephen King, Lee Child, Greg Iles, Janet Evanovich, Steve Hamilton, Carl Hiaasen, Robert B. Parker, Jack Ritchie, Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake--are/were absolute wizards in the use of dialogue.

Some movies that are almost all-dialogue come to mind: Sleuth, Twelve Angry Men, The Hateful Eight, Proof, The Breakfast Club, and Glengarry Glen Ross, to name only a few. Several of these were originally plays, which makes sense.

BUT . . .

(You knew there had to be a but in there somewhere, right?)

. . . there are also some well-known stories that don't include much--or any--dialogue.

Personally, I've only created a few (none of them well-known) that are seriously short on dialogue. One of my stories, "Bennigan's Key," a 5000-worder published a few years ago in The Strand Magazine, has no dialogue at all. But since it was prose, I was at least able to use unspoken thoughts (sometimes called "internal monologue"). The same could be said about Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire."

The sound of silence

In movies, the no-dialogue approach is harder to pull off. After all, a screenwriter can't tell you what the characters are thinking. He or she has only two ways to convey information to the audience: action and speech. And if no one's speaking . . .

Even so, here are some excellent films that contain little or no dialogue: Life of Pi, Quest for Fire, The Bear, Cast Away, Gravity, All Is Lost, The Revenant, Apocalypto, Walkabout, and The Gods Must Be Crazy.

One of those--All is Lost, a 2013 film with Robert Redford as a lone seaman who battles the elements--contains only one spoken word: a common and graphic expletive, uttered after a frustrating setback. And despite the fact that nothing else is said during its almost-two-hour run, the movie manages to hold the attention of the audience throughout. An impressive feat.

NOTE: It occurred to me only after jotting down those little-or-no-dialogue movies that all ten of them involve characters who spend the whole story walking around (or running around or floating around) in the Great Outdoors. I suppose a lot needs to be happening around them, to have any kind of interesting plotline.

Speaking your mind

Can you think of other movies, or stories or novels, that tell the entire tale using no dialogue? If you're a writer, have you published anything written that way? How hard was that to do? Have you written any plays, or other kinds of fiction, that use almost nothing but dialogue? If you had to pick one of the two extremes--all or none--which would you prefer?

"Let's hear it for a lot of talking," Dialogue Dude says.

Quiet Dude makes no reply…

What a Character . . .

  

How hard can it be, nonwriters often say, to name your characters?

Well, I can think of easier tasks. It's one thing to name them, but it's another to do it well.

The other day I started writing a new mystery story, and I'm making good progress--but I've come to the point where I need to start assigning names. So far my characters are S for Sheriff, P for Prisoner, O for Old man, W for Waitress, C for Cook, and V for Villain. I usually substitute letters as placeholders until I come up with names I really like. Even after I choose the names, they might change several times during the course of the story as new brainstorms roll in, in which case I make extensive use of (but don't entirely trust) the "Find and Replace" utility. I dread the day when I'll probably submit a story someplace with the hero saying something like "It's over, V. Drop the gun."

As all of you know, the choice of appropriate names can be vitally important, and at the very least can make any story better. I think The Silence of the Lambs would've been a great novel and movie regardless of the characters' names, but making the bad guys Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter sure didn't hurt. And sometimes "appropriate" can have a wide range. I think part of Stephen King's success is due to the fact that he often writes about ordinary characters that everyone can relate to, and the names of his protagonists usually reflect that: Bill Hodges, Luke Ellis, Fran Goldsmith, Tom Cullen, Larry Underwood, Annie Wilkes, Robert Anderson, Paul Sheldon, Carrie White. One of his main characters (the novel was The Dead Zone) was named John Smith. Having said that, King can also get pretty creative with character-naming when it's needed: Roland Deschain, Gordie Lachance, Randall Flagg, Percy Wetmore, etc.

Looking back on the novels I've read and the movies and TV shows I've seen, I can recall character names that seem absolutely perfect for their stories. We all know some of those--Atticus Finch, James Bond, Ebenezer Scrooge, Luke Skywalker, Ichabod Crane, Indiana Jones, Rocky Balboa, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, and so on. A few have become better known than the stories in which they appeared.

Here are plenty more names, categorized but in no particular order, that I think are wonderful. How many of these can you remember?

Lighthearted:

Barney Fife, Stephanie Plum, Forrest Gump, Hedley Lamarr, Buzz Lightyear, Milo Minderbinder, Jack Sparrow, Ace Ventura, Hawkeye Pierce, Walter Mitty, Holly Golightly, Arthur Fonzarelli, Ron Burgundy, Mary Poppins, Gaylord Focker, Hoss Cartwright, Jack Tripper, Buford T. Justice, Maynard G. Krebs, Marty McFly, Ferris Bueller, Bilbo Baggins

Strong:

Frank Bullitt, Sam Spade, Woodrow Call, Will Kane, Ellen Ripley, Jesse Stone, Rick Deckard, Han Solo, Sansa Stark, Thomas Magnum, Dana Scully, Jack Shepherd, Joe Mannix, Philip Marlowe, Nero Wolfe, Peter Gunn, Dan Roman, Rudi Matt, Remington Steele, Thomas Crown, Miranda Priestly, Judah Ben-Hur, Ethan Hunt, Mike Hammer

Mysterious:

Keyser Soze, Victor Laszlo, Axel Foley, Vito Corleone, Imperator Furiosa, Boo Radley, Tony Soprano, Daenerys Targaryen, Jonathan Hemlock, Inigo Montoya, Thorin Oakenshield, Wednesday Addams, Lando Calrissian, V. I. Warschawski, Optimus Prime, Dave Robischeaux, Tyler Durden, Jay Gatsby, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Arkady Renko, Tyrion Lannister

Evil:

Hans Gruber, Gordon Gekko, Francis Dollarhyde, Darth Vader, Uriah Heep, Lord Voldemort, Nurse Ratched, Joffrey Baratheon, Jason Voorhees, Anton Chigurh, Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco Malfoy, Simon Legree, Freddy Krueger, Hector Barbossa, Gyp Rosetti, Black Jack Randall, Amon Goeth, Hannibal Lecter, Kylo Ren, Biff Tannen, Al Swearengen, Lex Luthor

Some of the most interesting names, I think, came from Ian Fleming--

Auric Goldfinger, Hugo Drax, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Emilio Largo, Francisco Scaramanga, Julius No, Rosa Klebb, Irma Bunt, Felix Leiter, Vesper Lynd, Honeychile Ryder, Tatiana Romanova, Tiffany Case, Mary Goodnight, Kissy Suzuki, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, Pussy Galore, Gala Brand, Solitaire Latrelle, Domino Vitali, Caractacus Potts

--and Quentin Tarantino:

Vincent Vega, Beatrix Kiddo, Marcellus Wallace, Elle Driver, Bridgette von Hammersmark, King Schultz, Hattori Hanzo, Esmeralda Villa Lobos, Perrier LaPadite, Hugo Stiglitz, Broomhilda von Shaft, Drexl Spivey, Santanico Pandemonium

For anyone still with me on this, here are several more, in no particular category. Remember these?

Randle McMurphy, Tom Wingo, Humbert Humbert, Ignatius Reilly, Yuri Zhivago, Sebastian Flyte, Shug Avery, Omar Little, Fast Eddie Felson, Owen Meany, Holden Caulfield, Hester Prynne, Jake Spoon, Lisbeth Salander, Clarice Starling, John Boy Walton, Norman Bates, Chili Palmer

In closing (and in the "I wish I had come up with that one" department), here are my five all-time favorite character names:

Snake Plissken

Apollo Creed

Primrose Everdeen

Cullen Bohannon

Napoleon Solo

For what it's worth, here are some character names from my own stories: Ferguson Quillar, Pinto Bishop, Ward Grummond, Lou Mingo, Spencer E. Spencer, Bitsy Hamilton, Monique LaBont, Jabbo Harris, Gary Ironwood, Karim Valik, Madame Zoufou (Queen of Voodoo), Rufe Dewberry, Delbert Wooten, Ham Grogan, Cole "Shooter" Parrish, Abe Callendar, Solomon Wade, CollieBaby Johnson, Forrest DeWeller, Della Bloodworth, Punk Harris, Jasper Luckett, Panama Joe LaPinto, Woodrow Temple, Twelve Becker, Randolph Goodwynter, "Ducky" Duckworth, Doogie Sistrunk, Ophelia Reardon, Chunky Jones, Henrietta Allgood, Nicodemo Ross, Dexter Holtzhagen. I remember trying to tailor each of these to fit his or her character; whether that was effective or not is another matter.

]

What are some of your favorites, from novels, shorts, movies, TV, etc.? How about character names from your own work?

Now, back to trying to figure out what to call the folks in this latest story of mine.

Any suggestions?

Crimes Against Nature: Round Robin

As I said two weeks ago, I edited Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy, which Down and Out Books recently published.   I asked some of the contribu5tors to answer a few questions related to the book.  And here you go...

Give me five words about your story.

R.T. Lawton: Clandestine labs poison the environment.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Dead Bodies in Lake Mead

Janice Law: pollution, family, development, loss & revenge

Michael Bracken: Water is life. And death.

Mark Stevens: Exploiters of nature; delusional avenger.

Susan Breen: Over-tourism, volcanos, mother/daughter issues, Costa Rica and selfies

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Wind energy on Native reservations.

Robert Lopresti: Recycling obsessions can be dangerous.

Josh Pachter: “bad neighbor,” revenge, poison, semi-autobiographical

Karen Harrington: Illegal dumping. A fight for life.

Sarah M. Chen: Influencers, beaches, responsibility, privilege, overtourism 

Barb Goffman: Comedy, neighbors, kitty-cat, marijuana, gardening

Gary Phillips: Influenced by the 1970s era, the Bronze Age of Comics. Specifically, the mystically charged Swamp Thing created by Len Wein (writer), and Bernie Wrightson (artist).

Crimes Against Nature uses mystery fiction to look at social (and scientific issues).  What is your favorite (or first-encountered) mystery novel or story that deals with social issues?

Sarah M. Chen: Because I recently read it and Wanda M. Morris is one of my favorite writers, the book that comes to mind is her latest, an atmospheric, taut thriller called What You Leave Behind. It’s set in the Gullah-Geechee community on the Georgia coast and deals with illegal land grabbing and the heirs property system that disproportionally affects Black and brown communities.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: First? Wow. Probably P.D. James, but which one, I have no idea.

Jon McGoran: Hard to remember what my first was, but when I was young, I went through an intense Carl Hiaasen phase, voraciously reading everything he wrote. I loved how he addressed environmental issues, while at the same time crafting these great crime stories, and never coming across as a scold, instead having great fun doing it.

S.J. Rozan: John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions.

Susan Breen: Walter Moseley’s novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was the first time I understood racism in a visceral way. I wasn’t watching it from afar, but was there, with Easy Rawlins.

Robert Lopresti:  Some of Rex Stout's novels discussed social issues (A Right to Die, The Doorbell Rang, etc.) but when I first read them I was too young to absorb that.  In college I loved James McClure's The Steam Pig, which was about policing in South Africa under apartheid.

Janice Law: I can only mention some recent books, all of which dealt with child abuse in official custody of one sort or another: Fiona McPhillips's When We Were Silent, Rene Denfeld's Sleeping Giants and James McBride's, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Even though she likely doesn’t think of it as a mystery novel, The Round House by Louise Erdrich is an amazing book that deals with criminal justice issues on Native lands. It’s a great read that also educates and illuminates. I highly recommend it, although she has so many other tremendous novels, so it’s hard to pick a favorite.

Gary Phillips: One of the first novels I recall dealing with a social issue, an environmental one at that and its implications was Ross Macdonald’s Sleeping Beauty. His fictional take on the real-life Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 as the backdrop to a Lew Archer, private eye tale.

Mark Stevens: The Wild Inside by Christine Carbo is one of my favorites.  

Name an author who has had the biggest impact on your short stories.

 Barb Goffman: Art Taylor. I learn something that helps my craft every time I read one of his stories.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   Stephen King

Jon McGoran:  I’ve always straddled mystery and scifi, but I think Elmore Leonard is the author whose style has most impacted me as a writer.

Susan Breen: My love of Agatha Christie inspired me to write mysteries, but Sue Grafton had a huge effect on how I think about the women who are usually my protagonists. She taught me that they could be bold, flawed and funny.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: I’ll always return to the stories of Flannery O’Connor, although my own work bears no resemblance to her amazing tales. For dialogue, I was heavily influenced by Raymond Carver, although I once had a well-known writer scream at me when I mentioned that I admired Carver’s stories. I still believe that Carver’s dialogue is some of the best out there—consistently expressive and surprising.

Gary Phillips: No one writer had the biggest impact but certainly short stories by Poe and Rod Serling – those Twilight Zone teleplays turned into short stories. And it’s only fair to note Walter Gibson, the pulp writer who essentially created the Shadow, turned those into prose.

Robert Lopresti: Can't stop at one: Stanley Ellin, John Collier, Jack Ritchie, Avram Davidson.

Sarah M. Chen: Patricia Abbott. One of my favorites of hers is from Betty Fedora, Issue One, a dark little gem called “Ten Things I Hate About My Wife."

Janice Law: This is difficult, because unlike most writers, I began with novels and only began writing and publishing short fiction after I had launched the Anna Peters series and a couple of history books. So, influences were the mystery writers I enjoyed: Dorothy L. Sayers, because she had Harriet Vane who was so much better than the usual female characters of the time; Eric Ambler, who was the god of suspense in my estimation, and Raymond Chandler for his irresistible style and mastery of atmosphere.

Karen Harrington: John Floyd, Stephen King, Barb Goffman and Ray Bradbury.

Mark Stevens: Patricia Highsmith

Which environmental issue is having the most direct effect on you now?

Karen Harrington: I don't know if it's a direct effect, but when I did research on illegal dumping of car oil and other car liquids, I discovered that it is alarmingly prolific. That's disturbing. There are companies that are weighing the cost of getting caught versus the damage to the environment and taking the gamble. This is from large companies to the small auto parts stores we see across the country. (And interestingly, in my research I found the attached photo describing the 1963 Popular Science method of disposing of used engine oil. What?! This practice was commonly accepted and thought to have no impact on the soil. Really shows that science is rarely settled and must continually learn and reevaluate what we think we know.)

Gary Phillips: Given I live in a seemingly now continuous wildfire state, no particular season for them as in the past, global warming is pretty dang real to me.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: The wildfires in Colorado seem to be getting worse every year, which is really distressing. I’m now living in New York for the first time since 2013, and I still have strong memories of Hurricane Sandy and the misery caused by that storm.

Mark Stevens: Everything climate change -- dwindling water supplies, threat of forest fires, impact on agriculture.

S.J. Rozan: Global warming, which encompasses all others

Susan Breen: Climate change is the environmental issue having the most direct effect on me because it is influencing where and how I live.

August 2023

Robert Lopresti: Most summers now we have days when the air is so full of wildfire smoke that it is considered dangerous to be outside.

Jon McGoran: I think climate change is having the greatest impact on most of us, both the direct effects of it that we’re already feeling, the (inadequate) measures we’re taking to combat it, and the fear and anxiety of what is to come, but I also wonder if nanoplastics and microplastics will end up being even more damaging to us.

Janice Law:  I very much hope to be gone myself before the warbler migration fails. Living in the Northeast, we have escaped some of the most immediate effects of climate change but it is becoming clear that every civilization, including ours, is dependent on the natural world and on favorable climate conditions. We have been slow to learn this as well as careless about our pollution and exploitation of the natural world.

Sarah M. Chen: I live close to the beach so am aware of the alarming rise in sickened and abandoned marine mammals, like whales and sea lion pups. This is due to a number of things like rising ocean temperatures which increases toxin levels and pups being forced to dive deeper and further for food.     

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The warming of the planet, since I live in Las Vegas.

Themed mystery anthologies seem to be growing in popularity. Any thoughts on that trend?

Gary Phillips: Having edited or co-edited a number of themed anthologies, South Central Noir, The Cocaine Chronicles to name two, I think if you can hook the potential reader on the subject matter, they like diving in and out of a given short story. They’re not getting exhausted if you’ve tried to turn the idea into a novel, maybe having to pad the story.

Sarah M. Chen:  They're fun and I'm all for it!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:  I think the more mystery stories the better.

Susan Breen: Anthologies force writers to get out of their regular routines. It’s a challenge to try something new and my suspicion is that because of that, the stories will have a jolt of energy to them.

Mark Stevens: I think once the whole idea of building short story collections on rock bands took off, well, there's no shortage of material.  Waiting for the first collection based on  songs by The Velvet Underground.

Karen Harrington: I think readers and writers enjoy seeing how different minds approach the same topic. I know I do.

 S.J. Rozan: Themed anthologies make total sense -- they allow readers to watch a wide variety of writers exploring topics they're interested in.

David Heska Wanbli Weiden: Yes, I love the trend, and I’ll note that I’m editing one of these myself:  Native Noir, due out sometime in 2025 from Akashic Books. In that volume, some of the greatest Indigenous authors currently writing agreed to try their hand at a noir story, broadly defined. I hope to see more of the music-based anthologies, and I’m still salty that I didn’t know about the two Steely Dan books. Their songs are perfect, of course, for crime tales, and I’m hoping someone will put together another one (and please contact me if you do!)

Robert Lopresti: I love the fact that you can give twenty authors the same assignment and get twenty wildly different, but all fascinating responses.

Janice Law: I think it is a sensible attempt to create a new home for short fiction, which has been evicted from the newspapers and magazines that used to pay well for short stories.

 None of the authors in this book chose to write historical stories. Are there any environmental issues/events in history you think are particularly intriguing?

Gary Phillips: Interesting question. I suppose if I were to give it some thought, how the growth of the Industrial Revolution polluting the skies in England, damaging peoples’ lungs irreparably, comes to mind.

Robert Lopresti: The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted it caught fire 14 times. Publicity from the 1969 blaze lit a fuse (sorry) that started the modern environmental movement.

Sarah M. Chen: I watched a documentary on the Chernobyl disaster and found it horrifying and fascinating. I knew very little about it despite being a kid when it happened.

Susan Breen: I’m a great fan of Charles Dickens and have always been fascinated and appalled by what living conditions were like in London during Victorian times, even for the wealthy. Joseph Bazalgette’s construction of the sewer system has got to be one of the greatest environmental triumphs ever. Now that I think about it, I can come up with various murderous scenarios. Maybe I should have…

Barb Goffman: All of these historical events could be put to good use in a crime story...
        Oil spills - Exxon-Valdez, BP, etc.
        Toxic chemical dumping - Love Canal
        Water contamination - Woburn, MA, and Flint, MI
        Nuclear plant meltdown - Three Mile Island, though given recent news, Three Mile Island could also factor into a contemporary story.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch:   I've been fascinated for a long time by the Little Ice Age, as well as the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, causing more than 90,000 people to die, and inspiring one of the coldest (and darkest) summers on record in 1816, which led to lots of literary mayhem (like Frankenstein, Dracula, and some Lord Byron poetry).

S.J. Rozan:  1. The Great Flood of 1927 along the Mississippi.  2. Boston's 1919 Molasses Flood

Mark Stevens: Like, a zillion. My mind goes to all the ways mankind has plumbed nature or depended on nature for resources.  Early days of mining.  Or drilling for oil.  I'm fascinated by the idea that gigantic supertankers are ferrying oil around the globe. When was the first? Who dreamed that up? Seventy-seven million barrels of oil are moving around the globe every day.  At what cost? At what risk?  

Janice Law: We have a couple of big ones just in our own national history: the near extermination of the buffalo, the loss of the passenger pigeons, and what is proving to be the very foolish attempt to create "fur deserts" in the west. The loss of the beaver had impacted water storage in these dry areas just as the huge reduction in buffalo has had an impact on soil conservation etc on the prairies.

The trouble with these events, and with many environmental issues, is that they don't necessarily fit well with the demands of short mystery fiction, which are surprising like the old classical unities: one time, one place, one action, and that additional requirement that also goes back to the ancient Greeks: a beginning  in the middle of the action.

A Familiar Face

I think it's safe to say that most people enjoy the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Even my mother, who doesn't watch many movies at all, watches Hitchcock movies. It's not that suprising, really. He was successful for the same reason that writers like Stephen King are successful: their first priority is to entertain. Hitch knew how to hook viewers right away and keep them interested throughout the story.

Holding us Spellbound

For those of us who love his work rather than merely like it, there's a little bonus we get with every film. For some reason--probably egotistic--the Master Director himself appears on screen, for just a moment, in almost every one. In some of his movies you never know where the cameos might pop up; in the later ones, though, he decided to restrict most of those surprise appearances to the first few minutes of the film. Why? Because moviegoers had learned to watch for them. Hitchcock--always the professional--didn't want anyone to be distracted from the story, and if the cameo happened early, alert viewers could get it out of the way and direct their undivided attention to the plot.

I heard or read someplace that one Hitchcock documentary (a DVD bonus feature) mentioned plans for a cameo where Hitch and a deaf woman are walking down the street, and he says something to her using sign language and she slaps him in the face. I've watched most of those "special feature" documentaries on Hitch and his movies, and so far I haven't seen the one that talks about this--but I love the idea.

To Spot a Director

Anyhow, here's a recap of the fifteen most recent Hitchcock cameos. I started with 1954 for a couple of reasons: (1) I don't want to go all the way back to the late twenties, and (2) '54 was the year that two of my favorite Hitchcock films were released (I couldn't ignore those).

See how many of these Hitch "pop-ups" you remember . . .

Rear Window (1954) -- He's winding a clock in the songwriter's apartment, seen of course from Jimmy Stewart's window. The songwriter, who's playing the piano at the time, is real-life composer Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.

Dial M for Murder (1954) -- My favorite of all his cameos. He appears in a framed photo of Ray Milland's class reunion, sitting in a tuxedo at a table with Milland, Anthony Dawson, and others.

To Catch a Thief (1955) -- He's sitting beside and to the left of Cary Grant on the rear seat of a bus. Grant gives him a curious look, but Hitch stares straight ahead and neither of them says a word. On the seat to Grant's right is an old woman and a cage that contains two fluttering birds.

The Trouble With Harry (1955) -- One of the hardest cameos to spot. He's seen through a window, walking in a tan overcoat down a rural lane past a parked limousine. The old man who owns the limo is studying an outdoor exhibition of artwork while his driver waits beside the car.

The Wrong Man (1956) -- He is seen only in silhouette, while narrating the film's prologue. This probably shouldn't be counted as a cameo; according to a biography by Donald Spoto, Hitch chose to make an actual appearance rather than a cameo because this movie, unlike his others, was a true story.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) -- He walks up and joins a crowd watching acrobats in a Moroccan marketplace. He's facing away from the audience and standing several feet away from Doris Day and The Man Who Would Soon Know Too Much.

Vertigo (1958) -- He's walking down a city sidewalk wearing a dark suit and carrying a black trumpet case.

North by Northwest (1959) -- During the opening title sequence, he rushes to a catch a bus but just misses it--it closes its door and leaves him standing at the curb.

Psycho (1960) -- He's seen standing on a Phoenix sidewalk outside Janet Leigh's office window as she opens the door and walks in. He's wearing what looks like a cowboy hat.

The Birds (1963) -- He's leaving a San Francisco pet shop with two white dogs on a leash as Tippi Hedren enters it. Moments later she meets Rod Taylor there in the shop, and the plot is afoot.

Marnie (1964) -- He steps into a hotel hallway after Tippi Hedren and a bellboy walk past. He looks at them a moment, then turns and stares straight into the camera.

Torn Curtain (1966) -- He's sitting in a hotel lobby balancing a baby boy on his right knee, and after several seconds picks the boy up and shifts him over to his left knee.

Topaz (1969) -- My second-favorite cameo. He's in an airport being pushed in a wheelchair by a lady in a nurse's uniform, and suddenly he stands up from the chair, shakes hands with a man in a dark suit, and walks away.

Frenzy (1972) -- He's in the middle of a crowd, wearing a black hat and listening to a speech, and is the only person not applauding. A minute or so later, he's shown in a crowd again, standing next to a man with a gray beard.

Family Plot (1976) -- He's seen in silhouette on the other side of a door, talking with--and gesturing to--another man.

And remember, that was less than half of them. In all, I'm told Hitchcock made 36 cameo appearances--37 if you count the opening of The Wrong Man--in his fifty years of directing.

Dial T for Trivia

For anyone who's interested, here are some useless facts involving Hitchcock cameos:

In many of them--at least ten--he was just walking through the scene, and in several (Spellbound, The Paradine Case, Strangers on a Train, and Vertigo) he was carrying cases for musical instruments.

At least three cameos (Rope, Lifeboat, and Dial M for Murder) are especially interesting because most of the filming for each was limited to a single location, which also limited the opportunity for Hitch to "appear." I've already mentioned Dial M; the cameo in Rope was a through-the-window glimpse of him strolling in the street below and the one in Lifeboat was a newspaper ad showing "before and after" photos for a product called Reduco Obesity Slayer.

He had two cameos each in five of his movies: Suspicion, Rope, The Lodger, Frenzy, and Under Capricorn.

Don't forget TV: In an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents--"A Dip in the Pool"--Hitchcock is shown on the cover of a magazine being read by Philip Bourneuf.

Back from the dead: In Psycho II (1983), when Tony Perkins and Meg Tilly enter "Mother's" bedroom, Hitch's silhouette can be seen in shadow on the wall just before they turn on the lights. (He passed away in 1980.)

The Trouble With Copycats

I think it's fun anytime I see directors appear in cameos in their own movies--Rob Reiner, M. Night Shyamalan, Ron Howard, John Carpenter, Sir Richard Attenborough, Oliver Stone, etc.--but I never see them without thinking of Hitchcock. And I usually enjoy the cameos more when they're very brief. If they're too long, they start calling too much attention to themselves.

One of my favorites is Roman Polanski as a thug with a switchblade in Chinatown--he's the one who causes Jack Nicholson to walk around for half the movie with a bandage on his nose. The cameo isn't short (although Polanski is), but I enjoyed it anyway. It's certainly memorable.

Even so . . . he's no Alfred Hitchcock.

A Trivial Pursuit

by John M. Floyd



Yes, I know: there are a lot of productive things I could and should be doing right now, instead of writing a trivial post about trivia. But, as I've confessed in the past, I love little-known facts about fiction and those who create or portray it.

So, for the next few minutes, I challenge you to forget about the stock market and North Korea and politics and global warming and take a look at these worthless little tidbits about movies and novels and actors and writers. Since they surprised me when I learned about them, I hope they (or at least some of them) might surprise you as well.

- Ian Fleming wrote the children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

- Jack Kerouac typed the novel On the Road on one continuous roll of paper 120 feet long.

- Dooley Wilson (Sam, in Casablanca) didn't know how to play the piano.

- Dr. Seuss wasn't a doctor, of any kind.

- Harriet Beecher Stowe lived next door to Mark Twain in Hartford, Connecticut.

- The names of the policeman and the cab driver in It's a Wonderful Life were Bert and Ernie.

- Both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were extras in Field of Dreams.

- Between 1982 and 1984, Nora Roberts wrote 23 novels.

- The announcer who replaced Armed Forces Radio DJ Adrian Cronauer (played by Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam) was Pat Sajak.

- Mel Brooks wrote the lyrics to the theme from Blazing Saddles.

- Steve Buscemi is a former NYC firefighter.

- The final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, was nominated for eleven Oscars and won all of them.

- Before writing The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown was a pop singer. One of his solo albums was called Angels and Demons.

- In Raiders of the Lost Ark, a drawing of R2D2 and C3PO appears on a column in the Well of Souls.

- The novel Catch-22 was originally titled Catch-18.

- Robert Louis Stevenson burned stories based on readers' informal responses, Leo Tolstoy's son rescued the manuscript of War and Peace from the ditch where Tolstoy had thrown it, and Tabitha King pulled the discarded manuscript of Carrie from Stephen King's wastebasket.

- James Arness (Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke) and Peter Graves (Jim Phelps of Mission: Impossible) were brothers.

- William Atherton, who played the obnoxious TV reporter in Die Hard and Die Hard 2, sang the "What'll I Do?" theme song during the opening credits of the 1974 (Robert Redford/Mia Farrow) version of The Great Gatsby.

- "Goldeneye" was Ian Fleming's name for the Jamaican beach house where he wrote all the James Bond novels. Sting later used the same desk to write the song "Every Breath You Take."

- One of the voices of E.T. was that of Debra Winger.

- Clint Eastwood composed the main theme ("Claudia's Theme") for Unforgiven.

- Tom Wolfe, who was six-foot-six, preferred to write standing up, using the top of his refrigerator for a desk.

- In The Abyss, many of the underwater scenes were actually filmed in smoky air, using fake bubbles.

- Olivia Newton-John's grandfather, Max Born, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954.

- Both Erle Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie dictated their novels. (Though ESG typed his earliest work.)

- To make some of the spacecraft seem larger in the movie Alien, director Ridley Scott filmed his own two children outfitted in miniature space suits.

- Rowan Atkinson has a master's degree in Electrical Engineering.

- Singer Tex Ritter ("Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'," from High Noon) was actor John Ritter's father.

- Actor/director Anthony Hopkins composed the music for the movie Slipstream (2007).

- Clyde Barrow once wrote a letter to Henry Ford (it's on display at the Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan) praising the V-8 Ford as a getaway car.

- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the first book written using the typewriter.

- Clint Eastwood did all his own mountain climbing--no stuntmen--in The Eiger Sanction.

- Most of the cast and crew of The African Queen got sick from the water. Only Humphrey Bogart and director John Huston were unaffected because they drank only whiskey.

- Evelyn Waugh's first wife's name was Evelyn.

- Tom Hanks is a descendant of Abe Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.

- The first U.S. paperback edition of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale was published with the title You Asked for It.

- Michael Myers's mask in Halloween was a two-dollar Captain Kirk mask, slightly altered and painted white.

- Carolyn Keene, author of the Nancy Drew novels, was really a pseudonym for a team of several different writers.

- Hoyt Axton (the father in The Black Stallion) wrote "Heartbreak Hotel."

- Melissa McCarthy and Jenny McCarthy are first cousins.

- The original title of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy. It was reversed when Newman decided to take the role of Butch rather than Sundance.

- The same author (Larry McMurtry) wrote Lonesome Dove and Terms of Endearment.

- Frank Oz was the voice of Yoda, the Cookie Monster, and Miss Piggy.

- Mickey Spillane ordered 50,000 copies of his 1952 novel Kiss Me, Deadly to be destroyed when the comma was left out of the title.

- Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller's girlfriend) has had two fathers-in-law: Sean Connery and Jim Henson.

- Director John Carpenter composed the music for most of his movies.

- Noah Webster was T. S. Eliot's great-uncle.

- Ian Fleming got the name for his fictional spy from a book he owned called Birds of the West Indies, by James Bond.

- The charcoal sketch of Kate Winslet in Titanic was actually drawn by director James Cameron.

- Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were roommates at Harvard.

- J. K. Rowling came up with the names for the houses at Hogwarts while on a plane. She jotted the names down on a barf bag.

- The keypad on the laboratory's door lock in Moonraker plays the five-note theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

- Author Sidney Sheldon created the TV series I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke Show, and won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.

- When the kid in Home Alone 2 walks into the Plaza Hotel, the person he asks for directions is Donald Trump.

- Tom Clancy was part owner of the Baltimore Orioles.

- Cormac McCarthy wrote with the same typewriter for more than fifty years. When it broke, he auctioned it off for more than $250,000 (to donate to charity).

- In World War II, Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot, Donald Pleasance was a POW, Christopher Lee was an undercover agent for British Inteligence, and Charles Durning was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.

- When a hurricane hit the set during filming of Jurassic Park, the pilot who choppered the crew to safety was the man who had played Indiana Jones's pilot, Jock, in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

- The top three most-read books in the world are The Holy Bible, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, and the Harry Potter series.

- In The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, Fleming was played by Sean Connery's son Jason.

- Actor Sam Shepard wrote 44 plays; one of them won him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979.

- The roles of both John McClane in Die Hard and Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry were first offered to Frank Sinatra.

- When J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she typed three separate copies of the manuscript because she couldn't afford copying fees.

- Samuel L. Jackson's Pulp Fiction quote from Ezekiel was originally written for Harvey Keitel's character in From Dusk to Dawn.

- Chocolate syrup was used as blood in Psycho's shower scene; it was also used as the Tin Man's oil in The Wizard of Oz.

- Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was eighteen, and it was published when she was twenty.

- Mystery writer John Sandford, a.k.a. John Camp, won a Pulitzer for Non-Deadline Feature Writing in 1986 for articles about the life of a Minnesota farming family.

- Of his 70-plus film roles, Gregory Peck played a villain only twice (I think), in Duel in the Sun and The Boys From Brazil.

- Dolph Lundgren has a master's degree in Chemical Engineering.

- In the UK, Fifty Shades of Grey is the best-selling book of all time.

- George Lucas had a dog named Indiana.

- Robert Duvall had a bit part as Steve McQueen's cab driver in the movie Bullitt.

- The Salvation (2014) was a Western filmed in South Africa, with a Danish director and actors from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, the U.S., and England.

- Haley Joe Osment, the boy who "saw dead people" in The Sixth Sense, played Forrest Gump's son five years earlier.

- Tippi Hedren (The Birds) is the mother of Melanie Griffith and the grandmother of Dakota Johnson.

- Kurt Vonnegut managed America's first Saab dealership.

- Denzel Washington and Jeff Goldblum both played thugs in 1974's Death Wish.

- As a child, Roald Dahl--the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--was a taste-tester for Cadbury's chocolate.

- Nathaneal West's 1939 novel The Day of the Locust features a character named Homer Simpson.

- In High Plains Drifter, one of the headstones in the cemetery was inscribed with the name Sergio Leone.

- Married (at one time or another): Geena Davis/Jeff Goldblum, Rachel Weisz/Daniel Craig, Calista Flockhart/Harrison Ford, Marlo Thomas/Phil Donahue, Rita Hayworth/Orson Welles, Uma Thurman/Gary Oldman, Dyan Cannon/Cary Grant, Lorraine Bracco/Edward James Olmos, Catherine Keener/Delmot Mulroney, Mia Farrow/Frank Sinatra, Christie Brinkley/Billy Joel, Barbara Streisand/Elliott Gould, Brooke Shields/Andre Agassi, Lisa Marie Presley/Nicolas Cage, Mary Steenbergen/Malcolm McDowell, Isabella Rosselini/Martin Scorcese, Madonna/Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller/Will Arnett, Michelle Phillips/Dennis Hopper, Mimi Rogers/Tom Cruise, Helen Hunt/Hank Azaria, Drew Barrymore/Tom Green, Katherine Ross/Sam Elliott, Scarlett Johanssen/Ryan Reynolds.

-Dated (at one time or another): Helen Mirren/Liam Neeson, Anjelica Huston/Jack Nicholson. Sarah Jessica Parker/Robert Downey Jr., Courtney Cox/Michael Keaton, Whoopi Goldberg/Frank Langella, Carrie Fisher/Paul Simon, Jeanne Tripplehorn/Ben Stiller, Meryl Streep/John Cazale.

- Barbie in Toy Story 3 is voiced by Jodi Benson, who also voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

- Paranormal Activity cost $15,000 to make and has grossed $210 million; Deep Throat cost around $25,000 and grossed $600 million; John Carter cost $350 million and lost $200 million.

- Mickey Spillane was at one time the author of seven of the ten best-selling novels in history.

- Sean Connery wore a toupee in all of his James Bond movies.

And maybe the most valuable and surprising piece of trivia of all:

- Katy Perry's cat's name is Kitty Purry.

(Don't ever say I didn't give you the inside info.)


Can you think of any crazy and lesser-known movie/novel/actor/author facts? Inquiring minds want to know . . .