Noir fiction for the modern reader.

Back in 2010, I surfed Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine and saw a link to a list of the 50 states and the best movie associated with each state. The more I thought about them, the more I disagreed with most of them. For example, Recount was listed as the best movie ever associated with Florida. Of course, that’s just bullshit political posturing. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was listed as the best-ever Illinois movie, and, well, you get the idea. There was plenty of room for improvement.

Nevertheless, I thought it was a good concept, so I gave it a go. I put up my choices for the best movie about each state (and the District Of Columbia) and got several interesting responses from readers. So I’m revisiting the list and making a few revisions based on my oh, so fickle nature. For instance, I added Cry Vengeance to Alaska’s listing, a taut little film noir shot in Ketchikan. I eliminated Chicago from Illinois. I saw it again not long ago and it didn’t hold up.

In addition, I gave New York City a separate listing apart from New York State. The city is such an iconic place, and so many movies were filmed or set there, the rest of the state often gets shut out, so I split the city off.

I must add that these films were not necessarily shot in their respective states, but for the most part each film is set there, or it has a strong organic link to that state. Arkansas, for instance, gets A Face In The Crowd. Only the opening scenes are set in Arkansas, then the film swiftly moves on to Memphis and New York, but the central character, played by Andy Griffith (in a blistering debut performance), is an Arkansan through and through. His persona drips with Arkansas throughout the movie.

Some films, which I consider to be masterpieces, like The Wild Bunch or Citizen Kane, are not really associated with any particular state in a meaningful way, so they don’t make the list.

Also, a few of the states have had many great movies connected to them, so they get multiple entries. It’s just too difficult to pick out one great Florida movie, for example, so I listed four. In those cases, the multiple listings are arranged chronologically.

All set? Here we go. And I expect complete agreement.

Alabama: THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955), TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

Alaska: CRY VENGEANCE (1954), THE FAR COUNTRY (1955)

Arizona: THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950), 3:10 TO YUMA (1957)

Arkansas: A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)

California: A STAR IS BORN (1954), BULLITT (1968), FAT CITY (1972), THE PLAYER (1992), LA CONFIDENTIAL (1997)

Colorado: MISERY (1990)

Connecticut: HOLIDAY INN (1942), CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945), THE ICE STORM (1997)

Delaware: TRIGGER MAN (2007)

District Of Columbia: THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), JFK (1991), ENEMY OF THE STATE (1998)

Florida: KEY LARGO (1948), BODY HEAT (1981), SCARFACE (1983), THE BOYNTON BEACH CLUB (2006)

Georgia: GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), DELIVERANCE (1972)

Hawaii: BIG JIM McLAIN (1952), FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)

Idaho: DUCHESS OF IDAHO (1950)

Illinois: HALLOWEEN (1978), THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987)

Indiana: A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983), HOOSIERS (1986)

Iowa: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995)

Kansas: THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), IN COLD BLOOD (1967)

Kentucky: COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER (1980), THE INSIDER (1999)

Louisiana: ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949), KING CREOLE (1958), THE CINCINNATI KID (1965)

Maine: THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994)

Maryland: HAIRSPRAY (1988), AVALON (1990)

Massachusetts: THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973), THE TOWN (2010)

Michigan: ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959)

Minnesota: FARGO (1996)

Mississippi: THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958), MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988)

Missouri: WINTER’S BONE (2010)

Montana: THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941)

Nebraska: ELECTION (1999)

Nevada: OCEAN’S 11 (1960), THE GODFATHER PART II (1974), THE SHOOTIST (1976), CASINO (1995), HARD EIGHT (1996)

New Hampshire: TO DIE FOR (1995)

New Jersey: ATLANTIC CITY (1980),THE WRESTLER (2008)

New Mexico: THE BIG CARNIVAL (1951), THEM! (1954)

New York State: IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), NIAGARA (1954)

New York City: THE HUSTLER (1961), THE GODFATHER (1972), ACROSS 110th STREET (1972), SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977)

North Carolina: CAPE FEAR (1962)

North Dakota: NORTHERN LIGHTS (1979)

Ohio: MAJOR LEAGUE (1989)

Oklahoma: THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940), OKLAHOMA! (1955)

Oregon: MR HOLLAND’S OPUS (1995)

Pennsylvania: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), ROCKY (1976), THE DEER HUNTER (1978), GROUNDHOG DAY (1993)

Rhode Island: REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (1990)

South Carolina: THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE (1983)

South Dakota: BADLANDS (1973), DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990)

Tennessee: MYSTERY TRAIN (1989)

Texas: THE ALAMO (1960), THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971)

Utah: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)

Vermont: BABY BOOM (1987)

Virginia: REMEMBER THE TITANS (2000)

Washington: HOUSE OF GAMES (1987), THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989)

West Virginia: MATEWAN (1987)

Wisconsin: OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES (1945)

Wyoming: SHANE (1953)

DRAWING DEAD by JJ Deceglie (2011)

Review by Mike Dennis

“I wasn’t always an asshole.”

That’s Jack Andrelli talking in the opening line of JJ Deceglie’s Drawing Dead, and then he takes the rest of this riveting noir novella trying to convince you of exactly the opposite.

Andrelli is a down-and-out private investigator in Perth, Western Australia, with virtually no redeeming qualities, and he appears determined to assist in his own death any way he can. He’s a degenerate gambler, he owes big money to small gangsters, and he consumes every drop of alcohol he can get his hands on as quickly as possible. He’s a wiseass, profane noir character, to be sure, making big mistakes every step of the way, utterly without regard for the consequences. You get to the point where you want to reach into the page and slap the shit out of him to make him act a little more rationally, but of course, that’s when you realize Deceglie has you right where he wants you.

Amid all his grim prospects, Andrelli actually manages to get a client, a gorgeous brunette (“a vixen, a kitten, a demon”) who, in almost any other private eye novel, would be a mawkish cliché. In Drawing Dead, however, she’s a good fit, giving Andrelli an outlet for his bizarre sexual fantasies, as well as making a sturdy contribution to the plot. It seems she can enable him to get his hands on a lot of money, money he needs to pay back the gangsters who are by now considering ways to end his life.

With blinding neon prose, the author places the reader squarely at his protagonist’s side, and through all the boozing and the beatings, you find yourself actually rooting for the guy. I found the unconventional style, which includes no quote marks around dialogue, few commas, and block paragraphs, to be off-putting at first, but I quickly adjusted and let the style close in over my head for a much more satisfying reading experience.

Deceglie has taken the notoriously inflexible private eye format and busted it wide open, cutting this novella loose from the genre’s stifling chains. Drawing Dead breaks new ground.

Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of wrath directed toward Amazon.

They’re too big. They’re impersonal. They’re aiming for a monopoly of the book business. They’ve emasculated the sacred world of New York publishing and agenting. And their worst crime of all, they force indie bookstores to close their doors.

Well, I’m going to use this space today to give a little love to Amazon, the Great Corporate Satan of 21st-century America.

Back in 1994, they put up a lot of money to start and grow their business. They didn’t even go online till a year later, when they sold their first book:  Douglas Hofstadter‘s Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. Not exactly a rip-snorter, but on the day it sold, it was ranked number one, at least for a little while (ironically, it was first released as an e-book, and is currently ranked #213,493). Of course, Amazon went on to become the world’s largest book retailer.

Then in 2007, they launched the Kindle, betting they could get people to read ebooks instead of “real” books. Again, a costly endeavor. And again, it paid off. They sold 1,000,000 Kindles a week in the months leading up to Christmas, 2011, and in doing so, cemented the role of e-readers in the fabric of our lives.

Basically, what they did was find a need and fill it. The very bedrock principle of the free enterprise system. I for one applaud them.

But I can hear the grumbling now. “What about all those indie bookstores they forced to close?”

Well, the fact is, nobody forced anybody to do anything. Some of those stores probably deserved to close, due to lack of selection, poor management, or some other shortcoming. I would guess, though, that most of the now-defunct stores found themselves completely outplayed by Amazon in the competitive marketplace. Remember, Amazon invested big money in their chancy concept, that people would stop going to bookstores and order from the comfort of their home. In order for that to happen, however, Amazon had to offer their books at a lower price and be able to deliver them to their customers’ doorsteps quickly. If those criteria weren’t met, it’s quite likely Amazon would’ve been the ones to go under and the indie bookstores would be cackling to this day.

Let’s not forget, too, that the undoing of the indies didn’t begin in 1995 when Amazon sold that “Fluid Concepts” book. It started long before that with the rise of Barnes & Noble and Borders and all the other big chain operations, who merely sold the same books at a way lower price. Amazon just took that model and added home delivery to the equation.

Not all indie bookstores wilted in the face of the Amazon juggernaut, however. Books & Books in Miami, long secure as one of the premier indies in the nation, refused to lie down. They added a coffee shop, a full bar, upped their number of in-store events, along with many other innovations, and as a result, they have thrived in the past few years. Their deep, dark secret: bring people into the store any way we can.

Now, it turns out that Amazon itself is opening a brick & mortar store in Seattle. Who knows what it will look like, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the Kindle line will be prominently featured. Once again, they’re risking a huge amount of money on one of their ideas. It’s ironic that they’re doing this, but hey, it’s their money. If they fail, they lose it. If they succeed, more power to them.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing going on in the writer community these days concerning the closing of beloved indie bookstores versus the undeniable convenience Amazon provides. Many people are claiming to feel great guilt for sitting at home ordering stuff on Amazon when their little neighborhood bookstore has closed. My opinion: no one should feel “guilty” for buying items on Amazon. They’re providing you the products you want at a very competitive price, all without having to leave your home, gas up your car, and go stand in line at a big-box store to be checked out by a 21-year-old for whom “customer service” is a foreign phrase.

And this is not even to mention the boundless opportunities they have provided authors by opening up the world of publishing to people like me, who were long snubbed by New York agents and publishers who couldn’t be bothered.

From the moment Peggy Cummins walks onscreen in Gun Crazy (1950), decked out in a cute cowgirl outfit and firing two pistols into the air, you know she’s going to control everything around her and make you forget everyone else in this movie. If only John Dall’s character knew that, he could’ve saved himself a lot of trouble. But like any red-blooded American boy, his character of Bart Tare is mesmerized by this smokin’ hot, pistol-packin’ mama. It didn’t help any that he himself has a lifelong gun fetish.

Cummins and Dall hook up, shoot at targets, and get married. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? They can spend the rest of their little lives at the firing range trying to outdo each other. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one thing, Dall has no job prospects and Cummins craves things money can buy. Dall can’t bear to let her go, so before you can say “Stick ‘em up”, the two of them rampage their way through a series of holdups and close calls. Cummins gets a little too trigger-happy and pretty soon, they’re wanted for murder, with cops looking for them seemingly in every state in the Union. They can’t drive ten miles without encountering a roadblock, and in no time at all, they’re reduced to riding freight cars and hiding out in freezing mountain cabins.

Dall is perfect in this film as the good boy gone astray, and he and Cummins generate considerable chemistry, but make no mistake, it’s Cummins’ show all the way. Her kittenish portrayal of Annie Laurie Starr is one of the best female performances in the history of film noir. Her Welsh accent gets in the way on occasion, but you don’t care, because you’ve totally bought into her powerful screen presence. The screenplay by blacklisted Dalton Trumbo (working through a front) sizzles and the two stars bring plenty of heat to beef it up even more. Director Joseph H Lewis reportedly gave them great leeway, including some scenes with improvised dialogue.

Subsequent films like Bonnie And Clyde and Natural Born Killers were made in much more lenient times, with no censors breathing down their necks, but they still seem derivative of Gun Crazy. And even though it was 1950, when all movies were ostensibly fit for the entire family, the eroticism of the gun itself was never explored more fully than it was in this low-budget cult classic.

Make no mistake, Jeroen ten Berge, my cover designer, is well worth the wait. I contacted him over a month ago to do the cover for my new novelette, Temptation Town, and he said it would take awhile before he could get around to it. He did the covers for Setup On Front Street and The Ghosts Of Havana, which I consider masterpieces of book cover design, so I agreed to wait. In the interim, I designed a makeshift cover myself so I could upload it to Kindle. But the real deal has arrived. I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s sensational.

It’s a novelette, about 12,000 words, and the first in my hardboiled Jack Barnett / Las Vegas series. He’s a reluctant ex-private investigator who … oh, never mind. Buy the book. It’s only $2.99 on Kindle and the print version goes live on CreateSpace some time next week. It’s priced at a modest $9.95. It also comes with an exclusive preview of the next Barnett installment, a short story called Hard Cash.