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Michael Crichton
A year or so after we moved into our current house we had a bookshelf collapse that was a consequence of a) the urge to display far too many cherished hardcovers on a screw-to-the-wall track system, and b) my total inability to put a secure screw into a plaster wall. One of the most cherished,…
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Playing in Starsky’s World
According to Variety, Fox Searchlight has arrested production on Brit cop thriller “The Sweeney” following concerns about its international prospects. Well into pre-production and only weeks away from shooting, the project’s been put on hold and the team stood down. Wow. I’ve been there, I know exactly what that feels like. Mostly in features but…
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The Thirty-Nine Steps
I recently went back to John Buchan’s novel The Thirty Nine Steps, the template for all modern on-the-run thrillers from The Fugitive to 24 to the entire Jason Bourne trilogy. The re-reading confirmed my remembered impressions. The book has terrific narrative velocity. It also falls apart to an utterly unmemorable end, and the story doesn’t…
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Eyes Without a Face
On that trip to Paris a couple of weeks back I gave myself an excuse to browse the stock of the Bouquinistes, those riverside bookstalls along the Seine, for a copy of the source novel of one of my favourite films. All I knew of Les Yeux Sans Visage was that it was written by…
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Gallic Noir
I just got back from a few days in Paris (and if that doesn’t make you even a little bit jealous, then I can only suppose it’s a place you’ve never visited yet). As soon as I got to my hotel room I did what comes naturally to every visitor to a distant city. I…
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Valley of Lights
Once again, a question in the comments spawns a post… Stan, people are gonna start talking. The true answer to the question (about which of my novels I’d most like to see adapted) is The Spirit Box, for reasons I’ll go into another time, but for now here’s an extract from my afterword to the…
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Book into Film (2)
In the comments section, Stan asked: “On the topic of novel-to-film translations, what would be your favourites? I was very impressed with ‘LA Confidential’ and ‘The English Patient’ – they both seemed to condense large novels without really losing anything (although they did actually dispense with a lot of plot and characters). It’s a crime…
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The Birds
From Variety, and presented without comment: Cathy Schulman has made her first hires and promotions as president of Mandalay Pictures and Mandalay Independent Pictures. A highlight of the Mandalay Pictures’ slate at Universal is the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, scheduled to be in production by early fall. “We think we have a very…
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Johnny Hollywood Explains It All
Last year I gave an e-mail interview to a journalist preparing an article for a US magazine. Turned out to be one of those pieces where a dozen of you oblige and the writer cherrypicks a quote or two from each. I never saw the piece so I’ve no idea of what may have been…
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Wendigo, Night Tide
A week or two back, Stephen Volk asked me if I’d seen “the peculiar, eerie Wendigo“. And the answer was, yes, I have. Stephen Laws had discovered it and was determined that he was going to get me to see it. On the face of it, Larry Fessenden’s modestly-budgeted indie horror reads like a standard…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
