[sundial_life] SunDial Noir

Now The Wife[tm] has moved laterally from Westerns into hard-boiled Detectives. I think it was the Royal Crown Revue CDs that did it, but I can't say for absolute.

Suffice it to say that the hard-boiled detective genre is a kissing cousin-maybe even an incestuous sister-to the Western genre, at least as expressed by Hollywood and television of the day (late '50's, early '60's). I've already mentioned how Peter Gunn and Have Gun, Will Travel ran head on into each other and left a pile of charming shrapnel called Shotgun Slade. They seem to have the same attractions; hard edged, sometimes characaturish, men and women who didn't compromise and played for keeps. Peter Gunn established the ideal, and the best detective shows have come closest to that ideal; Mannix and The Rockford Files spring immediately to mind as direct descendants of the Mancini-themed one.

If you cared for good old-fashioned courtroom procedure, stop by the courtroom and take a seat in the gallery, and watch Perry Mason define how to get your defense on.

But my point, and I do have one, is that the two genres share simple (not necessarily simplistic) stories of good guys and bad guys, strong men and women. When all are adorned in full black and white, they acquire an otherworldliness. Sort of life, the way it wasn't, but should have been.

It is rather enjoyable, actually. Good thing, too, because the Westerns were getting just a teensy bit old. I will, however always put down what I'm doing to spend a half-hour with Paladin.

Somewhere along the way, though, we ran across Humphrey Bogart. I'm not a complete naif when it comes to Bogey, I've seen Casablanca at least once (as every red-blooded American should). I've now seen The Maltese Falcon twice, and Key Largo, Across The Pacific, Passage To Marseilles, and To Have And Have Not. Now I, like many, have an understanding about why Bogey was great. He just seemed to grasp every character and make it his own, and believeable. In Passage to Marseilles, he played a Frenchman but did not affect a French accent like his co-actors, but you believed he was a Free Frenchman (the ending still has an emotional punch that remains through the years).

Late I can now say I am a Bogart fan, at least I can appreciate his work. True acting carries you away as it entertains you, and makes you experience sides of your own self that you may not have known were there. Bogart did that.

Lauren Bacall fairly smoldered. I can't put that any other way. Of course Bogart fell for that dame. I'd of married her dog just to get in the family!

Additionally The Wife[tm] has read Hammett and Chandler, and is rereading her collection of Leslie Charteris The Saint paperbacks. We also found several Saint adventures filmed in the '30s and '40s, starring two different actors. They were amusing, but I wouldn't recommend them unless one was really interested in seeing some pre-Roger Moore Simon Templar (and to me, Moore will always be The Saint).

So help me, she's talking about looking into be a P.I.. Well, again, to be honest. But that'd be a kick-in-the-ass, I think. The Wife[tm[, P.I.. A more remarkable seamus there never has been.

In the meantime, she's trying her hand at writing Noirish stories set in the wide-open Portland of the forties. This should be good.