One of the first pieces of journalism I ever did was
interview Rex Stout at his home in the mid-Sixties. Spent the
afternoon talking with him about the books and his
contemporaries (he felt Chandler was over praised and
complained too much, while Hammett was a better writer than
Hemingway and expressed a much better understanding of
women). I imagine if I'd even suggested his own books might
be mistaken for cozies, as old as he was (and recovering from
an operation), he'd have thrown me out of the house.
He said that Orson Welles wanted to make a series of Nero
Wolfe movies, but that he'd turned Welles down. Said Welles
was a genius and he didn't want to do business with geniuses
because they were undependable. He mentioned that Columbia
Pictures once optioned a couple of the books with the idea of
using Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet. Then they made
the movies with other actors (Edward Arnold and Walter
Connolly played Wolfe, Lionel Stander was Archie). He wasn't
pleased.
After his death, a TV movie based on "The Doorbell Rang" was
made for ABC-TV. It was all right, but that particular book
was built around a gimmicky ending that didn't really work on
screen. Then Paramount tried a short-lived series with
William Conrad and Lee Horsley that was okay. The episodes
are shown every so often on "TV Land." The series version
of
"Golden Spiders" covers pretty much the same material as the
new movie, but there's a whole lot of difference in the
details.
Dick Lochte
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