Re: RARA-AVIS: A batch o' Gold Medals

From: Etienne Borgers ( freeweb@rocketmail.com)
Date: 24 Apr 2000


--- Doug Bassett < dj_bassett@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi, there:
>
> --- Bleed272@aol.com wrote:
   .../...
> > any comments about them....
> > HELL HATH NO FURY by Charles Williams
>
> I believe this book was later retitled THE HOT SPOT,
> to coincide with a so-so movie version that came out
> in the late Eighties. If we're talking about the
> same
> book, this is marvelous. We're talking amoral
> protagonists, good girls, bad girls, sweaty
> corruption
> in nowhere towns -- the whole nine yards, done
> superbly well. Most of Williams stuff is stupidly
> out
> of print-- he deserves to be reissued.

I totally support Doug's opinion!! The book by Charles Williams was issued in 1955. One of his bests! Was much later adapted to film as THE HOT SPOT (1990) directed by Dennis Hopper; a little bit too "shiny" as a film with a too heavily "obviously bad" set of characters... Not on par with the book. Not a turkey but missed the point IMO.

As a foreigner I was always amazed by the total lack of consideration this writer received in his own country, past the crime novel craze of the fifties and early sixties. He is undoubtly one of the bests, just after the top ones. Some weeks ago, somebody asked on the list if a biography study (book) was existing about Williams. We know all the sad answer... But more urgent seems now to re-publish his best books (and I personally do not know of any being really bad...)

Is there something else than overlooking that made it difficult for a re-issue ?

E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com

--
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Apr 2000 EDT