----- Original Message ----- From: "Rene Ribic" <
rribic@optusnet.com.au>
> A little while ago someone was asking about
Homes/Mainwaring, whether
> he'd written any other novels worth reading aside
from the classic BUILD
> MY GALLOWS HIGH (made into the seminal film noir OUT
OF THE PAST with
> Bob Mitchum).
That was me. Ed Gorman's noir list (BIG BOOK OF NOIR)
mentioned SIX SILVER HANDLES, so I evenually tracked down a
copy of it. I've subsequently read it, and it wasn't worth
the effort. It's a run-of-the-mill whodunnit, and there isn't
anything remotely noir about it (like a few others on
Gorman's list). I suspect that Homes wrote only one good
book, but it was one helluva good book. However, I'd love to
be wrong about that, so if anyone can recommend anything else
I'm happy to give Geoffrey another shot.
>Unfortunately I haven't read any of his other books
but I
> thought the following info may be of interest to the
person asking:
> under the name Mainwaring (I forget which one was
his real name) he
> wrote a lot of Hollywood screenplays, including the
screenplay to OUT OF
> THE PAST, which you probably knew. Today I just
rented a copy of
> INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS (considered to be an
SF/horror/film noir
> hybrid by many people) & discovered that
Mainwaring wrote this
> screenplay also.
If you haven't read the book, it's an excellent example of
noir sci-fi and is still in print. Jack Finney also wrote the
odd crime novel, including HOUSE OF NUMBERS, a thoroughly
enjoyable noirish prison break novel.
Al
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Jul 2002 EDT