Re: RARA-AVIS: Get out your Woolriches!

From: Jeff Vorzimmer ( jvorzimmer@austin.rr.com)
Date: 29 Jan 2008


>I forgot to mention that Woolrich's _Fright_ has been reissued by
> Hardcase Crime. I found it an excellent read (I had never read it before).
>
> Best,
> mrt

Also Modern Library currently has Rendezvous in Black in print and Pegasus has The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Black Angel and Manhattan Love Song. There are still a lot of copies of the iBook editions of Phantom Lady, Rear Window and The Bride Wore Black around. There are even copies of the Ballantine mass market editions from the 80s still around to be had cheap--they reprinted twelve in all, I believe and I always see the Woolrich Omnibus (Penguin) in used bookstores.

For my money the best and most influential Woolrich books are I Married a Dead Man, The Bride Wore Black, Black Curtain, Black Angel, Rendezvous in Black and Phantom Lady. I don't think there's another hardboiled writer whose books have been turned into more movies and TV episodes. There was a discussion on this board about how Kill Bill was a reworking of The Bride Wore Black. I see his stories constantly on the screen and TV. I remember seeing a screen version of I Married a Dead Man filmed as Mrs. Winterbourne and starring Ricky Lake, Shirley MacLaine and Brendon Fraser. Five minutes into the film I said to myself, this is familiar, but I couldn't place it at first. IMDB lists 88 movies and TV episodes based on his writing.

Jeff



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