The Silver Screen Oasis

It has one of those generic titles that makes it sound like a jillion other movies. I got it mixed up with To Each His Own for a long time....till I came here to the SSO. I finally figured out there were two different movies. So when it popped up on TCM I watched. I really liked it. It started out as domestic noir and went in directions I never expected. Of course!

What's even more confusing is the Lombard/Gable film of the same title!

See? Maybe that's why I'm so confused!

Yes, a few months ago, I picked a tape off the shelf that was labeled No Man of Her Own, and it was the wrong one. I should be more careful with my labels!

And it just gets worse, I hate it nowadays when a new movie comes out with one of our beloved classic's names. Don't they know there is already a movie with that title? I guess they don't.

They don't care, Wendy, because only a few people remember.

For a while there, I thought they were literally putting words in a bag and pulling them out two at a time - presto! The name of the next big movie :

Fatal Attraction
Basic Instinct
Sudden Impact
Deep Cover
Lethal Weapon
Die Hard
Extreme Measures
Dead Calm

I used to think that if I just mixed them up, re: Lethal Measures, and submitted a script, someone in Hollywood would have snapped it up in heartbeat. In fact, when the Zuckers came up with Fatal Instinct, I laughed and laughed... it's perfect, because you can't tell any of those movies apart, not from their titles anyway. I actually wrote Fatal Instinct as the first movie at the top because I couldn't remember the actual name of the film with Glenn Close and Michael Douglas.

Write that script Wrendolyn! Can't wait to film it. But come up with something nice and juicy...Woolrich-style!

THE MAVEN WORE BLACK!

Black is beautiful!

Aye yi yi!

Youse guys!

Leave it to a man.

DONALD MEEK WORE BLACK! The suspense classic that shocked a generation.

Now THAT I'll read.

Not a Woolrich novel, but a novel by one whose life was almost as noir as Woolrich's: David Goodis. Film adaptations of his stories include DARK PASSAGE, NIGHTFALL, THE BURGLAR, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, and AND HOPE TO DIE. My favorite description of his work is: Goodis didn't write novels, he wrote suicide notes.

Of Tender Sin (1952) immediately followed his most popular paperback novel, Cassidy's Girl. Of Tender Sin, however, apparently did not sell well at all. It is a character study of Al Darby, an everyday insurance company employee, who, perhaps by the conclusion, has purged himself of -- or at least recognized the basis for -- his obsession with platinum blonde hair. But to get to that point he has to travel through accusing his wife of an affair, seeking her supposed paramour in the seediest part of the city, contemplating and planning murder, hanging out with hopheads and winos, destroying his marriage, seeking an old flame, facing using and pushing cocaine, and re-living an incestuous relationship.

And though he says he's going back to his wife, the reader is left with the possibilities that he won't return to her, or she will reject him, or the whole ordeal will just keep replaying itself for the rest of his life.

It is the most enthralling suicide note I've ever read.

Goodis was a powerful writer, ChiO, and he belongs in the company of Woolrich.