FFB: Perfidia by James Ellroy

Perfidia from 2014 is too new to be a forgotten book, so I will just call it a not to be forgotten book.

This big, 700-page novel is another rocket ride through the mean streets of old Los Angeles. James Ellroy calls it the first book of his second Los Angeles Quartet.

His first quartet was made up of the novels The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz.

Like them, Perfidia is about crime, crooked cops, celebrities and wannabes. Also like his previous novels, this one’s intricately plotted story follows several characters as they weave their way in and out of each other's lives. At the center of the story is the murder of a Japanese-American family on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Set in December, 1941, Perfidia is a prequel to the first set of L.A. novels.

The sneak attack so inflames Los Angeles, according to Ellroy, that all the rules go out the window. Danger is everywhere and the police do anything they want to solve crimes, catch spies and punish anyone in their way.

Dudley Smith, of the Police Department (a key character in L.A. Confidential), Kay Lake (who appeared in The Black Dalhia), and Hideo Ashida, a Japanese-American scientist working for the LAPD, and many others cross paths in Perfidia as they become involved in the murder case. The investigation widens out to include hate mongers, gangsters, dope addicts, and upstanding citizens ruthlessly buying up and developing Los Angeles County. No one is a hero in an Ellroy book. No one has clean hands. Some try to wash away their sins. Most use their personal crimes as stepping stones to what they want.

Told in his usual punchy style of short sentences, Ellroy paints a vivid, if very ugly picture of L.A. at a particular moment in history. His writing is a snappy, jazzy shorthand that is part Damon Runyun, part Walter Winchell, part Louis Armstrong. The effect is a fast, wicked and brutal police procedural.

Reviewers of the book compared it to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and I agree with them. McCarthy’s book was the darkest western I had ever read. Ellroy’s is the darkest noir.

Perfidia is so dark that noir seems an inappropriate term, recalling the lush L.A. of Raymond Chandler. Ellroy’s version of noir is pitch black and the only light is from the fires of a riot or the bowl of an opium pipe.

(For more forgotten, or not to be forgotten books, please see Patti Abbott’s blog.)

Movies: Southpaw & the Problem with Hollywood

Watching a boxing film is, in a way, like watching boxing itself. There is only so much that can be done in a roughly 20-foot by 20-foot square area bounded by ropes, but it is the characters in the ring and the surprising things they do, or don’t do, that keeps everyone watching.

“Southpaw,” a boxing picture which came and went during the summer of 2015, is a pretty good sports movie and a very good melodrama.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Billy Hope, an angry mug with no style or grace who somehow made it to the top. His wife, played by the beautiful Rachel McAdams, is the brains of the family and manages Billy’s career. One night, Billy lets his uncontrollable anger get the best of him and he loses his career, his money, and his family, including his little daughter.

Billy hits bottom and then works like hell to pull himself back up. He does this with the help of a gruff coach, played by Forest Whitaker, who owns a gym in a rough neighborhood.

As he did in “End of Watch,” Gyllenhaal pumped up and trained to a convincing physical level. The boxing sequences are well staged by director Antione Fuqua, but the heart of the story is outside the ring and Billy’s struggle is compelling.

The story is similar to every boxing film made in the last 80 years, but it is the participants – Gyllenhaal, McAdams, Whitaker, along with 50 Cent in a very good turn as a two-faced fight promoter and Oona Laurence as Gyllenhaal’s daughter – that keep everyone watching.

After viewing “Southpaw” on video, I was also thinking about this year’s Oscars. “Southpaw” is a well-made film directed by Antoine Fuqua, who is one of the few black film directors working in Hollywood. He, like all minority talent in 2015, was ignored by the academy voters who nominate films and film people for awards. True, the critics were not kind to “Southpaw,” but is “Mad Max: Fury Road” really a better movie?

Forest Whitaker was excellent in “Southpaw," better than I have ever seen him. Whitaker was ignored, too.

The rapper, 50 Cent, who has appeared in quite a few films and was very good here, could have been recognized with a nomination in a supporting category, but was also ignored.

Consider the other talents who did outstanding work last year:

Michael B. Jordan, the young star of “Creed” – ignored;

Ryan Coogler, the director of “Creed” – ignored;

O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawking, Jason Mitchell, and most of the cast of “Straight Outta Compton” – ignored;

F. Gary Gray, the director of “Straight Outta Compton” – ignored;

Will Smith in “Concussion” ” – ignored.

This was just off the top of my head. There are plenty of others who were not recognized.

The people protesting the Oscars this year for the lack of diversity in the nominees may have a valid point. They might just be right when they say Hollywood has a problem.

What do you think?

FFB: Unintended Consequences by Stuart Woods

Stuart Woods has been a favorite writer of mine since reading his first novel Chiefs.

Other Woods novels, while nicely done mysteries, were light reading and really did not live up to the promise of Chiefs.

That said, Unintended Consequences is a thoroughly enjoyable outing with his series character Stone Barrington.

The book kicks off with an intriguing mystery. Stone wakes up in the U.S. Embassy in Paris and has no idea how he got there, how he got to France, or what happened to him over the previous four days. The last thing Stone remembers is being at a party in New York, his home town.

Stone is a lawyer who became fabulously wealthy. But he was not always rich. After law school, he joined the New York Police Department. Later, he left the department and joined the law firm of a classmate. In the meantime, Stone's former police partner and good friend, Dino Bacchetti, rose through the ranks of the NYPD and during this story is named Chief of Detectives.

In Paris, Stone discovers he has some kind of business to conduct with a man named Marcel duBois, who is described as the Warren Buffett of France. Marcel owns hotels and companies and his latest venture is the development of a ridiculously expensive sports car that sounds a bit like the DeLorean.

Some Russian gangsters are after Marcel and Stone gets caught in the violence.

The plot twists and turns and takes Stone from Paris to New York and to his mansion in rural Connecticut with his group that includes Marcel, Dino, a statuesque Swedish beauty, and others, all trying to elude the baddies.

The pace is swift, but this 2013 novel feels oddly retro. The sex is a throwback to the freewheeling, no-consequences 1970s, and the conspicuous consumption (sports cars, fine suits, vintage wines) feels like the 1980s.

But for a fun read, Unintended Consequences is a smooth ride.

(For more reviews and forgotten books, please go to Patti Abbott's blog.)

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: ‘71

The 2014 film, “’71,” had a limited release in the U.S. and never came to a theater near me. I caught up with it on video.

It is a thriller about a young British soldier, Gary, played by Jack O’Connell, sent to Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1971, a time when violence there was at a peak. While out on patrol, Gary gets separated from his unit during a clash between residents, soldiers and police, and finds himself alone and without his weapon, in a hostile city. Militants, who killed a fellow soldier, know Gary is somewhere in the neighborhood and are hunting him down.

Director Yann Demange does an excellent job of recreating the era and blurring the political lines. He thrusts Gary into a situation the soldier does not completely understand and into the mean streets where Gary, and the audience, cannot figure out who is friend and who is foe. This all makes for a tension-filled 99 minutes.

Demange further complicates the situation, going way beyond the usual simplified, Catholics vs. Protestants explanation that the news often used. Each side had groups, some sympathetic, some brutally violent.

The director also found people for his cast who seem not to be actors and who speak in the accents of the area. Some of the accents are quite heavy, but the intention is clear, and the voices lend an authenticity to this movie that at times has the look and feel of a documentary.

This is a very well done picture that at times plays like a fast-paced chase film and at other times slows down and moves like a scary slasher film.

“’71” and other films worth checking out are on a list posted at Noir Worth Watching.

For more overlooked films, visit Todd Mason’s site.

TV: Jackie Gleason and The Super Bowl

CBS is running a promo for Super Bowl 50 featuring Jackie Gleason.

The clip, according to Newsday, a Long Island, New York newspaper, is from Gleason’s show Saturday night, Jan. 14, 1967, when he closed by reminding viewers to tune in the next day for the first Super Bowl. Newsday said the clip also proves the big football game was called “The Super Bowl,” from the start.

For me, it was a treat to see “The Great One” again. My folks watched "The Jackie Gleason Show" every week and I have some fond memories of it.

Comedian Jackie Gleason was one of the biggest stars of American television in the 1950s and 1960s. He also did some fine dramatic work in movies like “The Hustler” with Paul Newman, and “Requiem for a Heavyweight” with Anthony Quinn.

FFB: The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth

The Odessa File is a 1972 thriller by Frederick Forsyth about a young German tracking down a notorious Nazi war criminal.

Peter Miller, 29, a freelance reporter for West German glossy magazines in 1963, comes across the diary of a holocaust survivor who chronicled the atrocities committed in a concentration camp. The more Miller reads the more angered he becomes and the more determined he grows to find the commander of the camp, assuming he is still alive and living under an assumed name in post-war Germany.

Miller sees finding the Nazi and bringing him to justice as a terrific story, but is unable to convince his publisher. The publisher is not alone, no one wants to help Miller, including government officials charged with finding war criminals.

Undeterred, Miller presses on, more determined than ever to find the camp commander. His efforts come to the attention of a tough Jewish group with the same goals. They help Miller and warn him of the danger involved.

As Miller digs, he has no idea he has a tiger by the tail. The man he is looking for is not only alive, but also a high-ranking member of ODESSA, a secret organization of former Nazi SS men operating in Germany as well as South America and the Middle East, where they are helping the Egyptians develop rockets to bomb Israel.

The spy services of Israel are aware of the ODESSA and its plans and Miller’s work worries them and forces them to send an agent to find out what this young German is up to.

Forsyth, who also wrote The Day of the Jackal, here crafts a suspenseful tale with several parallel tracks shadowing Miller’s quest. He also weaves in a good deal of background on the SS, the pre- and post-war Germany, and the current events of 1963. He builds his story carefully until about two-thirds of way through when he tosses in a great twist. From there, the book zooms off faster than Miller’s sports car on the Autobahn.

Tuesday’s Film: Out of the Past

“Out of the Past,” the 1947 noir film starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas, is one of those great, atmospheric, black and white crime pictures that leaves a permanent image on the mind even if the story is nearly impossible to recount.

It all starts off simply enough when somewhere in rural America a sinister city guy arrives in a big car and starts asking around for the owner of the local gas station. The owner, played by Mitchum, knows his past has caught up with him and so goes to correct things with a gangster played by Douglas.

For some unfathomable reason, Mitchum takes his current girlfriend along on the ride and tells her the tangled story of how Douglas once hired him to find the woman Douglas lived with, played by Greer. Douglas says Greer shot and wounded him and ran off with sizable amount of his money. Douglas wanted the girl and the cash back.

Mitchum tracks Greer to a Mexican seaside village where he not only finds her, but falls in love with her. They decide to duck Douglas and live together. During all this, there is sleuthing and snappy dialogue and scares when Douglas and his henchmen almost catch up with them.

From that point, about half way through the movie, the plot goes wild with double and triple crosses, beatings, killings and a subplot that, like a dream, would take far longer to explain than to see.

It somehow all adds up and concludes with a big violent finish that also, like a dream, would take too long to explain.

And what a dream “Out of the Past” is, with three young movie stars at the start of their careers. Mitchum at age 30 is the cool, confident anti-hero. Douglas, then 31, is the charming and dangerous bad guy. And the stunning, 23-year-old Jane Greer is the girl they both want. Greer is given one of the greatest introductions any screen character ever had when she ends Mitchum’s long search for her by walking out of the hot Mexican sunlight into a cool, shadowy café wearing a sleek summer dress and a wide-brimmed hat.

Director Jacques Tourneur, the son of a silent film director, was a master of composition, tone and pacing, and this may be his best picture. Credit for the dark yet smooth look of the movie also goes to cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, RKO's go-to guy for film noir. 

Favorite Films of '15

Last year was a better than average film-going year for me. There are still a good many movies on recent top-10 lists that I have yet to see. Some of them will have to wait for video as they never came to a theater near me. But of those that did, a few stand out. Some may never make a critic’s list, but I liked them.

Here are a few favorites from the past 12 months:

“The Big Short” – The financial collapse of 2007 not only made understandable, but funny. This gets my vote for best picture of the year. Look for Christian Bale and Steve Carell to get Oscar nods.

“Spotlight” – How the priest sex abuse scandal was uncovered by a team of investigative reporters from the Boston Globe. It is a very good film with a terrific cast.

“The Intern” – Robert De Niro as a bored retiree who goes to work as an intern at Ann Hathaway’s on-line clothing business. This gentle comedy is for everyone.

“Straight Outta Compton” – Well done bio of rap group NWA. The music may not be to everyone’s taste, but the story will explain the anger and frustration fueling the songs.

“Danny Collins” – This is Al Pacino’s best film in a long, long time. It also stars the wonderful Annette Bening and the terrific Bobby Cannavale.

“Love & Mercy” – The story of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. Paul Dano as a young Wilson and John Cusack as an older Wilson were both excellent. Co-star Elizabeth Banks deserves an Oscar nomination for her controlled performance.

“Creed” – This is far better than the usual Rocky sequel with a story that mirrors the original Rocky and some of the most brutally realistic boxing scenes ever in a movie.

“Black Mass” – Johnny Depp completely transforms himself into one of the scariest bad men in the movies as he portrays real-life Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.

“No Escape” – An engineer, Owen Wilson, moves his young family to an unnamed Asian country only to get caught in the middle of a violent revolution. This is a tense, heart-pounding movie in which an “every man” and his wife flee blood-thirsty crowds while carrying two small children.

“Run All Night” – This was the ultimate “Friday Night” movie of 2015. A Friday night movie is a picture to see at the end of a hard work week. No deep meaning, no symbolism, just a straight up, non-stop action flick to make an audience forget everything outside the theater. Good performances from Liam Neeson and Ed Harris.

FFB: Dick Francis's Gamble by Felix Francis

Author and former jockey Dick Francis, who wrote about 40 mysteries, died in 2010 at the age of 89.

His son, Felix Francis, co-wrote four books with his dad and has continued writing his own mysteries, some with, “Dick Francis’s…” in the title.

One of Felix’s books, Dick Francis's Gamble, came my way during the holidays when I was looking for a light, fun read. Gamble was exactly that – and more.

The 2011 novel, Felix’s first on his own, is the story of Nichols “Foxy” Foxton a former jockey now working as a financial advisor for a small investment company. While at the races with a colleague, Herb Kovak, a man approaches them and shoots Kovak dead in front of hundreds of people, then disappears into the crowd.

Unable to explain what happened or why to the police, Foxton gets involved with the murder in several ways. Not only was he standing next to the victim, but also he soon learns that he was named Kovak’s executor. Further, Kovak left everything he owned to the astonished Foxton.

In going through Kovak’s effects, Foxton learns some disturbing truths about his business friend. He may have been running an illegal gambling ring, and the operation may have lead to his murder.

While sorting out the mess Kovak left behind, a wealthy client confides in Foxton that he suspects one of his investments in an Eastern European development project may be a scam. Foxton, now with two mysteries to solve, barely gets started when the killer shows up at his doorstep, gun in hand.

Felix Francis does a nice job plunging Foxy Foxton, his likable first-person narrator, into trouble and turning up the heat. Gamble was thoroughly enjoyable, and I will be seeking out other Felix Francis novels this year.

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: Cold in July

“Cold in July” is a Texas crime mystery directed by Jim Mickle, adapted from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale that came and went in 2014 and is now out on DVD.

Michael C. Hall is a family man and small business owner who shoots and kills an intruder breaking into his home one night. The local cops congratulate him and others hail him for his actions. But killing a man is not something to be proud of, Hall feels, even if in protecting his family.

The police identify the intruder as a known dirt bag from a criminal family. Soon an older man who is a career criminal and the father of the intruder, played by Sam Shepard, arrives in town and stalks Hall.

Before Shepard’s character can harm the man who killed his son, a twist comes out of the blue. Hall learns that the intruder was not Shepard’s son. The police stand firm that the intruder was identified correctly. Why are they lying, Hall and Shepard wonder?

To find out, Shepard contacts an old pal and private investigator played by Don Johnson. Johnson’s arrival in a red Cadillac sends the film into high gear as the three of them work to unravel the mystery, discover why the cops are lying and find Shepard’s son.

When Shepard and Johnson set out on this mission with Hall tagging along, I could not help smiling at the incongruity of the mild-mannered suburban dad riding off with these violent men. This odd little crime film is well worth a look.