First You Dream… Then You Die!
Just a reminder — Monday the 12th is the start of Cornell Woolrich week. Please notify your pulp-noir loving friends, and any other interested parties.
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
- Privacy
shadowplay 
April 8, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Cornell Wollrich was a deeply closeted, elaborately self-loathing gay man who lived the better part of his life with his mother.
(Cur Bernard herrmann’s Psycho score.)
Yet as singular as his sad, twisted life may have been, his art was filled with home truths about the dark underside of “ordinary life.” He’s like Patricia Highsmith in this.
And we all know what a picnic she was!
April 8, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Heh.
I’d like to think Woolrich had at least some fun times, even if he hated himself afterwards. His brief marriage broke up when his wife found a sailor suit and an explicit diary. So the suggestion is that at least he was more active than poor Lindsay Anderson.
Just read an incredible story he wrote called A Night in Barecelona, with a sympathetic black protag trying to avoid being extradited to the US and certain lynching. It also features interracial sex, and a rare quas-happy ending.
April 8, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Once she saw the sailor suit there was really no reason to read the diary.
I gather Lindsay Anderson had a lot more fun than he’s usually credited with. His problem was he kept falling in love with straight gues — like Jared Harris’ father for example.
April 8, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Woolrich also wrote a fair number of supernatural stories, of which the Tobe Hooper-directed “I’m Dangerous Tonight” and the Farrow-directed “Night Has A Thousand Eyes” can be said to be evidence. There was overlap, after all, between the “tough guy” pulps and the horror ones, after all. Richard Matheson is another example of someone who wrote for both.
What this is leading to is … horror, these days, seems to be a designated genre for hetero males. On film, at least. Not much of a gay presence there, at least that anyone will admit too. (And, yes, you have no need to cite Whale and Murnau et alia. I’m aware of the precedents.)
My fantasy, which I’ve shared with David E, is that some “out” filmmaker might use Woolrich’s writings as Roger Corman used Poe’s — i.e. as a jumping-off point, with no special fidelity — as a way of creating gay-friendly horror cinema. Which might also, then, connect with the undercurrents apparent in Woolrich’s life and literary style.
April 8, 2010 at 9:25 pm
must a man hate himself and live with his mother in order to turn out a decent script now and then?
April 8, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Woolrich turned out HUNDREDS of stories, he was incredibly prolific, and even if he recycled plot ideas, he was inventive in the way he refreshed them. An unhappy life may provide some kind of fuel for productivity, in some cases.
Clive Barker, our current reigning gay horror auteur, hasn’t made a film for ages. He did keep trying to make a gay studio detective story, but nobody would back him. I guess Todd Haynes’ Poison explores this area a little. But there’s still a feeling that genre = mainstream and gay does not = mainstream.
Malign fate is such a permanent presence in Woolrich that it’s not surprising he burst the bounds of naturalism and plunged into the supernatural.
My own fave books to adapt would be Night Has a Thousand Eyes and Rendezvous in Black.
I like the idea of an out horror auteur tackling Woolrich, I just hope if it happens it’s not David DeCoteau.
April 9, 2010 at 3:08 am
I was just curious, why is it Cornell Woolrich week?
April 9, 2010 at 8:45 am
It’s ALWAYS Cornell Woolrich Week on the 12th-18th April!
No, actually, it’s a week of postings on this blog about films derived from Woolrich’s stories. Sevein (or more) articles in seven days. And if you’re still wondering why, I can’t really help you other than to say… this is Shadowplay, and that’s how we do things here.