Hardboiled Hollywood - Hardcover

Max Décharné is a writer and musician. He writes about music regularly for Mojo magazine, where he is their chief authority on the subject of rockabilly music, which he has followed and played since the 1970s. His work has also appeared in the Sunday Times (London), the Times Literary Supplement among others. He is the author of six previous books including Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories that Inspired the Great Noir Films (Pegasus) and Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang (Broadway). He lives in England.

Décharné, a member of the British band the Flaming Stars, tackles some literary noir scenarios and true murder tales as prime inspirations for some of the finest crime films produced in Hollywood. He analyzes the thrill gangsters held for the masses when screenwriters put them into films from the 1930s until the present, producing overnight stars like Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Humphrey Bogart. Although sometimes the book seems like a tame clip job, it does provide the rare eye-opening revelation about the featured films and the real-life or literary events behind their creation: the story of Al Capone behind Little Caesar; the experiences leading Raymond Chandler to write his novel turned movie The Big Sleep; the realities and myths behind the protagonists of Bonnie and Clyde; and the 1950s Los Angeles world of crime and scandal behind the novel and movie L.A. Confidential. Rehashing several familiar Tinseltown tidbits and uncovering very little new material about these landmark offerings, Décharné's work is not an essential reference volume for the entertainment book shelf. (Jan.)
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