Happy Hunting Ground

"All the other kids with the pumped up kicks. You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet." From "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People

The prepubescent years can be a difficult age. I don't know how I survived them. I don't know how my parents did, either. You think you're a good kid, in reality, you're a handful. Not quite ready to venture out on your own like a teenager, yet not a clinging child. Led Zeppelin II, Alice Cooper's Killer, and the three disc Woodstock album became the core holdings of my LP collection. We were living in East Lansing, Michigan while my father finished up his PhD at that time. Detroit radio stations broadcast to our area. It opened up a whole new world to me.

I had other influences at that stage, too. Alan Sherman's parody record My Son, the Nut featuring "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" and "You Went the Wrong Way, Old King Louie" was one of my favorites. And there were books. 2000 Insults for All Occasions by Louis Safian comes to mind. Chock full of barbs such as:"They call him locomotive. Plain loco, no motive.". Plus, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions by Al Jaffee published by Mad Magazine was a staple. In actuality, anything by Mad was popular in the house with two sisters near my age. They were good getaways from my parents strained marriage. Mad recently stopped publishing. That's a shame. These days, if you have trouble with your parents, you take a 9mm automatic pistol, or whatever firepower is available, and gun them down. Or so it seems.

It all started with Howard Unruh. He's the first domestic mass murderer. In 1949, he walked through the streets of Camden, New Jersey armed with a Luger and a pocket full of bullets, and gunned down 13 people. It's known as the Walk of Death. Like the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Series 800 Terminator, he could not be stopped. In my early Philly days, around '87 or '88, a writer friend of mine was scouting ideas for a screenplay. He had a book on mass murderers and suggested a story on Howard Unruh. I shot it down. More interested in potboilers. Boy was I ever wrong.

Nobody wants to hear about struggling writers. That's why I'm blogging instead of at The Kennedy Center accepting my Lifetime Achievement Award. But as a writer, you're always looking for new storylines. These days, most top grossing movies don't have plots. It's one big chase scene or shoot 'em up. Big body counts. I like an organized scenario. Frequently watch Turner Classic Movies, especially Westerns and Film Noir for narratives I can modernize. The one's with no storybook ending. Most of these films are in black and white, and that's the way I like it. Sometimes they colorize them, but that takes away from lighting techniques by the directors and cinematographers. It's like spray painting Michelangelo's statue of David.

Sometimes you can improve on a film, sometimes not. John Huston's 1941 The Maltese Falcon is considered a classic. Based on the Dashiell Hammett novel, it has two earlier versions, 1931's account called The Maltese Falcon, and in 1936, Satan Met a Lady. All three were viewed as good entertainment, but it's the 1941 movie starring Humphrey Bogart that people still watch today. A Star Is Born has been made four times, and successfully, both critically and commercially. Some black and white movies are much better than the remake despite box office gold the second time around. D.O.A. with Edmond O'Brien is superior to the 1988 iteration starring Dennis Quaid. Against All Odds was a big draw in 1984, but pales in comparison to Out of the Past, the original. Out of the Past features Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum. Body Heat was a commercial success and was inspired by Double Indemnity, but can't hold a candle to it.

Last summer I got what I thought was a great idea for a screenplay while watching Turner Classic Movies. Easy Living starring Victor Mature and Lucille Ball is a movie about a professional football player at the end of the line. Made in 1949, it features the Los Angeles Rams and with the football frenzy in America, I thought an update would be marketable. The 1949 version has the Victor Mature character suffering from a heart ailment. I was going to change the malady to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) to modernize the story. In addition, his wife played by Lizabeth Scott is an aspiring interior designer in Manhattan doing whatever it takes to get ahead. For her character, I was going to overhaul that to a Pop singer or dancer. That's what people do now. There's about a million of them.

Long story short, I bagged the idea because I'd be deficient in contemporary youth lingo. My dialogue would be unauthentic. That's a killer when you're writing scripts. This past week there have been two reports of shootings in Ithaca. One was last weekend, four shots fired, but no one was hit. Yesterday, somebody took five rounds from a .357 revolver in the back. Right near The Commons. The whole place was on lockdown. Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.