Cover story

A few years ago, in a bookstore, I saw a new paperback book about writing.

The author, a well-known writer whom I'd seen in person and whom I knew to be a good guy, had previously written a book about writing that I'd bought in hardcover and liked.

So I snapped up the paperback, got it home and -- you guessed it -- discovered it was the same book, with the original title mentioned (and not too conspicuously) on an inside page.

I suppose I should have taken the book back and asked for a refund, but I chalked it up to experience (does anything ever get "chalked down" to something else?) and I now figure that someday I'll give the book to another aspiring writer.

But this week the same thing darn near happened.

Different writer, but same subject -- writing. I looked at the hardcover in the store and even looked it up on my ebook reader.

(And by the way, have you noticed that traditional publishers are now being called legacy publishers? Or am I misunderstanding that term? Then again, I don't want to run too late here, as it's now well past 1 a.m. according to my analog watch.)

The only thing that tipped me off that it was the same book was when I realized -- on further inspection of the hardcover -- that it had the same famous-author blurb.

Of course, authors and publishers have a perfect right to call a book whatever they want to call it, from edition to edition, from format to format.

And this sort of thing has been done for years. A number of Agatha Christie's books have been known by more than one title. But I think in Christie's case, whenever a book is retitled, the original title is, in at least many cases, noted on the cover.

I'm not sure why authors and titles keep doing this. Or is it the doing of some graphic designer who thinks the extra type would make the cover "too busy"?

But by burying the original titles, legacy publishers -- and their authors -- aren't doing themselves (let alone you and me) any favor.

Memo to The Amazing Spider-Man:

In Saturday's installment of your comic strip, you're confronting Serra Carson, who has secretly been framing you.

"I must know -- what made you suspect me?" she says.

"You insisted I was innocent despite all the evidence against me!" you reply. "And when something seems too good to be true -- it usually isn't!"

Um, sorry to break it to you, O great web slinger, but methinks you're saying the opposite of what you really mean -- namely that if something seems too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

Best wishes,
Your friendly neighborhood Syntax-Man

At the (old) movies: 'This Gun for Hire'

Part of the fun of attending the local cinephile society’s get-togethers is seeing (and hearing) the audience’s reaction to the movie.

I should explain that these gatherings are held at a family restaurant, and although the folks who run the society are very knowledgeable about movies, they’re not highfalutin. (If anything, they’re lowfalutin.)

Many of the folks who come to have dinner and see the films often haven’t seen the movies before or haven’t seen them in a long time. And I’m also happy to note that quite a few audience members are very young.

I especially pay attention to the audience’s reactions when the film is a comedy. I enjoy seeing which gags work and which don’t.

The cinephile society’s latest offering was “This Gun for Hire” (Paramount, 1942). It’s definitely not a comedy, but the audience’s reaction to something that happened near the end provided a stark example of how one false note can screw up an entire cinematic symphony.

“This Gun for Hire,” directed by Frank Tuttle and based on a Graham Greene novel, catapulted Alan Ladd (below) to stardom – right over the head of Robert Preston, who was originally billed as the major star. Veronica Lake came along for the ride, and she and Ladd made a number of repeat journeys together.

Ladd plays Philip Raven, the kind of cold-blooded hit man who likes cats a lot more than he likes people. He’s hired to kill a blackmailer, but after the job, the guy who hired him (played by Laird Cregar) pays him off with hot money. After discovering the double cross, Raven tries to find him – and the mastermind behind him – to exact his revenge.

Along the way, he meets Ellen Graham (Lake), whose boyfriend, wouldn’t you know it, is the cop who’s leading the hunt for Raven. And shame on you if you haven’t figured out that the cop is played by Preston.

The mastermind is an ailing industrialist played by Tully Marshall, who was nearing the end of a 60-year career in show business. (According to the Internet Movie Database, he was born in 1864.) The industrialist has to use a wheelchair, and he’s assisted by a secretary/nurse played by Victor Kilian (left), whose most famous role came many years later – as the “Fernwood Flasher” in TV’s “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

For most of the movie the audience was quiet: The story was strong and the suspense was plentiful, not to mention the all-but-palpable chemistry between Ladd and Lake.

The audience was with the movie until the scene where Ladd confronts Marshall at gunpoint.

Then Victor Kilian, as the long-suffering servant, had to go and spoil it all with a line that was something along these lines:

“For years I’ve changed his clothes for him, washed him, and taken his abuse! I can’t take it anymore! Shoot away!”

At which point many folks in audience erupted in laughter, to the point where they couldn’t take the rest of the film seriously. They were (as we writers say) “taken out of the story.”

Now to be fair to Mr. Kilian, it probably wasn’t all his fault. The line was melodramatic to begin with (W.R. Burnett – of “Little Caesar” and “Asphalt Jungle” fame – and Albert Maltz are credited with the script, but there’s always the possibility that one or more other writers – or even execs – fiddled with it), but Mr. Kilian’s delivery sure didn’t help.

If Alan Ladd had been in the audience, he probably would have gone after whoever was responsible. And given his menacing performance, I’d be deathly afraid if he broke down my front door.

And I have two cats.

Not coming soon to a TV near me

My friendly out-of-neighborhood chain bookstore's DVD section now includes a set of three Charlie Chan films.

Unfortunately, the three films aren't among the best of the series; they were made near the end, after the series had moved from Fox, which was a major studio, to Monogram, which, um, wasn't.

Two of the films feature Sidney Toler in his declining years. The third, made after Toler's death, stars Roland Winters, who is generally considered the least of the movie Chans, although he was generally a good character actor who shows up in a lot of old movies and TV shows.

If I wanted to buy this DVD set, I'd have to pay $39.95.

That's too much for me, given the general quality of Monogram's Chan films.

But I can't help suspecting that this is the first time in entertainment history that the cost of a DVD set has equaled the combined budgets of the movies themselves....

As Freud would say, 'You hadda be there'

I rarely remember my dreams, but here's one from last night:

Somehow I'm meeting Johnny Carson -- he's alive and well. Maybe it's just after his last show.

He's very pleasant to me.

At some point he says something.

I can't remember what.

What I DO remember is my response:

"I'll have my girl get in touch with your girl."

Somehow this makes him double up with laughter.

Wow, I think with unbounded joy, I made Johnny Carson laugh uproariously!

And that's it.

If anyone knows what this dream means, please keep it to yourself.

A joke for Steven Wright (if he wants it)

One night when I was a kid, my father said he was going out and leaving us for good. Then he went to the store, bought a pack of cigarettes and came right back.

Today's travel tips

"If a train doesn't stop at your station, then it's not your train."

-- author Marianne Williamson, on Facebook

If it's an Amtrak train, you'd be better off at the airport.