So what I’m I learning from all this noir watching, thanks to MMU (Movie Madness University — but I repeat myself)?
I’m glad I caught up to The Girl Hunters (1963). Even though I’m older than Bogart (physically if not psychically, whatever that means), that doesn’t mean ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (as goes the tired cliche). I didn’t grow up on those Mickey Spillane novels featuring private eye Mike Hammer (thank you Genesis, not Mark).
What I got was Spillane was up against Ian Flemming, the competition, as the Cold War was giving rise to a new set of stereotypes around good versus villainy. How to get the new spy lingo into Hammerese? The Girl Hunters marks a stab in that direction, with its fem fatale star the lucky girl to get painted gold in Goldfinger.
Trevor had earlier taught me about the Ian Flemming versus Patrick McGoohan school of thought, which could be summarized I suppose as “do the goodie spies have to be good with guns?” The question is akin to the age-old: “must the hero engage in swordplay?”. That depends on whom the script is written for. Speaking of which, Dick Van Dyke was offered the possibility of being a Bond after Connery, but he didn’t think the audience would buy it. True, it’s hard to imagine Dick sounding British.
As a child of the Cold War, I got to spys’ ville (a city of shadows) via such as Spy vs Spy in Mad Magazine, and yes through the Bond films, more than the novels, which nudged me into John le Carré, one of who’s novels I was privileged to read actually traveling through Victoria Station or one of those, on a rare visit closer to his setting.Then of course I met some real spies in person, like Ralph McGehee that time, and later Ed Applewhite. Mostly I’d just read their books, like with Colby, Turner and that Spy for All Seasons guy (Duane “Dewey” Clarridge). Of course Casey. More recently, I’ve been picking up some clues on stuff to read through Candace’s show (she’s eclectic).
Anyway, all that later stuff I’ve written up in previous posts, other media. It’s the out-of-sequence noir stuff that’s new (with thanks to MMU). Hey, I didn’t get to Sesame Street until high school, given Manila screened more USA telly than Rome. Or maybe that was more a case of getting it contemporaneously, versus catching up through reruns.
