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chiseler · 5 years

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W.R. BURNETT

William Riley Burnett isn't quite as well known as other crime writers like Hammett and Chandler, but the titles of several W. R. Burnett novels and films everybody knows. His career and his influence stretched from gangster novels and movies, which he went a long way to defining, through noir to blaxploitation and beyond.

According to Burnett, a good place to begin his story is in a fleabag in Chicago, when he was a twenty-seven-year-old hayseed from Ohio who in six years had written some one hundred stories and five novels, not one of them published. On his first night in the big city, sleeping in that cheap hotel, he was jolted out of bed by a series of explosions across the street. Rival gangsters had been arguing over the rake in the parking garage across the street. Things got heated and they started throwing hand grenades -- "pineapples," folks called them then. That was Chicago in 1928. "Capone was King," Burnett later wrote. "Corruption was rampant... Gangsters were shooting each other all over town; in fact, I 'heard' one killing over the radio. It happened in a cafe while a dance-band broadcast was in progress. Two shots came over distinctly, the music slurred to an abrupt stop, then the air went dead."

Intrigued, Burnett started hanging out with cops and hoods, taking notes, and ended up writing a gangster novel he originally titled The Furies. The first New York publisher he sent it to rejected it. He gave it a new title and sent it off again. In 1929 it was published as Little Caesar.

Along with Hammett, whose Red Harvest had come out six months earlier, Burnett was fashioning a new class of crime novel as literate pulp, just as the syndicates were emerging and the Depression was about to redraw the entire social landscape. The writing is very spare in a Hemingwayish way, yet vividly descriptive when it needs to be. His characters have names like Scabby and Limpy John and Killer Pepi, and they speak a Chicago gangster patois he'd heard on the streets, full of hard guys pumping lead out of gats and rods, new to most readers at the time but soon universally recognized. They're vain to the point of girlishness, constantly fussing with their hair and fawn-colored spats and diamond stick pins. They're cocky and quick to take offense because they're so insecure. They're far more tender, sympathetic and loving with each other than they are with their dames. "I would not shoot Rico if he shot me first," one says. "Rico is my friend and I love him with a great love." Rico ends up forfeiting his life because he can't bring himself to shoot an old pal. As opposed to:

Olga Stassoff was just putting the finishing touches to her make-up. Joe came in softly and stood watching her. She began to sing.

"If you're singing for me," said Joe, "you can stop any time."

Olga turned around.

"Well, what are you doing here? Broke?"

"Shut up," said Joe.

Then he turned and walked out of the room.

Scholars have made much of the homoerotic subtext in all this, but then scholars can see homoerotic subtext in a stick of gum. Probably what Burnett was really picking up on was the peculiarities of Mediterranean masculinity as expressed in the largely Italian milieu of the late-1920s Chicago gangster. Film historian Thomas Doherty points out that "foreign" gangsters -- Italians, Jews -- were still pretty mysterious to a lot of Americans; through the 1920s they'd heard more about all-American outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. The rise of organized crime syndicates -- whom Burnett much later called "just businessmen who don’t abide by the rules" -- was also news to many Americans at the time.

Little Caesar was an instant hit. So of course was the film adaptation. The movie was a huge box office success at a time when the Depression was cutting attendance figures by half, and it made Edward G. Robinson a star. It's not nearly as tough or brisk as the book, though Robinson is great in it. Both the book and the movie had their share of critics who expressed outrage that Burnett seemed to be sympathizing with and "humanizing" his hoodlum characters.

Hollywood called and Burnett answered. For the next forty years he'd be there, writing both novels and films, many of them successful, a few of them classics.

There was The Beast of the City in 1932, with Walter Huston as an unscrupulously tough crime-busting cop who'd later be seen as a pre-echo of Dirty Harry. Howard Hughes called on Burnett to make some sense of more than a dozen draft screenplays for Scarface, based on the Armitage Trail novel published around the same time as Little Caesar. Burnett compiled the best scenes into a master draft, then Ben Hecht applied the polish. The result was the last of the great pre-Code gangster films, a movie much harder and more raw than Little Caesar.

Butnett's oddball 1935 comedy The Whole Town's Talking is a kind of meta-crime story, with Edward G. Robinson brilliantly playing two roles, sometimes in split-screen, as a meek bank clerk who's identical to a vicious killer. Jean Arthur's great in her snappy role too, but then isn't she always. Burnett's prizefighter novel Iron Man was made into three films, Iron Man in 1931, Some Blondes Are Dangerous in 1937, and Iron Man again in 1951. His novella Dr. Socrates, about the clash of a small-town doctor and a hoodlum on the lam, was first serialized in Collier's, then made into the 1935 film of the same name. It starred the great Paul Muni and Ann Dvorak, who'd been paired a few years earlier as the possibly incestuous Tony and Cesca Camonte in Scarface. It was remade in 1939 as the Bogart vehicle King of the Underworld.

By his 1940 novel High Sierra, both Burnett's writing and his tough guys had fully matured. His style is more relaxed, still handsomely descriptive but with more psychological depth. Roy Earle in the book is more broken and melancholy than the Dillinger-inspired outlaw Bogart plays in the film, more jittery and uncomfortable in the world after years in stir. He's not thoroughly a bad man, more of a bad-luck stray like the dog Pard. He's weary and lonesome and sick, showing his age in his inability to control either his flashes of snarling violence or his fits of nostalgic longing. The newspapers call him Mad Dog but Old Dog would be more fitting. His affair with Marie, the only other character as tough and savvy as he is, would be totally mysterious to the hard guys in Little Caesar.

The film adaptation came out in 1941, directed by Raoul Walsh, with a screenplay by Burnett and John Huston that's pretty faithful to the book, though they made the necessary Hollywood concessions. In the novel, Velma's not the innocent little hick she is in the film -- she's damaged goods in more ways than the clubfoot -- and it's explicit that Marie starts out "just a lay," as Roy tells her, then worms her way into his heart just like Pard does. Burnett and Huston tacked on the movie's big melodramatic climax as well. In the book Roy makes sure Marie and Pard are well out of harm's way, then dies alone up in the mountains, shot by a gunman he never sees, taking his bullet quietly, almost wistfully. It probably wouldn't have made good cinema but it's a more fitting end for him. This movie would also get remade twice, as a Western in the 1949 Colorado Territory and then as the grimy 1955 I Died a Thousand Times, with Jack Palance as Earle and Shelley Winters doing the Ida Lupino role.

Having helped to invent the modern gangster novel and picture, Burnett wrote some of the darkest, hardest, and ethically murkiest postwar noir, creating a world where it's nearly impossible to tell the good guys from the bad ones because most everybody's tainted or bent in some way. In the 1946 Nobody Lives Forever, John Garfield is both a war hero and a con man. When he comes home from the warfront, like a lot of other vets he tries to pick up his old life, only to find everything's changed while he was gone. It's sort of The Best Years of Our Lives for hoodlums.

In The Asphalt Jungle, published in 1949, the world's gone so dirty and upside down that the supposedly upstanding citizens are actually worse than the bad guys. The cop and the lawyer are more crooked and sleazy than the hoods who pull the heist, and some of them are plenty sleazy. Like Roy Earle, Dix Handley is a throwback, a farmboy operating by a kind of Old West outlaw code of honor he probably read as a kid in pulp magazines. He's pulled down by lowlifes who are thoroughly modern and urban, and as innocent of ethics as rats in an alley. Huston made the film the following year. It reappeared as the forgotten 1963 George Sanders movie Cairo and again in 1972 as the blaxploitation flick Cool Breeze. A tv crime series called The Asphalt Jungle ran for one season in 1961.

Burnett also co-wrote the screenplay for This Gun for Hire, adapted from the Graham Greene novel. He adapted the Eric Ambler spy novel Background to Danger, worked on the anti-syndicate potboiler The Racket and on several Westerns and wartime pictures.

He was still at it in the 1960s, still writing crime novels like The Cool Man, published in 1968. At a time when other pulp writers were cranking out endless knockoffs of James Bond or trying to get with the hippies and drugs, Burnett stuck with what he knew best. Like High Sierra and The Asphalt Jungle it's about a big heist gone wrong, leaving some of the crooks dead and the rest spatting over the spoils. Now almost all his hard guys are anachronisms, noir characters who've survived into the Swingin' Sixties by wits, guile or just brute force. They're at the opposite end of life from the cocky young narcissists in Little Caesar, old guys moving deliberately down crooked paths they know by rote, pursuing their agendas -- money, revenge, self-preservation, sex -- by instinct now. When fate throws them curves they take it, like Roy Earle would have, with a resigned shrug. By the end of the book all their machinations have just sort of petered out; a few of them are dead and the rest are stranded like sharks out of water. You have to wonder if Burnett was feeling a bit like that himself by this point.

Burnett also co-wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape with James Clavell, his last Hollywood coup. He did some uncredited work on Ice Station Zebra, and wrote episodes for several tv series, including Naked City, The Untouchables and, of course, The Asphalt Jungle, as well as a lot of Westerns. His eyesight failing, he didn't write so much in the 1970s. But he was still able to bring his whole career full circle with his last book, Goodbye, Chicago, set in 1928, the year he got there. It was published in 1981 and he died the next year.

by John Strausbaugh

#John Strausbaugh #The Chiseler #The Cool Man #Beast of the City #Jean Harlow #Edward G. Robinson #WR Burnett

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lifejustgotawkward · 5 years

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365 Day Movie Challenge (2019) - #96: The Asphalt Jungle (1950) - dir. John Huston

Of the various studios that one would typically think of as breeding grounds for exciting and innovative film noir, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Columbia and RKO were among those most likely to produce the gritty dramas that would become enduring classics of the genre. MGM wasn’t usually so lucky, faring far better with colorful musicals like Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain, but Louis B. Mayer’s company had a breakthrough with The Asphalt Jungle, a heist story based on a novel by W.R. Burnett, famed author of Little Caesar and High Sierra.

The film concerns the robbery of a jewelry store as organized by a bunch of crooked characters played by Louis Calhern (one of my all-time favorites) as a corrupt lawyer, Sam Jaffe (deservedly nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) as a career criminal recently released from jail, Sterling Hayden (six years before he would take on a similar role in Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing) as another longtime stick-up man, James Whitmore as one of Hayden’s closest friends, Marc Lawrence as a bookie and Anthony Caruso as a safe cracker. I’m never too keen on Hayden as a rule but he does OK here, although he is outshone by the rest of the cast.

The Asphalt Jungle is also a repository of talented actresses, including a pre-”Lina Lamont” Jean Hagen as Hayden’s ex-girlfriend, Marilyn Monroe as Calhern’s mistress (she has a habit of calling him by the nickname “Uncle Lon”), Dorothy Tree as Calhern’s bedridden wife, Teresa Celli as Caruso’s wife and Helene Stanley as a jitterbugging diner patron who catches Jaffe’s eye. You may also note John McIntire as the police commissioner tracking the heisters and John Maxwell as a doctor who notes that one of the main characters “hasn’t got enough blood left in him to keep a chicken alive.” I love that line.

On the technical side, Harold Rosson contributes good black-and-white cinematography and there is an effective score composed by Miklós Rózsa. Where Asphalt falters, however, is in the plot itself. Maybe the problem was how tired I was when I watched the film, but it seemed almost as convoluted to me as The Big Sleep and the dialogue often struck me as too literate, not nearly jargon-y enough. In order for noir to come across with the requisite toughness, you have to be convinced by the characters’ weariness and desperation or else their actions come off as phony. I mentioned The Killing earlier, and that’s a complex heist flick as well, but the characters and performances are believable across the board. There is more merit in watching The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre if you want to see John Huston’s finest abilities as a noir director and screenwriter.

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airic-fenn · 2 years

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An illustration mimicking WR Burnett’s Right in the Goddamned Penis Stretch Dawson but with the characters Draqa and Tolas Ruv Aen from The Dreamer and the Marked.

#this counts as marketing right?#lmao please go preorder tdatm #illustration #oc artwork

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jackthelasss · 5 years

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1 October 1818

Char[lotte] came in + alarm[e]d us exceed[ingl]y ab[ou]t Mr. N[orcliffe] who was seiz[e]d w[i]th a viol[en]t shiv[erin]g fit + ver[y] ill. In an h[ou]r John hav[in]g been call[e]d up, went off in the gig for Mr. Edw[ar]d Wallis + to br[ing] back Burnett who h[a]d remain[e]d in York since Monday. I wr[ote] a note, at C[harlotte]’s req[ue]st to Mrs. Milne to bid her not be alarm[e]d. Went to Mr. N[orcliffe]’s bed-side twice. The 1st time his pulse m[u]st have been ab[ou]t 100. The 2d (1/2 h[ou]r aft[er]w[ar]ds) it was perh[aps] 8 + he was in the m[o]st profuse perspirat[io]n I ev[er] saw.

(While with the Norcliffe’s, Anne’s extensive knowledge comes in handy as she stands in until the doctor arrives)

#text #anne lister #anne lister code #anne lister diaries #anne lister journals #gentleman jack #transcribing #west yorkshire archives #1818 #isabella norcliffe #mr norcliffe #charlotte norcliffe #harriet milne #entry

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tkmedia · 3 years

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Big 12, Pac-12 heads meeting to discuss options, potential merger or alliance

By Barrett Sallee, CBS Sports: Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby and first-year Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff are set for a meeting on Tuesday to discuss a number of options including a scheduling alliance and even a possible merger between the two conferences, according to The Athletic. This comes one day after Bowlsby floated both ideas during a meeting at the Texas Senate hearing regarding the future of college sports in the Lone Star State. Read the full story… —Recent News Feed Stories—- Preseason CBS Sports 130 team ranking for 2021 season - Former Notre Dame edge Devin Aupiu transfers to UCLA - Sun Devils release 2021-22 men’s basketball nonconference schedule - Bobby Hurley excited about prospects for new-look Sun Devils - Eastern Washington hoops transfer Kim Aiken Jr. commits to Arizona, again - Colorado Athletics receives largest-ever one-time gift - Colorado senior defensive lineman Jeremiah Doss out for season - Athlon’s college fantasy football 2021 quarterback rankings - Raley: We’re already in the first quarter of the UW-Michigan game - WSU fall camp kicks off Thursday, will wildfire smoke get in the way? - USC wide receiver Bru McCoy suspended from team activities after July arrest - Western Michigan transfer LB Treshaun Hayward back with Arizona, per report - Alabama head coach Nick Saban finalizes contract worth nearly $85 million - Report: Clemson, Florida State have reached out to SEC - Stalled ‘Air Raid’ set for second flight at Miss State under Mike Leach - What opposing coaches & players are saying about Husky freshman QB Sam Huard - 4-star WR Darrius Clemons, the No. 1 player in Oregon, places Ducks in top 3 - Keyan Burnett’s commitment represents larger success for Arizona football - Former Washington coach Chris Petersen joins Fox Sports Big Noon Kickoff - ESPN’s Position U: Schools that produce the most CFB talent at each position - Arizona lands 4-star legacy tight end Keyan Burnett, flips him from USC - There’s a strong Pac-12 presence in water polo at the Tokyo Olympics - Desmond Howard: Texas HC Steve Sarkisian knows what it takes in SEC - Huskies offer Isendre Ahfua, a 14-year-old Kid from the neighborhood - Seahawks sign former Beavers quarterback Sean Mannion - Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians raves about former Husky Joe Tryon - Oregon women’s basketball lands 5-star point guard Chance Gray - Seismic changes mean college football entering new era - Oregon makes impression on elite OL Spencer Fano - Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno strongly considered coaching at USC - Former UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley signs with the Indianapolis Colts - What possible conference realignment means for USC - Takeaways from Oregon’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ recruiting event - TJ Hall on flip from UA: ‘I knew in my heart Washington was the right place’ - Utah football enters fall camp with high expectations, again - SEC commissioner addresses state of relationship with Big 12 commissioner - Former Bruin Earl Watson to join Toronto Raptors staff - Arizona Football success will be contingent on the offense - Former Trojan Tahj Eaddy signs with the Orlando Magic - Big Ten football: If Conference expands, which teams are candidates to join?

The SportsPac12 News Feed does not link to stories behind a paywall. News is added periodically throughout the day, so check back regularly.

Latest posts by News Feed (see all) Read the full article

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veryfineday · 4 years

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Sunday 30 September 1832

9 20/..

x L L

awake at five and from then to getting up lay thinking of Miss W[alker] at nine incurred the cross I really am getting much more in love than I expected to be again in fact she likes me it is evident and I think we shall be very happy together

breakfast with my aunt at 10 1/2 and sat talKing till 12 - then read prayers and sermon 11 mr. Knight in 55 minutes - then asleep till came upstairs after 1 and wrote the journal of yesterday, and so far of today till 2 20/.. - then called down to Dr. Kenny - He thinKs my aunt not looKing so well as when he saw her last, and her state precarious - but ten days will shew the effect of the combination of alteratives he is now giving her - if she is not then better - if the spasms are not subdued, he shall not thinK well for her - staid down stairs talKing 4 20/.. just gently named to Marian when alone with her that I really wished she would never again set at me as she did last night and she began roaring again saying we did not suit and she would go away etc. etc. this always annoys me and at last I am inclined to make it a rule never to mention Marian in any way to anyone –

from 4 3/4 to 6 40/.. wrote 1 page to Eugénies sister and 3 pp.[pages] and ends and under the seal, Chit Chat, to mrs. Norcliffe - as she is to be at home on Wednesday determined my letter shall be in readiness ro welcome her - should have written by return of post to Harrogate had I Known where she was - ‘I see you are so well satisfied, I make sure of papa and mamma being equally so, and of Esther’s being so happy, that I am determined my congratulations shall not be tardy’ - remember the house they are to have (mr. Temples, in malton) - ‘that all this will be a great comfort to you, is very clear; and, with all my heart, I am always glad of your having anything to give you pleasure - thank you very much for writing to me on the occasion’ –

mention the long letter I had written and was just sending when hers arrived - AsK if Bell is really to marry Dr. Travis’s younger brother - nothing would delight me more than to go to Langton now, but cannot for business - my steward died ten days ago - and ‘my aunt has been so far from well this last fortnight, that I should be uneasy to leave her’ AsK if Burnett got the parcel I sent her ages ago - all pleased with V[ere] my friends marriage with Lochiel and in very particular - mention that the younger children are now to take ranK as if their father had come to the title - shall mrs. N-[Norcliffe] again by hooK or by crooK before I go - uncertain now whether I shall be at Rome next Easter or not - as mrs. James Dalton has not written to me on the occasion shall not write my congratulations to her till after the ceremony – mention Eugénie - as ‘the person of all others to suit me’ - and may perhaps have her at last - asK if Richard (the groom at Langton) Knows of a good groom who could act as footman and liKely to be at liberty in January - almost determined to take an English groom and a courier too –

sent off at 7 my letter to ‘mrs. Norcliffe Langton hall malton and to ‘mademoiselle Pierre, at mrs. Swinley’s school, East cliff house, Brighton, postage paid’ - as follows ‘Shibden hall, near Halifax, YorKshire Sunday 30 September 1832. - mademoiselle - mrs. Lawton has forwarded to me the letter of the 18th inst. respecting your sister Eugénie, who, from all I have yet heard, seems very liKely to suit me; but I have not written to any of the ladies you mention for a character, because it seems from your letter that there is a doubt whether your sister will be at liberty in January or not - I want a clever lady’s maid who is at the same time thoroughly respectable and steady, obliging in her manners, neat in her person and habits, who has good health, and is sufficiently fond of travelling to make the best of everything, and have no objection to go outside, or to go to wherever I may wish - If your sister is such a person, and if, as mrs. Lawton seems persuaded, she has really profited by many advantages of birth and education, I feel certain that she would in a very short time understand my habits and wishes, and find her place as comfortable as it would be in my power to make it - I am etc. etc. A Lister’ –

Dinner at 7 5/.. - asleep - went into the other room at 9 - read over the Courier - came to my room at 10 20/.. - looKing over PicKle’s account till after 11 - fine morning - a little rain in the afternoon between 3 and 4 - then fine again - Fahrenheit 69 1/2º at

11 10/.. p.m. -

#anne lister code breaker #1832 #ann walker #Mrs. Norcliffe

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hadarlaskey · 4 years

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How The Asphalt Jungle changed the face of American noir

It’s 1950. A new decade has arrived and the directors of film noir have realised something collectively: that good noir understands the city. It’s something partly understood from the previous two decades of Hollywood, albeit heavily (but not uniquely) tied to the studio.

Yet it’s a lesson that is reaffirmed with gusto by the film movements growing out the rubble in postwar Europe too. From this, the genre comes into its own – and what better way to begin this new, energetic and innovative era of noir than with John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. It’s a film that not only changed the way cities looked and felt in American cinema but also put the heist at the heart of the genre for good, achieving such creative success that it became one of the modus operandi for the genre.

Based on the novel by WR Burnett, the film follows a particularly gritty jewellery robbery involving a recently released criminal mastermind, Doc Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), eager to pull the perfect job so he can retire to Mexico. He goes to small-time crook Cobby (Marc Lawrence) for help with funding the operation and enlisting the men required to make it work. He’s put in touch with dodgy yet respected lawyer Emmerich (Louis Calhern) who agrees to fund the enterprise in spite of being broke due to keeping a young mistress, Angela (Marilyn Monroe).

Cobby helps put a team together, including loyal hard man Dix (Sterling Hayden) – trying to get out of the city and blind to the love of Doll (Jean Hagen) – driver Gus (James Whitmore) and safe expert Louis (Anthony Caruso). But how perfect really is the job when so much is down to chance? And what will happen when one of the interested parties decides they want more than their cut?

If one thing really emerges out of the previous decade’s worth of cinema, it’s a move to using more real urban locations. Taking clear influence from the most successful film movement of the previous decade, Italian Neorealism, Huston creates something new and refreshing. With films by the likes of Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, urban landscapes moved on in screen terms from the neat and tidy California back-lots and sets to something more dilapidated and gritty, just like the buildings left in ruins after the war. Huston clearly took note of this and combined it with the stylistic leanings of Hollywood cinema post-Citizen Kane; stark light and shadows building compositions using architectural devices and quirks.

The effect of this combination of contrasting visual ideas is breathtaking. The streets around Cincinnati – at once industrial, derelict and eerily empty – become a pulsating, vile creature whose dirt rubs off on everyone scrambling around them, from the pettiest of petty criminals to the most seemingly respected of public figures and authority.

The script, adapted in collaboration between Huston and Ben Maddow, goes to great pains to emphasise this dirtiness. “First thing I’m gonna do is take a bath in that creek and get that city dirt off me,” Hayden’s character suggests, deep in reminiscence of the family farmland he longs to buy back. It’s a personal pining that humanises him to the extent where his final moments in the film’s climax become some of classic noir’s most heartbreaking. Louis the safe man is of the same thinking too. “If you want fresh air,” he quips early on, “don’t look for it in this town.” In Huston’s hands, living and working in the city becomes a dirty business that can’t be cleaned off so easily.

What’s equally striking about The Asphalt Jungle is its sense of character. The range of its spoken roles and the sheer speed and precision through which they are effectively rendered is remarkable to say the least. Though the film is centred on the heist, Huston knows that the real drama will bloom in between the cracks of the mechanics surrounding it. He knows that technical exposition can only get you so far.

The sheer volume of heist films that proceed after the film tells of just how effective the scenario is though few possess the same level of understanding. Virtually every character on screen – of which there are many – reacts differently to the problem of the heist and its eventual collapse. It’s surprising to find the whole spectrum of human emotion and resilience present in just this one singular, seemingly straightforward narrative. It deals a high hand in human fallibility.

If Huston’s film exerted any influence over the films that followed, it’s thanks to the duality between its stark visual style and earnest appreciation of how characterful drama can spring from the most unlikely of places. I think of Dix’s heartbreaking journey home every time another heist film is viewed, wondering if it’ll reach the same heights of drama that Hayden and Hagen achieve as they stumble across that last Kentucky field.

Dix’s desire to return to the farm highlights a common drive in such films; to escape from places which feel more like a wild jungle than civilisation. There was only one way he’d ever get out of the city and wash the dirt of his criminality off, the only route left open to those crooks down on their luck. It’s a dark realisation, one that would drive film noir again and again thereafter: the desperate escape from a scenario where, even by chief of police’s own admission, “The jungle wins.”

The post How The Asphalt Jungle changed the face of American noir appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/articles/the-asphalt-jungle-john-huston-american-noir/

#movie

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years

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Tues[day] 14 October 1834

10 55/..

A tolerable kiss last night weight of two blankets and quilt rather much she a

little exhausted and said ‘it is killing work’ of which I took no notice but seemed

to sleep – at my desk at 8 – h[a]d Pickells to ask to cart a few st[one] fr[om] here

to raise the b[a]ck kitch[e]n shed at Denmark or the roof w[oul]d be too flat – h[a]d Mallinson to

beg to ta[ke] his men off and finish the shoe-black place in a few days – yes!

s[ai]d I, I ha[ve] no object[io]n – b[u]t they will f[i]nd the job done when they co[me] b[a]ck –

I shall cert[ainl]y n[o]t wait – finish[e]d my let[ter] (3 p[ages] and ends the 1st p[age] writ[ten] last

Wed[nesday]) to IN- [Isabella Norcliffe] br[eak]f[a]st at 9 1/2 in 35 min[ute]s – wr[ote] the ab[ov]e of th[i]s p[age] till 10 25/.. when my

a[un]t’s sofa ca[me] fr[om] Greenw[oo]ds – cush[io]n a bad fit – d[o]wnst[ai]rs w[i]th Ch[arle]s H- [Howarth] th[e]n w[i]th my a[un]t

at my desk ag[ai]n at 11 3/4 – k[i]nd let[ter] to IN- [Isabella Norcliffe] daily think[in]g of writ[in]g to h[e]r moth[e]r – she the last

I sh[oul]d neglect to pay ev[er]y attent[io]n to in my pow[e]r – th[an]ks for the br[ace] of pheas[an]ts and br[ace] of part[ridge]

th[a]t arriv[e]d th[i]s dayw[ee]k and for the leveret to my a[un]t 19 June – she d[i]d n[o]t write bec[ause] now ev[e]n

writ[in]g to me is ‘alm[o]st too gr[ea]t an exert[io]n – She s[e]nds h[e]r love, and bids me say, we oft[e]n

‘talk of you – I th[in]k she is, all th[in]gs consid[ere]d, marvelous[l]y well – She suffers a martyrd[o]m;

‘b[u]t h[e]r gen[era]l health rem[ai]ns s[u]ch th[a]t we none of us see an[y] near dang[e]r – my fath[e]r is beco[me] ver[y]

‘feeble; b[u]t it is mere[l]y the feebleness of 82, w[i]thout pain’ – h[a]s just g[o]t a German phaeton

and air[in]g ab[ou]t does h[i]m good – say how busy I am, and co[me] in too tir[e]d ‘to snatch the ti[me] I might

‘ha[ve] bet[ween] din[ner] and go[in]g to my a[un]t – we each of us pay h[e]r a reg[ula]r daily vis[i]t, besides

occas[iona]l poppings-in – She gets out on the terrace on a fine day’ – ask quest[io]ns

for IN- [Isabella Norcliffe] to ans[we]r ab[ou]t th[e]ms[elves] –if go[in]g to Bath, etc – ment[io]n our arriv[in]g at ho[me] on the 30th Aug[u]st

aft[e]r a delightful tour – enjoy[e]d ours[elves] exceed[ingl]y – ‘She’ (A- [Adney]) ‘is a capit[a]l trav[elle]r – we

‘d[i]d a gr[ea]t deal – m[u]ch mo[re] th[a]n man[y] w[oul]d bel[ieve], w[i]thout see[in]g it – Her being s[u]ch a good

‘rider, w[a]s ev[er]yth[in]g for us – oth[er]wise, I mys[elf] sh[oul]d ha[ve] been afr[ai]d for her – our tastes

181

1834

Oct[obe]r

‘harmonize so well, th[a]t, deo volunte, we shall prob[abl]y be off ag[ai]n as soon as our

‘divers circumst[ance]s permit – we really get on admirab[l]y – one of th[e]se days, you m[u]st

‘co[me] and see – I w[a]s delight[e]d to find my Lond[on] friends think[in]g me ver[y] wise, and to find A-‘s [Adney]

‘shyness wear[in]g off amazing[l]y – In looks she is cert[ainl]y improv[e]d – Howev[e]r, I am ver[y]

‘comf[orta]ble; and ev[er]ybod[y] in the h[ou]se is satisf[ie]d’ – Geo[rge] ver[y] m[u]ch improv[e]d – h[a]d a mule for h[i]m

and took h[i]m ev[ery]where – in gr[ea]t hope he will turn out a Fisher – on[l]y want a Burnett

‘B[u]t A- [Adney] und[er]st[an]ds keep[in]g h[ou]se bet[ter] th[a]n I do, so th[a]t I am bet[ter] off th[a]n form[erl]y’ – ment[io]n

Myers’s job done for ab[ou]t £56 – our new wheels w[oul]d hard[l]y bring us ho[me] – ha[ve] s[e]nt the carr[ia]ge to Baxter

(Long Acre) to be done as per up est[a]te £150 – ‘my love to all at the Rectory’ writ[ten]

und[e]r the seal – r[ea]d a lit[tle] th[e]n w[i]th A- [Adney] till aft[e]r 3 – off w[i]th her to H- [Halifax] at 3 20/.. – bef[ore] gett[in]g

to the top of the bank a few dr[ops] of rain made us turn b[a]ck – left A- [Adney] at ho[me] and off ag[ai]n alone at 3 3/4 d[o]wn

the o[ld] b[ank] to Mr. Park[e]rs’ off[i]ce – left a mess[age] for Mr. Adam (Mr. P- [Parker] fr[om] ho[me]) to co[me] at 10 a.m. tomor[row]

w[e]nt to Greenw[oo]ds’ to f[i]nd fault ab[ou]t my a[un]ts’ sofa cush[io]n (vid[ere] line 9 of today) – put int[o] the

post my let[ter] to ‘Miss Norcliffe, Langton hall, Malton’ – so[me] whi[le] at Whitley and Booths’ –

b[ou]ght and br[ou]ght away Rennies’ catechism of nat[ura]l theol[og]y and n°1 pub[lishe]d th[i]s m[on]th of Millars Gard[ne]rs’ dict[ionary]

[octavo] new improve[e]d ed[itio]n and ord[ere]d my na[me] putt[in]g d[o]wn as a subscrib[e]r – ho[me] at 5 1/2 – din[ner] at

6 – coff[ee] – A- [Adney] won 3 hits and a gamm[o]n to my gamm[o]n – w[i]th my a[un]t 20 min[ute]s till 9 3/4 –th[e]n rubb[e]d

A-‘s [Adney] b[a]ck of neck w[i]th brandy 23 min[ute]s – fine day, and ev[enin]g – the dr[op] or 2 of r[ai]n (line 8 ab[ov]e)

held off – Midgley and anoth[e]r mason and 1 lad at Geo[rge]’s shoe-bl[a]ck-place, beg[a]n wall[in]g

it off – Ch[arle]s and Ja[me]s H- [Howarth] at door closet bet[ween] lib[rar]y and blue r[oo]m clos[e]t and Ch[arle]s go[in]g to H[alifa]x ab[ou]t locks

F[ahrenheit] 54° at 10 35/.. p.m.

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harrypotterhousequotes · 5 years

Photo

GRYFFINDOR:

"DANNY: Willie, since I was a boy, I hate and fear little rooms, closets, caves. WILLIE: But Danny, you've dug seventeen tunnels. Over seventeen! DANNY: Because I must get out! I hide the fear, and I dig."

--James Clavell + W.R. Burnett (The Great Escape)

#harry potter #house quotes #gryffindor #the great escape #james clavell #wr burnett #hphq

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junker-town · 4 years

Text

5 NFL players who will benefit most from their change of scenery

Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

Here are a few players who can bounce back now that they’ve landed with a new NFL team.

Each year during the frenzy of free agency, there are a few players who stand out because they land in a much better situation with their new team. Whether a player was unhappy with his previous team or simply underperformed, some guys simply need a change of scenery.

That’s still true this year. Even during an unconventional offseason due to the coronavirus pandemic, there have been dozens of signings and even a few blockbuster trades. Free agency continued unabated, and with it many players looking for a fresh start.

Below, we’ve highlighted a few of those guys who should benefit the most from their new surroundings.

Marcus Mariota, QB

Titans —> Raiders

Ostensibly, Mariota is going to Las Vegas to be a backup to Derek Carr. Realistically, he’ll be competing with Carr — who has been involved in trade rumors in the past — if the starter falters even a little bit. That’s a good place for Mariota to be after he saw his Titans career end with a whimper last year at the hands of Ryan Tannehill.

Mariota threw 45 total touchdowns in his first two seasons in the league, but he fell far short of those marks in each of the following three seasons, while interceptions remained a problem. He was benched last season and replaced by Tannehill, who had the best year of his career and got the Titans all the way to the AFC Championship Game.

Mariota can do the same thing that Tannehill did to him if Carr gives him an opportunity. The No. 2 pick in the 2015 draft, Mariota is still 26 years old and has a lot of upside. He has struggled with accuracy and his decision-making thus far in the NFL, but he has shown flashes of high-level play:

This is the craziest play EVER! Marcus Mariota throws a touchdown to... MARCUS MARIOTA! No, seriously...#TitanUp | #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/4DbkZieCMI

— NFL UK (@NFLUK) January 7, 2018

One area he really needs to improve is his pocket awareness, because he frequently takes hits and sacks that better quarterbacks avoid, either by throwing the ball away or escaping the pocket.

Still, there’s a chance he can improve with his new team. Raiders head coach Jon Gruden was a big fan of Mariota when he entered the draft, as was general manager Mike Mayock. Mariota is on a two-year contract as well, so if he makes his way into the starting lineup and surprises, the Raiders don’t have to worry about him taking off after one season.

Vic Beasley, DE

Falcons —> Titans

Beasley was a first-round pick in 2015, drafted to be a force on the edge in Atlanta’s defense. In his second year, he put up 15.5 sacks, forced six fumbles, and had a fumble recovery for a touchdown. However, he never reached those heights again, compiling 18 sacks over the next three seasons.

He wasn’t even a full-time starter for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, but he made his way back into a regular starting role in 2019. Playing on the fifth-year option, he had eight sacks and two forced fumbles. Despite the slight uptick in production, the Falcons elected to let him hit the open market. He joins the Titans, who need help in the pass-rushing department and are trying to improve on defense after their hard-nosed offense pushed them to the playoffs last season.

It’s a one-year deal, so there’s little risk for Tennessee. For Beasley, he’ll get an opportunity to earn a much bigger deal a year from now, especially if he can return to his 2016 form. The Titans will be hoping he can complement outside linebacker Harold Landry, while providing an upgrade over guys like Reggie Gilbert and Derick Roberson on the edge.

Beasley occasionally dropped back as a linebacker with the Falcons, but his best chance of success with Tennessee would be rededicated himself to one task: chasing opposing quarterbacks.

Eric Ebron, TE

Colts —> Steelers

Ebron was the Lions’ first-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, but he’s struggled with consistency over the years, especially in Detroit. He made it to the Pro Bowl in 2018 after joining the Colts. That season, he went off for 750 yards and 13 touchdowns, but injuries limited his 2019 campaign. Last season, he caught just 31 passes for 375 yards and three touchdowns while playing in 11 games. Of course, some of that decline can be attributed to the Colts losing Andrew Luck to retirement before the season.

Ebron plays like an oversized receiver, and with the emphasis on big pass-catching tight ends in the NFL these days, there’s still hope that he can become elite, along with guys like Travis Kelce and George Kittle.

In Pittsburgh, Ebron will get a chance to catch passes from Ben Roethlisberger (provided he’s healthy after a season-ending elbow injury), who has been searching for more help from the tight end position for years. Last season, Vance McDonald was the team’s top tight end, and he totaled just 273 yards. With the lack of depth at the tight end position in the upcoming NFL Draft, Ebron’s two-year deal with the Steelers seems like a good match.

Nelson Agholor, WR

Eagles —> Raiders

The Eagles have a fanbase renowned for not being shy about ... let’s call it voicing their displeasure with the team and its players. Over the past several seasons, nobody has drawn that ire like Nelson Agholor, who never quite lived up to his status as the 20th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft.

Agholor’s biggest knock is he is prone to drops, but in reality, it’s more that his drops were high-profile. He only had four drops in 2019 and three drops in 2018, neither of which are ideal but are within the normal range for a wide receiver. Still, he was often the scapegoat for any problems that Philadelphia had on offense, despite issues at the quarterback position and the running game.

He eclipsed 700 yards in 2017 and 2018, but he managed only 363 yards in 11 games last year, when he spent some time on the injured list. In five seasons, he has 2,515 yards, which is well below expectations for a first-round pick. Agholor is making barely over the veteran minimum on a one-year deal, the very definition of a “prove it” contract.

In Las Vegas, Agholor will be dealing with a no-nonsense head coach in Gruden, who will do his level best to get Agholor to be the player many thought he could be. Carr (or Mariota) makes plenty of mistakes, but he throws for a lot of yards and the Raiders need a receiver who can step up alongside tight end Darren Waller.

Karl Joseph, S

Raiders —> Browns

Despite making Joseph a first-round pick in 2016, the Raiders took a long time to develop him into a starting safety, and it was never quite clear why. When Joseph saw the field, he played well. He was having his best year for the Raiders in 2019, until he suffered a season-ending injury while snaring a game-sealing interception against the Chargers.

Karl Joseph: Game Ender#LACvsOAK | #RaiderNation pic.twitter.com/P5uCmtAzGb

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) November 8, 2019

However, Joseph wasn’t a player they seemed to like, even with his consistently strong play. The Raiders had tried to trade him in 2018. When they didn’t make a deal, they declined his fifth-year option before the 2019 season. Then the Raiders drafted Johnathan Abram in the first round that same year.

The decision to move on from Joseph feels a bit like the situation they saw with cornerback Gareon Conley. Another first-round pick, Conley wasn’t a fit in their system and they wound up trading him to the Texans, where he played much better. Both Joseph and Conley were drafted before the Raiders switched to Mayock at general manager, and both dealt with the Raiders running through multiple defensive coordinators during their time with the team.

Their loss will be the Browns’ gain, as Joseph is coming in a one-year contract. He’s snared an interception per season with 15 passes defensed, and that’s while the Raiders mostly used him as a box safety despite him being more of a coverage corner. He should be able to get back to a proper safety role with the Browns, who have openings after Damarious Randall and Morgan Burnett departed this offseason. Don’t be surprised if Joseph winds up in the Pro Bowl in the near future.

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