Even Bad Books Have Their Charms [by David Lehman]

Even bad books have their charms.
Last night I read such a book
the title of which I shall not
         mention
nor will I name the book's
         author
who thinks that at the end of
        Dark Passage
Bogart wears a white dinner
        jacket as in
       Casablanca
and that Loretta Young's father
        in The Stranger
is the president of the college where Orson Welles teaches
when in fact the dad is a Supreme Court justice
and Mr. Welles as the Nazi without a German accent
teaches at a prep school
and as for Detour the author doesn't get the point
that it's a study in the unreliable narrator
while Double Indemnity, in the writer's opinion,
is only so-so because both Stanwyck and MacMurray
lack sex appeal, ha, and, too, the author likens Dana Andrews
to a baseball player who got to the majors only because
Ted Williams and co are fighting the second World War
I could go on but why should I
when I enjoyed reading the book even despite the irritating
use of “creep” and “milquetoast” just because
I love noir and so does the author so all sins
are forgiven losses are restored and sorrows end.

from the archive; first posted March 2, 2020
Top left: Dana Andrews; top right Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity; center left Edward G. Robinson in The Stranger; center right Tom Neal and Ann Savage in Detour; bottom left Gloria Grahame; bottom right Elisha Cook, Jr., and Marie Windsor in The Killing.

Comments

[Rick Winston]

Love that poem - it conveys that wonderful appreciation of "guilty pleasures" that even a C+ noir can provide (or a flawed book in this case). As a kid, I loved "A Walk in the Sun," so became a Dana Andrews fan early on. Noir would not be the same without the Andrews films, and what David Thomson called "the unease, shiftiness, and rancor that his good looks concealed." And now, thanks to you, David, I'll watch "Double Indemnity" for the umpteenth time.

[Suzanne Lummis]

Funny, I thought I had an intense dislike of Dana Andrews except for, I suppose, The Best Years of Our Lives and Laura, where he's fine, though I can think of actors today who could surpass those performances. But I just realized he starred in Night of the Demon. Wow. That was a great movie -- haven't seen it for a long time, but I don't remember not liking any performance in that one. Now I want to see it again.
I think it might've been "Where the Sidewalk Ends" that turned me against Andrews, that plus one other -- where he just struck a phoney bravado stance and barked out every line with the same intonation, not an interesting or surprising moment anywhere, just front. Nothin' but front. However...
I'm going to re-visit him.
Maybe I'll switch out my dislike of Dana Andrews for a dislike of this guy--whoever he is -- who wrote that Double Indemnity failed because Stanwyck and MacMurray lack sex appeal. Gawd, is that ever dumb. True, I never woulda imagined Fred MacMurray could have sex appeal, and maybe after that movie he never did again, but... It comes through in Double Indemnity -- with both of them. With these characters, this writing, there's a palpable force in both actors, an edge, a presence--some call it "star quality." When they're together we can glimpse the potential for violence. The casting's superb, and fortuitous -- that guy's a dunderhead.

[David C. Lehman]

Thank you, Suzanne. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" is as bleak a noir as you'll find. First-rate.