Monday, June 26, 2017

Nicholas Ray - Book Thief?

One of Stinky's favorite online movie critics, DVD Savant, thoroughly and eloquently reviews here Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night, a film Savant regards much higher than Stinky, but Stinky is notoriously hard to please. Has there ever been a movie that Farley Granger has not nearly or completely ruined? But that is a conversation for another day and a different watercooler.

However, Stinky can add something to the Nicholas Ray discussion that almost no one else can.






Uncle Dave, one of Stinky's top seven favorite uncles, claimed to have found Nicholas Ray's own copy of Edward Anderson's novel Thieves Like Us, the book on which They Live by Night is based. Since Uncle Dave is seldom lucid and has but a meager grip on reality, Stinky rarely takes anything Uncle Dave says at face value. But this time, Ol' Uncle Dave put his kopecks where his maw was, and showed Nephew Stinky the tome in question. And bless his Grinch-like ticker, Uncle Dave was telling the truth.

On the inside, PLEASE RETURN TO RKO LIBRARY is stamped, a terse but reasonable request. After all, Howard Hughes was not made out of money. Amphetamines, goat glands and chutzpah, yes, but money, no. And directly above, at a very jaunty angle, is handwritten, "N. Ray". Did Nicholas Ray, a rebel sometimes with and without causes, fail to return the book as a way of sticking it to The Man? Stinky would like to think so.





Of course, this book could have been part of the Lucille Ball fire sale, when that wacky redhead sold the former RKO Studios several decades later, but to Stinky Fitzwizzle, this scenario has not nearly the romance.

Look closely, and one can see that Uncle Dave purchased the book for forty-nine cents. Now that Stinky believes!


No comments: