David goodis is one of those writers Damn, of difficult life and finished before time. Was born a day like us in Philadelphia in 1917, but died at the age of 50 in a psychiatric hospital. He was the author of about 20 novels of the calls pulp, but he also signed some of the most representative of the black genre such as Shoot the pianist, The dark path o At nightfall. Today, in his memory, I review those three titles that were taken to the movies with great success.
Shoot the pianist
They say it's the masterpiece of Goodis and that does not age and of course it continues being one of the most extraordinary novels of the noir genre. It was in 1960 when the french director François Truffaut took her to the movies with Charles Aznavour protagonist.
The story begins in a seedy bar in Philadelphia, where a man comes out of himself and is fleeing. Look for Eddie, pianist, who is also her brother. She has not seen him for many years and asks for help and shelter. But Eddie doesn't want to know anything because he doesn't want trouble.
Then they appear two gunmen and Eddie can't help but help his brother escape. But he too must flee And he will do it with Lena, a mysterious waitress and the only person who knows her true identity. He is Edward Webster Lynn, a famous concert performer piano that years ago was very successful. The question is how did it end up in that dump and is it hell-bent on erasing any trace of his past.
At nightfall
This title also had a brilliant adaptation to the cinema by Jacques tourneur, director of French origin who knew how to handle all kinds of genres but signed his best works in film noir late 40s and 50s.
To this story Tourneur kept the literary suspense and intrigue by adding a vibrant rhythm and his personal visual style, reinforced by a perfect use of flashback.
In it, and at the beginning, we meet the protagonist, James vanning (a Aldo ray with the point of hardness and sympathy that characterized him). Vanning is a designer we only know that he seems to be on the run from something. In a coffee shop meet a woman, Marie gardner, a model played by Anne Bancroft, which also seems to be in trouble. A relationship emerges between them that will end up helping them both.
That is when, with the different flashback, we are learning the story. So we know that on a field trip to go fishing Vanning and his friend Edward Gurston stumble upon a gang of robbers who just robbed a bank. They murder Edward and leave Vanning for dead. However, Vanning is alive and further find the money of the robbery. From that moment on, he will suffer a long persecution by the robbers and also of the authorities, which they point to as the main suspect of Edward's death.
The dark path
Vincent Perry (Humphrey Bogart), wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, escapes from prison to prove his innocence. He meets a attractive stranger that he will help him because his father was also the victim of a judicial error.
So we have the classic development of film noir where the protagonist has to running away from the police while trying to find out who killed his wife before he is arrested again. And in between the usual blackmailers and fatal women, also classics of the genre.
The movie signed it Delmer Daves, a screenwriter who had started directing and specialized in westerns as The 3 o'clock train:10 o The hanging Tree. However, it has aged worse than many classics that he starred in Bogart, perhaps because of a script that has some weighty sequences but based on hard-to-believe coincidences.
But it's still worth seeing because it's about the third movie of the four that shot together Bogart y Lauren Bacall. And it shows that it was made expressly for them to fill the rooms.