"Scoundrels & Spitballers: The Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s" by Philippe Garnier; Foreword by Eddie Muller (Black Pool Productions)

 

Hollywood is fascinating, because I live near there, and two, it is full of fascinating characters. What makes it great is when a foreigner writes about Hollywood as a culture in itself. Philippe Garnier is French but lived in Los Angeles for over forty years. Still, he has a foreigner's insight and attraction to a landscape such as Hollywood.  

Hollywood is a physical place, but it is also a mythical location that covers Southern California. It's a state of mind and a site with a post office (zip code 90028). Hollywood's idea has always attracted me because it is built on dreams both in reality and fictional. There is an entire industry that is devoted to making dreams, which is unusual. Perhaps Las Vegas is a city that is dedicated to fantasy, but Hollywood has a soul. Sometimes an ugly or sad soul, but still, nevertheless, a soul. Garnier specializes in Hollywood history and noir novelists (such as the great David Goodis, Garnier's biography/study is a must-read). "Scoundrels & Spitballers" is about the screenwriters who ended up in Hollywood to do films. Most of them are novelists who write to make money. Therefore Hollywood comes calling, or it's a "Go West Young Man" situation. Garnier's book's general interest is the screenwriters that fell through the cracks of time and space. Here he gives proper attention to these artists/hacks in an intimate and acknowledgeable manner. 

The writing is very three-dimensional. You only don't get the screenwriter's personality and traits, but also the daily work grind of working for a studio, such as Warner Brothers. Garnier interviewed a lot of the writers or, at the very least, family members and friends. It's a vivid picture of people concerned with the craft of writing and the need to produce works in a factory-like environment. 

I know names such as Nathanael West, James M. Cain, A.I. Bezzerides, Horace McCoy (I knew him by his novels, but not aware he was a screenwriter as well), and W.R. Burnett. But there are many writers I never heard of, such as Sam Brown, Niven Busch, Marguerite Roberts, and others. All of them lead one to another, which makes it a fascinating history. Through Garnier's voice and eyes, one gets a mental picture of Los Angeles in the 1930s that is familiar as well as exotic. Hollywood is my type of town. Although Hollywood has changed and its film industry, there are traces of the old world through architecture that still exists as well as the films themselves. Some of the buildings may be difficult to find. Still, Garnier is an expert guide to the working class's dreamy world in its methods and procedures in a factory-like existence to produce products (art) and images. 

"Goodis: A Life In Black and White" by PhiIippe Garnier (Black Pool Productions)

I have known about this book, "Goodis - A Life in Black and White" for a long time now.  In fact, there were slight plans to make this into a TamTam Books title, but it didn't happen because the stars were not lined up correctly at the time.  Nevertheless it is now translated by its author, Philippe Garnier, and published by Black Pool Productions in a very handsome edition.  Oh, and the book, by the way, is excellent.  For those who don't know David Goodis' books and writings, he is perhaps the most underrated noir writer in existence.  At least, in my neck of the woods.  Everyone comments on Jim Thompson, but have a tendency to forget about Goodis, who I think is a superior writer.  Garnier is the first person to track down David Goodis and his world.  So in a sense this is a biography on Goodis, but alas, it is much more than that.

If this was a film, it would be a low-budget version of "Citizen Kane," where Garnier tracks down people who actually knew the legendary author.  Like Kane, the more layers that come off the stories about Goodis, the less one knows of him.   It seems he had a thing for black American women who were obese and super mean.  In other words he wanted to be abused by these women, and that fact sort of comes through his novel writing.  But it is hard to tell because it seems Goodis was exceptional with respect to his ability to compartmentalize his life.  One gets the impression that there isn't one person he knew actually had the whole story of his life.   In other words, the more one looks, the less you know.

"Goodis: A Life in Black and White" works on different levels.  It is about a writer tracking down another writer, and doing the hard part of the job, which is going after leads that sometimes lead to nowhere.   But one of the many things that are interesting about this book are the interviews with people who knew Goodis.   They pretty much say all the same, especially the people who were close to him, but even that, he comes off more vague than a real human being.  We know he's a practical joker, that he had a weird dress sense, and went out of his way to drive probably the worst automobile possible at the time.  So it does seem to me that he worked towards himself to have an identity of some sort - but even that, some people have a hard time remembering him.  He strikes me as a spirit who had the talent to disappear and re-appear at will.  No doubt Goodis was an odd character.

Garnier being french, is quite critical of his fellow critics of the french film writing world, who like to make out Goodis a a man of great tragedy, but according to Garnier, he had money and wasn't that much of a depressive noir type of character.  But on the other hand, what type of guy was he?  The book is about that, but it is also about the journey to find out the facts and separating it from the myth.  Also one gets a clear idea about the Hollywood studio system and its relationship with writers - as well as the pulp publishing trade.  All of it is super interesting in this great book.

Also please note that I will be appearing with the author Philippe Garnier at Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park on March 29, 2014 at 6:00 pm.   We'll be having a little chat about his book and on the life of the always fascinating  David Goodis. 

Les Inrockuptibles article on Tosh Berman and his book "Sparks-Tastic"