While Ridley’s gone on to fame and fortune (I guess?) behind the scenes as a writer, director, and producer in Hollywood, to me his reputation as a Noir Hero of mine rests on three novels he wrote way back at the end of the last century: Stray Dogs, Love is a Racket, and Everybody Smokes in Hell.
I can’t remember the storyline of Racket (I should try to reread that one day), but I will never forget the opening lines, in which our protagonist’s fingers are broken. Loudly. It made me shiver, the way you shiver when the dentist gets the needles out. What I remember clearly is the attitude, the humor, the bleakness, and the absurdity (part of that “gonzo noir” school I love so much).
You might remember U-Turn, the Oliver Stone movie based on Stray Dogs starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, and Nick Nolte. It was a nasty take on the classic noir riffs we see in James Cain and David Goodis, but wow, the style was in your face. You could smell the funk. Ridley wrote the screenplay, so both novel and film are excellent.
Well, the critics hated the fucking thing. Siskel and Ebert especially. But you know what? They’re wrong. Thumbs down, you dicks.
Everybody Smokes didn’t have the same sort of sudden visceral impact as the previous two novels, but was still an exercise in pulp style and cruelty that I admired greatly. I mean, ultimately, I write about the things that scare me most (not ghosts and monsters, though), and high on that scale is the awful things people do to one another, especially the people they claim to love, in service of exhaustive selfishness. Ridley’s novels always bring the pain.
He went on to write more books that I didn’t read. I think they were sci-fi.
He also wrote the screenplay that was adapted into the film Three Kings, one of my favorite flicks, although little of his original story was actually used. David Russell made it his own. A great movie! But I wonder what might have been if we’d seen Ridley’s actual creation on the screen.
And who can forget Undercover Brother? Well, not me.
Sometimes, it only takes one title, or two or three, to become a legend. I feel that way about Cain, obviously, and definitely about Ridley. Kudos on his success on the Left Coast, but one day I hope he’ll sit down and write another noir that captures the zeitgeist and pisses people off.
Makes me think about the cycles of noir: the 40s and 50s were the golden age. The 70s added another layer of complexity and modernity. The 90s turned the volume up (and since those were my years in college and grad school, that’s my noir), and…I don’t think we’ve seen the next cycle come around. The surge. That special time when you have a whole bunch of artists fueled on the same buzz, erupting with a “fuck you” to the mainstream that somehow goes mainstream itself - or at least goes “cult.” When it happens, it’s be probably seen as horror instead of crime, and it’ll shock. It will. Shock and awe. Shock and ouch.
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"awful things people do to one another, especially the people they claim to love, in service of exhaustive selfishness"
I should keep that definition handy.
ANS! I've really been enjoying this series. You've taught me so much about this darling and underappreciated genre thanks to you. I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts on tis next cycle of noir that you predict. In the previous decade or so, we've seen a lot of queer creators dive more and more into genre. Do you think that noir is due for some queering? And do you know of any good queer noir already out there? <3