The new Shots magazine is out with all its usual nifty interviews, reviews, opinions. As always my favorite part is Mike Ripley's Getting Away with Murder, which is a magazine in itself. This time he mentions me, which I appreciate. http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/columns/ripley/ripley0308.html
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For those of you who've never read Ken Bruen but are curious about his work, one of Dave Zeltersman's fine Hardluck Stories webite contains a Bruen story that demonstrates why his work is so original and powerful. http://www.hardluckstories.com/Spring2006/Hold-Bruen.htm
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A letter from our friend Bob Levinson:
Hi, Ed...
Wanted to be sure you were aware of this death. Malvin was a dear friend, whose successful career ran well beyond the credits cited in the obit, but, of course, as he knew and we often joked, it would be one line of dialogue from one of his screenplays that insured Malvin's place in the memory book...
Best,
Bob
March 9, 2008
'Naked City' Writer Malvin Wald Dies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:03 a.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Malvin Wald, a screenwriter who was nominated for an Academy Award for the 1948 movie ''The Naked City,'' has died at 90.
Wald died Thursday at Sherman Oaks Hospital from age-related causes, said his son, Alan.
Wald wrote dozens of scripts for motion pictures and TV shows including ''Peter Gunn,'' ''Daktari'' and ''Perry Mason.''
He wrote the story for ''The Naked City,'' then co-wrote the screenplay with Albert Maltz, who was one of the ''Hollywood 10'' of blacklisted writers during the McCarthy era.
''The Naked City'' was a groundbreaking, gritty drama, filmed on location in New York, about police investigating a murder. It ended with the now-famous line: ''There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.''
Wald, a Brooklyn native, researched the story by following real New York homicide detectives.
''No one had done a film where the real hero was a hardworking police detective, like the ones I knew in Brooklyn,'' Wald told the Hollywood Reporter last year. ''We knew we were making a new genre that became the police procedural.''
In addition to Wald's nomination, the movie won two Oscars for film editing and cinematography. It also spawned a popular television show of the same name that aired from 1958 to 1963 and inspired countless others.
''What we see all over our TV screens today originated in large part in that movie,'' film historian Leonard Maltin told the Los Angeles Times on Friday. ''It was a novelty then, deglamorizing Hollywood's depiction of crime-solving, taking it out of the hands of glamorous or exotic private investigators and following the day-to-day, mundane activities of the police.''
During World War II, Wald was in the Army Air Forces and helped make more than 30 training and recruitment films in Culver City. He also taught screenwriting at the University of Southern California.
In addition to his son, Wald is survived by a daughter, Jenifer Wald Morgan.
There's a nice obit for Malvin Wald in the Los Angeles Times. I love the line from the homicide detective who was one of Wald's sources on The Naked City. "Oh, you picture guys always make cops look so stupid, like we couldn't find a sail in the Navy Yard."
ReplyDeleteALL THINGS CONSIDERED on NPR just did a Wald obit, as well.
ReplyDeleteDear Ed,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for posting Dad’s obituary and including the note from his dear friend, Bob Levinson.
Dad never minded his name being misspelled (which often happened - even on awards and plaques), but for the record (and for “Googlers” everywhere) his name is Malvin Wald, not Marvin Wald.
Sincerely,
Jenifer Wald Morgan
Her father’s daughter