TCM ran Rogue Cop the other day. I'd seen it a long time ago and hadn't much liked it. I didn't like it any better this time. Robert Taylor out grew his pretty boy looks but with one exception--Devil's Doorway directed by Anthony Mann--he was always pretty much a mannequin. Here he looks old and tired as the bad cop forced to turn on his mobster friends in order to save his innocent brother.
In the William P. McGivern novel there's a Graham Greenian undertow of Catholic sin and Catholic redemption. There's also a fury in the pace and the rock hard prose.
Here we have a dozy performance by George Raft whose every utterance is a cliche. And who is surrounded by bad guy actors who would have been bounced from old Republic serials.
I read the novel afterward and I'll say again what I've said before--McGivern was a major writer of crime fiction. That he is so utterly forgotten astonishes me.
GEEZERS REMEMBER WHEN YOU TOLD THE DISC JOCKEY TO PLAY A SPECIAL SONG FOR YOUR HIGH SCHOOL GAL CAUSE YOU LOVED HER SO MUCH, SAY MAYBE FRANKIE AVALONE'S WHEN A GIRL CHANGES FROM BOBBY SOX TO STOCKINGS CAUSE SHE'S JUST SO DAGGONE SWEET?
WELL FRIENDS THE TIME HAVE CHANGED.
From Page Six this morning:
"A less polite crowd was across town at the Newseum, where actress Rosario Dawson hosted Jason Binn's Capitol File magazine after-party. We heard that the event DJ, Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz, kept it classy by shouting, "I just want to thank my girlfriend's vagina!" before he started spinning, referring to his new fiancée, Ashlee Simpson."
Always thought Robert Taylor lookedlike he was in pain all the time.
ReplyDeleteRJR
Gotta go against the flow here. I liked Taylor, who got miscast a lot, especially in those lavish MGM swashbucklers in the '50s, but always gave it a game try nevertheless.
ReplyDeleteI try to remind folks of McGivern, who is even pretty good when doing Ziff-Davis yard-goods for FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, much less ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW and his other cf novels.
ReplyDeleteI bought a used copy of ROGUE COP a couple of years back and enjoyed reading it. McGivern's prose is tough. I read NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER, a later book, and didn't like it as much.
ReplyDeleteEd Lynskey