Reasons to Give Thanks, 2006

This is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Dating back to the 18th century, it’s traditionally a celebration of the end of the harvest season. However, the holiday is now synonymous with parade floats, football games, and turkey dinners large enough to put you into a coma. Oh, and one of the things folks tend to do between bites of potato and dressing is list off what they’ve been most grateful for recently.

Seeing as how this is the first Thanksgiving for The Rap Sheet as a blog, I’ve been musing all week long about crime-fiction-related things to be thankful for this year. And while the cynic in me wants simply to express my appreciation for the fact that Casino Royale has finally debuted, and the flood of James Bond-related news stories and features has dwindled to a trickle, I think I can do better than that. Try, instead, these causes for appreciation:

• TV of Your Life. My recent post about the Jimmy Stewart TV drama, Hawkins (1973-1974), in which the actor played a deceptively sharp criminal attorney from West Virginia, left me frustrated. Hawkins is one of those admirable old shows that seem never to reach DVD, even as forgettable crap like The A-Team, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Married ... with Children rolls onto store shelves with commercial abandon. So I was thrilled to discover that Hawkins--like many other more obscure series--hasn’t been lost forever. TV of Your Life is a Web site “dedicated to the preservation of classic television from the 1950s-1990s.” Along with supplying info about old “sitcoms, westerns, game shows, music and variety, soap operas, drama[s], [and] Saturday morning shows,” the site also offers a well-trafficked message board where people looking for episodes of old TV series can be hooked up with folks who happen to have videotaped those programs. Purchases may be made either with cash (usually pretty small amounts) or an exchange of blank videocassettes for those filled with the desired shows. I have managed before to find episodes of Hec Ramsey and the underappreciated Wayne Rogers period private-eye drama, City of Angels, through TV of Your Life. And it came through once again with Hawkins: I now own the pilot film and three other of the seven regular episodes shot. Next on my want list: Switch, the 1975-1978 Robert Wagner/Eddie Albert series in which they played an ex-con man and an ex-cop, respectively, whose specialty was conning con artists and crooks. TV of Your Life says that 23 episodes are known to exist on videotape. I’m thinking Christmas presents for yours truly ...

• Private eye comebacks. It’s hard to see characters you know and love disappear. Therefore, it was good to hear earlier this year that Tom Nolan, the Los Angeles critic (and occasional January Magazine contributor) who wrote Ross Macdonald: A Biography (1999), is readying a new collection of stories featuring Macdonald’s long out-of-commission P.I., Lew Archer, for Crippen & Landru. Called The Archer Files, the book is supposed to feature all of the Archer short stories, “plus a wealth of fragments about Lew Archer--unfinished stories, opening scenes, etc.” There’s no official publication date yet, and Amazon.com doesn’t even list this book; but the fact that there’s a cover designed already (see image at left) leads me to think that The Archer Files’ release can’t be too far in the future. And speaking of comebacks, Max Allan Collins let us know earlier this month that, after readying one posthumous Mickey Spillane standalone novel for Hard Case Crime, Dead Street (due out in November 2007), he’s prepared to finish up two Mike Hammer novels that “the Mick” left behind when he died in July, King of the Weeds and The Goliath Bone. Let’s hope that Hard Case or some other conscientious publishing house picks up those 19th and 20th Hammer books.

• Hard Case Crime. While we’re on the subject, Hard Case and its creators, Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, are worth giving thanks for, as well. The press has only been turning out pulpish paperback crime novels since the fall of 2004, but already its original titles have picked up Edgar and Shamus awards, and Time magazine just last month applauded Ardai for his innovation and success, both at attracting confirmed talents (such as Madison Smartt Bell and Stephen King) to his stable and “rediscover[ing] long-lost novels by past masters” such as David Dodge, Donald Westlake, and Ed McBain. And let us not forget to add more cheers for Hard Case’s use of cover artists such as Robert McGinnis, Glen Orbik, and Gregory Manchess. Even if we were skeptical about what’s inside, we’d probably still buy Hard Case books for their moody, suggestive, and sometimes downright smokin’ jackets.

• James Ellroy as inspiration. It was our pleasure not long ago to host the great James Ellroy as a “guest blogger” (see here, here, here, and here). Although other blogs have invited “outsiders” into the editorial mix for short periods, Ellroy was our test case. And we think everyone had a good time. So we are hoping to try out some more guest bloggers over the next 12 months, both authors and critics. Someone suggested O.J. Simpson, now that his multimedia approach to a sorta confession has tanked. But no thanks.

• Anne Hathaway as “99.” Following the death of actor Don Adams just over a year ago, I wasn’t thrilled to hear that a new movie version of the 1965-1970 TV spy spoof Get Smart was in the works--especially since there was no mention of either Mel Brooks or Buck Henry, who created and wrote the original show, being involved. (Both men are still alive, and you’d think that anyone hoping to tap into the delightful lunacy of their concept--or the show’s aging-yuppie audience--would at least make a bow toward Brooks and Henry, if not give them script-supervision rights. But nooo ...) I was even less enthusiastic when I heard that comic Steve Carrell--whose series, The Office, I find incredibly dull--was slated to fill the famous “phone shoes” of Maxwell Smart, CONTROL Agent 86. But the recent news that fetching 24-year-old actress Anne Hathaway is going to step in as Agent 99, the role originated by Barbara Feldon, gives me hope for this film. After appearing in such too-cute Disney flicks as The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted, Hathaway’s willingness to seek out edgier roles in Brokeback Mountain and Havoc (both of which found her appearing topless--a fact that caused Disney to terminate her contract) makes me think she can carry Get Smart past Carrell’s over-the-top performances. Production is set to begin in March.

• The Rap Sheet is still around! We’ve just completed a whole six months of blogging, and--with more than half a dozen contributors on tap now--there’s seemingly nothing to stop us from continuing to regale you with news, commentary, and seasonal book choices. For sticking around to see The Rap Sheet grow, let us give you--our readers--the thanks you deserve.

If you have your own reasons to be thankful this year, let us know about them in the Comments section.