1869, Special Noir Episode with Mahinder Kingra and David Lehman, author of The Mysterious Romance of Murder | Otter.ai

1869, Special Noir Episode with Mahinder Kingra and David Lehman, author of The Mysterious Romance of Murder

Cornell University Press59min

Jonathan Hall

00:11

Welcome to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. In this special episode, Cornell University Press editorial director Mahinder Kingra and Cornell author David Lehmann share their fascination with, and in-depth knowledge of, the style of noir. In this spirited conversation, recorded in front of a live audience at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, they discuss the many novels, poems, and films featured in David's new book, The Mysterious Romance of Murder: Crime, Detection and the Spirit of Noir. We hope you enjoy their insights and observations.

Mahinder Kingra

00:52

Welcome, we're here to talk about the Mysterious Romance of Murder. And I just wanted to start and talk about how this book came about. So David and I were talking about 100 Autobiographies over drinks. Really nice Negronis, as I recall. And we started, we started sort of sharing our love of noir films. And I think we were both surprised at our depth of knowledge. And I usually am used to being the person in the room who knows the most about the genre. And I was, you know, you eclipsed everything I might know you, you had actors names at your fingertips and plots. It was amazing. And I think I've sort of recklessly said we should you should write a book about this, this should be your next book. And you said to me, well, in fact, you've written a lot about this in various pieces. And could we bring together those and turn it into a book and over the next sort of year, year and a half, that's what we did. And it was such a satisfying experience for me. I learned a lot reading the book and, and actually use it I was did a road trip and used it on a trip that sort of use this as a reading guide for the books I took with me and so picked up the high window, which I'd never read before, Raymond Chandler, because you write about it in there, but cocktails, in particular, the bland cocktails that he makes in that book, as opposed to some others. So let's talk about

David Lehman

02:10

I think it was made into the Brasher Doubloon

Mahinder Kingra

02:13

It was yes.

David Lehman

02:14

With George Montgomery in the role of Philip Marlowe. (Yeah.) I think William Holden should have played Philip Marlowe. (Yeah) at some point...

Mahinder Kingra

02:25

That would have been Yeah, Montgomery was flat in the roll.

David Lehman

02:27

Well, we've had very good Marlowes.

Mahinder Kingra

02:31

We have. Your favorite would be?

David Lehman

02:34

well, I guess, I guess Bogart is just the one that you think of because of The Big Sleep. You are very enthusiastic about Dick Powell. I think he's terrific. (Yeah.) I like Robert Mitchum, too, in Farewell My Lovely perhaps. Well, it's 30 years after Dick Powell. But he's following the Joe DiMaggio hitting streak and he's Robert Mitchum, he's really aperfect noir character with the fedora he looks great in that and the cigarette Yeah, he's

Mahinder Kingra

03:17

I think we disagree on Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye Altman's Long Goodbye which I like a lot but it's definitely it's either sacrilege or deconstruction or maybe deconstruction is sacrilege but

David Lehman

03:30

I think very highly of Elliott Gould. I think he's a very nice guy and very talented actor too. Yeah. So I have nothing mean to say no, I'm

Mahinder Kingra

03:45

not mean but he's did provocatively deliberately miscast maybe.

Speaker 1

03:49

Well, Robert Altman's idea of a thriller is so heavily laden with a certain kind of comedy. And look at the mash. The first time it came, I thought it was hilarious and it is I guess, but thr second time I saw it, I I wasn't as happy about the way the woman is treated and I'm not, you know, the number one feminist in the world, but I don't like it when, you know, Jean Hagen was tremendous actress, and she was in the Asphalt Jungle. She's Sterling Hayden's lady, and she can do anything on but you know, she's in Singing in the rRain as the incredibly vain, vulgar character that and she's shamed at the end of the movie and I love all those Gene Kelly mute musicals of the early 50s But I don't like it as much As an American in Paris, Singing in the Rain. And that's one of the reasons even though in Singing in the Rain, Nina Foch takes it on the chin, but not as bad as

Mahinder Kingra

05:06

where they reveal her, accent her. Yeah.

David Lehman

05:12

Well, I It's it may be a silly reaction. But I should say, Mahinder is a tremendous editor and he came over on an August day during the was always before before the pandemic, just before the pandemic, and we had Negronis. And they really were good. Yeah, I was not, I am very proud mixologist. And as he said, we were talking and I would say, Oh, I love Eric Ambler and oh, that's one of my favorites. And the conversation grew into a book. And as always happens when you write a book, you think this is going to be a slam dunk, you know, just like finding nuclear warheads in Iraq, it was gonna be a slam dunk, you know, but then, well, it turns out that it's really a lot of work because you rewrite what you wrote. And then you write new essays. And, and you really improved it, especially if you have a demanding editor. But demanding is good, because editors don't. With this prominent exception, and perhaps a few others, don't do what editors are supposed to do. They don't read what you write and tell you take this out or add this or this paragraph could be strengthened. And Mahinder doesn't shy from making suggestions.

Mahinder Kingra

06:59

Well, it was a wonderfully collaborative experience. And I liked that even when you were submitting the final version, you said, Oh, but I really want to write about this. I've got an essay. Can I include this? And I liked that idea that we were it was still collaborative. And then I think at one point, you're like, oh, we have to take something out. Because that's right. The quiz, we took out the quiz. Yes. And so I felt like the whole process was just so much more collaborative than I'm used to dealing with. And I really, I really enjoyed that. And really, it was such a satisfying experience. So

David Lehman

07:33

it was a lot of fun. There's a section I took out was called Hitchcock quiz. And the idea was that it was multiple choice. And where the wrong answers, were supposed to be entertaining. But Paul asked to read the book. And he said, I love this book. But take out the quiz, because the questions are too easy.

Mahinder Kingra

08:01

He kind of missed the point. But well, but I think yeah, we can we can do the second edition can have the....

David Lehman

08:11

the wise thing with writing is that if you have a smart reader, a really smart reader and says, I don't know this works, and you've got a book that's still 300 pages. You know, it's it's a good idea to take something out. You don't need to add length, if there's any question about it, and an old college friend who's a very successful writer tells you that he thinks oh, it'd be perfect without that. Well,

Mahinder Kingra

08:45

yeah. You'd be hard pressed to say ah, we'll go our own way. Yeah.

David Lehman

08:50

Well, we could. He wouldn't have been angry you anything. But that's how the book began. And also the pandemic came along and this incredible catastrophe. The only silver lining is that I got to watch a lot of noir movie. And I'm the sort likes to watch a movie four times if I like. Or two dozen times, I think I've seen The Bridge on the River Kwai, two dozen times. The Godfather, I probably seen 50 times, you know, and know the script by heart, you know that, like other men of my generation, I think. So we saw my wife and I and also my son. We saw a lot of movies during the pandemic that you know, fit right into this theme, and I got to read mystery novels, and it's a great trick in life to take something that you love and make it a paying property. position that although of course, there's a negative to that, too, but, but, but it's it was a wonderful project to undertake and the cover is great, and it's all his idea.

Mahinder Kingra

10:15

So let's let's go to the beginning and talk about how you first came upon your love of mysteries and of noir films. And when did that happen? And were you a sort of a serious young man who avoided the you know, sort of genre stuff? Or was it always sort of baked into your love of reading and writing?

David Lehman

10:34

Well, a major event happened when I was graduating from college. And there was a double bill of the Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep and I'd never seen either than they were at the New Yorker movie house, which doesn't exist anymore. And David Anderson, another writer, suggested that we go see them and I thought, wow, this is that they're really great movies. They have the same main actor Humphrey Bogart, a different supporting cast, and one of them there's Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet and Mary Astor. And, and, and the movies really faithful to the book. And the other one, the plot is completely incoherent. But you do have Lauren Bacall. And you have Eddie Mars in a tuxedo at the casino, and she sings, and her tears flowed like wine. "She's a she's a real sad tomato, a busted valentine." So these were wonderful. I went to England on a calot fellowship for two years. And I thought I would love it. I spent two summers in England and, and loved them. And that summer, and when fall starts fading into winter, and you're talking about the early 1970s. And they don't know from central heating. And they have weather

Mahinder Kingra

12:10

Really damp, it's damp all the time.

David Lehman

12:13

And if you're a bookish fellow, you don't know how properly to dress for. Anyway, I missed, I was homesick. And I went to a bookstore and bought Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. And I thought that these guys are really good stylists. And I decided I would write my master's essay on on this, which I thought that was unconventional and, and at the time, it was, you know, now it's not it wouldn't be I think it's recognized. Raymond Chandler is a very good writer, or Dashiell Hammett, and others too. But it was a radical move. I mean, they would be more likely to encourage you to write about kids, oh, who is you know, really greater figures than the mystery writers were talking about. But a lot of others were writing about kids and, or so I, that's where it started. And I kept. Sometimes when you finished a project, you don't want to do much more about it. I wrote a book called Signs of the Times about deconstruction and Paul de Man. And, and I thought this was a book that really needed to be written because I thought it was having such a pernicious effect on the academic world. But a year or two and when you write a book, especially one that makes a splash as that one did, for the next couple of years, you're going to be making appearances, lectures, debates, you're going to be debating, you're going to be attacked, you're going to be really involved. And after that period, I'm really not interested in writing about that movement. I just in part, because I, I read the writing about things I like otherwise, it would be it would be real work. I think one could write a very good book about the effects, you know, 30 years after my other book. But the but some loves, you know, survive your writing the books were. Anyway, I was at Newsweek magazine as a book reviewer in the 1980s. And I was very eager to make it as a as a freelance writer. And, and mysteries were one thing I could write about, but If I began by writing about poetry, you're not gonna get a chance to review a poetry book each week when it was, you know, a real magazine. So you have to write about other things. And and so, if you write a book if you review a book about military history, because you happen to be interested in the bombing of Monte Cassino in Italy that establishes you in the minds of your editors as like a go to person for military history. So you wind up becoming something of an authority because they give you a dozen books over the next two years about the Civil War World War Two. And but mysteries were when we did a cover story and the guy who was supposed to do the cover story didn't do it and so we had less than the usual lead time and I agreed to crash the covers to use their jargon. I wrote a cover story. I got a book contract out of it and I will go delve more Leonard when people had never heard of him I reviewed PD James. But that's when she was cresting. I reviewed Ruth Rendell, I reviewed Bain a lot.

Mahinder Kingra

16:28

You mentioned style when talking about the sort of Chandler's stylist to you what is noir style? And what distinguishes it from other either within the genre or just from writing other fictions?

Speaker 1

16:42

Well, I would read just a few sentences. I think noir is a style. The question what is noir is a good question. Put on this apparatus, in order to see was very. There's a second, there's a chapter here called Paradise of the Damned, which I think as a chapter title, I really like it as a description of noir, Paradise of the Damned, because damnation and failure are inherent in this genre. At the same time, there's something that really attracts us, and I think it's a matter of style. So, Nick Christopher, the poet, wrote what is noir and he gave the following possible Bill answers, a state of mind and aesthetic school of philosophy and ethos, a sensibility and attitude, a symbolic system, something undefinable a kind of raw poetry, or is it first and foremost the style, and I write no our shares and all these things, and the resort to metaphor is the result. Christopher opts for the dark mirror, reflecting the underside of American urban life, a place is full of vice and fallen angels, as the Paris evoked a century earlier, by Charles Baudelaire in his poems and prose poems. I like Christopher's metaphor, because the mirror is the locus of the uncanny where the doubles twin halves meet, and sometimes we coil from the encounter. And I'm fond of Robert Siodmak's 1946 movie, The Dark Mirror, in which Olivia de Havilland plays twin sisters, one virtuous, the other dishes, a popular Hollywood trope, but Betty Davis also does very well. fumbling for definition, I'll second Nick Christopher's list doubled down on style and add an epigraph from both layer after rejecting what others say is the greatest pleasure and love to give to receive to enjoy the pleasure of pride or the voluptuousness of humility. Baudelaire asserts that the soul and supreme pleasure in love lies in the absolute knowledge of doing evil. And man and woman know from birth and in evil is to be found all of luxuriousness in exactly this sense movies informed by the spirit of noir, our love stories, featuring a man and a woman who are dammed from birth, exiled from Eden, and drawn together by an erotic and transgressive impulse so strong that it overrides all scruple and moral restraint. The Argentine cop in Gilda, the 1946 movie, who has watched Gilda, Rita Hayworth, and Johnny, Glenn Ford, constantly quarrel and says, "you two kids love each other very terribly, don't you?" "I hate her," Johnny replies. That's what I mean. If the cop says so and then oh, here are a few more sentences about new are well, one thing about style is Raymond Chandler's style is very imitable in the sense that it depends on wisecracks that are often hyperbolic, but a muted hyperbole. Like she was smoking a cigarette from a holder that was not quite the length of an umbrella. Or she sat behind a desk that was not nearly the size of Napoleon's tomb. So, from 30 feet away, she looked like a lot of class from 10 feet away. She looked like something made up to be seen from 30. That's Raymond Chandler. The wisecrack is an essential element. But then, here are a few sentences that give you an idea of the style that the damsel in distress sobs to the police. I've told you all I know, husband, Zachary Scott have the pencil mustache and contemptuous sneer knits his brows, but it can't help looking bitchy. There's nothing for you to be ashamed of. Both are lying. Eve Arden officiates at a party for the suspects, witnesses and extras. It's a shame to waste two perfectly good mouths on you. She remarks when a pair of gossiping girlfriends gets on her nerves. But the true note is sounded by the red haired temptress in the South American nightclub. If I had been a ranch, they'd have called me bar none. Rita Hayworth. No bar is where pessimism meets desperation, and darkness is as visible as in Byron's vision of stars that wandered darkling in the eternal space, rainless and pathless and the icy Earth swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Noir is the paradise of the damned is where foolproof plans meet their graveyard fates. The plans are always foolproof, and next con and three buddies plan to rob the safe of a jewelry store on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and they do it in 30 minutes of film time, without music, or talk, they even make off with the loot. But surely, this is a sentence that should end with, but the war is one last heist, one roll of the day's risk is requisite. Got to take chances. Paul Henry tells his co-conspirators in the hollow triumph, that's the overhead in our racket. So those are some some paragraphs and

Mahinder Kingra

23:40

So does the style does it speak to the romantic in you or to the fatalist in you? Or to the cynic in you? What is that style? Or is it a combination of all of them?

David Lehman

23:50

Well, first of all, I love the style of the period. In fashion, if you see the movies of the 40s not just know ours, but you'll see that the women dress magnificently. And they have hats that are that are not goofy, but they're there. You see Barbara Stanwyck wearing a different array or a cat or they look fantastic. And and the men, the gangsters are wearing double breasted suits. They're climbing up hills and chasing people wearing double breasted suits and driving Packard's and this is a very classy, you know, the building in The Big Sleep is the casino magnate in a tuxedo. And so there's a sense of style and fashion and then in language, you know, dialogue. I mean, these are really written. These movies have real writers. And, and that's an element that I liked very, very much as well.

Mahinder Kingra

25:16

Let's talk about elements. One of the sections of the book is called elements of crime. It's, I think, probably my favorite section of the book. And yeah, you talked about cigarettes. You talked about these because the props of of noir, in particular, cigarettes, cocktails, and song (and song). Why do you how do you now I wish we'd done a one on women's hats clearly that that would have been ,and fedoras,

David Lehman

25:41

I happen to wear hats. I love I have a whole collection of the drawers and it's a shame that you know, John F. Kennedy did not wear a hat and suddenly the hat industry suffered the same way the undershirt industry suffered in the 1930s when Clark Gable took off his shir in It Happened One Night and wasn't wearing an undershirt. We rebounded a little bit Marlon Brando wre a wife beater in On the Waterfront. But

Mahinder Kingra

26:21

so talk about those three elements, the cigarette cocktail, the music, whichever one you want.

David Lehman

26:28

Well, cigarettes i still every time when I say movie, just the other day I was watching a Roman Holiday and Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert teach Audrey Hepburn how to smoke. And she says to see I can do it. It's easy. And so every so often, you see or in Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond, played by Gloria Swanson. William Holden does the voiceover and says that she she to me, she was as hideous as that cigarette holder. She and she has a weird cigarette holder. And so I still wish I could add to that chapter on cigarettes. Because they're, they're universal, women, men. That it's automatic. And I miss them. myself. And I have a collection of ashtrays like In Memoriam. And there it's there. It's fascinating the way cigarettes play in, in the movies.

Mahinder Kingra

27:38

You write about how in Double Indemnity the great love scene is actually when Robin Edward G. Robinson is lighting a cigarette for Fred MacMurray a dying friend but spoiler alert, dying friend. And that's that's played out almost like a love scene.

David Lehman

27:55

Yes. And also, it's funny because throughout that movie, Edward G. Robinson is a cigar smoker in this movie, and never has a match. And and it says light light me up. Well, will you? Walter, Walter Neff. And so at the very end of the movie, Frederick Murray, who's Walter Neff has come to the end of the line and and so in a perfect, ironic reversal. His cigarette is lit by the older man who and during the movie there, they have an interesting relationship. And Fred MacMurray would say after Edward G Robinson walks out say you young people don't work hard enough is Fred MacMurray would say I love you too. And that's the last line in the movie. Only this time it's not entirely equipped. I love you to to his father figure. That is very, very interesting. But another example if you've seen the Godfather some of you have seen that movie from 1972. Has anyone seen them? A few..

Audience

29:25

...something someone always forces with another person to watch at some point. Yes.

Speaker 1

29:32

Well, they have allGodfather all the time station. They're not they don't but they should. There's a scene where Michael the son, the third son and the one who the chosen one in some way is he's not in the crime family. He's the one who was supposed to who went to darkness and then the Marines. But he's goes to the hospital because the the cops have come and taken away all the guards from the the wounded father, the godfather that has done Corleone. And the Baker's son in law comes along whom the Godfather had at aidid very first scene in the movie getting him into the country through one of our you know, we have a Jew congressman who can handle that for us. And so the two of them stand there and Michael says to the baker isn't just put your hands in your pockets, he's got a gun. And, and they take out cigarettes. And Michael lights, a cigarette and the Baker's like, and Michael lights his cigarette. And so this tells you something about who? How cool that fellow is under pressure. And this is before he goes to the restaurant with the best deal in the city. And does something there that I'm not going to give away if you haven't seen the movie, because it's what it's, it's very climactic.

Mahinder Kingra

31:24

It all ends really well. For all involved. Well no, I never smoked, but I always thought that one of the sexiest things you could do was to have two cigarettes and light one of them given to

David Lehman

31:41

Paul Henry. Exactly. He loved that. He did that with Betty Davis at the end of what is it dark documentary, but he does it in other movies, too. He's a great smoker. She's a tremendous smoker, you know, and she says, what's her line? It's going to be a bumpy evening. It's gonna be she's got that. No one's gonna take that away from me, and Bogart out of the corner.

Mahinder Kingra

32:15

Man, it's interesting to that line is from All About Eve, which is not a noir at all. And yet so informed by Yes, Noir. There's a real noir sensibility to that as well, the fast talking and this sort of the backstabbing and it's like woman's picture reimagined as

David Lehman

32:30

it's a great movie, and it is a woman's picture. Yeah, that

Mahinder Kingra

32:35

was his genre term. No, no, I was not being condescending. Really Sam Goldwyn, what I called it,

David Lehman

32:40

but I think it's a really good term for certain movies that I wish they would be making like A Brief Encounter would be in that category. With Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson Johnson, or letter to three wives within southern married to Kirk Douglas and Linda Darnell, married to Paul Douglas and Jean crane is the third wife letters. All about these are, quote, chick flicks. I was the poet Jennifer Knox asked friends to write about their favorite chick flicks. So I wrote about a brief encounter, but All About Eve would be a great example. All you need to be a murderer in that.

Mahinder Kingra

33:27

Yeah, it's all there. Even they almost do. I mean.

David Lehman

33:32

Yes, in fact, we could reimagine what would be the court? Yeah. And who would be the killer? Yeah. Everyone would suspect that he did. Yeah, but she wouldn't be the one she would not be the killer. Now. She Babb too much class. In fact, the one unbelievable thing in that movie is the idea that Anne Baxter could possibly upstage Betty Davis.

Mahinder Kingra

33:55

She had a good agent.

David Lehman

33:58

That's not I don't like putting down and backs or she's okay, but many dates and cocktails. You watch one of these movies, any movie from the 40s The first thing that happens or even Perry Mason TV shows you, you visit somebody the first thing that happens which wants to drink. That's the very first thing. I don't know if that's true in your lives visit but there's always a decanter, a really nice crystal decanter with ice bucket filled with ice. So liquor is really important. And of course, it's consumed quite a lot by you know, different characters sometimes in a very unhappy way. But sometimes it's just so the social aspects, the like, how do I get these two characters to negotiate something, put them in a bar and add Bogart calm the bar. And she's supposed to try to tell him to get off the case. That's what the plot requires. So in the background the pianist is playing, I guess some have to change. Meanwhile, the two of them are really attracted to each other. And in fact, their husband and wife and well known romance. And so suddenly plot requirements to the winds. They start floating and they have this horse racing. Metaphor. How would you rate me? Well, you like to ride from behind. And, and in the background, the piano player is playing, we'll have a new rule where every day is a holiday because you're married to me. So the drinks are part of

Audience

36:04

There's this great scene in The Maltese Falcon when Sydney Greenstreet has the drink with Humphrey Bogart. It's Mickey. Yes. Here's to clean living and your understanding.

David Lehman

36:20

Here's plain speaking and clear understanding. You can say well, I don't trust them. I always like a man who doesn't say when Sydney Greenstreet It's a Mickey and knocks him out. But here's the clear understanding, clear understanding.

Mahinder Kingra

36:44

I think one of the best openings to any movie, I guess, is The Thin Man, which is the great Oh, celebration of married love, where? Where Myrna Loy walks into the bar. And she says, you know how many years he had? And you think, oh, no, this is gonna be a typical scene where she's gonna reprimand the bartender for giving her husband too much alcohol. And he says six, and she goes line them up here. She drinks them all in order. I think that to me is just the perfect way introduction to a character into a relationship, because you realize exactly what they are. And it's all through liquor.

David Lehman

37:18

Yes. I think she says either in the book or in the movie. She says it maybe we shouldn't drink today or something. Any. That's what we came to New York to do.

Mahinder Kingra

37:35

I think in the second movie, maybe they have to call Nick Charles Home. She's in the apartment building. She opens the window, shakes the cocktail. And you see him in the park. Looking like this and St. Pat's home.

David Lehman

37:52

Another great beginning is Where the Sidewalk Ends, is the second movie with Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. The more famous one is Laura. And Where the Sidewalk Ends, I think also made by Otto Premier is a great role for Dana Andrews, because he's, he's a cop, but he he's like the son of a criminal. And is he's really a tortured character. But the very beginning has this incredibly great music by Alfred Newman called streetscene over the opening credits, and that's that's fabulous. But you know, speaking of music, I I mentioned how big sleep you have the those songs in the background is soundtracks are very important and reflect the genius of the songwriters of that time. And how you know, the songs really fit either an ironic counterpoint or illustration of what is going on in the movie. And at the end of it, big sleep, you know, the last shot and The Big Sleep is to cigarettes in an ashtray. That's the closing shot. And that has very good music but I think Max stunning figures Max Steiner, yeah, but there's a so there's lots of great examples of how you know, in out of the past, you'll hear, Come out come out wherever you are or what songs they've chosen. And but in my view, one of the great uses of music in that period was not in A in a noir that is in the Noir's David racks and his most famous piece of music is the theme from Laura. In Double Indemnity, you're going to hear Schubert's unfinished, and tangerine in the same scene, that's, you're gonna get the slow movement of the Schubert and the song tangerine. She is all a claim. It's a great song Victor skirts are with the Johnny Mercer alert. So, you know all of these because things how little we know in to have and have not. And so I read about a lot of these. But there was one movie that could not be called no Noir. And yet, I think the music is magnificent. Now. This is the best years of our lives. And Frederick March is one of the three guys who's come home from the war. And when hewalks into the apartment, where he his wife, Myrna Loy. There's actually a scene where he's standing here and she's standing there and it's a long card. And it's sort of like, if it's a tear jerker. This is where the tears are beginning to form. And Frederick March, the dad gives his son some souvenirs that he got from Japan from the battlefield in the Pacific. And the son is like, not as impressed with this the sword the Japanese sword, this souvenirs? Well, that night, they all the guys who have returned and their wives, girlfriends daughters, all wind up at a bar owned by Hoagy Carmichael, who you know, is one of the great songwriters and who plays pianos and Frederick marks got to you know, He's completely drunk. He has to drunk scenes in this movie. They're really good. He says, you know, among nice souvenirs, and Hoagy Carmichael places a wonderful saw. And, and they're, well, it comes home. And the next morning when he wakes up, he sees a photo of his wife. And that's a real souvenir that's much. And in this any sunny among my souvenirs in the shower, and the music is in the background. So it governs this entire scene. The only problem is the Best Years of Our Lives ends with a wedding and an engagement and then a happy couple. So what's it going to do in my book, but I thought, you know, I thought it's an it's an anti noir, you know, so this is what I wrote. A drunken Frederic March and his game wife, Myrna Loy dance to among my souvenirs on his first night back from the war in the best years of our lives. Although the movie is not a noir love conquers all, and no one dies. The Best Years of Our Lives is from the noir era, the black and white 1940s and can't be seen to represent an equal and opposite impulse and anti noir in the movie are disabled servicemen who has hooks for hands, and an Air Force hotshot who can't hold the job, even the lowly job of being a soda jerk, fixing Sundays for kids in a drugstore. If we were in a noir handless Homer Parish, and fallen angel of the Air Force Fred dairy. Dean Andrews would team up with perhaps the Army vet who needs a loan to buy the land for a farm, but does not meet the understanding bank executive played by Frederick Martin. So the three plot to rob the bank, and while they plan and rehearse the crime, they pair off with dame's they meet at the bar, where the piano player funds the operation and plays the day. The night we called it the day. The man was hooked for hands as qualms about shooting an armed guard, but the ex pilot overrules him. It's easy to have ethics when you're ahead in the game, he says, clinging to the roughneck would be farmer, the tipsy nightclubs singer says, Please lend. I'm begging you. Tell me I'm a woman. About But we are not in Anwar and director William Wyler's use of among my souvenirs is too good to go unmentioned. And then I have a really brilliant paragraph that says what I was saying in an improvised way before about the use of music in the best years of our lives, but it's much better and Ryan you should just meet who said I'll read it. It says trinkets and tokens diligently collected, offer some consolation, which is a phrase in the song

David Lehman

45:44

but do nothing to stop the flow of tears and the best years of our lives when the US Army Sergeant played by Frederick March comes home he brings souvenirs of the Pacific War as gifts for his teenage son, but like the knife and Elizabeth Bishop's poem Crusoe in England, when it has become a souvenir on the shelf after Crusoe returns home from his island, the mementos of conflict have lost their meaning. They seem vaguely unreal, lifeless, unlike the photograph of his wife that a hungover March looks at the next morning, a different sort of souvenir it has all the meaning in the world for him. And among my souvenirs played on the piano by Hoagy Carmichael hummed in the shower by a hungover March and heard his background music unifies the whole sequence and endow it with the rich pathos that makes the song so durable a jazz standard, I recommend that you watch the movie again. And that you listen to Art Tatum play among my souvenirs on the piano. Or if you can find a recording of Sinatra and Crosby doing it as a duet on television in the 1950s, which is really exceptional because one of them has really deep baritone and the other has a much higher range. So they've really harmonized very well.

Mahinder Kingra

47:11

There's a new ish book about the making of Best Years of Our Lives. And it talks about the origins of which then connects to poetry. And that's sort of where I wanted to end up. You're known as a poet and the connection between poetry and Noir.

David Lehman

47:24

Well, I, the amazing thing is that I thought I had made up this, no noir version of the best years of our lives. But in fact, this new book called The making, making the best years of our lives, the Hollywood classic that inspired a nation. Apparently, the version we see was written by Robert Sherwood. It's very good writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, I think it was an advisor to FDR. But the actual book originated with McKinley Cantor, who was once a very famous writer and wrote it in blank verse. And that amazing as and it's according to the book, it's three servicemen were to traumatize and embittered and volatile and the the one who has hooks for hands, who wasn't the real sailor, who, who, to whom that happened played that part. You know, in the script, he is brains are scrambled, and you're out. I'm just reading Cantor's telling out practically rapes Milly his first night back. He later stocks out of the bank to which he's unhappy with which he has unhappily returned. Just as Fred unable to find a decent job himself is about to rob it. Meanwhile, Homer tries to blow out his own brains, only his unsteady hand saves him. So, in short, Kanter had written a dystopian film noir, and I thought that's fantastic. And that's why we shouldn't blink

Mahinder Kingra

49:07

first.

David Lehman

49:08

Well that's why we should do all about eat Yeah. As a as a noir. Yeah, how would because you have all these wonderful character you Marlo, Gary Merrill. Oh, and always the heel. You know, George George

Mahinder Kingra

49:24

Sanders. Saunders.

David Lehman

49:26

Yeah, he's great. Yeah. That you have a lot to play with and Celeste home,

Mahinder Kingra

49:33

she'd be the killer.

David Lehman

49:36

She'd be the least likely Exactly.

Mahinder Kingra

49:41

There'd be some wrong distance wrong in the distant past. And I think yeah, anyway, that'll be fun. We should we should work on that. But let's talk about poetry and what's the what's the connection? I know in the book, there are five. New are poems that you've written. But you also talk about your correspondence with other poets about their sharing your shared love of noir? And yeah,

David Lehman

50:04

well I talk about some poets like Kevin young a Cornell librarian, who's a poet Fred Murray, Tori, Lauren Hilger, Linda Manuel. There are a lot of poets who have written noir ish ponds, which attests to the attraction that many of us feel. And Lin Manuel told me that, and I agree with her that a Sistina with the repeating words is a formula. And Film Noir is formula. Also, like you know, you you are at a loss for inspiration, you have someone ringing the doorbell and then entering with a gun and shooting. There's things that happen over and over again. You know, that song about deja vu some things that happen for the first time seemed to be happening again. That's what happens in Anwar. And so I, for example, I wrote a pan tune, which is a form that in which, John Ashbery said that he liked that the pantoum is a form because every line appears twice. So John said, you get twice as much poem for your effort. That's, that's a typical Ashbury. Yeah, well, so I wrote a pan TIMCO Laura. Then the doorbell rang. Time for one more cigarette. It wasn't Laura's body on the kitchen floor. He is not in love with the courts. Time for one more cigarette. The venomous drama critic insinuates. He is in love with the courts. It's a typical male female mix up. The venomous drama critic knows he is saying it's a typical male female mix up. He thinks she is dead. And she thinks he is rude. Is he saying each wonders what the other is doing in her living room? He thinks she is a ghost and she thinks he is rude. When the picture on the wall becomes a flesh and blood woman. Each wonders what the other is doing in her living room. It hasn't stopped raining. The picture on the wall becomes a flesh and blood woman, Gene Tierney, Laura. It hasn't stopped raining. dame's are always pulling a switch on you, Dana, Andrew says and Laura. There was something he was forgetting. dame's are always pulling a switch on you. It wasn't Lara's body on the kitchen floor. There was something he was forgetting. Then the doorbell rang. So you see how the repetitions work musically, in a way, but they also suggest that these things happen over and over again. Sometimes variation and of course, the the main, the most amazing scene, I think in the movie, is that the policeman Mark McPherson, falls asleep in her arm chair, not not knowing that it was Diane Redford who was killed. And there's this big picture on the wall of Jean tyranny and all her glory. And he falls asleep. And she comes home from the weekend, not her radio didn't work. She doesn't know anything about what she walks in. And, and what are you doing? I'm gonna call the police. I am the Police. So she thinks that he's an intruder, and he thinks she's a ghost. It's really fantastic. So I say oh, it's a typical male female mix up. Think about Noir. Also in the 40s and generals. Women are much more important. There. They have agency in these movies. Now it's not always for good. Sometimes they're more evil than the men and sometimes they're also tougher than the guy. For example, Elizabeth Scott in too late for tears. She He's going out live. Dan. Port then door. Yay and Arthur Kennedy.

Mahinder Kingra

55:05

All right, Gloria Graham and when she throws the coffee in,

Speaker 1

55:10

or she think he she gets the coffee thrown, she

Mahinder Kingra

55:13

gets thrown off and she's tougher. Chi Chi takes him out for that. Yeah.

Speaker 1

55:18

Yes, clerk Graham is one of the great new are actresses. Awesome. Good. Anything to play that, you know any in Oklahoma? She could do anything. Yeah. But you know, you see these movies you see, you know, Ingrid Bergman as a psychiatrist and the Hitchcock movie, or as a spy in a Hitchcock movie. Or Joan Crawford, owning a restaurant, Mildred, Piers, and we're even the bad girls, you know that. Like, what the Spanish call. She's gonna like Marie Windsor. Marie Windsor is a real Gingold, meaning you get involved with her. This is femme fatale L squared. You know, they have agency they they really effect things people do. Robert Mitchum and out of the past does amazing things. For the love of Jane Greer, though it's been proved to him that she's not only unreliable that she's a thief, and in cahoots with a gangster. But the pull is so strong. And a point I'm making is that you've seen these movies and I think it's not an accident that so many women I belong to to a lot of film noir clubs, like on Facebook and other media, social media. And I said many many women are in our the clubs. And you know, I have opinions. And that's not an accident. I see exactly what why you like that.

Mahinder Kingra

57:05

Yeah, I recently rewatched a neo-noir from the I think the 90s called The Last Seduction with Linda Fiorentino as perhaps the most fatale of the femme fatales.

Amanda Boczar

57:18

I should see it again because the first time I saw it, I I felt threatened.

Mahinder Kingra

57:24

She's great. Yeah. And every time you think she's going to baby oh, she's gonna soften a little. It's just another twist. No, she,

David Lehman

57:31

I saw it with Mark Stevens. And then moved to New York and a boy. Yeah, she's, she's no good.

Mahinder Kingra

57:43

Good. Well, we should wrap this up then. And thank you all for coming. Thank you, David, for doing this. This was such a delight.

David Lehman

57:51

So nice of you all to come on August day.

Mahinder Kingra

57:55

And a Wednesday what else happens on a Wednesday.

David Lehman

58:01

And some of the, you know, really wonderful people here.

Mahinder Kingra

58:06

If you don't have a copy of the book, of course, I have to encourage you to buy because it's a lot of fun. And it has great this is it has great readability value. It's a book that you can go through and then oh, I'm going on a trip. What are what What mystery Should I take with me?

David Lehman

58:19

It's true. It can serve as a guide and I have another book 100 autobiography that we never got to but

Mahinder Kingra

58:26

we could take the show on the road. Good. Alright. Thank you all.

Unknown Speaker

58:32

Thank you so much, everybody.

Jonathan Hall

58:38

That was Cornell University Press editorial director Mahinder Kingra and Cornell Author David Lehmann, author of the new book, The Mysterious Romance of Murder. If you'd like to purchase David's new book, use the promo code 09POD to save 30% on our website at Cornell press.cornell.edu. If you live in the UK, use the discount code CSANNOUNCE and visit the website combined academic.co.uk. Thank you for listening to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast.

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