Born on this day – Jim Thompson:

Jim Thompson

Writer

September 27, 1906 – April 7, 1977

Credits:

A Hell Of A Woman (1954); A Swell-Looking Babe (1954); After Dark, My Sweet (1955); Bad Boy (1953); Child Of Rage (1972); City Sleuths and Tough Guys (1988); Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950 (1997); Cropper's Cabin (1952); Fireworks (1988); Hard-boiled (1995); Heed The Thunder (1946); Ironside (1967); King Blood (1973); More Hardcore: 3 Novels (1987); Murder Plus (1992); Nothing But A Man (1970); Nothing More Than Murder (1949); Now and On Earth (1942); Pop. 1280 (1964); Pulp Frictions (1996); Recoil (1953); Roughneck (1954); Savage Night (1953); South Of Heaven (1967); Texas By The Tail (1965); The Alcoholics (1953); The Best American Noir of the Century (2010); The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction (1987); The Criminal (1953); The Getaway (1959); The Golden Gizmo (1954); The Grifters (1963); The Jim Thompson Omnibus (1995); The Killer Inside Me (1952); The Kill-Off (1957); The Nothing Man (1954); The Rip-Off (1989); The Second Jim Thompson Omnibus (1997); The Transgressors (1961); The Undefeated (1969); Unusual Suspects (1996); Wild Town (1957).

Movies and television:

After Dark, My Sweet (1990); Cain's Hundred (1961); Clean Slate (1981); Convoy (1965); Dr. Kildare (1965); Fallen Angels (1993); Farewell, My Lovely (1975); Hit Me (1996); Mackenzie's Raiders (1958–1959); Paths of Glory (1957); Pop. 1280 (2024); Serie Noire (1979); The Getaway (1972 / 1994); The Grifters (1990); The Killer Inside Me (1976 / 2010); The Killing (1956); The Kill-Off (1989); This World, Then the Fireworks (1997); Trapped (2014).

Recommended reading - The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (1996)

 

The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

Hardboiled writing from Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson and many more…Edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

Mammoth Books.
 
ISBN-10: 0786703008
ISBN-13: 978-0786703005
 
Back cover description:
 
Fast action and wild, wild pleasure: a massive collection of seven decades of pure, unadulterated pulp fiction.

The paper may have yellowed and crumbled away but the stories and a thousand thrills still hit the spot. Join the shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless big shots, crooked and sometimes honest cops on a rollercoaster ride through the mean streets of popular literature in the company of such superlative writers as: Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Ross Macdonald, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, Frederic Brown, Robert Bloch, Karlan Ellison, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson, William P. McGivern, Lawrence Block, Bill Pronzini, Mickey Spillane.

And twenty other leading lights of the hardboiled school of writing, as the action moves back from the silver screen to the pages where it all began. Just watch out for open windows and flying bullets!

 

Contents:

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Too Many Have Lived, by Dashiell Hammett; Flight to Nowhere, by Charles Williams; Black, by Paul Cain; Finders Killers! by John D. MacDonald; Murder’s Mandate, by W. T. Ballard; Cigarette Girl, by James M. Cain; The Getaway, by Gil Brewer; Preview of Murder, by Robert Leslie Bellem; Forever After, by Jim Thompson; The Bloody Tide, by Day Keene; Death Comes Gift-Wrapped, by William P. McGivern; The Girl Behind the Hedge, by Mickey Spillane; Enter Scarface, by Armitage Trail; A Candle for the Bag Lady, by Lawrence Block; Black Pudding, by David Goodis; A Matter of Principal, by Max Allan Collins; Citizen’s Arrest, by Charles Willeford; Sleeping Dog, by Ross Macdonald; The Wench is Dead, by Fredric Brown; So Dark for April, by Howard Browne; We Are All Dead, by Bruno Fischer; Death is a Vampire, by Robert Bloch; Divide and Conquer, by Jack Ritchie; A Real Nice Guy, by William F. Nolan; Stacked Deck, by Bill Pronzini; So Young, So Fair, So Dead, by John Lutz; Effective Medicine, by B. Traven; Killing Bernstein, by Harlan Ellison; The Second Coming, by Joe Gores; Hibiscus and Homicide, by William Campbell Gault; Hell on Wheels, by Thomas S. Roche; Ordo, by Donald E. Westlake.

Recommended reading - The Getaway

 

The Getaway

by Jim Thompson.
 
First published 1958.
Published by Mulholland Books.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0316403970
ISBN-13: 978-0316403979
 
Description:

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.

THE GETAWAY is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson's novel set the bar for every heist story that followed - but as Thompson's proved time and again, nobody's ever done it better than the master.

On this day in movie history - The Getaway (1972)

The Getaway

directed by Sam Peckinpah,

written by Walter Hill,

based on the novel by Jim Thompson,

was released in the United States on December 13, 1972.

Music by Quincy Jones.

Cast:

Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens, Richard Bright, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins, Roy Jenson, John Bryson.