On this day in movie and book history - The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale,

based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout,

was released in the United States on July 21, 1976.

Music by Elmer Bernstein.

Cast:

John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart, Richard Boone, Hugh O’Brian, Bill McKinney, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Rick Lenz, Scatman Crothers, Gregg Palmer, Alfred Dennis, Dick Winslow, Melody Thomas Scott, Kathleen O’Malley, Jack Berle, Johnny Crawford, Chuck Dawson, George Dunn, Duke Fishman, Christopher George, Jonathan Goldsmith, Leo Gordon, Charles G. Martin, Jim Michael, Ernesto Molinari, Ricky Nelson, James Nolan, Nick Raymond, Henry Slate, Bob Steele, Ralph Volkie, John Zimeas.

Recommended reading:

The Shootist

by Glendon Swarthout.

Introduction by Miles Swarthout.

Filmed as The Shootist (1976), directed by Don Siegel.

Published by Bison Books.
First published 1975.

ISBN-10: 0803238231
ISBN-13: 9780803238237

Description:

"Such style...such a strong central idea...the showdown is an unremitting as the build-up." – Sunday Times of London.

"This is an extremely well-written Western and gives the reader vivid insight into the workings of the mind of a wanderer and gunman." – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sunday Advocate.

"The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout is the taleof the Old West's version of the modern 'hit man'. It is a splendid story, well-told and with a really satisfying ending." – Charleston, South Carolina Evening Post.

The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a man of principle and the only surviving gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El Paso in the year 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died, there to be told by a doctor that he must soon confront the greatest shootist of all: Death. In such a showdown, against such an antagonist, he cannot win. Most men may end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a man-killer has a 3rd option, one which Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner.

As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the end of his rope, an assortment of vultures gathers to feast upon his corpse--among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, an old love, a reporter, even a boy. Books outwits them, however, by selecting the where, when, who, and why of his death, and writing in fire from a pair of Remingtons the last courageous act of his own legend. The climatic gunfight itself is an incredible performance by an incredible man, and by his creator, Glendon Swarthout.

 

The Shootist will rank with such classics as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident, but it is much more than a Western. When, in the final afternoon of his life, J. B. Books crosses a street and enters a saloon to make something of his death, we cross, we enter, with him. He is us.

From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the chiffonier, then hung his Price Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out, revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, single-action .44 Remingtons, obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the other pearl.

Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen, and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in corner room was no stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze tales to know that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner...

On this day in movie history - Oppenheimer (2023)

Oppenheimer

directed and written by Christopher Nolan,

based on the book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin,

was released in the United States on July 21, 2023.

Music by Ludwig Göransson.

Cast:

Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Scott Grimes, Jason Clarke, Kurt Koehler, Tony Goldwyn, John Gowans, Macon Blair, James D'Arcy, Kenneth Branagh, Harry Groener, Gregory Jbara, Ted King, Tim DeKay, Steven Houska, Tom Conti, David Krumholtz, Petrie Willink, Matthias Schweighöfer, Josh Hartnett, Alex Wolff, Josh Zuckerman, Rory Keane, Michael Angarano, Dylan Arnold, Emma Dumont, Florence Pugh, Sadie Stratton, Jefferson Hall, Britt Kyle, Guy Burnet, Tom Jenkins, Matthew Modine, Louise Lombard, David Dastmalchian, Michael Andrew Baker, Jeff Hephner, Matt Damon, Dane DeHaan, Olli Haaskivi, David Rysdahl, Josh Peck, Jack Quaid, Brett DelBuono, Benny Safdie, Gustaf Skarsgård, James Urbaniak, Trond Fausa, Devon Bostick, Danny Deferrari, Christopher Denham, Jessica Erin Martin, Ronald Auguste, Rami Malek, Máté Haumann, Olivia Thirlby, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Casey Affleck, Harrison Gilbertson, James Remar, Will Roberts, Pat Skipper, Steve Coulter, Jeremy John Wells, Sean Avery, Adam Kroeger, Drew Kenney, Bryce Johnson, Flora Nolan, Kerry Westcott, Christina Hogue, Clay Bunker, Tyler Beardsley, Maria Teresa Zuppetta, Kate French, Gary Oldman, Hap Lawrence, Panagiotis Margetis, Yaser Al-Nyrabeah, Hunter Avant, Aevrey Balin, Kevin Berndt, David Bertucci, Troy Bronson, Steven Bullard, Ross Buran, Andrew Bursiaga, Kaleb Clifton, Samuel Code, Michael DeBartolo, Elijah Dierking, Russel Donahue, Adam Walker Federman, Doug Friedman, Michelle Ghatan, Braden Kelsey Gile, James Paul Gregory, Christine Heneise, John T. Hillman, Katherine Hogan, Ben Holmquist, Kash Hovey, Jacquie Kachmann, Asher Kaplan, Dirk Kingston, Emily Joy Lemus, Benjamin Levine, Luke Matheis, Brendan McManus, Connor Mendenhall, Elise Newman, Jason Pfister, Skyler Pierce, Michaela Rances, Ryan Rathbun, Sam Russell, Paolo Saglietto, Meg Schimelpfenig, Susan Elizabeth Shaw, Travis Siemon, Ryan Stubo, Jacob Taylor, Scott Valentine, Jack Wang, Kyle Williams, Ansa Woo, Aamir Yusuf.

On this day in music history - Sirens of the Sea by OceanLab (2008)

Sirens of the Sea by OceanLab (2008)

Sirens of the Sea

Album by OceanLab

released July 21, 2008.

Track list: Just Listen; Sirens of the Sea; If I Could Fly; Breaking Ties; Miracle; Come Home; On a Good Day; Ashes; I Am What I Am; Lonely Girl; Secret; On the Beach; Breaking Ties (Flow mix).

Ann Patchett, on writing:

 

The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me.

The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night
or when I'm driving to the grocery store
are the ones I wind up writing about.
- Ann Patchett.

Recommended reading - The Best American Noir Of The Century (2011)

The Best American Noir of the Century

Edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler.

Paperback.
 
ISBN-10: 0547577443
ISBN-13: 978-0547577449
 
Back cover description:

“Well worth its impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal masterpiece in your collection.” – New York Journal of Books.

In his introduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, “Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction… It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.

James Ellroy and Otto Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories, with selections from James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Harlan Ellison, Jeffrey Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lahane, and many more.

“Delightfully devilish . . . A strange trek through the years that includes stories from household names in the hard-boiled genre to lesser-known authors who nonetheless can hold their own with the legends.” – Associated Press.

James Ellroy is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy – American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s a Rover – and the L.A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. His most recent book is The Hillicker Curse, a memoir.

Otto Penzler is the founder of the Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press, has won two Edgar Allan Poe Awards (most recently for The Lineup), and is series editor of The Best American Mystery Stories.

 

Contents:
 

Foreword by Otto Penzler; Introduction by James Ellroy; Spurs, by Tod Robbins; Pastorale, by James M. Cain; You'll always remember me, by Steve Fisher; Gun crazy, by MacKinlay Kantor; Nothing to worry about, by Day Keene; The homecoming, by Dorothy B. Hughes; Man in the dark, by Howard Browne; The lady says die!, by Mickey Spillane; Professional man, by David Goodis; The hunger, by Charles Beaumont; The gesture, by Gil Brewer; The last spin, by Evan Hunter; Forever after, by Jim Thompson; For the rest of her life, by Cornell Woolrich; The dripping, by David Morrell; Slowly, slowly in the wind, by Patricia Highsmith; Iris, by Stephen Greenleaf; A ticket out, by Brendan DuBois; Since I don't have you, by James Ellroy; Texas city, by James Lee Burke; Mefisto in onyx, by Harlan Ellison; Out there in the darkness, by Ed Gorman; Hot spings, by James Crumley; The weekender, by Jeffery Deaver; Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates; Poachers, by Tom Franklin; Like a bone in the throat, by Lawrence Block; Crack, by James W. Hall; Running out of dog, by Dennis Lehane; The paperhanger, by William Gay; Midnight emissions, by F.X. Toole; When the women come out to dance, by Elmore Leonard; Controlled burn, by Scott Wolven; All through the house, by Christopher Coake; What she offered, by Thomas H. Cook; Her lord and master, by Andrew Klavan; Stab, by Chris Adrian; The hoarder, by Bradford Morrow; Missing the morning bus, by Lorenzo Carcaterra.

Born on this day – John Godey:

 

John Godey

Writer

July 20, 1912 – April 16, 2006

Credits:

Books: 

Fatal Beauty (1984); Killer at His Back (1960); Nella (1981); Never Put Off Till Tomorrow What You Can Kill Today (1970); Sun and Mr. Smith (1976); The Blonde Betrayer (1951); The Blue Hour / aka Next to Die (1948); The Clay Assassin (1959); The Crime of the Century (1973); The Fifth House (1960); The Gun and Mr. Smith (1947); The Man in Question (1953); The Reluctant Assassin / aka A Thrill a Minute With Jack Albany (1966); The Snake (1978); The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1973); The Talisman (1976); The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome (1972); This Year's Death (1953).

Movies and television:

Johnny Handsome (1989); Never a Dull Moment (1968); The Magical World of Disney (1979); The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009); The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974 / 1998).

Born on this day – K.T. Stevens:

K.T. Stevens

Actress

July 20, 1919 – June 13, 1994

Credits:

About Faces (1960); Adam at Six A.M. (1970); Adam-12 (1975); Address Unknown (1944); Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956); Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969); Bold Venture (1959); Bronk (1976); Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979); Corrina, Corrina (1994); Crossroads (1957); Days of Our Lives (1966–1969); Don't Tell Everything (1921); Ethel Barrymore Theater (1956); General Hospital (1963); Going My Way (1963); Harriet Craig (1950); Hawaiian Eye (1961); Here's Hollywood (1962); I Love Lucy (1952); Iron Horse (1966); Kitty Foyle (1940); Knots Landing (1989); Lights Out (1951); Little House on the Prairie (1976); Lux Video Theatre (1957); M Squad (1960); Manhunt (1960); Mannix (1971); Marcus Welby, M.D. (1976); Matinee Theatre (1956); Mike Hammer (1959); Missile to the Moon (1958); Mr. Novak (1964); One Step Beyond (1960); Paradise Bay (1965); Peck's Bad Boy (1921); Perry Mason (1959–1965); Pets (1973); Port of New York (1949); Profiles in Courage (1965); Rawhide (1960); Run for Your Life (1966); S.W.A.T. (1975); Savage Drums (1956); Schlitz Playhouse (1954–1957); Soldiers of Fortune (1955); State Trooper (1956); Studio 57 (1955); The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1952); The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962); The Big Valley (1966–1967); The Brothers Brannagan (1961); The DuPont Show with June Allyson (1961); The Ford Television Theatre (1953); The Great Man's Lady (1941); The Lineup (1959); The Millionaire (1956); The Patty Duke Show (1965); The Real McCoys (1957–1961); The Rebel (1960); The Rifleman (1960–1963); The Third Man (1963); The Young and the Restless (1979–1981); They're Playing with Fire (1984); This Is the Life (1963); Thriller (1961–1962); Tumbleweed (1953); Vice Squad (1953); Wagon Train (1957); Zane Grey Theatre (1961).