Woolrich, Cornell Books

Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s: The Postman Always Rings Twice / They Shoot Horses, Don't They? / Thieves Like Us / The Big Clock / Nightmare ... a Dead Man (Library of America) (Vol 1)

Horace McCoy, Kenneth Fearing, William Lindsay Gresham, Cornell Woolrich, James M. Cain, Edward Anderson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Literature and film buffs will be delighted by this collection of pulp novels, most of which were made into important films. James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice is a literary masterpiece with its spare prose invoking a savage, sexy, desperate world. It inspired no less than three great movies: Luchino Visconti's classic Ossessione, in 1942; the 1946 remake, starring John Garfield and Lana Turner and directed by the extraordinary Tay Garnett; and Bob Rafelson's underrated 1981 version with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. When you read the magnificent source for these movies, you'll be astonished at how three different incarnations could all, in their own ways, be faithful to the novel.

Cornell Woolrich's I Married a Dead Man also became three movies: No Man of Her Own, with Barbara Stanwyk; the French I Married a Shadow; and the American comedy, Mrs. Winterborne, which starred Shirley MacLaine and Ricki Lake. Edward Anderson's vivid Thieves Like Us was transformed into They Live by Night, Nicholas Ray's first important movie and one of the seminal noir films of the 1940s. It was brilliantly remade in 1974 by the great revisionist director Robert Altman. Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock was transformed into a marvelous film starring Charles Laughton; 40 years later, the same source, retitled No Way Out, brought Kevin Costner to stardom. William Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley was the source for Tyrone Power's best movie; Horace McCoy's experimental They Shoot Horses, Don't They? became one of the seminal films of the 1960s.

These dark, evocative novels, when taken together, are a fascinating study of how words can inspire a magnificent variety of cinematic images and styles.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes: a novel of suspense

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A BLEAK AND SUSPENSEFUL THRILLER 4 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

On the cover of my Dell paperback edition of "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (with a cover price of 25 cents), the author is listed as William Irish, with an asterisk next to the name. At the bottom of the cover, next to the footnote asterisk, is another name: George Hopley. This should not fool any prospective readers, though. Both names were pseudonyms of Cornell Woolrich, the author whom Isaac Asimov called "THE Master of Suspense"; whom his biographer, Francis Nevins, Jr., called "the Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century" (hey, wait a minute...I thought that H.P. Lovecraft was considered the Edgar Allan Poe of the 20th century!); and who is considered one of the fathers of literary film noir. Many of Woolrich's novels and stories have been famously filmed, "Rear Window," "The Bride Wore Black," "Phantom Lady," "Deadline at Dawn" and "Mississippi Mermaid" being just a sampling. "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (1945) was turned into a 1948 Edward G. Robinson movie that supposedly has little in common with the book. That's a shame, as the book is a marvelous piece of eerie suspense writing that could have made a smashing film. In Woolrich's tale, Detective Tom Shawn saves Jean Reid from a suicide attempt one night, and later hears her tale. She is in despair because the death of her wealthy father has been predicted by a man seemingly gifted with the power of clairvoyance; a man whose predictions have unerringly aided her father in his business many times before. Shawn and a squad of detectives investigate this death prediction, and try to avert the millionaire businessman from meeting his ordained end at the stroke of midnight "at the jaws of a lion." The reader will never guess how things turn out, or how Harlan Reid eventually winds up. Woolrich writes with a superabundance of detail, which slows things down a little but also ratchets up the suspense factor. We get more and more nervous as that midnight hour approaches, while Woolrich teases us by describing how the milk looks in one of the character's coffee, and by giving us the minutiae of a bridge game. Hitchcock himself could not have drawn more suspense out of the book's brilliantly sustained final third. It is a bravura example of a writer anticipating what his reader wants, and holding it tantalizingly out of reach...
I came to this book after having read of it in Newman & Jones' overview volume entitled "Horror: 100 Best Books." As "Night Has..." progressed, I found myself thinking that the book isn't all that scary; extremely suspenseful, yes, and in parts a bit eerie, but certainly not a horror book. But upon finishing the novel, the reader will inevitably realize that the characters in "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" have no free will at all. Everything is preordained, and human beings are trapped in this master plan. The thousand star-eyes of the title look down on us, mercilessly and aloof. No wonder poor Jean Reid can't bear to look at them. Woolrich's vision of a relentless, bleak and deterministic universe turns out to be a pretty horrifying thing after all!

Editorial Review:

"Cornell Woolrich's novels define the essence of noir nihilism."-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

One of Cornell Woolrich's most famous novels, this classic noir tale of a con man struggling with his ability to see the future is arguably the author's best in its depiction of a doomed vision of predestination.

Rendezvous in Black (20th Century Rediscoveries)

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Yes, a masterpiece! 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This is a suspense story in which one knows the killer and his victims and where there is nothing random about his choice of victims. The murders are acts of revenge against an unpremeditated, accidental death - a death that one can only characterize as 'fateful.' A bottle has been thrown from an airplane, killing a young woman standing by a store window in a busy street. She is waiting for her fiance. Out of the hundreds of people walking that street, it is she who has been dealt this fatal blow. It is an accident that could not have been foreseen, though it can be argued, that its negligence might have been anticipated.

That is the beginning of the story. Woolrich wastes no time in setting the psychological tone. Her fiance arrives at their place of rendezvous, the scene of the accident, looks at the stricken woman, denies that it is his "Dorothy", then leaves the scene. Despite this initial denial, he knows, of course, that it is she, and from that moment a cataclysmic change occurs in his personality and his present world falls apart - a world of romance, marriage and well being. He sheds all innocence and becomes a man singularly possessed - a man seeking revenge against the carelessness of other men - determined to have them pay for this carelessness in the same way he has been forced to pay - destruction of what they prize most.

It is a story, wonderfully told - direct, gripping and so thoroughly credible that you read through it quickly, hoping against hope that it will have a happy ending. But it doesn't.

Editorial Review:

On a mild midwestern night in the early 1940s, Johnny Marr leans against a drugstore wall. He’s waiting for Dorothy, his fiancée, and tonight is the last night they’ll be meeting here, for it’s May 31st, and June 1st marks their wedding day. But she’s late, and Johnny soon learns of a horrible accident—an accident involving a group of drunken men, a low-flying charter plane, and an empty liquor bottle. In one short moment Johnny loses all that matters to him and his life is shattered. He vows to take from these men exactly what they took from him. After years of planning, Johnny begins his quest for revenge, and on May 31st of each year—always on May 31st—wives, lovers, and daughters are suddenly no longer safe.

Fright (Hard Case Crime)

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Literary noir 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Noir is a term most often associated with films, but it may also be appropriately applied to books. Among the classic mystery writers, there are few who are more noirish than Cornell Woolrich. With his tales of men and women caught up in the quirks of fate, where every turn to break free from doom leads just further down that path, Woolrich's writing epitomizes what noir is all about.

In Fright, the hapless character is Prescott Marshall, who, at least in the beginning of the novel, has everything going his way. He has a decent job with good prospects and is about to marry a beautiful woman who he not only loves but also belongs to a wealthy family. Left on his own for a night, he gets completely drunk and has a one-night stand with a woman who he promptly forgets as soon as he sobers up. Unfortunately, Lorna hasn't forgotten him, and she starts blackmailing him, with the threat of endangering his upcoming marriage.

Prescott thinks he has bought her off, but on his wedding day, she arrives to extort a bit more money. Prescott snaps, beats her to death and stashes her body in his closet as he goes off to his wedding. From the ceremony, he goes directly to his honeymoon and when an opportunity presents itself, he takes new wife Marjorie to another town, never returning to dispose of the body.

Guilt gnaws at him, hanging over everything that happens in his life, and it gets nothing but worse when a stranger appears at his office. Is this man a cop out to find proof that Prescott is a murderer? Certainly, to the increasingly paranoid protagonist, there can be no other explanation.

As in the best noir stories, even when the main character is a killer, it is still possible to find him sympathetic, and Prescott is definitely in that category. Fright is an example of what made Woolrich one of the all-time great mystery writers; even if it is not perfect, it is still pretty good. It may be a little pulpy, and the concluding twist, while nice is a little predictable (then again, it may have been less so back when it was first published in 1950). Little flaws aside, this is still a small gem that is worth reading.

Manhattan Love Song

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A neglected masterpiece. 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

As I read this fascinating page turner of a novel, I had to keep reminding myself that it was first published way back in 1932. The writing in Manhattan Love Song is so up to date, it could have been crafted last week.
I don't want to reveal too much about the plot itself because, just as in all Cornell Woolrich fiction, suspense is a key element. No, it's more than a key element, it is ubiquitous, permeating each page.

The narrative starts off as a romance. A "low rent" romance, but a romance nonetheless. It rapidly transitions to a comic romp, albeit one with decidedly sinister undertones. Then it takes the form of a bizarre murder mystery. Throughout all this, Woolrich never misses a beat. He takes the reader from one genre to the next with the greatest of ease.

Both the dialogue and the descriptive prose are consistently as smart as could be. The themes addressed are standard Cornell Woolrich fare. The ecstasy and agony of love and the burden of psychic pain so intense it can only be alleviated by "the merciful release of death".
Manhattan Love Song is an outstanding novel. A very enthusiastic 5 stars. Don't miss it.

Editorial Review:

"Nothing beats a tale of fatalistic dread by the supreme master of suspense, Cornell Woolrich. His novels and hundreds of short stories define the essence of noir nihilism."-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

The father of modern noir first wanted to be the second F. Scott Fitzgerald. This 1932 novel brilliantly showcases Cornell Woolrich's transition from modernist to pulp master, as the reader follows a young Manhattan couples' tragic fall from grace.

Cornell Woolrich reinvented suspense fiction for the twentieth century. For four decades hundreds of his stories appeared in popular American pulp magazines while motion picture directors as varied as Hitchcock and Truffaut memorably translated his work into such classic suspense films as Rear Window and The Bride Wore Black. He died, alone in a Manhattan hotel room, in 1968.

I Married a Dead Man (The Best Mysteries of All Time)

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

YOUGOTTAREADTHISONE! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Last week, I was in-between books, not knowing what to read, and went browsing through my bookshelf. I found a paperback I had bought some 20 years ago, never having read it. It was Woolrich's "The Black Curtain." I was awe-struck. Not only with the plot, but his prose just jumped out at me. After years of Grishoms, Pattersons, Kings, Balduccis,and others, I realized that THIS was what a true genius writes! He uses words that you swear should never belong in some sentences, yet work. Of course, I then went to the library and read "I Married A Dead Man", which was even better. It was like reading a VERY suspenseful film noir script...only better. There is a quote on the cover of this book by Ray Bradbury that reads, "...Woolrich deserves to be discovered and rediscovered by each generation." How true. If you've never read Woolrich's work, you owe it to yourself. And if you have, then you know what I write here is accurate.

A Master of American Noir 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The first version of I Married a Dead Man appeared as a novella in the April 1946 issue of Today's Woman. By 1948, when the book was published under the pseudonym William Irish, Cornell Woolrich had expanded his novella and completely rewritten its ending, resulting in a fine American Noir novel that has been filmed at least three times. The best known movie version of I Married a Dead Man is the 1950 film starring Barbara Stanwyck for which the title was changed to No Man of Her Own. The movie is an excellent representation of the film noir of the period although it was somewhat weakened by the studio's decision to use the original ending of the novella rather than the stronger, more compelling, ending of the novel itself.

Helen, a very young woman, finds herself seven months pregnant and abandoned by the father of her child. All that the father of her child has left her is a five dollar bill and train tickets from New York to the West Coast where she hopes to start a new life for herself and her baby. By the time that she is seen struggling to find a place for herself and her one suitcase on an overcrowded train, Helen is down to her last seventeen cents and is near despair. But fate has a surprise in store for Helen and the young couple who befriend her on the train, a surprise that offers Helen the chance to provide her child with the kind of life she never dreamed possible.

Does she have the nerve required to snatch that chance when she recognizes it? Is her love for her new baby so strong that she will do anything to ensure the child's future? By the time that Helen has to answer those questions for herself, she finds that circumstances completely beyond her control have made it possible for her to live a life she never dreamed possible if only she keeps her mouth shut. But of course, fate is not that kind, nor is life that simple. That's the rest of the story, a story that would have made Alfred Hitchcock smile, and one that I'm not going to spoil for you.

Cornell Woolrich deserves to be better known than he is today. He was a contemporary of Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Raymond Chandler, all of whom have remained largely in print for the last 60 or 70 years. But despite the fact that during the period between 1940 and 1948 alone, Woolrich produced six novels under his own name, four as William Irish and one using the name George Hopley, his work is not easily found today. Woolrich has been called "the Hitchcock of the written word" and, in fact, between 1938 and 1950 Hollywood producers turned some 15 of his stories into movies, the most famous of which is Hitchcock's own Rear Window, a film based on the 1942 Woolrich novella It Had to Be Murder.

So if you are a fan of Cain, Hammett and Chandler but have read all of their work, Cornell Woolrich is a name you need to remember. Finding his work will require some extra effort, but Woolrich is a worthy addition to anyone's American Noir collection.

Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories

Cornell Woolrich

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

THE BEST! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

For me, Woolrich is the best of all the Noir writers. Great stuff! Buy it!

Editorial Review:

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and throughout the next four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with unparalleled mystery, suspense, and horror. America’s most popular pulp magazines published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black, and Tournier’s Black Alibi came chillingly to the screen from his work. And novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes gained him the epithet "father of noir."

Now with this new centenary volume of previously uncollected suspense fiction edited by Francis M. Nevins—recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for criticism in the mystery field—a whole new generation of mystery readers, as well as his countless fans who have long loved his work, can thrill to the achievement of Cornell Woolrich, the writer deemed to be the Edgar Allan Poe of the twentieth century.

Black Alibi

Cornell Woolrich

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Rear Window and Four Short Novels

Cornell Woolrich

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Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories by Cornell Woolrich (Otto Penzler Book)

Cornell Woolrich

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Cornell Woolrich published his first novel in 1926, and for four decades his fiction riveted the reading public with mystery, suspense, and horror. America's most popular pulps—Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly—published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock's Rear Window, Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Tournier's Black Alibi, and Siodmak's Phantom Lady, as well as dozens of other movies, were based on his work. Novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes have won him the epithet "father of noir." Every one of the countless many who have read and loved the work of Cornell Woolrich will welcome and applaud this publication of a new collection of tales—the first in nearly two decades—by the greatest writer of suspense fiction in the twentieth century. Woolrich lived a life of such deep despair and utter terror that he could do little except put those fears onto the printed page. In the masterfully wrought suspense of this volume's twenty stories, readers can enjoy works written at the height of Woolrich's powers, as well as many never before published in book form before now.