Nick and Nora Redux: Return of the Thin Man

Return of the Thin Man: Two never-before published novellas featuring Nick and Nora Charles by Dashiell Hammett

Myrna Loy, William Powell, and Asta in The Thin Man

Before Myrna Loy and William Powell starred in the hugely popular movies, or Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk in the 1950s television series, there was the book that started it all. Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, published in 1934, was instantly snapped up by Hollywood and became one of the Depression era's runaway box office hits, despite frequent tussles with the censors over the excessive drinking and wealth of sexual innuendos. Audiences who hardly knew where their next meal was coming from gladly plunked down their scarce quarters to immerse themselves for a few hours in the opulent and dangerous lives of this urbane detective from the wrong side of the tracks and his millionaire Nob Hill wife. Prohibition had been repealed just the previous year, and Hammett's uptown couple spent quite a bit of screen time quenching America's pent-up 14-year thirst.

Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk

The original movie was so successful that it spawned five sequels––of gradually decreasing quality, in my opinion. Hammett was involved in the production of the first three movies. This book, Return of the Thin Man, is actually the author's slightly padded screenplay treatments for the first two sequels, and the tales are pretty close to the final film versions. While they contain all of the sparkling dialogue and mystery plots, they are not really polished and filled-out novellas meant for reading by the public. Each of the stories is bracketed by Headnotes and Afterwords by the editors that indicate that Hammett was getting thoroughly tired of Nick and Nora.

The first story in this book, After the Thin Man, finds the couple returning home to San Francisco from New York by train, hoping to enjoy a quiet New Year's Eve at home. As Nick attempts to shave at the mirror on the back of the door, Nora slams into the compartment, calling for him. She looks around to see Nick, eyes bulging, "with his razor at his throat, smiling the sickly sweet grin of a man who has just escaped death." They dodge the reporters wanting to hear about Nick's New York murder case and arrive home to find a surprise welcome home party, thrown by Nick's disreputable friends, already well under way. They even know some of the guests, all of whom disappear rapidly when a man Nora recognizes as an old family gardener is shot dead on their doorstep. After dealing with the police, an imperious and urgent call from Nora's Aunt Katherine summons them to a Nob Hill formal dinner party with all of her stuffy relatives. Robert, husband of Nora's cousin Selma, has gone missing, and the collective family wants the despised Nick to find the philanderer.

I had forgotten just how relentlessly funny and outrageous these stories are; blink and you may have missed a wonderful sight gag, sneeze and you have lost a wonderful line. Hammett had a gift for witty, rapid-fire dialogue that has rarely been equaled, and he really let it rip in these stories. Reading the book, I could clearly imagine Loy and Powell in their respective roles. While I wish Hammett had written actual novels for the later stories, these beefed-up screenplays are a very acceptable substitute. And I never realized until just this minute how much William Powell resembled Dashiell Hammett! Hmmm.

Lillian Hellman

Dashiell Hammett

Hammett shared a strong social conscience with his lifelong friend and lover, playwright Lillian Hellman. Both flirted with the Communist Party, and Hammett, a veteran of both World Wars, was actually imprisoned in 1951 for contempt of court after refusing to name members of a group that funded bail and fines for social activists.

In her introduction to The Big Knockover, a reissue of Hammett's Continental Ops stories, Hellman says he wrote her from prison that "[h]e was cleaning bathrooms better than she had ever done" and that he had "learned to take pride in the work." He came out of prison very ill, partly as a result of the tuberculosis he had contracted in World War I. In 1953, he was again called before a Senate subcommittee, and again refused to implicate others. As a result he was blacklisted, unable to work in films for the rest of his life.

Johnny Depp as Nick Charles? Maybe...

As a tribute to the timeless popularity of the Nick and Nora stories, Johnny Depp has been signed to play Nick Charles in a remake of the original Thin Man, probably next year. He may be able to carry off the zany combination of tough guy and wisecracking bon vivant, but offhand I can't think of a single actress who could successfully play Nora to his Nick. If you have never heard of The Thin Man stories or movies but enjoy a bit of drawing room comedy/mystery/romance, you might want to emulate those Depression-era audiences who knew the value of laughter in the face of adversity, and lay in some Nick and Nora, as books or movies, for a rainy day.

Note: Return of the Thin Man was published by Mysterious Press and will be released on November 6, 2012. I received a free review copy of this book, and similar reviews may appear on other review sites under my user names there.

Location, location, location

That's what real estate is said to be all about. Some mystery series aren't all about location, but they tend to be inseparable from certain addresses.

221B Baker Street, London

Is there anyone who doesn't know Sherlock Holmes's famous address? When Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes series, street numbers on Baker Street didn't go above 100, but in the 1930s, the street was renumbered and––presto!––a large building occupied by the Abbey Road Building Society received the numbers 219-229. For many years, the company employed a secretary just to answer the large volume of mail they received addressed to Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street. They enthusiastically embraced the Holmes connection and placed a plaque on the front of the building.

But then, a problem arose. In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, located at 239 Baker Street, got the head of the local Westminster council to put a 221B Baker Street plaque on their building and claimed the right to receive all mail with that address. This sparked a long-running battle among the museum, the building society, the council and the postal service. The struggle finally ended 15 years later, when the building society moved to a new location.

Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street (formerly 239 Baker Street)

Holmes's office is said to be on the first floor at 221B Baker Street. As you probably know, what Americans call the first floor is the ground floor in Britain, while their first floor is what we call the second floor. When Watson and Holmes go looking for a flat to rent (in A Study in Scarlet), they find 221B Baker Street to be "a couple of comfortable bedrooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished and illuminated by two broad windows."

Blogger Russell Stutler has spent some years figuring out the layout of 221B Baker Street, carefully reading all the stories multiple times. Here is his concept. Note that Mrs. Hudson has a small room off the study and another downstairs, while Watson's room is upstairs.

In Conan Doyle's day, Baker Street was a quiet area of residences for well-to-do Londoners, across from Regent's Park. Today, it's a bustling area, with 221B located just around the corner from the tourist mecca of Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

110A Piccadilly, London

Rumor has it that Dorothy L. Sayers picked 110A for Lord Peter Wimsey's street address in a nod to Sherlock Holmes's 220B. Piccadilly is a good choice for a wealthy second son like Lord Peter. It's home to the Ritz Hotel, Fortnum & Mason and one of my favorite bookstores, Hatchard's. It's described as well-appointed, with a welcoming fire and many, many bookshelves filled with rare editions. Not surprising for a man who is an expert on incunabula (books printed before 1501) and who often has a book auction catalog at hand.

There is no 110A Piccadilly, but there is a 110 and, disappointingly, it's not a house or a block of flats. It's the Park Lane Hotel. More specifically, 110 would be about where the ballroom entrance is. Take a look. It's to the far right in this photo of the hotel.  At least it's across from Green Park, so it would be a nice location if Wimsey did actually live there.

After Lord Peter Wimsey marries Harriet Vane, he and his man, Bunter, say goodbye to Piccadilly and hello to, not Leicester Square, but Audley Square, not far away in Mayfair. The couple move into a place referred to as Belchesters' House, which has a library upstairs with a bookcase that conceals the entrance to a secret room that Harriet adopts as her writing room.

Some contend that the model for the couple's Audley Square house is Number 2, which was a private home built in 1876 and now houses the University Women's Club. That seems an apt location for Sayers and Harriet Vane.  I like to think of Harriet and Peter strolling the one block to one of my favorite places in London, the lush, green and quiet Mount Street Garden.

In Busman's Honeymoon, we learn that Lord Peter buys Harriet a wedding gift of Talboys, a rustic old farmhouse in the village of Paggleham in Hertfordshire where Harriet grew up. They plan to use it as their country home and honeymoon location. When they arrive, they find Talboys not ready for them as arranged. It's locked up tight and it takes some time to gain access. Next morning, they find the chimneys completely blocked––and an even worse find is made in the cellar.

There is no village of Paggleham in Hertfordshire, but there is a Puckeridge that kind of works for me as a place to imagine the Wimseys' country living place.

891 Post Street, [Apartment 401], San Francisco

Dashiell Hammett lived in this building from 1926-1929, and wrote Red Harvest, The Dain Curse and The Maltese Falcon while living there.  Famously, Hammett placed Sam Spade's apartment there in The Maltese Falcon.

891 Post Street.  Apartment 401 is the top apartment on the corner directly facing the camera.

Today, the apartment building has a coin laundry on the ground floor and a parking garage across Post Street. It's on the corner of Post and Hyde, in the Tenderloin. Not the best neighborhood, but the nicer part of the neighborhood, at least, and realtors like to call it Lower Nob Hill. Recently, an apartment was for rent in the building for $1,450 a month. What do you suppose Hammett's rent was for his modest studio apartment?

There is some disagreement, but most seem to think that Hammett––and Spade––lived in Apartment 401, on the northwest corner. The Friends of Libraries USA plague on the outside of the building states it as fact, so let's just go with it. Mystery writer Mark Coggins has a nice story about the apartment here. Here's the illustration on his site of the floor plan.

It's not a very inviting spot, but as long as you're in the neighborhood, you might feel compelled to take a stroll over to the alley where Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer, got plugged. There is even a plaque at the entrance to the alley, just off Bush Street above the Stockton Tunnel. Note that the plaque should have a big **spoiler** mark on it!

A guy named Don Herron has been leading a Hammett tour for 35 years. I'm sorry to say I never heard of it when I lived in San Francisco. But if you're interested, he starts out at noon every Sunday in May and September, and it costs $10. If you can't make it in person, Herron has published a book about it called, unsurprisingly, The Dashiell Hammett Tour.

Another stop on the tour is at 1201 California Street, at the peak of Nob Hill. The Cathedral Tower there is thought to be the model for the Coronet apartment building, where Bridget O'Shaughnessy lived. I'm sure she missed her great view of the Golden Gate when Sam Spade sent her to the joint.

Don Herron winds up his tour at John's Grill. Sam Spade ate there, so maybe you should give it a try sometime. You can even order the dinner Spade had there: lamb chops with sliced tomatoes and baked potato. Before you pay the bill, check out the replica of the Maltese Falcon upstairs.

West 35th Street, New York City

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe loved his home, a luxurious Manhattan brownstone. And what's not to like? Three stories with a rooftop greenhouse for Wolfe's beloved orchids; quarters for two live-in staff members, including Fritz the cook, and Wolfe's wisecracking assistant, Archie Goodwin; an elevator to take the rotund Wolfe up and down; a richly comfortable office with Wolfe's custom-made chair.

In the books, several different addresses on West 35th Street are given, nearly all of them in the 900s, which are nonexistent because they'd be in the Hudson River. The Wolfe Pack, Nero Wolfe's fan society, has designated 454 West 35th Street as the probable site of Nero Wolfe's brownstone and had a plaque put on the building in 1996. The thing is, there isn't actually a brownstone there, at least not today. Today it's a not-very-inspiring apartment building:

454 West 35th Street

Ken Darby, author of The Brownstone House of Nero Wolfe, claims there were never any brownstones on West 35th Street. Darby speculates that the actual location Rex Stout had in mind was Gramercy Park, probably East 22nd Street.

The Nero Wolfe series televised by A&E used a lovely brownstone at 44 West 76th Street to stand in as Wolfe's place.

44 West 76th Street

Because this brownstone has more than the seven stairs in the front that Rex Stout described for Wolfe's home, the filmmakers were always careful to shoot the front so that it didn't show the stairs or only showed seven of them. Now that's attention to detail! Speaking of which, for a whole lot of detail about the layout of the brownstone, check out John Clayton's blog here. To find out everything there is to know about Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, the brownstone and all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books, our own Georgette is the source. One of these days, I hope she'll write about Wolfe.

Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

After all these big city apartments, it's time to visit a less conventional home for a beloved sleuth. John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee lived on a houseboat called Busted Flush, berthed at Slip F-18, Bahia Mar Marina, in Fort Lauderdale. He gets a plaque from Friends of the Libraries USA too, which you can see in the photo below, just to the right of the fire hose sign.

This isn't really where a berth F-18 would be in this marina's layout, but it's the thought that counts. Nice of the marina to care enough about McGee's fans to recognize him. And MacDonald must have appreciated it too. Not just the recognition, but that it kept fans focused on Fort Lauderdale, rather than on Sarasota, where he lived.

The Busted Flush is named after a poker hand, naturally. In this case, McGee was losing hand after hand, then bluffed a flush and got this 52-foot barge-style houseboat as his payoff. McGee doesn't get to spend much time there, because his cases take him all over, but when he can, that's where he kicks back with a Boodles Gin, enjoying life.

Wherever you call home, I hope you have living companions as tolerant as Holmes's, as loving a life companion as Lord Peter's, as beautiful a home town as Sam Spade's, as much room for your favorite hobby as Nero Wolfe, and as low a purchase price as Travis McGee's.

Can't Sleep? A Prescription to be Accompanied by Judicious Applications of Crackers or Popcorn

Let's say you didn't choose to go to bed with a murderer. You went to bed to sleep. You lie there and lie there but sleep has overpowered everyone but you: the clerk at the new Holiday Inn across town, your neighbors across the street, your loved one and animals dispersed across the bed. Don't panic. I have a prescription for you. It won't put you to sleep, but it will make you glad you're awake.

Pick one of the great books below. If you're in bed with a partner, and he or she dislikes your eating crackers in bed while you're reading, now is the time. Crackers on a plate are best because it's the sound of rummaging in the cracker box that brings a sleeper to crabby consciousness. (I'm assuming you eat with a minimum of lip smacking, grinding noises, and moaning.) If reading requires too much concentration in your zonked-out-but-can't-sleep state, choose one of these movies. Accompany with popcorn. (If your DVD player is in the bedroom, keep the sound down and don't pelt any sleeper next to you with popcorn. This is to ensure that your viewing pleasure isn't interrupted by the eruption of Mt. St. Awakened from a Pleasant Dream.) Ta da. Happiness.

James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential, 1990. Ellroy has a bleak view of the world, and the book is wonderful noir, but not for everybody. The plot is complex; however, it boils down to seriously troubled or flawed cops in 1950s Los Angeles, who bust heads while solving crimes or committing them themselves. Kim Basinger won an Oscar for her role in the 1997 movie. It doesn't try to cover the whole book, but it does a great job of translating it from paper to the screen. Also stars Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, and Danny DeVito.

Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty, 1990. Loan shark Chili Palmer travels from Florida to Hollywood in order to collect a bad debt. Once he gets there, he discovers he likes it and wants a piece of the action. Not everyone is pleased. Made into a movie with John Travolta (as Chili Palmer), Gene Hackman (as B-movie maker Harry Zimm), Danny DeVito, Rene Russo, and Dennis Farina in 1995. Fun book; fun movie.

Davis Grubb, Night of the Hunter, 1953. Noir. A man disguised as a preacher tracks down an executed man's widow. Her young son discovers why. The "preacher" is an incredibly evil man and one of mystery fiction's best villains. He's played by Robert Mitchum, scary as hell, in a movie directed by Charles Laughton and also starring Shelley Winters. An unforgettable book and movie, too.

John D. MacDonald, The Executioners, 1958 (also published as Cape Fear, 1962). Rapist Max Cady blames small-town lawyer Sam Bowden for his imprisonment. Now Cady is out and in Bowden's town, making veiled threats against Bowden and following his 14-year-old daughter around. Bowden knows it's only a matter of time until an explosion will happen. Made into a movie Cape Fear in 1961 with Gregory Peck (Sam Bowden), Robert Mitchum (Max Cady), and Polly Bergen. Martin Scorsese directed the 1991 remake of Cape Fear with Robert De Niro (Max Cady), Nick Nolte (Sam Bowden), and Jessica Lange. The movies are interesting to compare in that both are very suspenseful, but the interpretations of the Max Cady and Sam Bowden characters by Peck/Mitchum and De Niro/Nolte are very different. I like both versions.

Peck and Mitchum are diametrically opposed; Peck is an upright man, while Mitchum is a relentless man intent on sadistic revenge. Nolte and De Niro are more complex characters. Watching the less-than-completely ethical Nolte and the disturbing-but-wronged De Niro, you know De Niro must be stopped, but you'd still like to see justice done. Mitchum and De Niro are particularly interesting to compare. De Niro is a maniac while Mitchum is implacable. It isn't often that you can read a book and then watch two directors' interpretations of it and compare top actors occupying the same roles. Don't miss your chance to do it with Cape Fear.

Elmore Leonard, Out of Sight, 1996. Bank robber Jack Foley breaks out of a Florida prison one night and runs into U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco, who has just arrived. Foley's accomplice, Buddy Bragg, hops into the car while Foley climbs into the trunk with their hostage, Sisco. After years in prison, how does Foley share a trunk with a beautiful woman and not fall in love, even if she is a U.S. marshall? Made into an entertaining movie with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez.

If you're in the mood for another Leonard book/movie combo, try his novel Rum Punch, in which airline hostess Jackie Burke is caught bringing money into the country for gunrunner Ordell Robbie. The cops bring pressure on her to set him up, but this is a Leonard plot so things don't go as originally planned. Leonard's Rum Punch was used by Quentin Tarantino as the basis for his movie Jackie Brown, starring Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, and Samuel L. Jackson.

James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, 1943. A classic hard-boiled story in which an evil, greedy woman talks a he-should-know-better-but-he's-no-longer-thinking-with-his-brain insurance agent into committing fraud and murder. Raymond Chandler worked on the screenplay, and Billy Wilder directed the 1944 movie starring a hard-as-nails Barbara Stanwyck, the basset hound-like Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson, who plays MacMurray's boss. A great movie made from a terrific book.

Victor Canning, The Rainbird Pattern, 1972. There are two plot threads, one involving a series of elaborate kidnappings and another involving a psychic (and her lover), working for an elderly woman who wishes to reunite her family. Eventually the threads connect. This book inspired Alfred Hitchcock's mischievous last film, Family Plot, made in 1976. William Devane/Karen Black are the sophisticated baddies, and Bruce Dern/Barbara Harris, the disorganized goodies; they all look like they're having fun.

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, 1939. The corrupting influence of money! White-knight private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by old General Sternwood to investigate why book dealer Arthur Geiger has an IOU signed by his daughter Carmen, who is not a goody two shoes. This is Chandler's first book. William Faulkner worked on the screenplay, and the 1946 movie stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Elisha Cook, Jr. The plot has some holes, but with these actors, who cares? In 1978, a remake was made with James Stewart, Sarah Miles, and Oliver Reed. Strangely, the setting is no longer Chandler's 1930s Los Angeles, but 1970s London. Do I need to tell you it's not as good as the 1946 classic?

Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940. Moose Malloy's girlfriend Velma, a cute redhead, disappeared after he went to prison. Now Malloy is out and insists that a reluctant Marlowe look for her. The characters and settings in this book are so vividly done you'll ache after reading. Farewell, My Lovely was made into a movie several times: The 1944 movie Murder, My Sweet stars Dick Powell as a decent Marlowe and Mike Mazurki as Malloy. Robert Mitchum, who looks like he's been around the block a few times here (I love that man!), plays Marlowe and Jack O'Halloran plays Malloy in the 1975 full-color remake, Farewell, My Lovely.

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe could have been talking about Chandler when he said that a writer he admired rode words bareback. Nobody in mystery fiction used words like Chandler. If you haven't bothered to read him yet, you have a tremendous treat in store. Keep a couple of his books by your bed (The Long Goodbye, The Little Sister, The Lady in the Lake), and if you can't sleep, be happy that you have the chance to read one.

Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal, 1971. French dissidents bungle an attempt on Charles de Gaulle's life so they hire a professional assassin code named "the Jackal" to do the deed. This is a race between the Jackal and Commissaire Claude Lebel, France's best detective, who has been assigned to find and stop him, without a speck of help from de Gaulle, an extremely brave and haughty leader who sees no need to alter his schedule in the slightest way, or others in power who would like to see Lebel fail. It was made into a movie in 1973. Michael Caine wanted the role, but director Fred Zinnemann wanted an unknown actor, so Edward Fox stars as the Jackal.

Brian Garfield, Hopscotch, 1975. Hopscotch won an Edgar for Best Novel. It is the story of a CIA agent who is so bored with retirement that he decides to do something about his boredom; he'll force his former CIA colleagues and Russian counterparts to hunt him down and eliminate him. Garfield wrote the screenplay for the movie, but rather than a suspenseful story like his book, the 1980 movie is a comic spy spoof with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson.

Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon, 1929. The search for a legendary statuette leads to betrayal and murder. Read the book and then watch the 1941 John Huston movie, which stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Sam Spade along with Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. Both book and movie are classics and unforgettable.

Need more recommendations for a book by Hammett? Put those sleepless hours to good use reading his The Glass Key, involving political corruption, loyalty, double-dealing, and a love triangle in an anonymous city in New York or his Red Harvest, in which a private operator takes on a corrupt town.

Philip MacDonald, The List of Adrian Messenger, 1959. Ten names appear on a list, and it's not one composed by Santa Claus. The names' owners are murdered. Find out why and we'll know by whom. In the 1963 movie based on the book, Anthony Ruthven Gethryn (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate the murders. This is the movie in which some big-name Hollywood actors appear in disguise, and you're supposed to see if you recognize them. At the end, they reveal themselves. Fun.

Geoffrey Homes (pseudonym of Daniel Mainwaring), Build My Gallows High, 1946. A man's mysterious past unfortunately catches up with him. Mainwaring also wrote the screenplay for the 1947 movie based on his book, Out of the Past, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. This is my husband's favorite noir film and is considered by many to be one of the best noir movies ever made. I love the book and the movie.

Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Murder, 1958. THE classic courtroom drama written by a former Michigan state supreme court justice. An ex-DA defends a soldier accused of killing the man who raped his wife. In 1959, the book was made into a gripping movie directed by Otto Preminger and starring James Stewart as the defense attorney, George C. Scott as the prosecutor, Ben Gazzara as the defendant, and Lee Remick as the wife. The judge was played by a Boston lawyer named Joseph Welch, who had figured as a good guy in the Sen. Joseph McCarthy hearings.

Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man, 1934. A charming book about the dapper ex-detective Nick Charles and his excitement-loving wife, Nora. They're in New York on vacation over the holidays when they become involved in a disappearance and murder. William Powell and Myrna Loy star with the dog Asta (schnauzer in the novel, but a wire-haired fox terrier on the screen) in the not-to-be-missed movie series: The Thin Man, After The Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, Song of the Thin Man, and The Thin Man Goes Home. You'll want a martini while watching one of these movies.

Jim Thompson, The Grifters, 1963. Oh man, con man Roy Dillon, his scheming mom Lilly, and his main squeeze Moira Langtry have dysfunctional relationships in this excellent but depressing noir book about the ability to control one's fate. The Grifters is a good movie, too; the acting is really something. Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening, and Pat Hingle star. Donald E. Westlake wrote the script.

Thompson is a powerful writer whose noir comes in handy for those times you're annoyed with your overly optimistic sister or you want confirmation that the world is a bleak place. He's not the most pessimistic writer in mysterydom (if anybody can beat David Goodis in that department, I want to hear about it), so you'll be able to face the world when the cruel sun comes up and it's time to stop reading. You might even be able to smile after you've had a cup of coffee.

Roman Polanski's 1974 movie, Chinatown, isn't based on a particular book by Raymond Chandler, but it is regarded as that director's homage to Chandler. J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a private eye, Noah Cross (John Huston) is a robber baron, and Faye Dunaway is Cross's daughter in 1930s Los Angeles. Stir in corruption of the political and moral kind, and you have a wonderful movie experience.

Now, aren't you pleased you read a fantastic book or watched an incredible movie? Sometimes sleep is overrated and best kept for those moments when you have nothing better to do. I prescribe it for the dentist's chair, your doctor's waiting room, or while you're waiting for your daughter to try on all the shoes in the store. But then again, these are times for a good book, too....