 
Choose another writer in this calendar:
by name: by birthday from the calendar.
TimeSearch |
Jonathan (Wyatt) Latimer (1906-1983) - pseudonym Peter Coffin | |
|
American hard-boiled mystery writer, noted for his Bill Crane series, described as an "alcoholic private detective". The twists of Crane's adventures borrowed much from the unpredictable world of "screwball-comedies" of the 1930s. Without gaining such fame as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, or later Mickey Spillane and Ross MacDonald in the mystery genre, Latimer produced fresh and lively private eye stories. Latimer also wrote screenplays, of which the most noteworthy is the script for Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key. He scripted one of the small classics of film noir, They Won't Believe Me (1946), which played with coincidences and clichés of crime films. The central character, a playboy suspected of murder he did not commit, is assured that nobody believes him and condemns himself in front of the jury: "I listened to my own story. I brought in my own verdict." "In the cell to the right, a man was still crying. It was past sundown, and he had been crying since noon. He cried softly and persistently and querulously, without hope and without conviction, as does a small dispirited child at night." (from Headed for a Hearse, 1935) Jonathan Wyatt Latimer was born in Chicago. His father was a lawyer and mothert a violinist. Latimer named for an ancestor who served on George Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War. He was educated at Arizona's Mesa School and at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Two summers Latimer spent bicycling in Europe. From 1930 to 1933 he worked for the Herald-Examiner (later Chicago Tribune). In the late 1930s he began screenwriting career, making scripts among others for the series Lone Wolf, depicting a jewel thief turned sleuth, and Charlie Chan, about an Oriental detective, originally created by Earl Derr Biggers. MURDER IN THE MADHOUSE (1935) was Latimer's first novel, in which the protagonist was the hard-drinking William Crane, an operative for a detective agency headed by a man named Colonel Black. "He felt very pleased he had fooled them into thinking he was drunk... He carried out his role so thoroughly he had to be helped into the phone booth..." In the story Bill Crane presented himself at a lunatic asylum as C. Auguste Dupin, the hero from E.A. Poe's stories. Crane is young, handsome, and tough private detective, who spends most of his cases drinking or suffering from a hangover. His drinking buddies are Doc Williams and Tom O'Malley. Crane's devours martinis, bacardis, champagne, bourbon, whiskey, absinthe. Despite the liquor, Crane also manages to solve his cases, in which the plot follow more of less the classic whodunit. HEADED FOR A HEARSE (1936) contains a classic locked-room problem. Crane has only six days to prove that Robert Westland did not murder his wife and rescue his wealthy client from the electric chair. In RED GARDENIAS (1939) Crane is paired with Ann Fortune, his boss's niece. SOLOMON'S VINEYARD, which was written in 1941, appeared under the title FIFTH GRAVE in 1950. Now Crane is married and retired - so Karl Craven solves and revenges the murder of his partner. After five books Latimer abandoned Crane. "I just got kind of bored with him," he later explained. Latimer's novels appeared in The Crime Club group, which had a large readership. Irving Starr's Crime Club series lasted until late 1939. Latimer's other works include DARK MEMORY (1940), about hunting in the Congo, SINNERS AND SHROUDS (1955) and BLACK IS THE FASHION FOR DYING (1959), a story of the murder of an unpleasant Hollywood star. Basically the novel was a spin-off of screenplay. Its hero, Richard Blake, is regardes as Latimer's alter ego. Latimer admitted, that his intention was to kid the hard-boiled school of writing. He felt that Sam Spade was "a pretty deadly serious guy." Crane series turned out to be very popular - three of the books were made into films in the late 1930s with Preston Foster as Crane. But it was not only Crane who drank heavily: "The reporter from the City Press was named Jerry Johnson. His face had an unhealthy pallor; his black eyes were set deep in discolored sockets; he was drinking himself to death as fast as he could on a salary of twenty-six dollars a week." (from The Lady in the Morgue) In the 1930s narcotics were associated with the forces of evil but Latimer describes rather lightheartedly in The Lady in the Morgue a group of musicians getting stoned in the back room of a restaurant. "Those are my boys," said Udoni. "Many musicians have cults, as you call them. It makes the dreams beautiful, instead of sordid, as they ordinarily are from marihuana. I myself rarely smoke, but now it helps me... forget" Crane films belonged to the best low-budgeted Universal pictures. The first, The Westland Case (1937), was adapted from Headed for a Hearse. "The Westland Case was a good if not brilliant beginning for the Crime Club. The novel had to be toned down for the screen, and Christy Cabanne's direction was adequate without deviating from the routine. But Preston Foster and Frank Jenks, as Crane and Williams, were delightful, capturing the proper amount of sardonic humor without overdoing it." (from B Movies by Don Miller, 1987) Lady in the Morgue, directed by Otis Garrett, is considered one of the minor treasures of 1938. This time the story deals with a disappearing corpse. Alberto Moravia has said in an essay, that Latimer "confronted frankly the necrophilia", which Moravia considered a "poorly disguised but genuine" streak of American literature and culture. Otis Garrett managed to apply some clever optical effects inside his budget. The screenplay was written by Eric Taylor and Robertson White. The Last Warning, the third Crane mystery, was filmed in 1938, with emphasis on comedy. During World War two Latimer served in the United States navy (1942- 45). He then settled in La Jolla, California, where he later became friends with Raymond Chandler. In the Hammett film, The Glass Key, directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, Latimer showed his skill at writing apt dialogue. "MADVIG: 'I'm going to society. He's practically given me the key to his house.' BEAUMONT: 'Yeah, a glass key. Be sure it doesn't break up in your hand.'" William Bendix as a brutal heavy steals the film with his deadly endearments: "You mean I don't get to smack baby?" In They Won't Believe Me, directed by Irving Pichel, Lawrence Ballantine (Robert Young) is married to a rich woman, Gretta (Rita Johnson), but is also philandering with Janice Bell (Jane Greer) and Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward). He tries to leave his wife and marry Verna in Reno. After several twists of the plot Gretta dies accidentally and he is charged with the murder of Verna. In the end Ballantine realizes that although he is innocent, his own account of his acts is too aggravating and he tries to escape from the courtroom. Ballantine is shot by a police, and he never hears the verdict: 'not guilty'. The film was based on Gordon McDonnell's novel. JANICE: 'I'm sorry.' After Solomon's Vineyard, a version of Hammett's The Dain Curse, Latimer devoted himself for writing for the movies. In 1955 he broke his silence as a novelist with Sinners and Shrouds, from which Geoffrey O'Brien selected in his study Hardboiled America (1997) a model example of beautiful writing found from paperbacks: "Excited voices soared from near-by houses. A bulb, turned on back of a second-story window, lit the mist overhead. A door slammed somewhere. In the cottage, shrill above music, the telephone began to ring. Clay backed into the mist, turned and started for the street. A rose bush tugged at his coat, scratched his hand, crushed tulips made sighing noises under his feet. He began to runs as he neared the sidewalk." In the story a newspaperman finds a nude female corpse in his room. In several films Latimer cooperated with the director John Farrow, as in THE BIG CLOCK (1947), starring Charles Laughton and Ray Milland. In the story a crime magazine editor Milland tries to cover his own tracks while trying to run down the real murder of his boss's mistress. The film provided the basis of No Way Out (1987), starring Kevin Costner. THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948) was based on Cornell Woolrich's novel. In the story - originally rather rambling - a former professional mind-reader discovers that his powers are genuine. He rescues the daughter of his associate at the cost of his own death. Latimer's screenplay, written with Barré Lyndon, has been praised for its compactness. Farrow's PLUNDER OF THE SUN (1953), filmed in Mexico in the Zapotecan ruins of Mitla and Monte Alban, was a combination of John Huston's Treasure of Sierra Madre and Maltese Falcon. Latimer's screenplay was based on David Dodge's 1950 novel. Latimer was also a successful television writer, and scripted fifty episodes for the Perry Mason TVC series (1960-65). The series, which made a star of Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, has enjoyed cult fame. Latimer died on June 23, 1983. For further reading: Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, ed. by Otto Penzler and Chris Steinbrunner (1976); 'Jonathan Latimer's William Crane - Part Two' by Jim Mc Cahery, in The Not So Private Eye, no. 2 (1978); 'Jonathan W. Latimer: An Interview' by Jim Mc Cahery, in Megavore, no. 11/ (1980); Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers, ed. by John M. Reilly (1985); The American Private Eye by David Geherin (1985); Stewards of the House: The Detective Fiction of Jonathan Latimer by Bill Brubaker (1993); Encyclopdia Mysteriosa by William L. DeAndrea (1994); The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery by Bruce F. Murphy (2001) - Latimer's screenplays: THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT (1939); PHANTOM RIDERS (1940, with Willam R. Lipman); TOPPER RETURNS (1941, with Gordon Douglas and Paul Gerald Smith); A NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS (1941); THE GLASS KEY (1942); WHISTLING IN DIXIE (1942, with others); THE WON'T BELIEVE ME (1946, with Gordon DcDonell); NOCTURNE (1946, with Frank Fenton and Roland Brown); THE BIG CLOCK (1947, with Harold Goldman); SEALED VERDICT (1948); BEYOND GLORY (1948, with Charles Marquis Warren and William Wister Haines); THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948, with Barré Lyndon); ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949, with Mindred Lord); COPPER CANYON (1950, with Richard English); THE REDHEAD AND THE COWBOY (1951, with Liam O'Brien and Charles Marquis Warren); SUBMARINE COMMAND (1951); BOTANY BAY (1953, see Charles Nordhoff); PLUNDER OF THE SUN (1953); BACK FROM ETERNITY (1956, with Richard Carroll); THE UNHOLY WIFE (1957, with William Durkee); THE WHOLE TRUTH (1958) - See also "hard-boiled" mystery writers: Horace McCoy, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane Selected novels:
© 2002 |
