Woolrich, Cornell

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 ... / I Married a Dead Man (Library of America)

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'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)

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)

The Cornell Woolrich Omnibus: Rear Window and Other Stories / I Married a Dead Man / Waltz into Darkness

Mystery aficionado Ellery Queen said of Cornell Woolrich that he can "distill more terror, more excitement, more downright nail-biting suspense out of even the most commonplace happenings than nearly all his competitors." Woolrich's work continues to fascinate readers all around the world, and this trilogy should become a staple in all noir collections. It contains two full length novels (I Married a Dead Man and Waltz into Darkness) and five short stories, including "Rear Window"-works in which one of the genre's consumate "poets of terror" explores all the classic noir themes of loneliness, despair, futility, and occasionally redemption.
* Film adaptations of Woolrich works include the Hitchcock classic Rear Window.
* Christopher Reeve will star in an upcoming television remake of Rear Window.

Manhattan Love Song

"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.

Whitfield's first novel, and the one critics like the best (Hammett loved it, but, then, Whitfield and Hammett were drinking buddies.) The story begins with Mal Ourney's release from a two-year prison sentence. While in prison Ourney apparently develops sympathy for the small-time crooks he meets, and hatches a plan to get the big guys when he gets out. Rumors of this spread outside the prison walls and he is a target for a frame-up within hours of his release.

Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories

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

I Married a Dead Man (Crime, Penguin)

Rear Window and Other Stories (Crime, Penguin)