From the moment when Roy Dillon gets smacked in the stomach with a baseball bat, you know Things Are Not Going To Go Well in this noir classic. Dillon finds himself involved with his mistress, Moira, who tries to convince him to drop the small grifting and attempt a Big Con with her. Meanwhile Dillon’s mother, Lily (who works for the Mob), has her own plans for her wayward son. Jim Thompson is best known for The Killer Inside Me and A Swell-Looking Babe. But The Grifters offers insight into criminal minds that you won’t find in other noir fiction. Jim Thompson is a master of capturing the life of small-time criminals and this book is one of his best. The movie is pretty good, too.
I thought the film did a pretty admirable job.
You’re right, David, they did do an admirable job with the film version of THE GRIFTERS. It’s hard to believe that was 20 years ago!
Second-tier Thompson, which is still quite good.
Thompson’s works, even the lesser ones, explode with raw power, Dan. The opening scene and the final scene in THE GRIFTERS are shocking.
Good choice, George. I agree it’s not Thompson’s best but even his second best is pretty good, and Anjelica Huston was perfect in the movie.
I love Anjelica Huston in THE GRIFTERS, Jeff. She played the perfect “Lily.”
And Cusack is great, too. Perfectly cast movie.
The casting was great in THE GRIFTERS, Patti. I’m always surprised at the number of people who haven’t seen the film.
I’ve read the big two but not this one. Then again, I’m finding I shy away from dark noir in which the spiral downward is so relentless and everything is more bad news piled on bad news. Maybe that’s a reaction to watching the local news on television… I’ve just pulled back from the noir stuff. I prefer tha kind of thing I did today…
I guess that sounded like a shameless plug, which it wasn’t intended to be, but what the hell.
I know exactly what you mean, Rick. Sometimes noir is just so depressing. After reading Jim Thompson I require a chaser of P. G. Wodehouse.
Not only the casting, but the script adaptation, by some guy named Westlake, made the film.
Westlake knew how to handle noir, Todd. I love his Parker novels.
Contrast the well-cast but poorly-adapted THIS WORLD, AND THEN THE FIREWORKS film, for example…
I don’t know THIS WORLD, AND THEN THE FIREWORKS, Todd. I’ll check GOOGLE.
I don’t care much for Thompson, mostly because he did his job almost too well. If his idea was to unsettle post-war readers, he’s still doing it, decades after the novels were published.
Amused by the phrase “strong meat” on the cover. You seldom hear it these days.
I was hoping someone would mention that “Strong Meat” blurb, Drongo! That’s why I picked that particular cover. Thompson’s work is strong meat, indeed.
Those sideways covers are always interesting. And what’s that weird logo on the other edition? Looks like a dog with a telephone on his head.
That’s actually a Black Lizard edition, Evan. They were published in Berkley, CA. I suppose that “dog with a telephone on his head” is supposed to be a lizard.
THIS WORLD the short novel/novella, which I read in Ed Gorman’s SECOND BLACK LIZARD ANTHOLOGY OF CRIME FICTION, is much better fiction than the adaptation is as a film…and I suggest the script is largely to blame (I suspect the movie was conceived as a Billy Zane vehicle). Rather slack, while the Thompson isn’t at all.
I have that SECOND BLACK LIZARD ANTHOLOGY OF CRIME around here somewhere, Todd. I haven’t read “This World” but your remarks convince me I should soon.