Djones Messier Part 2 The Bounty Hunters.

There is a central conceit in here, around which much of the story turns, it walks or it falls: the Territorial Adjutant of Arizona is a coward - he cannot withstand immediate physical danger - and he is a more or less pathological paranoiac. Note the two things are separate; it is not to be assumed that one necessarily follows from the other. Now; the cowardice is uncontroversial. There are many well-documented instances or senior military officials unable to withstand immediate physical danger. No, the conceit is the paranoia; how a leader of men could have a successful career spanning 20 years with a personality disorder.

It might be thought that this is picky - criticism for its own sake - but that isn’t the point. We all know what a useless concept realism is; everyone has their own version of it. The good writer makes plausible impossibilites, as Aristotle had it (Some guy I met in a poolroom once. You wouldn’t know him). What we have here is the fiction unfolded, turned around, turned over, showing its mechanism. We’re caught up in the story, we’ve been told that this isn’t the time for analysis, asking the how or the why. You have to see clearly, evaluate what you see, & act, act immediately. And while you’re looking, squinting to see what it is that’s moving out in the darkness, your life depends on it, & Elmore inserts - this is the mechanism - the how & the why, the Colonel’s paranoia. The story doesn’t break stride.

Before reading The Bounty Hunters I thought Red Bowers was a Detroit suburb. Think about it.

djones - 01 June 2007 09:27 AM

Djones Messier Part 2 The Bounty Hunters.

No, the conceit is the paranoia; how a leader of men could have a successful career spanning 20 years with a personality disorder.

Some might say it would be hard to imagine a “leader” of men without a personality disorder (the first that comes to mind might be Nixon). It’s like an athlete without an ego.

Still this idea of “leader of men” and “position of power” being the same thing is interesting. Yesterday someone mentioned that the novel, Valdez is Coming was an expansion on the short story, “Only Good Ones,” so I went and read it (for the first time). Then, at random from The Complete Western Stories, I read “The Hard Way.” Both stories feature Mexican lawmen in America, chosen for their positions for political reasons, both of them boxed into the same kind of corner with the same results (hope that doesn’t give too much away, but really, go read them, it’ll only take a couple of minutes).

The stories are short and to the point and bring up all kinds of issues of power, justice and rule of law. They give some real perspective on some complicated issues. There’s a great line in “Only Good Ones,” that sums up a lot of this, when a guy named R.L. Davis is sucking up to the boss-man, Mr. Tanner, pissing off town constable Bob Valdez (twenty years old and on the job for three weeks);

Bob Valdez did not like R.L. Davis or any of the R.L. Davises he had met. He was civil, he listened to them, but, God, there were a lot of them to listen to.

Yes John, from the acorn grows the mighty oak
the 2nd rule begs analysis, asks the reader to look into the time of the story
this central Dutch theme, authority, true and false,
can be understood in context, without conceit.
Perhaps the confusion of power with authority is more to the point
The Civil War is rife with instances of this, the leaders lacking in capability
Valdez is an early police proceedural that deals with power and authority
like the Bounty Hunters deals with a mass insanity that results
The bounty placed on the heads of the Indian Peoples
reminds us of that placed on the heads of the Jews
still too fresh to novelize directly

I’m getting away from this Genocide stuff. Too easy to say something totally stupid, even if you do say it in a kind of verse. Keep away, fool.. I’m getting on with the western stories from 1953 & ‘54. Already there are a lot fewer of them pesky redskins.

Read on Dark Lord
the age of Bob Valdez changes from the short story to the novel
an implied maturity
I know we each live in our own Bizzarro World
backward in time
Merlin the sheer joy of saying something stupid anyway

Djones is messy, Slater’s messier.

Part 3: The western stories of 1953, from ‘The Friar’s Edge’ to ‘Rindo’s Station’.

The odor of hot breechclout (O how I love that word) is thinning out. A relief for me. It’s impossible to be less than 100% on the side of the Apache & whatever they do to escape being uh ‘reserved’. Not being a citizen of the U.S.A. 

Anyway, here we start getting much more imaginatively plotted material; although this poses the Hammett Problem: all of this is supposed to be of high quality, worthy of inclusion in some kind of canon; but what was the competition like? For a nonprofessional, it’s a mystery, so to speak.

But they’re imaginative & varied & not only ‘3.10 to Yuma’ but most all of them could be stretched to make a tightly plotted 90 minute movie.

I’m not yet converted into a fan of the western genre (If we’re still allowed to use that word) but the wordsmanship, its rhythm & cadence, is starting to give me a lot of pleasure.

There’s this, from ‘The Hard Way’, that I liked a lot:

“All right, mester, it’s all the same to me”. John Benedict said you had to be courteous.

The cops on the Spanish frontier still do this. You try to explain that the equivalent in English to Señor when you’re addressing someone like that is ‘Sir’, but they keep on doing it: OK meester, open your trunk, meester, adios, meester…

Tu madre, motherfucker. Let’s go to Randado...

(Part 4 is on the Randado thread.)

Has everybody gone on their vacation early this year? It’s awful quiet on this forum. Too quiet. Anyway, on to (my) step 5: the western stories from 1954 & ‘55, from Bobby Valdez to Jugged.

Apaches get replaced by an even worse set of bad guys: sneakier, stealthier, silence their weapon of choice. Women.  As soon as they ride into town all the men - terrified, dishonored, utterly ashamed or enraged by lust - start to beat each other up.  Shoot each other if it comes to that. You can see why a modern woman might dislike these portrayals. They’d just remind her of what yellow-livered cowards modern men are in this regard compared to them days.

djones - 27 June 2007 08:08 AM

You can see why a modern woman might dislike these portrayals. They’d just remind her of what yellow-livered cowards modern men are in this regard compared to them days.

Ha, nice, turning it on the men. What would she think about the portrayals of these women? No, never mind that, what do you think of them?

People have said that when the western market dried up Elmore Leonard simply took the same stories and characters and moved them to modern day (he may have said this himself, I forget). Certainly calling a book High Noon in Detroit points to that, but what do you think?

Most of the day the woman, Gay Erin, rode behind Valdez as they climbed out of the flatland and across sloping meadows that stretched toward the pine timber, in the open sunlight all morning and into the afternoon, until they reached the deep shade of the forest.
Feels like a vacation in one sentence.

Here’s a list I’ve been working on elsewhere

Franks in general, franks and beans, franks for the memories, frankly my dear

Frank Rellis, Bounty Hunters
Frank
Kirby’s partner,
they split up when Danaher and Lt. Davis break up the posse
happy to be rid of him too, Law at Randado
Frank Renda, Escape From Five Shadows
Frank Braden, Hombre
Frank Pizzaro, Big Bounce
Jack Ryan’s asshole brother-in-law Frank, Big Bounce
Frank Long, The Moonshine War
Frank Tanner, Valdez is Coming
Frank Shelby, Forty Lashes less one
Frank Renda, Mr. Majestyk
So far the only novel published without a bad Frank is Last Stand

Funny you should mention vacation Djones,
all the locales up to Mr. Majestyk
could be considered vacation country
for a lad from Detroit
After a shitload of short stories and 5 novels in Southern Arizona
The Big Bounce is about a young ballplayer bouncing his way home
trying to get laid in the Thumb of Michigan
Social comment on migrant workers turns
to the Hills of Kentucky and the wild days between the wars
The community arrayed at the end
and the beginning of a run of 3 very different Southern Arizona stories.
Valdez is the mature Hombre balanced between community and his heart, Dutch’s first love story?
Related to Law via the Stages of the Cross,
that walk home barefooted in the first and an actual cross in this one.
Forty Lashes Less One is a comedy prison romp, the internal struggles of one man of faith and the hilarious punch line where the “F” word is first used.
Somehow related to Escape.
Frank Renda
the first manefestation of an organized crime figure in the modern sense
his girlfriend Wiley thinks “Frank is fun to watch”
social comment back to migrant labour
and love is wrapped up in passion
Hombre Majestyk

Why two Frank Rendas?  Is this the only instance of Elmore using the same name for two different characters?

Scrum - 04 July 2007 04:12 PM

Why two Frank Rendas?  Is this the only instance of Elmore using the same name for two different characters?

1)  Billy Ruiz from THE BIG BOUNCE and SWAG might be different people.

By Robb on Saturday, December 07, 2002 - 10:37 pm:
Leon Woody is in “Swag” and “The Big Bounce”. Jack Ryan is mentioned in “Swag”. Jira posted that earlier.

I didn’t realize there is another connection.

Billy Ruiz worked with Jack Ryan in “The Big Bounce”. I forgot he was in it. They picked cucumbers and stole some wallets. Billy is also in “Swag”.

This was Jira’s post.

In “The Big Bounce”, Jack Ryan tells Nancy about the days when he and his buddy, Leon Woody, would do a little B&E;. In “Swag”, Leon Woody is Sportree’s partner in the Hudson Department store job. (He’s the guy who shoots Billy Ruiz in the stairwell.) When Leon first meets Frank Ryan in “Swag”, he mentions that he used to have a carpet cleaning business with a Jack Ryan.

By lacrimatty on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 02:08 pm:
In The Big Bounce, 1969, we meet a stoop laborer named Billy Ruiz, a low-rent guy with bad teeth who helps Jack Ryan burglarize a beach house. In Swag, 1976, we meet a new Billy Ruiz, another loser, this one a half-assed pro fighter until going to prison in 1955 for murder.

The first time in Swag his name is mentioned we see his true name is Carmen Billy Ruiz—so we know it’s a different guy from the one in Bounce—but from then on Elmore calls him Billy Ruiz.

Aside from the addition of Carmen, we know this is a different guy since the Billy Ruiz in Swag wasn’t released untill 1972.

2)  Bo Catlett GET SHORTY and GUNSIGHTS

By Robb on Tuesday, August 27, 2002 - 12:53 pm:
Great job with the Swag/Jack Ryan connection.

Bo Catlett from “Get Shorty” changed his name from Antonio when he found out about his great, great grandfather being a U.S. Cavalryman.
“I changed my name from Antonio to Bo Catlett, left the camps for good and took off for Detroit to learn to be black.”

The original Bo Catlett was in Gunsights and the short, “Hurrah for Captain Early”. Was he in “Cuba Libre”? He is a great character.

Wasn’t Linda Moon in “Glitz” and “Be Cool”?

3)  Linda Moon GLITZ and BE COOL

see above and below

4)  Robert Taylor TISHOMINGO BLUES and BE COOL

By Lacrimatty (Lacrimatty) on Sunday, August 31, 2003 - 05:48 am:
I can’t believe I didn’t remember this when I read Tishomingo, but in Be Cool, Raji’s true name is Robert Taylor. Elmore must really love the name to use it again so quickly in Tishomingo.

Also in Be Cool, Linda Moon (the original girl from Glitz) is married to Vincent Mora, the cop from that book, has four kids with him, and gives her last name to rock singer Linda, Chili’s first music biz client. As EL has stated in interviews, he loves the name Linda Moon and came up with the give-away move so he could use it again without incurring liability to the studio that owns it, the one that bought Glitz and made that bad Jimmy Smits movie.

There are also a lot of last names that have been used a few times—Givens, Hicks, Nix, and Kidd.  They could be relatives or the same person.

Djones’ Messier No. 6 Escape From Five Shadows.

Whatever the word means to you now, our common civilisation is based on 19th Century Liberalism. The Father of Liberalism, John Stuart Mill, was well aware of the difficulties the state confronts in lts more disagreeable functions. Like the penal system. Who will guard the guardians? These civil servants won’t be in it for a large salary, so if they don’t do it out of a sense of civic duty they’ll be either stupid, sadistic, corrupt, or a blend of the three. Like Willis & Renda. But the real villain in this story is the dumb anonymous asshole who decided on the 70 cents a day allocation for care of the convicts. If Renda can keep them fit enough to do the work every day on 20 cents, then 70 is way too high. It’s just sitting there, a temptation. Who could resist it? Certainly not a Frank.

Yeah Man what’s with that?
I see them as all related so Warden Renda in Escape is Great Great Grandaddy to Mafioso Frank in Mr Majestyk
I noticed that all the Hombre class dudes are unmarried except Paul Cable in Last Stand
Only Last Stand has no Frank
Vincent Majestyk has to be the nephew of Walter Justice Majestyk of Geneva Beach
See the 5 Southern Arizona Westerns of the 50’s against the 5 Vacation Destinations Stories of the 60’s
The Thumb Michigan
The Hollows Kentucky
Valdez So. Arizona
40 Lashes “
Majestyk “
I’m already into 52 Pick-up
Finally in Detroit or what the Motor City was at that time
Right away the fat owner of the Model Agency in the old sporting goods store at 6 Mile and Woodward
Named Leo Frank
I’m going out of my freakin mind
By way of background Harry Mitchell and Jack Ryan in Big Bounce both remember stealing sporting goods as kids
Use the expression “Bag Your Ass” at times of important communication
Also we see marital difficulties begin to become topical

Forty Lashes Less One 1972
One of the funniest stories of Dutch’s prolific career set in and around the Yuma Territorial Prison in the winter of 1909. The Wild West is still wild but there is a transition taking place with the use of motorcars and railroads to drive the action up into the hills in this story of a great prison break. The political climate is balanced around the new interim superintendent, a Mr. Everest Manly, who is most defiantly not, his main preoccupation being the holy word and its use as a guide to the misguided men and women at the old granite prison fortress in the desert. The real heroes are innocent black Army veteran Harold Jackson and mixed up mixed breed Raymond San Carlos, pitted against white prisoners and jailers in a deadly game of survival and prison break. The action builds to a punch line of great power and humour.
The innocent black army vet a recurring theme, Orlando Rincon Valdez, Bo Catlett Hurrah
Seems to say that the liberal minded bureaucrat
fraught with guilt and despair
tries to provide some pittance of survival
more to blame
than the greedy
immoral capitalist
?
too simple
yet
gets back
to the questions
of genocide
and
guilt
of the guilty
and
innocent

Djones, part 7: the western stories from 1956

There’s some business on this forum about the ‘Million Word Mark’, at which point, it is said, a professional writer ought to have found his personal voice. In the absence of any other advice along these lines, this sounds wise enough. I estimate, with this batch of stories, in 1956, we are up to about six or seven hundred thousand words & I came across a passage that convinced me that here, already, Mr Leonard has indeed found his own personal voice. It’s just a short phrase, from ‘The Longest Day of His Life’, but with the emphasis added it says pretty much all that can be said on the matter:

She remembered being frightened in front of Edward Moak, then amused, considering it an unususl experience, one that would make good telling, especially if you described it almost casually.

More Frank—have you mentioned JOE KIDD.

Director:  John Sturges
Writer:  Elmore Leonard (written by)
Release Date:  14 July 1972 (USA) more
Genre:  Western more
Plot Outline:
An ex-bounty hunter reluctantly helps a wealthy landowner and his henchmen track down a Mexican revolutionary leader. more

Clint Eastwood   ...  Joe Kidd

Robert Duvall   ...  Frank Harlan

IMDb