The Official
Elmore Leonard Website

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Forty Lashes Less One is one of the lesser known works of Elmore Leonard, published in 1972, his last western before Gunsights.  At one time, Quentin Tarantino proclaimed he was going to make the movie version.  On the Quentin Tartantino Archives in 2007 he was quoted saying:

I actually own the rights to that novel. It’s a terrific novel. I could never let go of it. I’ve written about, like 20 pages of the adaptation of it. But I might very well do it some time. It’s the only thing that I have just kind of held on to, that I can’t quite let go. I might do it some time.

Actually, he doesn’t own the rights.

Also from the QT Archives: (Ancient history department)

It was rumored to star Samuel L. Jackson and possibly Adam Sandler or Bruce Willis.

That would have been cool; at least the Sam Jackson part.

The story:

The hell called Yuma Prison can destroy the soul of any man. And it’s worse for those whose damning crime is the color of their skin. The law says Chiricahua Apache Raymond San Carlos and black-as-night former soldier Harold Jackson are murderers, and they’ll stay behind bars until they’re dead and rotting. But even in the worst place on Earth, there’s hope. And for two hard and hated inmates—first enemies, then allies by necessity—it waits at the end of a mad and violent contest ... on a bloody trail that winds toward Arizona’s five most dangerous men.