Luchino Visconti’ first directorial effort “Ossessione” was made in 1942 and released in 1943. That we still have Visconti’s first feature film to watch today is an amazing story in itself. Filmed during World War II while Italy was still under the control of Mussolini’s deteriorating fascist government, Visconti read a copy of James M. Cain’s pulp classic novel, “The Postman Always Rings Twice” given to him by Jean Renoir.
"The Cocktail Waitress was found among his papers after a decade-long search and has never been published… until now. Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son. At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000 tip and an unconventional offer of marriage... Can you have any doubt that things will end badly for one or both of them? No, that’s not a spoiler – it’s a simple statement of fact when you’re talking about a Cain femme fatale, the deadliest species there is." –Huffington Post
"The Cocktail Waitress is a not-to-be missed crime thriller for all Cain fans ... A rare, hardboiled blast from the past." –Shelf Awareness
"It’s easy to fall for a previously unpublished work by Cain, whose oeuvre includes The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) and Double Indemnity (1943). Fortunately, The Cocktail Waitress—which the author sought to complete before perishing in 1977—serves up ample delights. We witness the unfolding drama through Joan’s eyes, while wondering what she’s withholding." –Kirkus Reviews
Excerpt from The Cocktail Waitress, by James M. Cain: "I guess it was 11:30 that night, when Tom came in with his friends, three other guys and two girls, the men all young and rugged and both the women beauties, and all of them half crocked when they got there. Liz had overflow business, and Bianca gave them to me, putting them in a booth, which made a pretty tight fit. It was so tight that Tom had to push one girl in just a little bit tighter before wedging in himself, on the left side of the booth as I faced it, which of course put him next to me, one leg jutting out into the aisle, when I stood in to serve. He grinned naughtily at me, in a way clearly meant to make my heart race, and it annoyed me that, being a rather handsome grin, it did, just a little. Then they all began ordering doubles-bourbon and ginger ale, I suppose the worst combination ever, not only to make them all drunker, but also to make them sicker."
Source: boingboing.net
"Abbott has fashioned a noir thriller that may remind readers of James M. Cain's brooding melodramas. She need not fear the comparison. Her story, rendered in a captivatingly off-beat style, crackles with suspense, and her portrait of L.A. in the 1950s, a seductive mixture of sleaze and sophistication, rings all-too-sadly true." —Robert Wade, San Diego Union-Tribune
"For months, it seemed all she did was bake. She was learning by doing, with Betty Crocker perched on the counter, with Joy of Cooking, with our mother’s dog-eared collection of country cookbooks. She made a raspberry-coconut jelly roll for a brunch with the Leders and Conlans. A rum-and-cherry-cola marble cake for a cocktail party. Caramel-apple chiffon cupcakes soaked through with Dry Sack cream sherry for the Halloween party. On Bill’s birthday, she spent hours making cream-puff swans shaped from what she carefully pronounced as a “pâté à chou.” For a block party, almond icebox cake and cornflake macaroons. Chow mein-noodle haystacks and fried spaghetti cookies for a neighborhood association bake sale. For a dinner party, white chocolate grasshopper pie still foaming with melted marshmallows and doused with Hiram Walker. More dinner parties and still racier items, ambrosia brimming with Grand Marnier, a fruit-cocktail gelatin ring nearly a foot high and glistening. As the parties grew more elaborate, more frenetic, bourbon balls studded with pecans and Nesselrode pie with sweet Marsala and chestnuts. Strawberries Biltmore covered with vanilla custard sauce. Baked Alaska drizzled through with white rum. Peach Melba suffused with framboise." -"Die A Little" (2005) by Megan E. Abbott
Megan Abbott made an impressive debut last year with "Die a Little," a dreamy exploration of 1950s Americana that was nominated for every best first novel award in the field. Her follow-up, "The Song Is You" (2007), is even better. Abbott manages to camouflage her brainy academic credentials within a spellbinding retro-milieu. She was a good prose stylist out of the gate, but this book has a more enticing plot and stronger characters than her first. It nicely jumbles up true-life elements -- forgotten '40s murder victim Jean Spangler, slutty starlet Barbara Payton, a Martin-and-Lewis-style comedy act-- into a compelling murder mystery spearheaded by a well-soiled studio publicist named Gil "Hop" Hopkins. Abbott has a real flair for the era's lingo and style, which she renders with a breathless sensual elegance. -Eddie Muller
Source: sfgate.com
With abundant style and a tight convincing story, Abbott provides a retro thrill-ride. Cain and Chandler are evoked in the rough-and-tumble period language... but Abbott has her own voice, avoiding the genre's macho conventions, to evoke the young women who live 'in a gasp of tension'. -Kirkus Reviews
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