Film Noir Feeds my Fiction

The rules have changed.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that Raymond Chandler’s writing is one of the inspirations for my Thomas Bladen spy thrillers, but I also owe a huge debt to cinema.  It’s my great pleasure now to introduce you to a back catalogue of films that remain classics of the spy / thriller genre. Many of them are derived from novels but for consistency I will only reference the films and I’ve added the IMDB links so you can read about the plot in more detail. I hope you find some old favourites here, as well as some ‘new’ classics to add to your own list.

We’ll come back to Raymond Chandler in a bit. First and foremost, I have to pay tribute to The 39 Steps, a tale of a man unwittingly drawn into a murderous conspiracy, who goes on the run to prove his innocence. I favour the 1935 version with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, as well as a brilliant BBC version from 2008 (which includes elements from the novel that were left out of every other film). How much do I love The 39 Steps? Well, in Standpoint, Thomas watches the 1935 version with Miranda and comments on how Hitchcock changed the story from the novel. There’s also a homage to one of the film’s plot devices in Line of Sight, my follow-up to Standpoint. I put North by Northwest (1959) alongside The 39 Steps as another great example of a mistaken identity driving the plot forward. How do you win through when you don’t know what you’re supposed to know? I think it helps to have other people looking out for you from time to time.

The films Farewell My Lovely (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and The Long Goodbye (1973) allow Raymond Chandler’s world-weary private detective, Philip Marlowe, to fill the screen; much like Bogart’s performance as Sam Spade in the Dashiell Hammett co-scripted adaptation of The Maltese Falcon. My original intention had been to write Thomas Bladen as a detective, only he arrived pretty much fully formed and had his own opinions about what he did for a living. What I love most about this batch of films is the dialogue and the characterisation. The plots are well-crafted but to me they are secondary. The ‘hero’ is flawed and his attitude is often more hindrance than help as he battles relentlessly against the tide. These films are gritty, sometimes sleazy and show the underbelly of society. Yet somehow, almost miraculously, the hero emerges with most of his honour intact. My fondness for this genre led to the creation of Leon Thurston, a West Indian private detective who plies his trade from an old minicab office in Dalston. East London. While we’re on the subject of Chandler, make time for The Blue Dahlia (1947) – it’s an intriguing whodunit that apparently involved a controversial rewritten ending…but you can research that for yourself! Like Alan Ladd’s Johnny Morrison, Thomas Bladen is a little out of steps with the world around him, but the right woman makes all the difference.

Spies yet? Well, almost. Vicious Circle (1957) finds a humble doctor (humble but with a cravat!) drawn into a deadly game of blackmail and intrigue that leads him questioning who is out to get him – and why? I’d put this one in the same category as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and also (1956). Ordinary people in extraordinary times, who dig deep when they find themselves pawns in a much bigger game – much like Robert Hannay in The 39 Steps.

Both The Conversation (1974) and Enemy of the State (1998) tackle surveillance, paranoia and ethics, along with the perennial question of who watches the watchers. It is perennial too, as that phrase is as old as the Romans. In Thomas Bladen’s world, a simple surveillance job often turns out to be far more complicated and it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions (not that it stops him). The observer may seem impartial but they cannot deny there are consequences to their work. Three Days of the Condor (1975) pits one man against the ‘organisation’, by trying to stay one step ahead of everyone, in order to get to the truth and hold people in power accountable. By book five, Flashpoint, Thomas has learned that justice can take many forms and sometimes even a bitter compromise is the best option. The Third Man (1949) involves a mystery, a disappearing act with a difference and a conspiracy – how do you find out the truth when everyone is telling you something different? Its cunning and amoral titular character (compelling played by Orson Welles) dominates the film despite not being the main role. This group of films demonstrate another element that I wanted to bring to my books: unresolved endings. The moviegoer is left wondering what could happen afterwards.

I hope you’ll make time to watch all these films, even if you’ve seen them before.  

For those who enjoy extra homework, make time for:

The Long Memory (1953)

Rear Window (1954)

A Prize of Arms (1962)

Gilda (1946)

Build My Gallows High (1946)

In a Lonely Place (1946)

When not watching classic cinema, I write Thomas Bladen spy thrillers - intrigue, action and sardonic humour.

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Thompson/e/B0034ORY08

US https://www.amazon.com/Derek-Thompson/e/B0034ORY08

FLASHPOINT – Part Five of the Spy Chaser series

After London suffers a coordinated terror attack, Thomas Bladen questions everything – his future with Miranda, his Surveillance Support Unit job and even his clandestine role as a Spy Chaser.

But his troubles are just beginning.

When the Unit comes under MI5’s control and two senior SSU staff disappear, his search for answers is blocked at every turn.

A missing handgun and the reappearance of old adversaries forces him into uneasy alliances and hard choices.

-       Could there be a double agent in their latest assignment?

-       What is behind the rift between government departments?

-       And what if he has got it wrong this time?

Thomas must face his deepest fears and what he discovers could change the rules forever.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Shadow State

Science is golden.

Even if you don't believe in destiny you probably accept the word of Sir Isaac Newton. His 'three laws', unlike Isaac Asimov's (now that's what I call a literary reference), underpin not only our understanding of physics, but also of daily life and writing.

The First Law states that:
a) An object at rest remains at rest unless a force acts upon it.
b) An object in motion stays that way - same direction and speed - unless a force acts upon it.

Simply put, in fiction something has to happen in order for something to change, whether the outcome is progressive or regressive. You could argue that every twist and turn in a novel is really a Newtonian force zinging into the protagonist from an unanticipated angle.

I'm more of a plotter than a pantser when it comes to putting together a story, but I welcome an unexpected inspiration that careers towards me and knocks a character out of the picture or into it. Shadow State, the fourth book in the Thomas Bladen 'Spy Chaser' series owes a debt to Newton. I thought I had the plot figured out and my characters were moving purposefully towards the checkpoints on my writing roadmap. (I know, it makes writing sounds really romantic, huh?) 

And then...out the corner of my mind's eye, this speck of light, this flicker of 'what if' from the muse slammed into my carefully constructed plot. Okay, carefully might be overstating it a bit. But the result was surprising. A character did something unexpected and I had a choice of whether to run with it and see where it led, or to rein them in and remind them that it was my ball and therefore my rules. I went with Plan A, trusting the character I thought I'd created - we can debate that one on a chair and couch some other time - and ended up somewhere else. It was different to my original vision and I liked it. Writers like to be surprised. It keeps us on our toes and it's a great reminder that we are engaging with a fluid and mimetic imagination. 

You could say that Shadow State is something of an experiment in places. It features many characters from the series and a couple of new ones. It redraws the map in places, as far as loyalties go, and it peels back the layers a little more of the characters we think we know. It plays with some of the conventions and, I hope, it adds something special to the canon.

If you're drawn to British spy thrillers that give a nod to Len Deighton, John le Carre, Raymond Chandler, and Harlan Coben, Shadow State might be just your cup of coffee. Intrigue, action, sardonic humour and swearing - what's not to like?

SHADOW STATE

Thomas Bladen thinks he is in control. He's wrong. When Thomas is confronted by a Shadow State operative, he is given a stark choice - expose a defector or face the consequences. But who is the real enemy? A stake out becomes a rescue, an intervention leads to murder and loyalties are stretched to breaking point. Soon Thomas is forced into a dangerous game, turning the Shadow State against itself. 

"Good spy thriller with a appealing flawed hero in Bladen. Liked the London life evoked!"

Shadow State is published by Joffe Books. Come and meet Thomas Bladen.

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Thompson/e/B0034ORY08

US https://www.amazon.com/Derek-Thompson/e/B0034ORY08

Guest Blog by Roger Morris - The Surrealism of Detective Fiction

I'm reading, on and off, an anthology of American Detective Stories. It has some authors I've heard of, including Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain, Sue Grafton and William Faulkner (yes, that William Faulkner!) and many I hadn't. Clinton H. Stagg is of the latter group. His story, The Keyboard of Silence (1923), features - wait for it - a blind detective.

Reading the story has convinced me of a long-standing thesis of mine: detective fiction is actually a branch of surrealism.

To quote one joyously surreal passage: ‘“One often wonders,” continued Colton [the blind detective] ... “why a stout woman, like that one two tables to our left, for instance, will suffer the tortures of her hereafter for the sake of drinking high balls in a tight, purple gown.”’
His assistant is understandably amazed. But as the blind detective explains, ‘”All stout women who breathe asthmatically wear purple. It is the only unfailing rule of femininity. And to one who has practised the art of locating sounds that come to doubly sharp ears the breathing part was easy.”’ And so on.

Stagg (who sadly died at the age of 26) was parodied by no less than Agatha Christie for his lack of realism. But I can’t help feeling Agatha is missing the point. The point is not that it’s unrealistic. The point is it’s fun.

Another surrealist masquerading as a detective writer is G.K. Chesterton, whose Father Brown stories I am also dipping in and out of at the moment. Chesterton was a master of the ‘impossible crime’, and an unashamed exponent of the puzzle story. In fact, back then, in the Golden Age of detective fiction, there was no shame in writing stories that were primarily literary puzzles.
Much of the surrealism of the Chesterton stories is tied up in the solution of the crime, which often pushes plausibility to the limit. Well, beyond it, if we’re honest. I can’t give you any specifics, because I would be giving away the endings, but it’s hard to beat ‘The Secret Garden’ for the sheer audacity and outrageousness of its denouement.

The surrealists themselves were fans of pulp crime fiction, most notably the Fantômas series of novels by Souvestre and Allain. The fascination shows in Magritte’s 1926 painting The Menaced Assassin. A woman lies naked on a chaise longue, blood streaming from her mouth. A man, presumably her murderer, listens to a gramophone. His overcoat and hat are on a chair, with a suitcase on the floor. Two men in lie in wait for him on either side of the doorway, one holding a net, the other a club. At the window behind him, three heads are shown peering into the room. It was that painting, and the desire to write the story it suggests, that inspired me to take up crime writing in the first place.

How will Fantômas escape? Answers on a postcard – or in a blog comment.

Detective stories link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Book-American-Detective-Stories/dp/0195117921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239207912&sr=1-1
Father Brown link: http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780140097665,00.html
Reference for Magritte painting: http://robertarood.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/the_menaced_assassin.jpg

Roger Morris lives in North London and is the author of a series of historical crime novels featuring Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. In fact today sees the publication of the US Penguin paperback of the second book in this series, A Vengeful Longing. To find out more about his successful writing career visit his website or blog.