Happy MLK Day, readers!
I'm looking forward to watching the new Kevin Bacon-starring, Kevin Williamson-scripted serial killer drama on Fox tonight, The Following. Looks like it can be good.
Thumbs down to the BBC's Ripper Street. I just didn't find it at all compelling. I didn't see what it had to do at all with Jack the Ripper. It was very mediocre and there wasn't a thing about it (from the characters to the storylines to the acting) that made me want to re-visit it in the forthcoming weeks.
It took me of all three days to finish Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby. I know I'm almost five decades late to the party on this one, but what a book! I have a deep appreciation for the brilliantly scripted and directed film version (by Roman Polanski, with an incomparable Mia Farrow performance) and as fully realized and controlled an adaptation as that is, it would still be worthwhile to read the book if you haven't done so and have only seen the movie.
Ira Levin (1929-2007) is definitely an author of note. He wasn't the most prolific of author - only seven novels in four decades - but is output was highly influential in the genre of horror and psychological suspense:
- A Kiss Before Dying (1953), his first novel, was an award-winning thriller about a deceitful, murderous young man who tries to cover up the death of his girlfriend by getting involved with her twin sister. Made into two movies, one in the 1950s with a bland Robert Wagner, the other in 1991 with Matt Dillon.
- Rosemary's Baby is one of the most popular horror novels of all time. The sequel, Son of Rosemary (1997), was an abysmally-reviewed paycheck of a book.
- The Stepford Wives (1972) introduced the term "Stepford" into the cultural lexicon. Of course, it was made into a couple of movies too.
- The Boys From Brazil was another excellenntly-reviewed bestseller about Dr. Joseph Mengele's plot to restore The Third Reich, made into a successful 1978 movie with an Oscar-nominated Laurence Olivier.
- Sliver (1991) was another critically-approved bestseller morphed a couple of years later into a thoroughly awful Sharon Stone vehicle.
- This Perfect Day (1970) is Levin's version of A Brave New World - a dystopian novel about a "perfect" society.
- It is also worth noting that Levin was an accomplished playwright: No Time For Sergeants was a huge hit in the 1950s (and made into a movie with Andy Griffith, who originated the role on Broadway); Deathtrap, from 1978, was a cat-and-mouse, twist-filled thriller that for a time was the longest-running suspense play in Broadway history. It was made into a movie in 1982 with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve.
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