Showing posts with label Parker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parker. Show all posts

Thursday, August 31, 2017

The Man With The Getaway Face (Parker #2)


The Man With The Getaway Face, by Richard Stark
No month stated, 1962  Pocket Books

The Parker series continues with this second novel that’s a bit shorter than the first. I actually read The Man With The Getaway Face a few years ago, after The Hunter, but refrained for some reason from reviewing it (same as I did for The Outfit, which I’m about to read again and review this time). I’ve been meaning to get back to the series, and figured I should start over again – but this time I actually listened to it.

Surprisingly, all of the Parker novels have been given unabridged audio versions; the first few are read by a voice actor named John Chancer, who does an admirable job of capturing the various voices in the novel. He especially excels at capturing the gruff voices of oddball crime-world lowlifes. He gives Parker’s voice a bit of a Clint Eastwood edge, very gravelly and terse. That being said, Chancer’s narration sometimes is a bit too melodramatic, but I figure that’s just natural – I don’t think it could be possible to make your living as a voice actor and not be a little melodramatic. But still though, I feel that the narration, at least when filtered through the narrow prism of Parker’s viewpoint, should be cold and terse as Parker himself.

This one opens just a few weeks after The Hunter; Parker is in a sanitarium run by a doctor who was blackballed for being a Socialist. Parker’s had facial surgery and spends about one or two sentences looking at his new face, accepting it with almost a Zen resolve. Shortly after this Parker gets involved in a job in the New Jersery area that’s being “masterminded” by a slovenly fellow crook named Skimm. Really though the job has been “fingered” by Skimm’s girlfriend, a scowling, unattractive diner waitress named Alma – as if proving these books don’t have the usual pulp-crime trappings, Alma is not the expected sultry babe. In fact she’s downright annoying.

But Alma’s come upon a nice heist setup; an armored car goes through her diner and without fail the drivers always stop in to take a leak. Someone could pounce on this, take the car and the thousands of dollars in it, etc. Also involved in the heist is a fellow criminal named Handy, one Parker has worked with before and whose professionalism Parker respects. Parker isn’t crazy about Alma because she’s new to the heist world and could cause potential problems. He’s also certain she’s planning to doublecross everyone, and Handy agrees. Thus the two go about plotting their own doublecross, Parker also bankrolling the job by buying a couple trucks of their own, guns, etc.

Honestly, this one is so pointlessly padded that it’s comical. The Man With The Getaway Face was the first series novel Stark/Westlake wrote, as The Hunter was intended as a one-shot in which Parker was arrested at the end. But in this sequel, Stark shows all the signs of a prolific writer quickly filling the pages so he can get to the next paying gig. Things that should be described in a few sentences go on for pages. If Parker goes to buy a truck, we have to read every struggle with the gear shift, we have to read the endless haggling with the seller, on and on. The book loses all the forward momentum of The Hunter.

To make it worse, the heist is almost anticlimactic, over and done with in a few pages, as is the uncovering of Alma’s treachery – Parker disposes of her off-page. Rather, the brunt of the novel is given over to this tedious subplot concerning Stubbs, the slow-witted chaffeur of the plastic surgeon at the beginning of the novel. As the previous novel cut over to focus on Parker’s prey, Mal, for a “book” of his own, so too does this one cut over to Stubbs. And boy is it ever more indication of the padding of this novel…lots of useless backstory about Stubbs, how he methodically goes about his hunt for the patient who killed his boss. Stubbs you see showed up before the heist went down, cornering Parker, as Parker is one of Stubbs’s suspects – the doc was killed shortly after Parker left. 

So we get all this annoying stuff about Parker locking Stubbs up in a farmhouse and daily checking on him, letting him out to walk, etc. As if that weren’t bad enough, we later have to double back and read how Stubbs escaped his prison, and how he continued on with his quest for the doc’s killer. It just goes on and on. To make it worse, Stubbs is killed at the end of his sequence, in as anticlimactic manner as the heist was rendered, and thus all that background stuff we read about him is rendered moot.

Then we double back again, and now read as Parker, post-heist, discovers that Stubbs has escaped and thus goes about finding him. This entails another trip to the sanitarium, where Parker must patiently explain his innocence to May, the cook, and her two equally-moronic comrades, all three of whom distrust Parker. “Patience” is the operative word here for the reader, too; Parker recaps again and again for the morons stuff we readers have already read and already know. But finally they tell Parker who Stubbs’s other suspect was, and off Parker goes in pursuit. He catches up with him just as he’s been shot by his prey, and Parker dispenses justice.

But there are more pages to fill, so back Parker goes to the sanitarium, where he again explains himself to the three dimwits, who finally relent and believe Parker isn’t the killer…oh, but they’ve already let it out on the undeworld wire what Parker’s new face looks like. Thus this entire endless goddamn subplot has been a total waste of goddamn time!! Rather than wasting all three of them, Parker just leaves in disgust – that is, after he’s shown them the severed head of the doc’s killer, which Parker’s brought along in an overnight bag. Now he figures he’ll head to Florida for a brief vacay before taking his fight directly to the Outfit. Mercifully, the end.

I know this book has its supporters, and I know later books are better – several years ago I read Slayground and Plunder Squad, and the other year I read The Outfit, which I’m about to read again – but as far as I’m concerned The Man With The Getaway Face is an overly-padded dud. Parker loses much of the bad-assery he displayed in the previous book; his over-explanations to May and the others comes off like wheedling at times. I mean, this is the guy who accidentally killed some random Outfit whore the previous book by binding her mouth, realizing too late she was asthmatic, and just brushed off the death as an inconvenience. Yet here he is explaining himself and his actions to a trio of dullards and then letting them live despite the fact that they ruined the entire reason for his extensive facial overhaul.

Don’t get me wrong, though; the writing itself is good, with that same economical feel I love in these vintage crime novels. The stuff with Parker getting his guns and all makes you expect some fireworks, but unfortunately there is none – he does shoot one of May’s comrades in the arm, though. We also get more of a glimpse into Parker’s life outside of his crime pursuits; he likes to hang out in Florida and screw a bunch of willing babes. Speaking of which, Parker actually gets laid, this time; two whores he picks up in two separate cities, banging each of them off-page. We also learn he’s still simmering from the loss (not to mention the treachery) of his wife in the previous book.

Well anyway, The Man With The Getaway Face at least keeps your interest so far as you want to see it through so you can continue on with the series. But man is a whole huge chunk of it ultimately pointless. There are Parker fans though who doubtless rank it as one of their favorites, which brings us to the Moonraker conundrum. It has an awesome cover on this original Pocket edition, though.

Monday, October 7, 2013

The Hunter (Parker #1)


The Hunter, by Richard Stark
2008, University of Chicago Press
(Original publication 1962)

Several years ago I read two of Richard Stark’s/Donald Westlake’s Parker novels (Slayground and Plunder Squad); I enjoyed them enough that I intended to start reading the series from the start, but back then the books were difficult to come by. Now thanks to the Univeristy of Chicago Press, which began reprinting the series in full in 2008, the Parker series is easily obtained.

The Hunter is the beginning of the saga, and over the years the novel has been reprinted under the titles Point Blank and Payback, to tie in with the film adaptations (more of which below). It came out originally in 1962 as a cheap mass market paperback, and while these University of Chicago trade paperbacks are nice, the Parker books should’ve been reprinted by Hard Case Crime as mass market paperbacks with lurid cover paintings.

The funny thing about The Hunter is how standard it now seems, viewed through the prism of these decades of retreads and ripoffs. But it is a simple revenge story, only notable due to the fact that our “hero” is moreso a villain. Parker would normally be the bad guy in most other pulp tales, and much is made of how amoral and ruthless he is. I always chuckle when I read this; people who say how “ruthless” Parker is have obviously never read Bronson: Blind Rage. Now that is a ruthless protagonist!

We meet Parker as he returns to New York City for revenge against those who stabbed him in the back. We don’t get much backstory on the character, and famously we only get the one name, “Parker.” (I’ve noticed though that no one’s ever wondered if this is his first name!) Parker as everyone knows is a professional criminal, and gradually we learn that he was on an offshore job with his wife and an old business acquaintance named Mal when the latter double-crossed him and, blackmailing Parker’s wife into doing the deed, shot Parker down and left him for dead.

Parker tracks down his wife, Lynn, who now lives in a posh Manhattan apartment, paid for monthly by Mal. The reveal of how she turned on Parker is a little hard to buy. Long story short, Parker, his wife, Mal, and a few goons from the Outfit (as the mob is referred to in this series) pulled a swindle on some South American revolutionaries, stealing their weapons and loot. After the heist Mal forced Parker’s wife into shooting Parker, and she went along with it because she was afraid Mal would kill her. Just seems to me that she could’ve easily whispered Mal’s plot into Parker’s ear, but then I guess this was Stark’s subtle way of letting us know the woman is basically untrustworthy.

Parker’s reunion with his wife is unintentionally hilarious in how emotionless he is about it. Whereas the modern trend would be to sap up this part, probably with soap operatic arguing and fighting between the two, Parker basically makes fun of Lynn’s claim that she’s often tried to kill herself, and tells her to take more sleeping pills next time. And surprisingly enough she does, so that when Parker checks on her in her locked bedroom the next morning, she’s dead. After disposing of the corspe Parker continues tracking down Mal.

The Hunter almost follows the format of a police procedural, as Parker goes through leads and clues in his search for Mal. Occasionally Stark opens up the narrative by cutting over to Mal, and humorously enough the villain sparkles with more life than our “hero.” Mal is a slug of a man who double-crossed Parker so as to pay back the Outfit money he lost them back in the days when he worked for them. All of this was a gambit to be offered a new job with the Outfit, one Mal now has; he lives in a cushy Manhattan hotel which is owned by the mob, and he’s only kept Parker’s wife alive out of some sense of obligation.

The Outfit itself is pretty interesting; Stark presents the mob as basically a corporate enterprise, one whose executives sit around in opulent offices and order murders and other criminal acts with businesslike acumen. Mal is not very high on the totem pole. When he requests assistance from a higher-up, it’s like an employee going to a VP to fund a project. Instead Mal’s kicked out of his hotel and forced to go it alone, but he’s obviously no match for Parker.

Stark writes this sequence of Parker and Mal like a cat and mouse game, leading to its inevitable conclusion. We get a little more of Parker’s background when he meets up with a high-class hooker he was once involved with, one who provides him some help in locating Mal. No doubt due to the era, The Hunter is pretty tame so far as the sex goes, but Stark lets us know that Mal gets his kicks through s&m and is a little too rough with hookers.

It’s only after Mal is dispensed with that The Hunter kicks into gear, at least for me. Parker, still wanting the money owed him, goes to the Outfit to get back the money Mal gave them to pay his debt. This whole sequence is darkly humorous, as Carter, a high-level Outfit executive, informs Parker that no company in the world would do what Parker’s asking them to do. So Parker deals with this turn of events the only way he knows how: threatening and killing until he gets what he wants.

There are a handful of action scenes, but nothing on the level of a men’s adventure novel. Even the finale, in which the Outfit sends a veritable army of gunners after Parker to ambush him at the money pickup in a subway stop, is handled moreso with suspense. Parker easily spots each gunman and takes away his weapon, telling him to get on a departing train. The terseness of the action scenes matches the tone of the prose; Stark’s writing lives up to his name (well, pseudonym, I guess), only giving the most bare of details and rarely if ever getting into the heads of his characters.

What I most enjoyed about The Hunter was the dark comedy that ran throughout. Parker is at times so inhuman that it comes off as hilarious, and while he doesn’t have any one-liners he does have some comments that are pretty funny. But anyway while it didn’t blow me away, it’s easy to see how The Hunter could’ve come off so strong in earlier days, and at the very least it’s compelled me to read the rest of the Parker novels.

Now, as for the two film adaptations -- Point Blank from 1967 is a dreamlike, metaphysical take on The Hunter, very fractured and at times psychedelic. It greatly diverges from the novel.  Parker is “Walker” in this one, and he’s played by Lee Marvin, the perfect Parker if you ask me. Parker is “Walker” because Westlake wouldn’t provide the rights to use the character’s name unless the studio agreed to make a series of films. For whatever stupid reason the studio refused; personally I would’ve signed on the dotted line and hired Marvin to star in a film series that could’ve been the James Bond franchise of crime cinema. Anyway Point Blank is interesting in how it puts such an unusual spin on your typical pulp crime tale, and it's even more interesting that Walker doesn't actually kill anyone in the film -- his enemies die either by accident or due to events Walker sets in motion.  The longstanding theory about this movie is that it's all the dying dream of Walker, who lays half-dead in a prison cell as the film opens.  Director John Boorman adds a sort of psychedelic haze to the look and feel of the film, and it's definitely a movie that rewards multiple viewings, but I wouldn't say it's a satisfying film; it's much too cold and cerebral for that.

Payback is the other adaptation of The Hunter, and it exists in two versions: the theatrical release from 1999 and a Director’s Cut (retitled Payback: Straight Up) from 2006. I’ve never seen the theatrical cut and have no intention to. The Blu Ray for the Director’s Cut features a documentary which compares the two versions, and the theatrical cut looks stupid and dumbed down for modern audiences. The Director’s Cut meanwhile holds its own with early ‘70s crime films, and indeed takes place in the early ‘70s, though director Brian Helgeland doesn’t bang the viewer over the head with this fact. Mel Gibson as “Porter” is nearly as good as Lee Marvin – again, I’m only referring to the Director’s Cut, in which a stone-faced Gibson blitzes his way through the criminal underworld. There’s no cutesy stuff, no mugging for the camera, no “emotional content” bullshit. Hell, they even kill a dog in it. The film is very faithful to the source novel, only changing characters here and there (Lucy Liu’s character, for example) and adding new elements (like the Chinese gang and the crooked cops storyline).  Of the two film adaptations of The Hunter, I prefer Payback: Straight Up.