Just announced by the good folks at the Blue Metropolis festival, a month tomorrow I'll have the honour of hosting 'Montreal Noir', a panel discussion focusing on the city's forgotten pulp past:
Cheap, disposable and sensationalistic, Montreal’s pulp fiction took its place on Canadian and American newsstands sixty years ago. It has since been ignored, neglected and, in some cases, hidden by its authors. What was so shameful about these books and why are we reviving them now?
Joining me on stage will be Trevor Ferguson, Jim Napier and Will Straw. Actor Marcel Jeannin will be reading excerpts from the work of Montreal's three best noir novelists. Who they? Buy a ticket and find out.
He only wore a shamrock
On his faithful Irish breast,
Maybe a gift from his colleen one,
The maiden whom he loved best;
But the emblem of dear old Ireland,
Tho' worn on a jacket of red,
Was the emblem of rank disloyalty,
And treason most foul, they said.
Had he but borne the heather,
That grows on the Scottish hills,
A rose from an English garden,
Or a leek from the Cambrian rills,
Then he might summon his comrades,
With trumpet, and fife, and drum.
And march through the breadth of England,
Till trumpet and fife were dumb.
But he only wore a shamrock,
And tho' Britain's most gracious Queen
Had pinned her cross on his bosom,
Yet the little trefoil of green
Might not nestle down beside it,
For the color, alas! was banned,
And the Celtic soldier was made to feel
That he trod an alien land.
Oh! poor little modest symbol,
Of the glorious Trinity,
Rather bloom on your native hill-side,
Than cross the dark Irish sea;
Rather rest on the loving bosom,
Of the Mother that gave you birth,
For even your virtues can't chasten
The ungrateful English earth.
Atypical verse from William Henry Drummond, the poet we prefer to forget, "He only Wore a Shamrock" was inspired by an incident in which an Irish soldier in the British Army was punished for refusing to remove a shamrock from his non-dress uniform. We know this because the poet tells us much in an appended note that credits an anonymous headline writer for giving his poem its title:
Here's the thing: On 18 March 1894, a Sunday, there was no edition of the Gazette. While it's tempting to think that Drummond merely misremembered the year – the incident in question having taken place on St Patrick's Day 1892 – there's no such heading in the 18 March 1892 edition. In fact, it wasn't until the next day that the story was broken by the Daily News. Despite dogged detective work, the Gazette heading has eluded me.
I'm not sure what to make of the awkwardly composed quote. A sub-heading? Drummond's own words? In either case, it's all wrong. According to Hansard, Private O'Grady's bit 'o green was stuck not in a buttonhole, but his glengarry cap. More importantly, O'Grady was not court marshalled, but was received a punishment of 48 hours of hard labour.
William Henry Drummond, physician, poet and poor historian? Or is this just a case of poetic licence spilling over onto an explanatory note?
Frank Newfeld doesn't figure in Irving Layton's memoir Waiting for the Messiah, he makes no appearance in Elspeth Cameron's 517-page Layton biography, and yet I'd argue that the designer's work played a key role in the poet's public persona.
I don't think I'm stepping out on too frail a limb in writing that The Laughing Rooster (working titles: Poems in Bad Taste and The Indelicate Touch) is the most illustrious Layton cover. It displays a bit of the whimsy that we might have seen in Newfeld's rejected "tits" cover for Leonard Cohen. Published by McClelland & Stewart in 1964, it opens in cinematic style with sixteen pages of images, credits, contents, dedication and more. At one point, rooster and poet face off.
The former seems to win – the rooster's image appears four more times before Layton begins his Preface.
Of course, it all really begins with Newfeld's first Layton cover, A Red Carpet for the Sun (1959). The poet's big press debut, it sold more than 8000 copies, elevating Layton to the level of national celebrity.
A Red Carpet for the Sun
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1959
Those eyes. Were they too intense for our cousins to the south? A different Newfeld design was used in the American edition. A shame.
Irving Peter Layton
(né Israel Pincu Lazarovitch)
12 March 1912 – 4 January 2006
He is the light of our generation and after his 130 or 140 years are over and the man's removed from his work so that nothing lies between the reader and the work, the universe Irving created will shine forever.
This is not about the novel, but the two television adaptations: 1964 and 1986 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The first is worth watching, if only for Joan Hackett's portrayal of Helen Clarvoe.
On the surface, Hackett's casting is curious. She's meant to portray a Plain Jane, but little attempt is made to hide her good looks. Let's remember that this accomplished actress first garnered public attention as teenage model. Like her paper counterpart, television Helen lives in a hotel suite. While there's a slightly glamourous air about her – in the first scene, she looking over fashion drawings – she's otherwise very true to the character Millar created. Knowing what little I do about Ms Hackett, I'm not surprised. Supremely talented, but difficult to work with, she had a reputation as a perfectionist. I'm betting she read Millar's novel – and more than once.
James Bridges, who went on to write and direct The Paper Chase and The China Syndrome, had the task of adapting the novel for cathode ray tubes. The fifty minutes he was allotted cuts most characters, the foremost being Douglas, Evelyn's homosexual ex-husband. No real surprise there. Bridges adds motion in having Helen sabotage the wedding before it ever takes place, thus giving Evelyn – here named Dorothy – motivation for revenge. Clever.
While it claims to be based upon the novel, the 1986 adaptation isn't an adaptation at all. Clocking in at a mere 23 minutes, credits and posthumous Hitchcock intro included, it's mercifully short and can be quickly described:
Privileged pop psychologist Marion McGregor, author of the bestseller Masculine Wants, Male Needs, marries former patient Cliff Potts. Her paradise is rocked by threatening messages left on her answering machine by first husband Gordon. But it can't be! Gordon died four years ago! The next thing you know Marion's dog is killed. We, but not she, see that a Peeping Tom is watching through the leaded glass windows of her luxurious home. The same man shows up at one of Marion's book signings and she flees for home
Cliff arrives to hear his wife struggling with Gordon. Cliff descends the cellar stairs, stumbles around a bit, and discovers Marion with the mummified corpse of her first husband. But is it really his wife? In her own twisted mind, she's become Gordon. As Marion chases Cliff, trying to kill him with a shovel, it becomes clear that she left those answering machine messages. The police arrive in the nick of time. The Peeping Tom turns out to be psychiatrist Dr Kaufman, who we learn has been treating Marion. Phew.
The climax of this Beast in View owes much to Psycho, and as with Psycho, everything is explained in the denouement:
Dr Kaufman: I should have institutionalized her four years ago when she first told me. Cliff: Why didn't you? Dr Kaufman: Why? Oh, professional ethics [emphasis mine], one shrink to another. I thought I could help her. She was making such great progress. Then when I found out she was marrying you, I knew it was happening all over again. Cliff: What was happening? Dr Kaufman: Marion was losing control. Cliff: What about Gordon's body? I mean, why would she... Dr Kaufman: Keep it? Because she loved him. And that's what you do when you love somebody, and he's a beast. The cellar is the only place to hide.
So, you see, a beast in view... or out of view. He's hidden because, um...
A writer, ghostwriter, écrivain public, literary historian and bibliophile, I'm the author of Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (Knopf, 2003), and A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Translator, Memoirist and Pornographer (McGill-Queen's UP, 2011; shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize). I've edited over a dozen books, including The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco (Véhicule, 2013) and George Fetherling's The Writing Life: Journals 1975-2005 (McGill-Queen's UP, 2013). I currently serve as series editor for Ricochet Books and am a contributing editor for Canadian Notes & Queries. My most recent book is The Dusty Bookcase (Biblioasis, 2017), a collection of revised and expanded reviews first published here and elsewhere.
