2 Films | Sunday, October 23rd
Known for offbeat characters, punchy dialogue and for his mastery of both the Western and Crime fiction genres, author Elmore Leonard’s work had a cinematic quality that made it attractive material for movie and television adaptations. The most notable of these include 3:10 to Yuma (1957), The Tall T (1956), Get Shorty (1995), Jackie Brown (1997) and Out of Sight (1998). Leonard was often critical of adaptations of his work and vocal about his disappointment. When a director and screenwriter were able to capture the soul of the original story, preserve Leonard’s unique brand of dialogue and maintain the right balance of drama and comedy, Leonard would offer praise, counting the film as one of the few that did get it right.
Dubbed “The Dickens of Detroit”, Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) was born in New Orleans but spent his formative years in Detroit. The city figured prominently in his work, especially his crime novels. His early influences include the work of Ernest Hemingway and the movie All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He spent much of his college years writing short stories, reading books and watching movies.
When Leonard decided to become a professional writer, he looked for a genre that he would both enjoy writing and could make a living from. In an interview with his researcher Gregg Sutter, Leonard said “I looked for a genre where I could learn how to write and be selling at the same time. I chose Westerns because I liked Western movies. From the time I was a kid I liked them. Movies like The Plainsman with Gary Cooper in 1936 up through My Darling Clementine [1946] and Red River [1948] in the late forties.” He sold his stories to pulp magazines and when Hollywood came calling for movie rights, Leonard was able to leave his advertising copywriter position to pursue fiction writing full-time. His Westerns were often set in Arizona and New Mexico, were driven by dialogue and action, contained little exposition and were authentic to both time and place.
“I don’t understand you. You risk your neck to save my life, now you’ll risk it again to send me to prison.” — Elmore Leonard, “Three Ten to Yuma”
Among his early work is “Three Ten to Yuma”, a 4,500 word short story he sold to a pulp magazine for $90. The movie rights were sold to Columbia Pictures with screenwriter Halsted Welles and director Delmer Daves hired to adapt. Set in Arizona, 3:10 to Yuma is a tense psychological drama about a farmer, Dan Evans (Van Heflin), who is tasked with putting a wanted criminal, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford), on the 3:10 train to Yuma to be imprisoned. Welles’ screenplay expands upon Leonard’s work by lengthening the timeline and giving the two protagonists some added background and motivation. The two protagonists have a symbiotic relationship. Dan depends on Ben because he’s desperate for money to support his family. Exposure to Dan’s domestic life makes Ben envious for the love and stability that criminal life can’t afford him. The film adds two female characters, Ben’s love interest, barmaid Emmy (Felicia Farr), and Dan’s wife Alice (Leora Dana). According to Douglas Horlock, author of the book “The Films of Delmer Daves”, 3:10 to Yuma is an example of a Western, “in which the feelings and experiences of women have been represented with caring and sensitive expression…” He goes on to say, “the criminal’s status as one who is ‘trying to find his humanity’ could justifiably be applied to the outlaw in 3:10 to Yuma, who attracts audience empathy even though he is a cold-blooded killer.” The film was a hit with audiences and critics and went on to be recognized as “the last great Western shot in black-and-white”. It was remade 50 years later by director James Mangold with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the lead roles.
When Westerns stories fell out of favor, Leonard transitioned to crime novels. He greatly admired the work of George V. Higgins, author of The Friends of Eddie Coyle and began to write stories about violence and crime in urban settings with eccentric protagonists and a tinge of humor. Leonard also tried his hand at screenwriting, adapting other authors’ works, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. He said, "screenwriting is work, it's a chore, you're writing for other people and rewriting constantly, while I don't consider novel writing work at all.”
“What some of the women didn’t go for was seeing so many movies, practically every time they went out. They would get the feeling he liked movies more than he did them.” — Elmore Leonard, “Get Shorty”
Elmore Leonard’s growing distaste for the inner workings of the movie industry led him to write his novel “Get Shorty”. Published in 1990, the novel tells the story of shylock Chili Palmer who travels from Miami to Las Vegas and finally to Los Angeles to collect debts from two shady characters. Chili Palmer is depicted as devoted film buff whose cross-country adventure lands him in the movie industry. Leonard was inspired to tell a story from the prospective of a Hollywood outsider and his characters were based on some of his interactions with Hollywood types. In Nora Ephron’s review of the book she wrote, “great, punchy, pitch-perfect Elmore Leonard dialogue and great Elmore Leonard sentences… Leonard is justly praised for integrating physical setting with plot, but in ''Get Shorty'' what he's working with is not the physical setting of Hollywood but the psychological one.”
The rights for Get Shorty were picked up by MGM with screenwriter Scott Frank and director Barry Sonnenfeld hired to adapt. After some negotiation, and some convincing from self-proclaimed Leonard fan Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta was cast in the lead role of Chili. Get Shorty boasts a robust cast including Gene Hackman as movie producer Harry Zimm, Rene Russo as scream queen Karen Flores, Danny DeVito as the self-indulgent actor Martin Weir, and Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina and James Gandolfini as dangerous mobsters. There are also uncredited cameos by Bette Midler, Penny Marshall and Harvey Keitel.
Upon seeing the movie adaptation, Leonard remarked “it’s the best adaptation I’ve had… I saw the movie and thought, ‘I didn’t know the book was that funny.’” According to New York Times writer Bernard Weinraub, “[screenwriter Scott] Frank added some scenes in the movie to strengthen the structure, removed a subplot and ended the film at a point two-thirds into the book. He said he tried to avoid the pitfalls of past adaptations of Leonard books, which included focusing entirely on the plot, thus losing the humor and the novelist's off-center point of view.” Sonnenfeld encouraged his actors to play their roles straight. He said "what's funny is that you have these great-looking and intelligent actors saying really dumb things with a totally straight face. As soon as you wink to an audience, as soon as you give the characters an attitude, it's over.’”
The success of both the novel and the movie led Leonard to revisit the Chili Palmer character in a sequel “Be Cool.” John Travolta returned to play the lead role in the 2005 adaptation which saw Chili transition from the movie industry to the music industry. The adaptation leaned a bit too heavily on the comedy, losing much of the charm that Get Shorty had to offer. Leonard’s story was revisited in 2017 with the EPIX television series Get Shorty, loosely based on the novel, which ran for three seasons and twenty-seven episodes.
