EDITOR OF BLACK MASK (1926-36) "Shaw was the finest coachwhip I ever met in an editor's chair. In my thirty-five years of freelance fiction, no one stands out so." -- Lester Dent, in a letter to Philip Durham "We wrote better for him than we could have written for anybody else." -- Raymond Chandler, in … Continue reading They Also Served: Joseph “Cap” Shaw
Tag: They Also Served
The Cheaper the Crook
The Crime Films of Elisha Cook, Jr. "... noir's most valuable supporting player." -- Jake Hinkson in Noir Goon Squad "I played rats, pimps, informers, hopheads and communists... I didn't have the privilege of reading scripts. Guys called me up and said, 'You're going to work tomorrow.' " -- Cook recalls the life of a … Continue reading The Cheaper the Crook
It Wasn’t Easy
Mike Hammer Comes to Television "I said, 'This is ridiculous! I mean, you can't take this shit seriously.'" -- Darren McGavin How do you turn the darkly violent, psychologically bruising revenge fantasies of Mickey Spillane's bestselling Mike Hammer novels into a weekly television show? In the squeaky clean surface puritanism of the 1950s? You can't. … Continue reading It Wasn’t Easy