Thankful for Black Friday

Since I once read that the term Black Friday to designate the masochistic shopping crush in which all those other people are engaged at this moment originated in Philadelphia, I see no harm in bringing back this post from 2010 about Black Friday, by Philadelphia's own David Goodis.

TODAY ONLY: Stay home and read this book instead of going to the mall, and derive 70% more pleasure from your reading!!!

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I read David Goodis's 1954 novel Black Friday on Thanksgiving Day, and I can see why the French love this guy. The book's bleak, uncertain ending reminds me strongly of Jean-Patrick Manchette.

I also got a kick out of its mention of my newspaper and out of its references to Dizzy Gillespie and the painters Corot and Courbet.

Here's a routine bit of description whose tone is, however, indicative of Goodis' bleakness:

"The front of the cellar* was divided into two sections, one for coal, the other for old things that didn't matter too much."

And here's a tiny excerpt from Black Friday read at Goodis' graveside.

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* I know of no Goodis story in which cellars do not play a part: Black Friday, Down There, "Black Pudding." That has to say something about Goodis. Here’s your humble blogkeeper reading from “Black Pudding.”

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

David Goodis on screen and beyond borders

The 1972 movie ... and Hope to Die crosses a number of borders, notably from print to film (it's based on David Goodis' novel Black Friday) and from the U.S. to France (the movie's original title is La course du lièvre à travers les champs, and its director is René Clément, one of several French directors who adapted Goodis.)

I knew about both before I rented the movie. But I was stunned to see the opening chase scene take place not on a cold Philadelphia street, as in the book, but in front of one of Montreal's iconic most familiar buildings: Buckminster Fuller's United States pavilion from the Expo '67 world's fair.  

This was no case of Montreal filling in for New York or Chicago, either. Characters make several references to Montreal, and the camera lingers at least once on a sign for the real University Street. The cash strewn around throughout the movie looks American, though. Maybe the gang's hideout is just over the border in Vermont,  or perhaps they popped down to the States for a bit of shopping in Plattsburgh.

The movie, like the book, lays bare Goodis' yearning for family, and it features a number of fine performances, notably by Robert Ryan as Charley, the gang's leader and father figure. (The Wikipedia article on Ryan omits the movie. This only adds to the small errors and omissions I have found in Wikipedia's articles on movies. Use Wikipedia at your peril!)

(The screenplay is by the French crime novelist Sébastien Japrisot, whose novels include A Very Long Engagement. You may know that book from its adaptation into a movie starring the adorable Audrey Tautou, whose last name is probably one of the more often misspelled in moviedom. )

Read an appreciation of Black Friday. Read Vincent Canby's highly unappreciative review of the movie from the New York Times.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011