Leigh Brackett question
John Locke
especially in Planet. Later in life, she wrote
the scripts for several high-profile western
films. But did she ever write westerns (or
other non-SF) for the pulps? Not a trivia
question--I don't know the answer.
john
Haffner Press
Leigh Brackett wrote the novelization for RIO BRAVO (Bantam) and her
1963 novel, FOLLOW THE FREE WIND (Doubleday), won the Silver Spur award
as best Western of the year. She had a few sales to men's magazines such
as Dude, Knight, latter-day Argosy, and Cosmopolitan, but she never sold
to the Western pulps.
Stephen Haffner
MICHAEL E TAYLOR
have references at hand...
John Locke <Jo...@redshift.com> wrote in message
news:872a0603.0204...@posting.google.com...
JJM1954
called NO GOOD FROM A CORPSE. Some very good stories in there. It was a 1999
book, so actually not sure if it's still in print.
JHG
No Good From A Corpse
Murder in the Family (Mamoth Detective) 1943 (March)
NGFAC
Case of the Wandering Redhead (Flynn's Detective) 1943 (April)
NGFAC
The Joker (sold to Flynn's Detective...date??...maybe 1944)
Down Like a Dog (sold to Standard?? date?? 1944)
The Cop Came Back (sold to New Detective...date?? 1944)
NO GOOD FROM A COPSE (the collection) also had these stories
Murder is Bigamy (1945) Thilling Detective (July)
Red-Headed Poison (aka) The Case of The Wandering Redhead (1943)
Flynn's Detective (1943) March
Design For Dying " " (1944) June
I Feel Bad Killing You (1944) New Detective (Nov)
No Star Lost (1944) Thrilling Detective (July)
So Pale So Cold, So Fair (1957) ????
The above list is more then likly not complete and there is a good
chance of some errors as well. If anyone can add or corrrect that
would be great
Leigh Brackett also wrote the following novels (mysteries)
No Good From a Corpse (1944) The 1st Edtion has no short stories.
Strangers at Home (done using the pseudonym of George Sanders, the
actor....Henry Kuttner wrote the other GS novel....The way to tell who
wrote which was that each writer dedicated to themselves)
The Tiger Among US (1957)
An Eye For An Eye (1957)
Silent Partner (1969)
Leigh Brackett also wrote for radio but I never thought of asking her
about that as I found out after she died that she had done so.
She also wrote some mysteries for TV.
The film 13 West Street (1962) staring Alan Ladd was from the novel
The Tiger Among US.
Tim Cottrill
I went through my records but could find no listings for Brackett in
the western pulps. I was surprised, however, at how relatively few
stories she did publish in the pulps, compared especially with many
other writers in those publications. This is what I have in my
notes--
Amazing Stories (1941: 1 story)
Astonishing Stories (1941-1943: 3 stories)
Astounding (1940-1942: 3)
Comet (1941: 1)
Fantastic Story (1952-1953: 2 reprints)
Fantasy and Science Fiction (1955: 1)
Flynn's Detective (1943-1944: 3)
Mammoth Detective (1943: 1)
New Detective (1944-1951: 3)
Planet Stories (1940-1955: 20)
Science Fiction (1941: 1)
Space Stories (1953: 1)
Startling Stories (1941-1954: 9)
Strange Stories (1940: 1)
Super Science Stories (1941-1951: 3 + 1 reprint)
Thrilling Detective (1944-1945: 2)
Tops in Science Fiction (1953: 2 reprints)
Venture Science Fiction (1957: 2)
Thrilling Wonder (1944-1950: 7)
--TC
James
"Haffner Press" <shaf...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3CA8FA07...@earthlink.net...
> John:
>
> Leigh Brackett wrote the novelization for RIO BRAVO (Bantam) and her
> 1963 novel, FOLLOW THE FREE WIND (Doubleday), won the Silver Spur award
> as best Western of the year. She had a few sales to men's magazines such
> as Dude, Knight, latter-day Argosy, and Cosmopolitan, but she never sold
> to the Western pulps.
>
> Stephen Haffner
Just one minor, picky, quibbling note -- the award given by the Western
Writers of America is just the Spur Award, not the Silver Spur or, as it's
even more commonly referred to, the Golden Spur. (And to give this more of
a pulp connection, Elmer Kelton, who got his start in RANCH ROMANCES, just
won this year's Spur for Best Western Novel, for his book THE WAY OF THE
COYOTE.)
James
Haffner Press
Sorry about that. The award looked silver to me, so I must have been left
with that impression. Another SF writer to win the Spur award was Chad Oliver
for THE WOLF IS MY BROTHER. BTW, how many times has Kelton was the Spur?
Four? Five?
Also, to pick a nit upthread, it was Craig Rice who ghost-wrote the other
George Sanders novel, not Henry Kuttner. However, there is a belief
that a
few of the latter-day Kuttner mysteries were ghosted by Cleve Cartmill.
Brackett's work for TV included eps for Nancy, Drew, Archer, and Alfred
Hitchock. I think the "Markham" tv show was adapted from AN EYE FOR AN EYE.
Stephen Haffner
MICHAEL E TAYLOR
Reprinted in the AMERICAN PULP collection, which states that her output of
crime fiction consisted of 3 novels and a dozen or so short stories. One
hardboiled novel was titled "No Good from a Corpse."
MICHAEL E TAYLOR <MET...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:Id8q8.2102$MB.383...@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com...
James
> James:
>
> Sorry about that. The award looked silver to me, so I must have been left
> with that impression. Another SF writer to win the Spur award was Chad
Oliver
> for THE WOLF IS MY BROTHER. BTW, how many times has Kelton was the Spur?
> Four? Five?
And come to think of it, Richard Matheson is yet another, for his novel
JOURNAL OF THE GUN YEARS (the manuscript of which languished in the slush
pile for two years, I'm told, because nobody at the publishing house
realized who Matheson was; story may be the book biz equivalent of an urban
legend, but I can see it happening).
I've lost track of Elmer's awards. Four best novel Spurs I can think of,
quite possibly more.
> Also, to pick a nit upthread, it was Craig Rice who ghost-wrote the other
> George Sanders novel, not Henry Kuttner. However, there is a belief
> that a
> few of the latter-day Kuttner mysteries were ghosted by Cleve Cartmill.
Cartmill is thought to have ghosted one of Leslie Charteris's Saint novels,
too. THE SAINT STEPS IN, I believe it was.
> Brackett's work for TV included eps for Nancy, Drew, Archer, and Alfred
> Hitchock. I think the "Markham" tv show was adapted from AN EYE FOR AN
EYE.
I hadn't heard that. Thanks for the info. I know Lawrence Block wrote the
Markham tie-in novel published by Belmont.
James
John Locke
checked my OTR logs and Dunning's encyclopedia.
No mentions of Brackett--but most OTR isn't
collected by author.
john
Haffner Press
John Betancourt wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Apr 2002 01:51:29 GMT, "MICHAEL E TAYLOR"
> <MET...@prodigy.net> spoke thusly:
>
> >Okay, here's one: "I Feel Bad Killing You" from NEW DETECTIVE, Nov 1944.
> >Reprinted in the AMERICAN PULP collection, which states that her output of
> >crime fiction consisted of 3 novels and a dozen or so short stories. One
> >hardboiled novel was titled "No Good from a Corpse."
>
> Her suspense novel The Tiger Among Us is currently in print from
> Wildside Press - not sure if it appeared in a pulp first, though.
>
> -- John
David Kurzman
Speaking of Leigh Brackett...
How goes the new collection (also the Kuttner)? Will we some new Haffner
press books at Pulpcon this year?
Best, Dave
Haffner Press
MARTIAN QUEST: THE EARLY BRACKETT is undergoing a revision for design and
content (ie more pages) to make it uniform with additional Brackett books.
At this point, it's up in the air exactly when it will be ready for the
printer. SPIDER ISLAND, the fourth volume of Jack Williamson's collected
stories debuted at the Windy City show. I'm filling the standing orders on
SPIDER ISLAND right now.
The first Kuttner/Moore collection, DETOUR TO OTHERNESS is being redesigned
internally, but the contents are fixed, and we're still using the Richard
Powers cover art. It may be ready for Pulpcon, but it's more likely to be
available for ConJose.
Stephen Haffner
John Locke
in the current Salon.com article on the roots of Star
Wars. In fact, she wrote the first draft of "Empire
Strikes Back." (The article also finds powerful influences
in the Lensman books that Lucas was reading in the early
seventies.)
john
Haffner Press
insofar as Leigh Brackett is concerned my response is "bullshit."
Mega-super bullshit.
I've read the first draft screenplay that Leigh Brackett wrote (called
alternately STAR WARS II and STAR WARS SEQUEL) and while it adheres to
the three-chapter outline (Ice Planet-Swamp Planet/Asteroid Belt-Cloud
Planet) given to LB by Lucas in 1978 (supplemented by lengthy telephone
interviews between GL & LB with Lucas role-playing several different
characters) the draft that she turned in is near-unfilmable and at
variance with what was ultimately done in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
I think EMPIRE is a great film and I obviously admire LB's work, but her
STAR WARS II script, while it has more than a few wonderful moments, it
fatally flawed. For one thing, the "Force" is much more prominent, and
is essentially an additional character in the film, giving the
screenplay an over-abundance of supernatural and spiritual overtones.
Also, no sod is sewn over the "Vader is Luke's father" scheme.
Nothing. Brackett's trademark rapid-fire dialogue is present between
Han-Luke-Leia, but the romance is missing, and Han Solo exists in the
script only to pilot the Millennium Falcon and tell everybody that he
has to meet up with an old mentor before paying off Jabba the Hut
(sic). In fact, Han never gets to meet this dutch-uncle, and leaves the
film at the end to do so. No Boba Fett. No carbonite freezing
chamber. A proto-Lando is present, and a proto-Yoda (called Minch in
the script) guides Luke through his Jedi training. The asteroid chase
is brief, and Han, Chewie, Leia and 3PO simply rendezvous with the Rebel
fleet. A second draft using Brackett's material could have been
attempted, but Lucas gave the same three-chapter synopsis to Kasdan and
the result is the final film.
For some reason, it has become fashionable to slag-off Lawrence Kasdan
and his work on RAIDERS and JEDI, as well as diminishing BODY HEAT, BIG
CHILL and SILVERADO. Maybe having worked so much with Lucas and Kevin
Costner, and with their clout currently tarnished (Lucas for PHANTOM
MENACE and Costner for, well, take your pick post-DANCES WITH WOLVES)
that Kasdan is an easy target.
Sorry for the rant, but in the past few years I've heard any number of
people tell me how MUCH BETTER "EMPIRE" would be if Lucas had used the
original Brackett screenplay. The reality is that only a few people
have read that screenplay (my guess is less than 15 or so) and EMPIRE is
a better film for not using it. It is to Lucas' credit that he enjoyed
working with Leigh enough that he let Kasdan know the he could only get
co-screenplay credit as Lucas wanted Brackett's estate to benefit from
EMPIRE's success--if any. Fortunately, the executors of the
Hamilton-Brackett estate confirm that Lucas and his people have more
than done right, financially, by Leigh's contribution, and her name is
on the film to this day. Although, I'm told that EMPIRE was pothumously
dedicated to LB, but none of the tapes ('80 or re-worked '97 editions) I
own have any such note.
Stephen Haffner
HAFFNER PRESS
Jeffrey Keil
> alternately STAR WARS II and STAR WARS SEQUEL) and while it adheres to
> the three-chapter outline (Ice Planet-Swamp Planet/Asteroid Belt-Cloud
> Planet) given to LB by Lucas in 1978 (supplemented by lengthy telephone
> interviews between GL & LB with Lucas role-playing several different
> characters) the draft that she turned in is near-unfilmable and at
> variance with what was ultimately done in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
Greetings:
Where would someone find a copy of Leigh Brackett's Empire Strikes
Back (or Star Wars II and Star Wars Sequel) script? I think I have the
4th and the final drafts which I downloaded from script sites on the
internet. Is the earlier draft available anywhere? I'd love to read
it.
Thanks,
Jeff Keil
Lamont Cranston
Haffner Press
The screenplay I read was included with the Leigh Brackett donation at the
Jack Williamson Science Fiction Collection at the Golden Library at Eastern
New Mexico University library in Portales, New Mexico. This first draft
screenplay is available to anyone on the university's premises, but, as you
can imagine, reproductions are prohibited, as is loaning of the work beyond
the premises of the collection.
Stephen Haffner
HAFFNER PRESS