The Godfather: Peter Corris on the gap between page and screen
I have no idea what percentage of mainstream films is based on books. Does anyone? I suspect it’s quite high. In the crime field there have been notable failures. I’ve written before about Howard Hawks’s version of The Big Sleep (1946). It captures some of...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on where ideas come from
‘Where do your ideas come from?’ is a question often put to authors, especially crime writers. When I was busy at the trade I tended to fob it off with answers about my imagination and picking up on things I’d overheard when I was a journalist or...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on Robert Goddard
In 1986, when Jean was working as a commissioning editor for Transworld Publishing, she recommended a book to me. It was an historical novel by Robert Goddard, published that year. The title was Past Caring and the publishers, who had some of their bigwigs in...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on The Grapes of Wrath
I’ve written before about how audio books have enabled me to enjoy works I found too ponderous when I tried in recent years to re-read them – books by Hardy, Trollope, Galsworthy and others. So far, two authors regarded as classic have defeated me – Melville and...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on Hemingway revisited
We lay under cover by the side of the road for the ambush and Paco passed me the wineskin which was heavy with the resin-tasting wine of that part of the country which feels good when it hits the back of your throat in a spurt but you must be careful to cut the spurt...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on hard-boiled Hemingway
At one time I had a lot of Hemingway’s books on my shelves – novels, short story collections, journalism, even Death in the Afternoon (1932), although I never sympathised with his passion for bullfighting. I’ve always thought that the story ‘Fifty Grand’, about a...The Godfather: Peter Corris on Hemingway
Lately I’ve had Ernest Hemingway coming at me from all directions. For the second time I watched Woody Allen’s brilliant romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, in which a Hollywood hack writer fantasises that he’s back in the Paris of the 1920s. The look-alike actor...The Godfather: Peter Corris on alcohol and writing
Patrick White worried about his drinking. He told biographer David Marr there were times when he drank half a bottle of spirits a day and wine as well. He consulted doctors, almost hoping, Marr suggests, for a diagnosis of alcoholism, which would relieve him of...
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