Gee, who woulda thunk I'd have two back-to-back Oliver Stone posts, but... Word hits the interwebs today that the famed writer-director of such hits as "Wall Street" and "Platoon" will adapt "The Deep Blue Goodbye," a 1964 novel by pulp author John D. MacDonald with Leonardo DiCaprio set to star.The book is the first in a long series of novels featuring Florida detective Travis ‘Trav’ McGee. In typical Hollywood fashion, the film will possibly be retitled "Travis McGee" in an aim to create a brand and possible franchise.
The buzz is that "Travis McGee" would still be based on "The Deep Blue Goodbye," the first book in the McGee series, which has the gumshoe protagonist searching for treasure hidden by a soldier after WWII. But the question remains... Would the Stone film be a period picture? Will the script perhaps use a different war as its starting point and retain basic characters and scenarios?
MacDonald said he considers the books to be a full take on the life of detective McGee, who ages and changes over the course of the 21-book run -- whcih kicks off in the ’60s and progresses very specifically into the ’80s.
The shifting tide of American culture is a significant part of the novels, so it would be a shame to see the story updated to the present. Hopefully, Stone being the purist he is, will retain the original '60s setting.
Hat Tip! http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2010/04/flying-stones-colors.html
ReplyDeleteIn my humble opinion, The Deep Blue Good-By is a remarkable piece of work by whatever standards you’d like to apply. I’m not talking about McGee’s comic book like superhero antics in subduing and killing Junior Allen (after all, one of the main purposes of this kind of fiction is to entertain); rather, the intricacy of the plotting, the razorsharp characterizations, the finely tuned and highly observant sense of place (which MacDonald fails with, somewhat, in the McGee novels that he moves outside of Florida), the observations and ruminations of McGee – these are all superb, even amazing.
ReplyDeletehttp://postmoderndeconstructionmadhouse.blogspot.com/2015/03/john-d-macdonald-deep-blue-good-by.html#.VRYOTtKUc7W