The Sunday Haul- Three Books

This week’s haul of three books at Abids had a common theme. Since quite a number of years I have been struggling to write a screenplay of a story that I have in mind. Not knowing head or tail of movie screenwriting I managed to do three drafts earlier none of which seemed to make any sense. After a gap of two years I had started on it again as part of ‘Script Frenzy’ month and have been plodding through it slowly wondering how others could write screenplays so easily. In fact even after reading a couple of books on screenwriting and also actual screenplays I am unable to come out with a screenplay.

So it was with movies and screenplays in my mind that I came to Abids on Sunday and the first find turned out to be something totally different and that led to the discovery of a new, exciting author. Two of the books I found later were also related to movies. If one book was a screenplay of a movie made out of a book then the other book was one written by a prominent director. Come to think of it even the third book was made into a movie. Here are the three books:

1. ‘Get Carter’ by Ted Lewis
2. ‘The Arrangement’ by Elia Kazan
3. ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ by Che Guevara

Were it not for some sharp snooping on my part I would have missed this slender, small sized book. ‘Get Carter’ was the first haul of Sunday. It turned out to be a screenplay by Mark Hodges who directed the movie with the same name. I read that ‘Get Carter’ is based on the book ‘Jack’s Return Home’ written by Ted Lewis. When I read the reviews of the movie online I decided that I have to watch the movie somehow. The reviews described it as ‘the best British gangster movie ever made’, ‘landmark movie’, ‘the quintessential British gangster movie’ and so on. Reading so much of praise for the movie I have resolved to find the original book (Jack’s Return Home) and all other books written by Ted Lewis like GBH, Plender, All the Way Through, All the Night Through, The Rabbit, The Mafia Pigeon, Boldt, Bill Rags and Jack Carter’s Law.

‘Get Carter’ was an exciting find and I was thrilled to have stumbled upon it. By the way I got it for only ten rupees. The most thrilling part was that of discovering a new, exciting writer whose books I must, must read more of. I have a feeling that I had seen ‘Jack Carter’s Law’ sometime at Abids but I am not sure. But one thing I am sure is that I am going to keep my eyes peeled for books by Ted Lewis.

I am familiar with the name ‘Elia Kazan’ since I see some of his titles here at Abids though I have not picked up anything by him. But last Sunday when I saw his ‘The Arrangement’ in a heap of books I picked up the book. Later I read the online review (a habit that I developed recently) I found that Elia Kazan was much more than the film director that I thought he was. He is described as one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood. I read that along with Lee Strasburg he introduced ‘method acting’ and is also credited with introducing a lot of new faces in Hollywood. Of course, he has also won a few Oscars so finding the 543-page ‘The Arrangement’ for only ten rupees was another bit of luck this Sunday. His autobiography ‘A Life’ is something I hope to find some day soon.

‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ by Che Guevara was the last book of the haul of Sunday. Curiously, all three books that I picked up on Sunday seem to have movies in common. ‘TMD’ was also made into a movie that seemed to have been a rage. The copy of TMD that I found was an extremely good one that I got for a tenth of the original price of Rs 295 at the back of the Harper Perennial edition was.

I hope after reading all these three books I might be able to do something about my own screenplay!