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A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.
Beat the Devil by Claud Cockburn
bookshelves: autumn-2014, film-only, published-1951, under-10-ratings
Recommended for: Laura, Wanda et al
Read on November 14, 2014
Humperty Go-Cart, oh my! Watch full film hereDescription: This is the classic '50s noir novel that brought John Huston and Humphrey Bogart together for the last time in film. Published under the pseudonym James Helvick, this sophisticated comedy-thriller was in fact the work of Claud Cockburn, whose early career as a Communist agitator prompted his publisher to demand a pseudonym in the McCarthy years. Beat the Devil shows how effortlessly Cockburn moved from agitprop to elegant and witty fiction. Alexander Cockburn's introduction delves into the long-simmering debate over the real source of the movie's most famous lines. Was it Truman Capote, Anthony Veiller and Peter Viertel, Robert Morley, or Claud Cockburn himself?
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