The Magic of Groundhog Day, Book by Paul Hannam

Since February 2nd is Groundhog Day, today I’ve been exploring all things groundhog-related. One of my finds was The Magic of Groundhog Day: Transform Your Life Day by Day, a 2008 book by Paul Hannam with a foreword by screenwriter Danny Rubin.

Here’s a blurb about the book from Library Journal Review (2008): “Using the 1993 movie Groundhog Day as a springboard to illustrate the principle of repetitive thought patterns, professional entrepreneur and lecturer Hannam (Oxford University) discusses how to change one’s inner life to see the beauty in the world. According to Hannam, the ‘groundhog effect’ is the force that keeps people feeling stuck and powerless to change. Only by breaking free of this looplike effect, he posits, can they liberate themselves to enjoy healthy habits, relationships, and careers.”

Find the book at Amazon.com.

How to Write Groundhog Day, ebook by Danny Rubin

When writing an earlier post about the 1993 movie GROUNDHOG DAY, I learned of a book I’ve always wanted to read — the inside story of this remarkable screenplay — and now I can. In How to Write Groundhog Day (released in 2012) screenwriter Danny Rubin pulls back the curtain on his inspiration for the script, his writing process, and how the screenplay navigated its way through Hollywood to GET MADE. The book includes the original screenplay, notes, scene sketches, and Rubin’s personal tour of the revision process. Find the ebook at Amazon.com.

The Moving Target, Novel by Ross Macdonald

Yesterday, I finished reading The Moving Target, a novel by Ross Macdonald. I hesitate to label this multilayered book a “detective” novel — even though that’s its ostensible genre. The book — originally published in 1949 — features Lew Archer, an L.A. private investigator, who appears in a series of novels by Ross Macdonald.

While reading the work of this amazing wordsmith/poet, I was struck by its similarity to the best passages in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — and figured somebody somewhere must have written about this. A quick Google search revealed more than I’d hoped.

My research uncovered a fascinating article entitled “Ross Macdonald’s Marked Copy of The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of Influence” by Robert F. Moss. In the article, Moss demonstrates how Macdonald learned from Fitzgerald on a variety of levels, including language, plot, structure, and technique. Macdonald is quoted as calling Fitzgerald “a dream writer,” “our finest novelist,” and “my master.” Read the entire article here.

To give a sense of Macdonald’s command of language, here is the opening paragraph from Chapter 4 of The Moving Target:

We rose into the offshore wind sweeping across the airport and climbed toward the southern break in the mountains. Santa Teresa was a colored air map on the mountains’ knees, the sailboats in the harbor white soap chips in a tub of bluing. The air was very clear. The peaks stood up so sharply that they looked like papier-maché I could poke my finger through. Then we rose past them into chillier air and saw the wilderness of mountains stretching to the fifty-mile horizon.

While researching The Moving Target, I learned (duh!) that it was made into Harper, a 1966 movie starring Paul Newman. Legendary screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men) adapted the novel for the screen — and considered The Moving Target his breakthrough script (it was his second screenwriting credit). Sounds like a great movie — can’t believe I’ve never seen it.  Newman also starred as Lew Harper (the screen name for Lew Archer) in the 1975 movie The Drowning Pool, based on Ross Macdonald’s novel of the same name.

For more about Ross Macdonald (and in case you missed it), see our article from a few weeks ago to commemorate the anniversary of Macdonald’s birth on December 13th.

Pat Hobby’s Christmas Wish, Story by F. Scott Fitzgerald

PAT HOBBY’S CHRISTMAS WISH (Excerpt)

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

It was Christmas Eve in the studio. By eleven o’clock in the morning, Santa Claus had called on most of the huge population according to each one’s deserts.

Sumptuous gifts from producers to stars, and from agents to producers arrived at offices and studio bungalows: on every stage one heard of the roguish gifts of casts to directors or directors to casts; champagne had gone out from publicity office to the press. And tips of fifties, tens and fives from producers, directors and writers fell like manna upon the white-collar class.

In this sort of transaction there were exceptions. Pat Hobby, for example, who knew the game from twenty years’ experience, had had the idea of getting rid of his secretary the day before. They were sending over a new one any minute — but she would scarcely expect a present the first day.

Waiting for her, he walked the corridor, glancing into open offices for signs of life. He stopped to chat with Joe Hopper from the scenario department.

“Not like the old days,” he mourned. “Then there was a bottle on every desk.”

“There’re a few around.”

“Not many.” Pat sighed. “And afterwards we’d run a picture — made up out of cutting-room scraps.”

“I’ve heard. All the suppressed stuff,” said Hopper.

Pat nodded, his eyes glistening.

“Oh, it was juicy. You darned near ripped your guts laughing –“

He broke off as the sight of a woman, pad in hand, entering his office down the hall recalled him to the sorry present.

“Gooddorf has me working over the holiday,” he complained bitterly.

“I wouldn’t do it.”

“I wouldn’t either except my four weeks are up next Friday, and if I bucked him he wouldn’t extend me.”

As he turned away, Hopper knew that Pat was not being extended anyhow. He had been hired to script an old-fashioned horse opera, and the boys who were “writing behind him” — that is, working over his stuff — said that all of it was old and some didn’t make sense.

“I’m Miss Kagle,” said Pat’s new secretary.

She was about thirty-six, handsome, faded, tired, efficient. She went to the typewriter, examined it, sat down and burst into sobs.

Pat started. Self-control, from below anyhow, was the rule around here. Wasn’t it bad enough to be working on Christmas Eve? Well — less bad than not working at all. He walked over and shut the door — someone might suspect him of insulting the girl.

“Cheer up,” he advised her. “This is Christmas…”

READ THE ENTIRE STORY (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ESQUIRE, JANUARY 1940) AT PROJECT GUTENBERG HERE.

The Pat Hobby Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald are available at Amazon.com.

Go West, Nathaniel

He reached the end of Vine Street and began the climb into Pinyon Canyon. Night had started to fall. The edges of the trees burned with a pale violet light and their centers gradually turned from deep purple to black. The same violet piping, like a Neon tube, outlined the top of the ugly, hump-backed hills and they were almost beautiful.”

From Chapter 1, The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West

At a library close-out sale, I purchased for $1 a hardcover edition of two Nathaniel West novels (Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust). I had always meant to read The Day of the Locust, West’s 1939 novel about Hollywood, and now I had my very own copy. For me, the book’s primary appeal is its depiction of the movie business during the 1930s — and West’s observations about life in Los Angeles.

West, like his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald, was working as a screenwriter in 1940 — the year that marked the end to both men’s lives and careers. Fitzgerald dropped dead of a heart attack at age 44 on December 21, 1940 at an apartment in near Sunset and LaCienega. West died the following day at age 37 in an auto accident when driving to a memorial service for Fitzgerald. A sad ending for two gifted writers — you have to wonder if the hack work in some way hastened the demise of these fine artists.

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