4.11.2010

Sultry Sunday Special — "He Bop!"

From Rex Parker's "Pop Sensation" blog ...

Paperback 306: Bantam 826
(1st ptg, 1950) (ex-lib)


Title: High Sierra
Author: W.R. Burnett
Cover artist: Harry Schaare



Best things about this cover
  • "Yeah, so, I like to grab the shaft real tight with one hand, like so, and then rub the tip back and forth with the other hand, real slow, like so, you see? And then ... what? What're you mugs starin' at? Ain't you never seen a guy polish his gun before?"
  • I *love* the expression on her face. It's like she's saying, quietly, out of the side of her mouth: "Uh ... are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Clearly the dude with the cards is as stunned as she is ... staring intently ... clawing the chair arm ...
  • In other news about the guy stroking his rod: those are some high pants. Tie-swallowing pants. And the girliest suspenders imaginable.


Best thing about this back cover:

  • Only the Cincinnati Times Star really appears to be tapping into what I'm seeing on the cover.

Page 123~

Roy was appalled at the change in Big Mac's appearance and sat studying him covertly. Mac had lost a lot of weight and the skin under his chin hung in pale folds. His hands shook and he kept drinking glass after glass of straight whisky.

I can't help but picture a haggard, embittered, world-weary, alcoholic Mayor McCheese.

~RP

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10 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

I'm sure I read this book in a previous life but have forgotten how it goes. I'd even read it again. It does appear to have have possibilities.

Anonymous said...

Heh ... shoulda come out on Phallic Phriday.

-- Feral Boy

Bybee said...

Oh wow...I have this very edition on my shelves!

Anonymous said...

Oh wow, I love the background people's expressions. Your commentary is always hilarious.

the.effing.librarian said...

oh, god, that was funny... I scanned a similar picture, not a cover, from the interior of a Little House on the Prairie book that I was going to send,... Pa had a rifle between his legs as he posed with the girls in the chapter "big rifle." but Pa wasn't stroking anything. the big rifle was already big enough.

Republibot 3.0 said...

So did they have to pay for using Robert Mitchum's face on the cover, or could you just get away with doing that in those days?

BikerPuppy said...

I needed a serious laugh today, and that made tea squirt out my nose. Thanks (and ouch!!)!!

Anonymous said...

I think I saw a movie with this very same title...it was very old...

Anonymous said...

It was made into a great Warner Brothers film starring Humphrey Bogart. So was Burnett's other book, Little Caesar, for that matter.

-José Antónimo- said...

I like that think of going to page 123, etc., but it would appear you don't do it anymore?

I like the blog.