Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2011 January 12 • Wednesday

Since the Johnny Staccato TV series is on DVD now, I decided to sit down and read the novel.

This came out in 1960. Frank Boyd is a pseudonym for a writer named Frank Kane.

The first line is "Tonight, as usual, Waldo's on Macdougal Street in the Village was playing to a 'Standing Room Only' crowd".

The book fleshes out the characters of Johnny and Waldo. Waldo loves opera and hates jazz but the jazz club is his living. He was friends with Johnny's parents and has known Johnny since Johnny was a kid. Waldo also gets in on the action more in the book than he does in the show.

The story is about the murder of a powerful disc jockey who could—and did—make and break careers. "You pick up a telephone directory, you've got just a starting list of suspect," one character remarks.

Sex and violence are more explicit and more plentiful in the book than they were on the show. It's an easy read and the author does a good job with the musical backgrounds and atmospheres. When Staccato comes up with a way he thinks he might find the murderer, he tells the police that he has to play it by ear.

It seems that all New York City thrillers of this period had to mock beatniks somehow. Here's how it goes down in the Johnny Staccato novel.

Nicky Green's Cellar turned out to be a large, subterranean room that had been built by knocking out the walls of three adjoining cellars. The only lighting was provided by stubs of candles stuck in the necks of wine bottles; a perpetual cloud of smoke swirled near the ceiling.

Mobiles spun in the smoky air and customers enjoyed the proceedings from canvas chairs, while waitresses with long, dank hair and dangling earrings worked their way through the chairs, their swaying hips brushing lightly against the customers.

… In the far corner of the room, a tall, shaggy type in black beret, shapeless slacks and sport shirt was reading some German verse with almost comic gestures. Sitting at his feet, a bearded young man was pounding unmelodiously on a pair of bongoes.

Suddenly, one of the girls at a nearby table jumped to her feet, started to weave and sway in zombie-like fashion. Nobody paid any attention. The poet didn't even miss a beat.

Staccato has this notable interaction with a denizen of Nicky Green's Cellar.

Staccato settled back, watched the gyrations of the girl dancing to the bongo beat. He became aware of a girl to his left who seemed to find him interesting. She affected a pert gamin haircut, sported a cigarette holder tilted from the corner of her mouth. When he turned to return her inventory, she grinned at him.

"Slumming, Pops?"

Staccato grinned back, nodded. He used his hands to describe a square in the air, pointed at himself.

The girl picked up her chair, moved it over to where Staccato sat. The man she had been sitting with gave them both a disinterested look, shrugged. He turned to the girl on his other side.

"Your friend looks peeved," Staccato told her.

She looked at her former partner as though she'd never seen him before. "I been with him since last night, man. When you're making it with a cat, why that's great. But you can't stick around forever, man. You want kicks, you got to keep moving. You dig?"

"I dig." The waitress was back with a bottle of beer. She opened it, set it on the floor next to his chair. Staccato shoved a bill at the waitress, turned to the girl sitting next to him. "Beer or Chianti?"

She held up the cigarette holder. "I'm swinging, man. Real crazy." She watched while he poured some beer into his glass. "You get your kicks from that? That's real square, Pops." She indicated the reefer in the cigarette holder. "It's real wild."

The jazz club milieu and Johnny's piano playing are the only distinguishing things about the Staccato character in the book. He's tougher than all the guys and irresistible to all the women. This reminded me of why I don't read private detective stories (unless they're by Dashiell Hammett). They're basically superhero comics without pictures.