Double Feature is one the latest re-releases
through Hard Case of Donald E. Westlake’s oeuvre. Originally published in by a
smaller imprint back in 1977 as Enough (a rather cryptic title, and really has
nothing to do with the book itself) it contained two stories, the novella
length A Travesty and a long-ish short story Ordo. These tales are fairly different in tone, but
they are influenced by Westlake’s experience with movies.
A Travesty is –more or less- a send-end up of
the murder mystery genre. It’s the tale of film critic Carey Thorpe, who
accidently murders one of his two girlfriends (not be confused with a divorcing
wife we hear, but never see), Laura Penny. As the police begin to investigate,
and Carey is somehow cleared, he then teams up with a cop named Fed Staples,
who seems more enamored with Thorpe’s lifestyle than anything else. So much so,
that Staples begins asking Thorpe to aide in other cases –some which Thorpe
actually solves (in the traditional style of the whodunits from yesteryear).
There is also a private detective who had been paid to follow Penny by her
husband to catch her having affairs. Edgarson proves to a thorn in Thorpe’s
side, as he tries to blackmail the critic. And while this is going on, Thorpe
begins an affair with the Staples wife and things just get odder…
“If you’re going to commit a murder –and in the first place, I don’t recommend it- one thing you should defiantly not do afterward is have sex with the investigating officer’s wife. It merely makes for a lot of extraneous complications” Thorpe narrates and he seems totally able to pull off the perfect murder. But also, as I’ve read on Westlake’s recurring theme in those Parker books, you shouldn’t make murder the answer to all your problems. So like all these types of mysteries, complications ensure, forcing Thorpe to kill again and again. While its A Travesty is a farce, and all the characters are rather thin, the plot has many twist and turns (seemly a lot for a short 182 page tale) does keep you reading, wondering how the film critic will get out this latest jam. There is some funny passages on writing for the movies and Westlake seemly enjoys poking the Hollywood system of filmmaking and writing (“the script. Only a hack cares about the goddam script”).
**
Ordo is an odd story, as there
is no crime, some humor (none that would make you laugh out loud) and its only
seemly connection to the other tale is that is features actors and other movie
people. The real thrust of this unusual tale is about how people can change
over the years and this makes Ordo Tupikos a sort of detective.
From Trent at the Violent
World Parker: “Ordo Tupikos is a sailor in the US Navy. One day, one of his
fellow sailors says, ‘You never said you were married to Dawn Devayne.’ Dawn Devayne
is a hugely popular and famous movie star, and according to the article in the
magazine Ordo’s fellow shipman is reading, used to be named Estelle Anlic. Ordo
was married very briefly to Estelle when he was twenty-one. Estelle had said
she was nineteen, but was only sixteen. Estelle’s mother had found them, and
had the marriage annulled. Ordo is familiar with Dawn Devayne. He’s even seen a
couple of her movies. But the woman on the screen was so different from the
Estelle he was once married to that he drew no association.”
Strangely, this throws Ordo
into a state of confusion, as he ponders how a person can be two different
people in the same body, so to speak. He eventually takes a three-week leave
from Navy to talk to Estelle…or Dawn…to seek out his questions. Ordo comes off
as confident man, not some strange hick. He seems a man set in reality, in a
modern world (of the 1970s). I’m not sure what Westlake was really trying to
say here, but I guess it was some commentary on the differences between
ordinary (Ordo) people and the ones that populate Hollywood.
“Then how, “I asked him.”She decided to be somebody else. How is it possible to do that?”
He shrugged and grinned,
friendly and amiable but not really able to describe colors to a blind man. “You
find somebody you’d rather be,” he said.
So Ordo is a bit of tale about people who feel the need to recreate themselves after growing up and also one about people who sort remain the same (whether this is good or bad is up to the reader to decide). Maybe this is the key to success for some –leaving behind everything that made their youth hard and becoming someone new.
**
On a side note, both of these tales have been adapted -one for TV and one for the French silver screens. A Travesty became A Slight Case of Murder, a 1999 TNT movie that starred William H. Macy (who co-wrote the screenplay with director Steven Schachter), Felicity Huffman, Alan Arkin, and James Cromwell.
Ordo was adapted into a French film in 2004 and starred Roschdy Zem and Marie-Josée Croze.
