Cornell Woolrich: Difference between revisions

His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich the fourth best [[Crime fiction|crime writer]] of his day, behind [[Dashiell Hammett]], [[Erle Stanley Gardner]] and [[Raymond Chandler]].{{cn|date=October 2023}}

He attended [[Columbia University]] but left in 1926 without graduating when his first novel, ''Cover Charge'', was published.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-05-07 |title=Take Five with Charles Ardai '91 |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/latest/take-five/take-five-charles-ardai-91 |access-date=2022-05-01 |website=Columbia College Today |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development |url=http://archive.org/details/ldpd_12981092_023 |title=Columbia College today |last2=Columbia College (Columbia University) |date=1981 |publisher=New York: Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development |others=Columbia University Libraries}}</ref> As [[Eddie Duggan]] observes, "Woolrich enrolled at New York's Columbia University in 1921 where he spent a relatively undistinguished year until he was taken ill and was laid up for some weeks. It was during this illness (a ''Rear- Window''-like–like confinement involving a gangrenous foot, according to one version of the story) that Woolrich started writing, producing ''Cover Charge'', which was published in 1926."<ref name=ED>[[Eddie Duggan]] [https://www.academia.edu/6778750/_Writing_in_the_Darkness_The_World_of_Cornell_Woolrich_._Crimetime_1999_ (1999) 'Writing in the darkness: the world of Cornell Woolrich' ''CrimeTime'' 2.6 pp. 113–126.]</ref> ''Cover Charge'' was one of his [[Jazz Age]] novels inspired by the work of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]. A second short story, ''"Children of the Ritz''", won Woolrich the first prize of $10,000 the following year in a competition organised by College Humor and First National Pictures; this led to his working as a screenwriter in Hollywood for First National Pictures. While in Hollywood, Woolrich explored his sexuality,<ref name="glbtq">{{Cite news |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/woolrich_c.html |title=Woolrich, Cornell |periodical=[[glbtq.com]] |access-date=2007-08-20 |year=2003 |last=Krinsky |first=Charles |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814195306/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/woolrich_c.html |archive-date=2007-08-14 }}</ref> apparently engaging in what [[FrancesFrancis M. Nevins|Francis M. Nevins]] Jr.]] describes as "promiscuous and clandestine homosexual activity" and by marrying Violet Virginia Blackton, the 21-year-old daughter of [[J. Stuart Blackton]], one of the founders of the [[Vitagraph]] studio. Failing in both his attempt at marriage and at establishing a career as a screenwriter (the unconsummated marriage was annulled in 1933; Woolrich garnered no screen credits), Woolrich sought to resume his life as a novelist:

{{quoteblockquote| Although Woolrich had published six 'jazz-age' novels, concerned with the party-antics and romances of the beautiful young things on the fringes of American society, between 1926 and 1932, he was unable to establish himself as a serious writer. Perhaps because the 'jazz-age' novel was dead in the water by the 1930s when the depression[[Great Depression|Depression]] had begun to take hold, Woolrich was unable to find a publisher for his seventh novel, ''I Love You, Paris'', so he literally threw away the typescript, dumped it in a dustbin, and re-invented himself as a pulp writer.<ref name=ED/>}}

[[File:Black Mask May 1937.jpg|thumb|May 1937 issue of ''[[Black Mask (magazine)|Black Mask]]'' magazine, featuring Woolrich as the lead writer]]When he turned to pulp and [[detective fiction]], Woolrich's output was so prolific his work was often published under one of his many pseudonyms.<ref name=ED/> For example, "William Irish" was the byline in ''Dime Detective Magazine'' (February 1942) on his 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder", source of the 1954 [[Alfred Hitchcock]] movie ''[[Rear Window]]'' and itself based on H.G. Wells' short story "Through a Window". [[François Truffaut]] filmed Woolrich's ''[[The Bride Wore Black (novel)|The Bride Wore Black]]'' and ''Waltz into Darkness'' in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as ''[[Mississippi Mermaid]]''. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" and its use for ''Rear Window'' was litigated before the [[United States Supreme Court|US Supreme Court]] in ''[[Stewart v. Abend]]'', 495 U.S. 207 (1990).

He returned to New York, where he and his mother moved into the [[Hotel Marseilles]] (Broadway and West 103rd Street on Manhattan's [[Upper West Side]]). Eddie Duggan observes that "[a]lthough his writing made him wealthy, Woolrich and his mother lived in a series of seedy hotel rooms, including the squalid Hotel Marseilles apartment building in Harlem [sic], among a group of thieves, prostitutes and lowlifes that would not be out of place in Woolrich's dark fictional world."<ref name=ED/> Woolrich lived there until his mother's death on October 6, 1957, which prompted his move to the slightly more upscale Hotel Franconia (20 West 72nd Street near Central Park).<ref>Nevins, Francis M. "Introduction," ''Tonight, Somewhere in New York''. Carroll & Graf, 2001.</ref> Duggan wrote:

{{quotationblockquote | [After] Woolrich's mother died in 1957, he [went] into a sharp physical and mental decline.}}

Most of Woolrich's books are out of print, and new editions were slow to come out because of estate issues.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} However, new collections of his short stories were issued in the early 1990s. As of February 3, 2020, the [http://fadedpage.com Faded Page] has seven titles available as [[EBook|ebooks]] in the [[public domain]] in Canada; these may be still under copyright elsewhere. In 2020 and 2021, [[Otto Penzler]]'s "American Mystery Classics" series released new editions of ''Waltz into Darkness'' and ''The Bride Wore Black'' in both hardcover and paperback.

===Short storyfiction collections===

|Includes both previously published &and unpublished stories.

|Includes both previously published &and unpublished stories.

==Selected films based on Woolrich's storiesfiction==

* ''[[Manhattan Love Song]]'' (1934) (based on the novel), directed by Leonard Fields

* ''[[Convicted (1938 film)|Convicted]]'' (1938) (based on the short story ''"Face Work''"), directed by [[Leon Barsha]]

* ''[[Street of Chance (1942 film)|Street of Chance]]'' (1942) (based on the novel ''The Black Curtain''), directed by [[Jack Hively]]

* ''[[Phantom Lady (film)|Phantom Lady]]'' (1944) (based on the novel), directed by [[Robert Siodmak]]

* ''[[The Mark of the Whistler]]'' (1944) (based on the story ''"Dormant Account''"), directed by [[William Castle]]

* ''[[Deadline at Dawn]]'' (1946) (based on the novel), the only film directed by stage director [[Harold Clurman]]

* ''[[Black Angel (1946 film)|Black Angel]]'' (1946) (based on the novel), directed by [[Roy William Neill]]

* ''[[The Chase (1946 film)|The Chase]]'' (1946) (based on the novel ''The Black Path of Fear''). directed by [[Arthur Ripley]]

* ''[[Fall Guy (1947 film)|Fall Guy]]'' (1947) (based on the story ''"Cocaine''"), directed by [[Reginald Le Borg]]

* ''[[The Guilty (1947 film)|The Guilty]]'' (1947) (based on the story ''"He Looked Like Murder''"), directed by [[John Reinhardt (director)|John Reinhardt]]

* ''[[Fear in the Night (1947 film)|Fear in the Night]]'' (1947) (based on the story story ''"Nightmare''"), directed by [[Maxwell Shane]]

* ''[[The Return of the Whistler]]'' (1948) (based on the story ''"All at Once, No Alice''"), directed by [[D. Ross Lederman]]

* ''[[I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes]]'' (1948) (based on the story), directed by [[William Nigh]]

* ''[[Night Has a Thousand Eyes]]'' (1948) (based on the novel), directed by [[John Farrow]]

* ''[[The Window (1949 film)|The Window]]'' (1949) (based on the story ''"The Boy Cried Murder''"), directed by [[Ted Tetzlaff]]

* ''[[No Man of Her Own (1950 film)|No Man of Her Own]]'' (1950) (based on the novel ''I Married a Dead Man''), directed by [[Mitchell Leisen]]

* ''[[The Earring]]'' (1951) (based on the story ''"The Death Stone''"), directed by [[León Klimovsky]]

* ''The Trace of Some Lips'' (1952)<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://balaju.uv.mx/index.php/balaju/article/view/2552|title=The melodrama star as a noir film heroine: The Trace of Some Lips (1952)|journal=Balajú. Revista de Cultura y Comunicación de la Universidad Veracruzana|date=2 August 2018|author=Ortiz, Roberto Carlos|issue=8 |pages=69–89 |doi=10.25009/blj.v0i8.2552 |s2cid=192712997 |doi-access=free}}</ref> (based on the story ''"Collared''"), directed by [[Juan Bustillo Oro]]

* ''[[Don't Ever Open That Door]]'' (1952) (an [[anthology]] film based on the stories ''"Somebody on the Phone''" and ''"Humming Bird Comes Home''") directed by [[Carlos Hugo Christensen]]

* ''[[Rear Window]]'' (1954) (based on the story ''"It Had to Be Murder''"), directed by [[Alfred Hitchcock]]

* ''[[Obsession (1954 film)|Obsession]]'' (1954) (based on the story ''"Silent as the Grave''"), directed by [[Jean Delannoy]]

* ''[[Nightmare (1956 film)|Nightmare]]'' (1956) (based on the story), directed by [[Maxwell Shane]]

* ''[[Escapade (1957 film)|Escapade]]'' (1957) (based on the story ''"Cinderella and the Mob''"), directed by [[Ralph Habib]]

* ''[[Ah, Bomb!]]'' (1964) (based on the story ''Adventures of a Fountain Pen''), directed by [[Kihachi Okamoto]]

* ''[[The Boy Cried Murder]]'' (1966) (based on the story ''The Boy Cried Murder''), directed by [[George P. Breakston]]

* ''[[The Bride Wore Black]]'' (1968) (based on the novel), directed by [[François Truffaut]]

* ''[[Mississippi Mermaid]] '' (1969) (based on the novel ''Waltz into Darkness''), directed by François Truffaut

* ''[[Kati Patang]]'' (1970) (based on the novel ''I Married a Dead Man''),<ref name=exp>{{cite news |title=Shabnam Still Gets Fan Mail|url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/shabnam-still-gets-fan-mail/720458/0 |publisher=Indian Express |date=Dec 4, 2010 |access-date=May 7, 2013}}</ref> directed by [[Shakti Samanta]]

* ''[[Seven Blood-Stained Orchids]]'' (1972) (based on the novel ''Rendezvous in Black''), directed by [[Umberto Lenzi]]

* ''[[You'll Never See Me Again]]'' (1973), filmed[[TV for television,Movie]] directed by [[Jeannot Szwarc]]

* ''[[Martha (1974 film)|Martha]]'' (1974) (based on the story ''For the Rest of Her Life''), directed by [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]

* ''Gun Moll'' (1975) (based on the story "Collared"), directed by [[Giorgio Capitani]]

* ''[[Union City (film)|Union City]]'' (1980) (based on the story ''"The Corpse Next Door''"), directed by [[Marcus Reichert]]

* ''[[I Married a Shadow]]'' (1983) (based on the novel ''I Married a Dead Man'')

* ''[[Cloak & Dagger (1984 film)|Cloak & Dagger]]'' (1984) (story ''"The Boy Who Cried Murder''"), directed by [[Richard Franklin (director)|Richard Franklin]]

* ''[[I'm Dangerous Tonight]]'' (1990) (based on the story ''"I'm Dangerous Tonight''"), directed by [[Tobe Hooper]]

* ''[[Mrs. Winterbourne]]'' (1996) (based on the novel ''"I Married a Dead Man''"), directed by [[Richard Benjamin]]

* ''[[Rear Window (1998 film)|Rear Window]]'' (1998) (based on the story ''"It Had to Be Murder''"), directed by [[Jeff Bleckner]]

* ''[[Original Sin (2001 film)|Original Sin]]'' (2001) (based on the novel ''Waltz into Darkness''), directed by [[Michael Cristofer]]

* ''[[Four O'Clock (film)|Four O'Clock]]'' (2006) (based on the story ''"Three O'Clock''")

* [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20100329212922/http://members.toast.net/woolrich/black.htm Cornell Woolrich tribute site] (archived)

* [http://www.escape-suspense.com/cornell_woolrich/ Cornell Woolrich radio adaptations] on ''[[Suspense (radio drama)|Suspense]]''