That’s just what I needed…another book to read.
So the few of you who are left from about four-and-a-half years ago may remember a series of posts discussing movie novelizations (1 2 3 – sorry for all the dead Haloscan links and minor formatting issues you’ll find there). Well, I have a new one to add to the collection, acquired just in the last week:
I had no idea there even was a novelization of Clue, that fine, underrated comedy from lo all those years ago (i.e. the mid 1980s). But here it is, staring us in our faces, daring us to believe in it.
A couple of notes:
1. Yes, like the movie, the book has multiple endings. However, the novelization has four endings, with Chapter Twenty presented four times as Versions A through D, whereas the film has only three endings. A quick skim through the endings shows that Version C is the one that isn’t in the film, and I’ll reveal in the comments later today who the culprit is and his/her eventual fate, if you’re curious.
2. The novel’s dedication reads “This book is dedicated to Those Who Got Away With It.”
3. When I first glanced at the cover, I briefly thought it said that the author was Malcolm McDowell. For that one very glorious moment, I believed I beheld the greatest book ever produced by human civilization. As it is…well, it’s pretty close.
4. Some comic book connections: the book was a Fawcett Gold Medal Book (published by Ballantine Books), Fawcett having been involved in comic book publishing to some minor extent.
And the film was produced by Jon Peters and Peter Guber, who would later produce a superhero film of some note.
And some of the actors were probably in comic-related movies, too, but I’ll let you guys figure that out since I’m sure if I did it, I’ll forget something.
…
So anyway, that’s my neat acquisition for the week. Now to find time to actually read the thing.
In some site news, I have now disallowed further commenting on posts older than 90 days, and I’m thinking about reducing that amount of time to 60 days or even less. I’ve had a few too many drive-bys leaving rude or nonsensical comments on older posts, and while I like to encourage commenting here, I’m no longer in the mood to put up with folks causing problems. That hopefully will also cut down the amount of attempted spam comments I get, too.
Anyway, that’s that.
I appreciate the non-complete shutdown of comments. Sometimes I’m just too verbose for twitter to handle a comment I want to make about a post. :)
When I was a young boy (at the same time you were a young boy) I stumbled across a novelization of Murder By Death (the Neil Simon mystery parody with Truman Capote as Lionel Twain) which seemed to be written by someone more familiar with the genre than Simon was. Does that seem to be the case with this one? Or to put in other terms, YES TELL ME WHODUNNIT!
Funny, when I first glanced at the cover I thought it was written by Michael McDonald. From the Doobie Brothers. Now that would be awesome.
I’m a fan of Michael McDowell’s original horror novels. I had no idea this existed. Now I must find it.
Darn – I’d meant to go back to your posts from 4 years ago and make rude comments. Alas, that option is gone…
It was Dim with the phallic statue in the booth at the Korova Milk Bar.
Anyone see Psych two weeks ago? It was a Clue riff with Martin Mull, Leslie Ann Warren, and Christopher Lloyd…including a different ending for each coast and lots of references and quotes from the movie.
Very, very awesome. Now…what was ending C, Mike?!?
…thanks for reminding me I’ve been reading this site for more than four and a half years, Mike!
Version C ending from the book (SPOILER ALERT):
Wadsworth was the killer, attempting to create the perfect murder(s) after failing to be a perfect husband and a perfect butler.
He meets his apparent end when he is attacked by dobermans while trying to escape.
A novel based on a movie based on a boardgame based on a genre of novels? I think the universe is swallowing itself.
(I was going to crack a joke about Battleship needing a novelization, but apparently there was a novelization of that too. By Peter David no less.)
Never came across this, but there’s also a storybook version with a similar CYOA bit at the end, based on which clue you think is the most relevant.
I’ve always wondered about the sad lives of people who post negative stuff in comments sections for seemingly no reason. You hope they’re kids, but you know they’re probably adults.
Kind of reminds me of the project Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics did. He blogged his responses to reading the Back to the Future novelization.
…and then he turned those blogs into a book that you can buy. So. That’s weird and recursive.
“Murder By Death”
i believe one of the women in “CLUE” was also in that!