Take the "Did You Know" Quiz!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   Did we ever figure out yesterday who we thought should play Lady Georgie in the movies? I know in TRUST ME, my Mercer Hennessey is Tea Leoni and in fact, have a photo of her on my bulletin board to inspire me.

But the role of Caitlin Strong, the iconic, smart, savvy and intrepid heroine of Jon Land’s novels—who should play her?  You know Jon Land right? He’s a Jungle Red hero himself, a dear pal and a brilliant writer and an unstoppable force. And such an imagination! (If you ever have the chance to take a class from him—do it! He’s life-changingly wonderful.)

Anyway, he’s been thinking about who ‘d be a good screen Caitlin—since his tenth (!) Strong novel is about to grace bookstore shelves everywhere. But you know Jon—he’s not only thinking about casting--he has some wonderful stories about it. And—a quiz!

Let’s Play DID YOU KNOW

By Jon Land

         So who do you think should play Caitlin Strong in my dreamed-of television series or film? Chances are whoever producers really want for the role either won’t take it or end up eing replaced before shooting actually begins. Why do I feel that way? Look no further than some of the examples detailed below and presented here to commemorate the publication of the tenth book in the Caitlin Strong series, STRONG AS STEEL, on April 23.       

         DID YOU KNOW, for example, that the original choice to play Harry Callahan in the modern cop classic Dirty Harry wasn’t Clint Eastwood; it was Frank Sinatra! Upon reading the script, though, Old Blue Eyes wanted no part of such a violent film. The studio turned to Eastwood who ordered a major rewrite by the era’s top screenwriter John Milius. And Milius’ polish added virtually all of the film’s signature lines including, “Do you feel lucky? Well do you, punk?” And a star was born.

         Speaking of Frank Sinatra, DID YOU KNOW that he was also offered the role of John McClane in Die Hard. Not because the studio actually wanted him, but because they had no choice. See, Sinatra had purchased the rights to The Detective, a Roderick Thorpe novel which he produced as a film and played the hero Joe Leland. Well, as it turns out Die Hard was actually written by Thorpe under the title Nothing Lasts Forever as a sequel to The Detective. Because it also featured Joe Leland and Sinatra technically owned the rights to the character, he had to be offered the role. Sinatra, of course, declined, setting the stage for another star to be born in Bruce Willis.

         But DID YOU KNOW that Willis wasn’t the first choice for John McClane? Far from it, in fact. Kurt Russell was reportedly the studio’s pick, but he passed. So did Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Burt Reynolds and Richard Gere—all stars at the time who couldn’t imagine how an action movie set entirely inside a building could possibly succeed. Well, not only did it succeed, it redefined the action film forever and established an entirely new form in the process. How many times, after all, have you heard a film described as “Die Hard in a blank?”

         DID YOU KNOW that Paramount wanted no part of Al Pacino as Michael in The Godfather? Not only that, execs were so determined to fire him that director Francis Ford Coppola shot the famed restaurant scene out of sequence to prove Pacino was a star in the making. Case closed! Who was the studio’s original first choice to play Michael? In a 2004 interview with Movieline, Jack Nicholson said he turned down the role. “Back then I believed that Indians should play Indians and Italians should play Italians,” Nicholson said in the interview. “There were a lot of actors who could have played Michael, myself included, but Al Pacino was Michael Corleone. I can’t think of a better compliment to pay him.”

         DID YOU KNOW Paramount wanted no part of Marlon Brando either. The first name they raised to play Vito Corleone was John Marley who was coming off Love Story which had been the #1 movie of 1970. Marley, of course, went on to play film producer Jack Woltz and became famous for finding a horse’s head in his bed.

         Speaking of hit films, there are few with more tumultuous shooting timelines than Jaws. During all that downtime brought on by lousy weather and a broken mechanical shark, Steven Spielberg pondered why the shark hunter played by Robert Shaw hates sharks so much. It wasn’t in the book and neither author Peter Benchley or screenwriter Carl Gottlieb had a clue. So Spielberg called back the great John Milius (just as Clint Eastwood had for Dirty Harry) who’d already written the famed fingernails on the blackboard Quint intro. But DID YOU KNOW that when Milius couldn’t nail the scene, none other than Robert Shaw stepped forward and asked for a chance? The scene was scheduled to shoot on the Orca set the next day and Shaw promised to come in with pages. Only he showed up drunk instead, having memorized the lines. Knowing he couldn’t use the footage, Spielberg only pretended to roll the cameras as Shaw launched into the now famous Indianapolis monologue. The crew listened, utterly mesmerized, and then the next day Shaw came in sober enough to nail the scene in one take! All without ever putting the words on paper.

         And, speaking of Jaws, DID YOU KNOW that to the day he died Roy Scheider claimed he ad-libbed the signature line, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” Although no one else has ever definitively corroborated that, watching the scene today it does appear the line caught Robert Shaw by surprise. But plenty of his fellow actors have corroborated John Belushi’s assertion that was indeed a real bottle of Jack Daniels he chugged for a scene in Animal House.

         Similarly, Matthew McConaughey became famous for the first line he ever uttered on film: “All right, all right, all right,” in Richard Linkletter’s Dazed and Confused. But DID YOU KNOW he almost never got to deliver it? Reading for his first film role ever, McConaughey killed his audition, but Linkletter told him he was too good looking to play Wooderson, the town’s perpetually adolescent Lothario. So he came in to his callback with a white t-shirt and a comb over. McConaughey got the role but his father died just before filming was scheduled to start and Linkletter hated the notion of recasting the role. So he held it open as long as he could and, lo and behold, McConaughey returned to the set just in time. Linkletter was shooting the drive-in scene at the time and was so happy to see McConaughey back, he added him to the scene with instructions to ad-lib his lines, including “Love them redheads,” another of his most iconic ones.

         Since I’ve recently taken over the MURDER, SHE WROTE series, though, let me finish with the fact that did you know the great Angela Lansbury wasn’t the first choice to play Jessica Fletcher? It was Jean Stapleton, who famously played Edith Bunker in All in the Family. Imagine that!

         Hey, I can only hope to be able to share a comparable story about the actress ultimately chosen to play Caitlin Strong sometime down the road.  In the meantime, though, we’ll have to settle for picturing Caitlin as she’s presented in STRONG AS STEEL and the other nine books in the series. Happy reading and do you have any DID YOU KNOWs you’d like to share?  

HANK: SO fascinating, as always! (And did you know my name was supposed to be Alexandra? But at the last minute, my mother decided I didn't look like an Alexandra. So  they decided on Harriet. Hmmm.) How about you, Reds and readers? Any did you knows in your life? And did you know about the Hollywood secrets John revealed?  (Wasn't there something about Elizabeth Taylor and Scarlett O'Hara?)

Jon Land is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of 50 books, including ten titles in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series, the last of which, STRONG TO THE BONE, won both the 2017 American Book Fest and 2018 International Book Award for Best Mystery Thriller. Suspense Magazine called the latest title in the series, STRONG AS STEEL, "what just might be the best novel of 2019." MURDER IN RED, meanwhile, will mark his third effort writing as Jessica Fletcher for the MURDER, SHE WROTE series when it’s published on May 28. He has also teamed with Heather Graham for a new sci-fi series starting with THE RISING. He is a 1979 graduate of Brown University, lives in Providence, Rhode Island and can be reached at www.jonlandbookscom and on Twitter @jonland

STRONG AS STEEL

1994:  Texas Ranger Jim Strong investigates a mass murder on a dusty freight train linked to a mysterious, missing cargo for which no record exists.

The Present:  His daughter, fifth generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong, finds herself on the trail of that very same cargo when skeletal bones are found in the Texas desert near an excavation site where something else was clearly removed.  She’s also dealing  a mass murder of her own after a massacre claims the lives of all the workers at a private intelligence company on her watch.

What Caitlin doesn’t know, can’t know, is that these two cases are connected by a long-hidden secret with the potential to rewrite history. For centuries, men have died trying to protect that secret, but it’s left to Caitlin to uncover the shocking truth that something far more dangerous is at stake here as well: a weapon of epic proportions with the potential to kill millions.

To stop the world from descending into chaos, Caitlin and her outlaw lover Cort Wesley Masters must prove themselves to be as strong as steel to overcome a bloody tide that has been rising for centuries.

Let's Twist Again

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So, first. Have you voted? Are you voting? The Reds are relying on it, so do that. And tonight, we'll all be watching the returns, hoping for--good and reassuring news. Knowing  knowing that some where some time there'll be a surprise. In a novel, we'd call it--a twist! 

And that makes what Jon Land is thinking about today perfect. We can talk twists!  His new Jessica Fletcher  book MANUSCRIPT FOR MURDER is out today. Yay. It's his  second book since taking over the MURDER, SHE WROTE series, and it features a twist ending. (Jon says I can tell you that.)  Many of his other books do, too.

Are you a fan of the twist? (Stop singing, I can hear you.) Jon thinks his twist-affection was born in his earliest days...and the love of the twist has only gotten stronger.  He's even offering his top twisty movies..see what you think!

A TWIST IN THE TALE

   by Jon Land

Call it the influence of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents on me when I was growing up. But I’ve long found nothing more satisfying than a jaw dropping reveal that sticks with you long after you first found your heart in your mouth. So in honor of that, and my own stab at such in MANUSCRIPT FOR MURDER, here’s a list of some of the greatest twist endings ever.

((HANK: oh, ed note: spoilers lurk ahead. But you HAVE seen or read all of these, right? If not, start watching (or reading) right after you vote. Okay, Jon, take it away.))  

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: The moment when Chazz Palminteri’s customs agent Dave Kujan drops his coffee cup after studying the back-office wall Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint has been facing for much of the movie remains the benchmark against which all other shocking twists will be compared. Outside, as Verbal completes his incredible metamorphosis into Keyser Soze, we realize we’ve been conned; that the metaphorical devil isn’t just real, he’s loose. It was right there in front of us the whole time but, like all great twists, we never saw it coming.

THE SIXTH SENSE:  Everyone seems to have a different moment when they realized Bruce Willis was one of the dead people Haley Joel Osment’s tortured young boy could see, but whenever that might’ve been it’s sure to have sent a chill sliding up your spine. The later the better, of course, because figuring it out too early is like getting the punch line before the joke is finished. M. Night Shyamalan’s brilliant misdirection makes us think we saw things that weren’t there, concealing the twist, for most anyway, until much closer to the end than the beginning.

THE STING: The film’s director George Roy Hill famously said that you can’t make a movie about con men without conning the audience. Well, all great twist endings are cons but this one was wondrously elaborate and a straight kick in the pants to those in the audience convinced they had everything figured out. Making us think the heroes are dead only to reveal they’re not makes for the perfect finish to a perfect film, much imitated but never equaled.

ARLINGTON ROAD: The sleeper in the group. Since relatively few know the movie, so no spoilers here. I’ll just say that the film’s slow, relentlessly suspenseful build makes us think we’re watching one thing when we’re actually watching something else entirely. I saw the film in a crowded theater and the moment in the end when a character says to Jeff Bridges’ tortured terrorism professor, “Michael, the only one who doesn’t belong here is you,” you could feel the audience lose its collective breath. A stunner that sticks with you long after you leave the theater.

THE CHASER: The classic short story by John Collier remains a subtle study in inevitability, all show and no tell since it’s comprised almost entirely of dialogue. A young man who enters a potion shop gets considerably more than he bargains for—at least he will eventually—after purchasing for mere pennies an elixir that will make the woman of his dreams love him. The twist lies in the fact that the price is so low because those who purchase it always come back for the chaser of the title: a much more expensive, and deadly, potion held in a different case. The young man never realizes that, of course, even when the professorial figure behind the counter bids him farewell with “Au revoir.” Until we meet again.

THE GLASS EYE: This installment so typical of Alfred Hitchcock Presents features a penny-pinching, lonely woman who finds herself obsessed with a ravishing ventriloquist for the joy he brings into her life. Wanting to prolong the feeling, she begs to meet her crush, leading to a shattering denouement no one could possibly have seen coming. Ever the master of misdirection in his films, Hitchcock similarly relished leaving us utterly shocked in the short form penned by the likes of Academy Award winner Sterling Silliphant.

TO SERVE MAN: The brilliant Rod Serling’s ending is right there in the title of this titular Twilight Zone episode, thanks to the double meaning that nobody sees or gets, not until the moment when the episode’s hero is boarding a space ship bound for a distant planet along with the rest of the world’s top leaders. The title actually refers to a book one of the aliens leaves behind to tempt and taunt the world. And its translation should have been obvious, but wasn’t.

DEMON WITH THE GLASS HAND: The classic Harlan Ellison penned Outer Limits episode features a lone human at war with aliens amid a sprawling warehouse complex while trying to find the missing fingers to complete his glass hand. Each finger brings that computerized appendage closer to explaining who he is and what he’s doing there. But the reveal imparted when the final finger is in place is one we never could have seen coming and is all the more perfect as a result.

THE SWIMMER: The brilliant short story by John Cheever, made into a surreal film by Frank Perry, features a super successful businessman on a shattering odyssey through affluent suburbia, uncovering the truth about his past, and present, through dips in his neighbors’ backyard pools as he makes his way home. It’s a slow burn that ignites in a final flashpoint when the character of Ned Merrill (played brilliantly in the film by Burt Lancaster) finally gets back to his house on the hill.

MEMENTO: Few films have ever come together better in the final moment than Christopher Nolan’s ground-breaking shocker about a man whose short-term memory only extends five or so minutes. He tattoos cue cards all over his body to keep track of his life, which doesn’t stop everyone he meets from conning him. Then, in the final fadeout, he cons himself to the pitch perfect voiceover (for a film that unveils in reverse fashion), “Where was I?”

Those are my choices. What about yours? Leave your suggestion(s) in the comments and I’ll respond with my thoughts!

HANK: Oh! This is SUCH fun. I will never forget that Twilight Zone. And the one with the guy with the glasses. And monsters on maple street. Ah.  And a good twist does not only have to come at the end, right? Clare Mackintosh's wonderful I Let You Go has one, and my Trust Me. More I cannot say. 

 But what do you think, reds and readers? Favorite twist endings, or middles? And do you want to know when a movie or book has a twist? 

Jessica Fletcher investigates a mysterious manuscript with deadly consequences in the latest entry in this USA Todaybestselling series...

Jessica Fletcher has had plenty to worry about over her storied career, both as a bestselling novelist and amateur sleuth. But she never had any reason to worry about her longtime publisher, Lane Barfield, who also happens to be a trusted friend. When mounting evidence of financial malfeasance leads to an FBI investigation of Lane, Jessica can't believe what she's reading.

So when Barfield turns up dead, Jessica takes on the task of proving Barfield's innocence--she can't fathom someone she's known and trusted for so long cheating her. Sure enough, Jessica's lone wolf investigation turns up several oddities and inconsistencies in Barfield's murder. Jessica knows something is being covered up, but what exactly? The trail she takes to answer that question reveals something far more nefarious afoot, involving shadowy characters from the heights of power in Washington. At the heart of Jessica's investigation lies a manuscript Barfield had intended to bring out after all other publishers had turned it down. The problem is that manuscript has disappeared, all traces of its submission and very existence having been wiped off the books.

With her own life now in jeopardy, Jessica refuses to back off and sets her sights on learning the contents of that manuscript and what about it may have led to several murders. Every step she takes brings her closer to the truth of what lies in the pages, as well as the person who penned them.

Jon Land

Jon Land is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of 45 books, including nine titles in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong series, the most recent of which, STRONG TO THE BONE, won both the 2017 American Book Fest and 2018 International Book Award for Best Mystery. The next title in the series, STRONG AS STEEL, will be published in April. MANUSCRIPT FOR marks his second effort writing as Jessica Fletcher for the MURDER, SHE WROTE series, and he has also teamed with Heather Graham for a new sci-fi series starting with THE RISING. He is a 1979 graduate of Brown University, lives in Providence, Rhode Island and can be reached at jonlandbooks.com  or on Twitter @jondland.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451489306?pf_rd_p=8e0819a9-0ef1-44cd-9544-a7f28374af8b&pf_rd_r=SCFQSGYJNAAKT254Z2NZ

Twitter: @jondland

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JonLandAuthor /

Go ahead, make my day. Pardner.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Are you shopping today? Wow, you are brave. Or--are you going to a movie? Or reading? As the most amazing Jon Land points out, there’s a fascinating connection between the two. Especially when it comes to thrillers—and westerns.

Jon is one of the most generous, most talented, and hardest working author in the biz---as well as a brilliant teacher! He’s a USA Today bestselling author of 38 novels, including his Caitlin Strong series—which enthusiastic reviewers have called “modern day westerns.”

You don’t read or watch westerns, you say? Yes, you do.  Here’s what Jon has discovered. Check it out…and afterward, tell us your faves, (Or—what you scored on Black Friday!)

THE MODERN DAY WESTERN

        By Jon Land

My Caitlin Strong books have often been referred to as modern day westerns.  While I’d like to take credit for starting that trend, it goes back far longer than Caitlin and me. Strong (no pun intended!) men with a simple ethos and base nobility in which they stood as the lone hope against bad guys determined to make the world worse for ordinary people. So, in honor of the release of The Magnificent Seven remake, let’s explore some examples of the modern day western that has so influenced the form of the thriller novel in pop culture.

DIRTY HARRY:  Clint Eastwood’s seminal, star-making turn as a loner cop breaking all the rules to track down a serial killer.  The setting of 1970s San Francisco could just as easily have been the plains roamed by the Man with No Name in the spaghetti westerns in which Clint cut his teeth.  Harry Callahan is a character literally defined by his gun, making the .44 Magnum famous as well.  A great uncredited rewrite by John Millius turned a simple cop film into a portrait of a modern day gunfighter’s obsession with seeing justice done, ending in identical fashion to the Gary Cooper classic High Noon.

STAR WARS:  A “space western” that contains all the staples of the form right down to the villainous gunfighter in black, as personified by Darth Vader, only with a light saber instead of a Colt .45.  Add to that Luke Skywalker’s ingénue evolving into a heroic force of good, the blaster-wielding gunslinger in Han Solo, a rescue sequence (a la The Professionals), and a climactic gun battle transposed into outer space.  The result draws upon Akira Kurosawa’s western-inspired samurai movies in crafting an industry-changing masterpiece.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN:  The purest “postmodern” western on our list, since (in both the book and the exceptionally faithful film adaptation) Tommy Lee Jones’s saintly old-school sheriff never actually confronts Javier Bardem’s twistedly terrifying Anton Chigurh.  But the drug deal gone wrong harks back to any number of stagecoach and bank robberies that define so many westerns.  And Chigurh’s malevolent menace is reminiscent of every black-clad baddie ever to rampage through the Old West.  A creature not so much of the land, as fate itself and thus defined purely in the moment, giving us no idea from where he came or where he’s going next.

 

JACK REACHER: Okay, Tom Cruise isn’t as big or as bruising as Lee Child’s iconic, nomadic hero who carries only a toothbrush while taming one town, and one book, after another.  But Cruise otherwise nails the character’s sensibility to a T.  Reacher is a classic western gunfighter, unable to settle down and on a quasi-Quixotic journey to right the wrongs of the world perpetrated on ordinary people like you and I.  He vanquishes the bad guys, then mounts a bus instead of a horse to ride on to his next adventure.  Not a whole lot different than Paladin from the classic TV western, Have Gun, Will Travel.

Okay, those are my picks.  Now, how about yours?  Any you’d like to add?

HANK:  SO interesting!  How about To Kill a Mockingbird?  I guess that's not a thriller.... 

And so delighted, Jon, that you've made your hero a woman!

How abut you, Reds? Are you more western fans or thriller fans? (Or--are  you more about shopping today?) 

*****************

Jon Land is the USA Today bestselling author of 38 novels, including eight titles in the critically acclaimed Caitlin Strong series: Strong Enough to Die, Strong Justice, Strong at the Break, Strong Vengeance, Strong Rain Falling (winner of the 2014 International Book Award and 2013 USA Best Book Award for Mystery-Suspense), Strong Darkness (winner of the 2014 USA Books Best Book Award and the 2015 International Book Award for Thriller and Strong Light of Day which won the 2016 International Book Award for Best Thriller-Adventure, the 2015 Books and Author Award for Best Mystery Thriller, and the 2016 Beverly Hills Book Award for Best Mystery.  The latest title in the series is Strong Cold Dead, was published on October 4 and about which Booklist said, “Thrillers don’t get any better than this,” in a starred review. Land has also teamed with multiple New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham on a new sci-fi series, the first of which, The Rising, will be published by Forge in January of 2017. He is a 1979 graduate of Brown University and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.