Friday, July 31, 2009

Paperback 270: Stretch Dawson / W.R. Burnett (Gold Medal 106)

Paperback 270: Gold Medal 106 (PBO, 1950)

Title: Stretch Dawson
Author: W.R. Burnett
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $16


Best thing about this cover:

  • Every year, Tex made a pilgrimage to worship at the altar of the Sexy Lady of the Gun
  • That neckerchief is tied so tight about his neck that I'm a little scared for him.
  • Silly lady — shotguns are no use against Cowboy Zombies. You gotta burn 'em.
  • I'm not a big fan of her hair, but everything else about her looks fabulous.
  • Like the blurb says, W.R. Burnett wrote the 1929 gangster classic "Little Caesar" (which was turned into the even more classic 1931 gangster movie of the same name, starring Edward G. Robinson)

Best things about this back cover:

  • "Stretch was all man..." We get it, he's hung. I mean, his name is Stretch and you've got a huge phallic gun pointed at his crotch on the front cover. I think you've made your point. Move along.
  • "Squeeze it out of her..." Stretch's preferred method of torture had always been the Bear Hug.
  • In case you're confused about where this text came from ... Stretch has signed it himself. How handy / weird.

Page 123~
Shame stabbed at Stretch. He felt his face getting red and lowered his eyes so he wouldn't have to meet the Old Man's shrewd gaze. "Sure does," he said, in a husky unnatural voice.


When "unnatural" and "shame" appear in such close proximity to someone's "face getting red" in a vintage paperback, you know something very, very gay is going on.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. blogger Michael5000 will send you this trashy paperback for free if you agree to read it and write an entertaining review. Act fast if you're interested.

10 comments:

Nutscratcher Dawson said...

Pizza pizza!

Veronika said...

Ah, that old western story - The Girl, The gun and The Mannequin.

Alix said...

That ain't no gun he's staring at.

Dirt Diggler said...

* Is that a medal hanging off Stretch's breast pocket? Perhaps for promoting dark-color high desert fashion?

*Looks like the graphic artist lost his/her T square for the back cover...

* "Shame stabbed at Stretch.", just proves that shame whims can have sharp edges.

Eunice said...

Stretch looks like one of those statues they have outside tourist trap western themed restaurants. Maybe he was in the middle of a game of freeze tag when Bosoms Mc'Gee came along.

Her shirt isn't only not buttoned, it has no buttons.

What direction exactly is the light in this painting supposed to be coming from?

I hate it when someone talks about themselves in the first person.

He only has two questions and she's "going to have to explain a lot?"

Eunice said...

Oh, and it's the "husky unnatural voice" that tells me that this might be a "twilight" type of western.

Eunice said...

*and that's THIRD person not first person.

Geeze, there's no way to just edit a comment is there?

libwitch said...

Scrolling down the post (before you realize she has a gun), it rather looks like he is held up by her breasts.

Which almost works.

Larry said...

This is not a shotgun. Without going into a bunch of gun geekery, the lever action was only found on a single type of shotgun by Winchester which would have had but a single barrel without the magazine tube which this painting shows.

Sorry had to get that out of my system.

Dan said...

This is actually a novelization of Burnett's screenplay for the movie
YELLOW SKY with Gregory Peck & Richard Widmark.