Movie
A Stanley Hastings Mystery
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The good news is Stanley Hastings got a screenplay produced. The bad news is it's a karate movie with four hot babes, a nerdy twerp superstar is rewriting the script, and someone is bumping off the movie crew.
"Mr. Hall scores some good laughs with his sendups of obsessive movie folk and their narcissistic ways."
-Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
"A good time ... as a bonus, you'll learn about filmmaking, and why to run the other way if you think it's going to happen to your screenplay."
-Kirkus
"In MOVIE, Parnell skewers the denizens of filmland with undisguised relish."
-Edward Gilbreth, Chicago Sun Times
"Delightful and humorous."
-Chattanooga Times
"The expected humor, character drawing, and fair-play plotting are all in place."
-Jon L. Breen, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following last year's Blackmail, Stanley Hastings's 10th adventure is strictly for fans of the first nine; others will find the actor/PI all too convincing when he complains about just how ``dull and painful'' movie-making can be. Stanley is elated when producer Sidney Garfellow hires him to write the screenplay of ``a karate movie with four hot babes'' to be shot in New York City. While scouting out a warehouse for a location, Stanley and crew discover the corpse of a derelict killed by a blow to the head. When the neophyte screenwriter is not listing such dreary details as the number of pages of script shot per day, he gripes about the pampered star who rewrites lines as he goes. A second death, the suspicious fatal fall of a crew member, disrupts production. While the ambitious producer exploits the murder's publicity possibilities, an NYPD sergeant, antagonistic toward Stanley from previous meetings, questions everyone in sight, spurring Stanley's ``nagging desire to wipe that smug smile off his face by solving the crime first.'' That's as charming as Stanley gets in this appearance, in which even the puzzle, based on exploitation and revenge, is a disappointment.
