Ep 4: Edith Head - When Facts Become Fiction, with Vince and Rosemarie Keenan

NOIR TALK

The co-authors of the classic Hollywood mysteries "Design For Dying" and "Dangerous To Know" join us to talk noir, costume design, and mystery writing. We start with their appearance at NOIR CITY Hollywood to introduce This Gun For Hire (2:30), as well as some of this year's movies at their hometown festival of NOIR CITY Seattle, including The Taking Of Pelham 123 and The Ladykillers (4:00). We also discuss the editing and production of the Film Noir Foundation's NOIR CITY e-magazine, where Vince is the co-managing editor (13:20), plus Vince's long-running "Cocktails And Crime" e-magazine column (17:45). Then it's on to legendary costume designer Edith Head. We talk about the Keenans' e-magazine article exploring her career and her work on film noir (21:00), her partnerships with Alfred Hitchcock and Grace Kelly (28:20), plus her work designing clothes for the Academy Awards and for Bette Davis (32:10). Edith Head co-stars in the Keenans' books written under the pseudonym Renee Patrick. We discuss the origins of writing mystery novels centered around costume design in classic Hollywood, plus Edith's partner in fighting crime, Lillian Frost (37:40). Then we talk about the mechanics of mystery writing (where Vince explains the term "pantser") (43:50), choosing the books' titles (46:50), some of the amazing true Hollywood stories and real-life people who appear throughout the novels (51:00), inventing names for a fictional movie studio and some particularly entertaining fake movie titles (1:05:40), and what's next for Lillian and Edith in more novels to come (1:12:55). Contribute to the FNF to receive a year-long subscription to the quarterly NOIR CITY e-magazine: http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircityemag.html More information on the Renee Patrick novels at their website reneepatrickbooks.com, including the origin of the pseudonym here: http://reneepatrickbooks.com/blog/faq-3 Design For Dying: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Dying-Lillian-Frost-Edith/dp/0765381842/ Dangerous To Know: https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Know-Lillian-Frost-Edith/dp/0765381869/ Vince's classic cocktail book "Down The Hatch" is available on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Down-Hatch-Odyssey-Through-Cocktail-ebook/dp/B00FIU1IQC/ Please send us feedback on the podcast at [e-mail]. Music: Themes from The Sniper (by George Antheil), Double Indemnity (Miklos Rozsa), The Ladykillers (Tristram Cary), and Rear Window (Franz Waxman). Edith Head's narration from the Motion Picture Academy short film "The Costume Designer": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCmXDnneSlg