Chance's Corner: A New Year's Resolution Bites the Dust

 

Well, it's two weeks into 2014, and I'm proud to say that one of my resolutions has been checked off. My goal was to finish off the Film Noir script I have been working on for over a year, and last night at approximately 12:20 AM it finally happened. Tears welled into my eyes as I typed, centered and underlined the simple phrase "The End". I also cranked up some of my favorite tunes and jammed out for a bit as pure adrenaline coursed through my veins. But... then I remembered I had work the next day and hit the bed. I still didn't get much sleep because David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel kept interviewing me. Ha!

I've always admired Film Noirs from the golden age of cinema. It was then that Humphrey Bogart smoked it up in The Maltese Falcon as well as The Big Sleep and Dark Passage (with his then wife, Lauren Bacall); Barbara Stanwyk pulled off the ultimate dastardly seduction in Double Indemity; Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame dealt searing revenge in The Big Heat; Gloria Swanson vamped her career back to life in Sunset Boulevard; Marilyn Monroe proved she can act in Niagara; and Ralph Meeker slapped and punched his way through Cold War paranoia in Kiss Me Deadly. I took the time to mention these particular classics because they were my biggest influences as I tackled my own Film Noir.

The title of my Film Noir is Kiss Off. No, there isn't any form of a kissing competition going on. It's a deadly turn of phrase as private eye Johnny Calhoun pries deeper into the reason behind a beautiful girl's murder. There's gangsters, corruption, blackmail, and bombshell women galore in this fictional 1950's setting. That's pretty much all I can say on the subject, but if you hit me up in person I might just leak a few more details.

Overall, I'm just glad that my hard work and dedication has paid off in some form. The script may never see the light of day or touch the vinyl of the silver screen, but I can at least say I finished it.