Thursday 24 June 2010

PAPERBACK HEAVEN

I've been on a film set all day - doing a new TV show set in the 1970's and my scene involved me going into a newsagents and asking for a packet of cigarettes, while the star of the show came in with a shotgun, intending to rob the place. Anyway, as always, the set was perfect for the era - all the little details were correct and the stock was all of the era. And in a corner was one of those spinning racks full of paperbacks.

I was in heaven - it was like stepping back in time. I got told off for spinning the rack, looking at the titles but I'm no fool I knew how it had looked when I started and I quickly spun it back into the correct order for the scene. Anyway as soon as I got another chance I started browsing again - there were three Bond books, the panther editions with the girls on plain white covers, a load of Agatha Christies, a copy of The Executioner 28: Savage Fire (I remember that series), about a dozen of the Conan paperbacks and a large number of westerns, Edge, Adam Steele, Blade, The Gunsmith, Louis L'amour, J.T.Edson. And of course all these books were in mint condition and appeared brand new. They were however actual vintage copies - I checked.

Man I wanted that spinner - the buggers wouldn't let me have it, though.

Nor the contents for that matter.

5 comments:

Evan Lewis said...

That original Execution series, 1 thru 38 (minus #16) was damn powerful writing. Makes me want to read those books again.

Randy Johnson said...

I can't remember the last time I saw a spinner rack. And all those books.

I was a fan of those Executioner books as well. I retired from them soon after Pendleton stopped writing them when I caught one of the ghost writers, Peter Leslie, rewriting some of his old Man From U.N.C.L.E. novels into Bolans.

Frank Loose said...

Gary ... I imagine ya'll are done shooting on that set, but if for some reason all the props haven't been removed, and you get back in the studio, how about clicking a photo of that spinner rack full of all those books? I remember those racks fondly. They were in all the Drug stores when i was growing up, though i remember the ones in Atlanta being full of Donald Hamiltons, Ross MacDonalds and Richard Prathers, and Carter Brown titles. Maybe I'm recalling the artwork more than the titles, eh?

Paul Bishop said...

Wow! Way cool. What a find. Sounds as if we need to plan a blag to raid the prop room . . . I'll talk to you off line about my audition. We shoot the pilot in July.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Bish - great news. Can't wait to hear more.

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