Parker: The Outfit

The third in Richard Stark's Parker series, The Outfit sees our favorite hunter turned hunted as the criminal organization once known as The Syndicate fails in its first attempt on Parker's life.  Bad move, friends.  Parker knows that the only way to get out is to hit back and hit hard.  Once deemed untouchable, Parker lets all his low-rent criminal buddies know that The Outfit is free game and as he hits one Outfit association after the other so do his friends.  After all, how do you get revenge on a corporation?  You go for the wallet.

Darwyn Cooke takes a few more liberties with The Outfit than he did with his adaptation of The Hunter.  He condenses the second novel, The Man With The Getaway Face into 23 pages, setting up Parker's new mug as well as the rat who finks his location to The Outfit.  Sure, this makes sense but I'm a little bummed that the crazy switchbacking plot of Getaway Face will never get its proper moment in the sun as that armored car heist (and the complications that ensue) is one of my favorites from the series.  Second, Cooke introduces the criminal thespian Grofield into the series one book too early.  I find this to be most curious.  Grofield is a bit of a goof, a comic character that plays well in larger cast stories like The Score, but he sticks out like a sore thumb here.  Why does Cooke bring him into this plot?  He has a couple scenes and then he's gone.  Very strange.

Darwyn Cooke's work on the Parker books is some of his finest.  As much as I love The New Frontier (and  its animated adaptation), The Hunter & The Outfit are just unbelievably amazing.  Obviously, a lot of my love stems from my love of Richard Stark's character and the fact that even though we've had some pretty fine film adaptations (Point Blank, The Outfit, Payback: Straight Up Edition), we've never quite seen the real Parker outside of the novels.  Well, the only other place to find the real Parker is in Darwyn Cook's books.

The film adaptation of The Outfit has been unavailable on DVD for far too long.  However, if you you click on over to the Warner Archive you can score yourself a bare bones edition for $19.95 ($9.95 for a downloadable version).  Although, not a perfect adaptation of the Stark novel it is totally worth the twenty bucks.

Directed by John Flynn (Rolling Thunder, Best Seller, Lock Up), The Outfit is much more of personal revenge story than the book.  Since they didn't have The Hunter's narrative to fall back on as the catalyst, this film's plot is sparked when The Outfit kills Duvall's brother for an unsanctioned bank job.  Duvall in retribution starts hitting The Outfits payroll where and when ever he can.

Duvall is Macklin not Parker, but there are several familiar names sprinkled throughout.  In a much more prominent role than the book, Karen Black is Bett Harrow.  There is an Alma in Jane Greer.  A Madge in Marie Windsor.  A Jim St. Claire in Bern Hoffman.  But even though Joe Don Baker is obviously playing Handy McKay, he's called Cody instead.  Handy is a pretty big part of the series and I wonder if Donald Westlake had the same rules about his name as he did about Parker's.  And the villainous Robert Ryan isn't Fairfax or Bronson, he's just Mailer.

But Duvall is a pretty darn good Parker.  And if you watched that brief interview with Westlake I posted earlier in the week than you heard that the man himself thought Duvall captured Parker's attitude even better than Lee Marvin in Point Blank.  That Workmanlike Crook attitude.  And I guess I get that.  But Marvin is still my cinematic Parker.  But more on that later.

--Brad

Parker: The Hunter

There are few (if any) protagonists in the world of crime fiction as intriguing or as compelling as that of Richard Stark's Parker.  But it took nearly 30 years before I ever dipped into his workmanlike underworld.  The first books I ever read were those of John Grisham, Michael Crichton, and Stephen King.  Bestseller Boys.  Obsessing on them via magazine articles and interviews I would gather a collection of namedropped authors that had to be consumed.  Through King and his novel The Dark Half, I discovered Richard Stark, the pseudonym of crime writer Donald Westlake.  

I read a few short stories and his novel The Hot Rock, but found them to be a little too light for my horrorhound tastes of the time.  And despite the mid-90s resurrection of his Stark/Parker novels, they never made it onto my shelves.  Now, jump ahead a decade and in 2008 The University of Chicago Press started rereleasing the Parker books.  On a trip to Germany I read The Hunter, The Man With The Getaway Face, and The Outfit.  I was hooked on Parker.

A professional criminal who works a job "every year or so, payroll or armored car or bank."  All work, no play.  He doesn't kill unless you give him no choice.  He doesn't care about you.  He can be ruthless, he can be evil.  But he's always cold; the only emotion you ever see on display is rage...and that really only reveals itself in the first novel, The Hunter.

Unlike most of the books in the series (at least the ten I've read so far, I just started The Black Ice Score), The Hunter doesn't deal with a job, but a job-gone-wrong.  So wrong in fact, that when the book opens he's crawled himself from the grips of death and prison and he's war-marching back into New York City to deal with the woman who plugged him and the man who took his loot.  Revenge.  For me, the best kind of narrative drive.

The Hunter has been adapted into two movies (Point Blank, Payback), but the best adaptation is withoutadoubt Darwyn Cooke's 2009 graphic novel.  It's so spot-on I would even say that if you've read the comic than you've pretty much read the book.  That's a bold statement and I might waffle a bit by saying that the book does a slightly better job at portraying Parker's constant state of anger-driven pursuit, but I don't think Cooke could have drawn every panel with RAGE FACE.  

Stark's words are there, Parker's hate is there.  "For You That Tree Is Dead."  Cold.  Villainous.  Parker is a character that you should not enjoy reading, but of course you do.  It's his confidence.  In a way, the Parker books have little suspense; that is to say, you know that Parker is going to achieve his goal.  He's going to get what he wants, he's just good at his job.  Kick him down, he gets back up and stomps your face in.  

Give him the money for pity's sake.  

--Brad

IDW to Publish Parker: The Martini Edition

In the next couple of weeks you are going to be hearing lots about Richard Stark's professional criminal Parker.  But before I start spamming your brain with my current Dork Hero obsession, I just want to let you know that in July, IDW will be publishing a fancy shmancy $75, 344 page, slipcased omnibus featuring Darwyn Cooke's gorgeous adaptations of of The Hunter and The Outfit, PLUS! a brand new Parker short story by Cooke himself.  

I find the new Short Story to be incredibly intriguing.  Is it a brand-new story, wholly created by Cooke or is it some micro adaptation similar to what he did with Stark's second novel The Man With The Getaway Face as an intro to The Outfit.  If it's a new story, well, that would be the first time anyone but Stark (aka Donald Westlake) handled the reins on Parker...that is exciting and a touch worrisome for this uber-fan.

--Brad