Everyone should check out Runyon. America’s PG Wodehouse, which gives an utterly misleading impression of what and how he wrote, yet for me remains true.

Never even heard of Runyon. (Forgive my ignorance. It can be shocking to people sometimes.) I’m familiar with Chandler but never read him. I’ve noticed that my tastes are wide and eclectic but narrow. My favorite writer is Philip K. Dick, but I rarely read any other science fiction. I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, but I don’t read or watch any other mysteries. I love Patricia Highsmith and Dashiell Hammett, but I rarely read any other crime. (I just recently bought my first copies of Jim Thompson and Richard Stark.) As for horror, I love H. P. Lovecraft and Richard Matheseon (and a little Poe), and two of my favorite movies are Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, but I rarely read or watch any other horror. I should probably read a Chandler at some point, but I’m more likely to grab whatever’s left of Hammett that I don’t already have, for better or worse.

As for Ripley, the first book is certainly unique among the series, the only one in which I’m willing to call Tom’s actions and feelings “psychopathic” and/or “immoral.” It’s the only one in which he plans a murder, it’s the only murder in which the victim wasn’t a threat to him in some way, and it’s the only time he kills someone he likes. After that, he only kills in the spur of the moment to get himself out of a jam, and his later victims were far less sympathetic. He’s never seriously troubled by guilt, but that first murder is the only one that he’s genuinely contrite about, and he thinks back on his younger self as stupid and reckless. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I prefer the older Tom of the sequels; you can root for your antihero when he’s strangling a Mafia hitman, but it’s just unpleasant when he’s beating an innocent friend to death.

Craig’s list does suggest he might like Runyon, it’s not an entirely self-serving comment.

I definitely agree that spacing them out as you are Kevin is the best way to go, and while I may be critical even not the best Highsmith is pretty good by many writers’ standards. I enjoyed all the Ripleys after all.

Craig, “Philip K. Dick, H. P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Albert Camus, and Richard Matheson”. No love for Chandler? Also, have you read Runyon? If not, you probably should.

The most nuanced and complex portrayals of Tom are Hopper and Damon. Hopper seems to be playing a combination of Highsmith’s Tom and himself, sort of a wandering expatriate cowboy version of Tom, but he’s not watered down like Damon, whose Tom was made too innocent and guilt-ridden. Delon’s Tom is the simplest portrayal; it’s a fine performance, but it’s not terribly deep. Malkovich is a little more complex, but the screenplay seems a little too eager to explain him with philosophy, with his musing on the “rules of the game” and how “we’re constantly being born,” et cetera. I like Purple Noon and The American Friend the most because, like Highsmith, they refuse to explain Tom, but Hopper captures the complexity that Delon doesn’t.

But like I said, none of them capture the character with total accuracy, and that’s fine. When I watch these movies, I’m watching them on the filmmakers’ terms, not Highsmith’s. Same with Strangers on a Train and The Cry of the Owl. I think some of the adaptations come closer to Highsmith than others, but if you don’t remove the books from your mind before watching them, I don’t know how you’ll be able to enjoy them.

I will let you know whether or not you are right in a couple of weeks. The UK version of Hopper is one-third the price of the NA one, so I decided to wait a week or so for it to arrive. I can’t believe the price differential on much of this stuff — my all-region DVD cost me $60 (thank you Guy Savage for convincing me) and I save more than that every month on cheaper European DVD costs.

And while Dennis Hopper is by far my favorite on-screen Ripley, he’s also not a perfect representation of Highsmith’s Tom. He’s more lonely, lost, and confused about who he is, and I don’t think the Tom of the novels would ever walk around in a denim jacket and cowboy hat, or live in a dilapidated old mansion with a pool table and jukebox. The truth is that Highsmith’s Tom hasn’t made it to the screen completely unchanged yet. You have to remove the books from your mind to enjoy any of the Ripley films. I think Hopper comes the closest to capturing him, but others are free to disagree.

Even though I’m right.