Word: spensers
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...coup. Yet on the tube, the show is more of an intimate look at the personal lives of Milford, Nebraska's hard-driven, over-sexed residents. In one of its most subtle political commentaries so far, the show depicts--from a variety of salacious angles--the hips of Robert "Spenser: for Hire" Urich's daughter, as she tries out for a Soviet ballet troop and earns an admonition from a stern Russian: the time has passed when "undisciplined gyrations were considered self-expression...
...England. But the hard-boiled detective was born in America. His popularity has remained in force for half a century. He can be seen on countless shelves of paperbacks and hardcovers, and he has appeared on prime time since the first vacuum tube was plugged in. The TV series Spenser: For Hire and Mike Hammer are two of his latest hangouts. As he was in the films of the '40s, so he is today, in Raymond Chandler's memorable phrase, a man "who is neither tarnished nor afraid" as he walks down America's mean streets...
Good cases have been made for locating his origins in the boot steps of the lonesome pioneer. Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser, a private investigator so sure of himself that he needs only one name, even wrote a Ph.D. thesis on the subject. According to the traditional ideal, to survive with dignity on the American frontier required a touch of ruthlessness and a personal code of honor. "When the wilderness disappeared at the end of the 19th century," says Parker, the hero "became a man, alone, facing an urban wilderness." A more precise definition of the breed came naturally...
...classic shamus prefers a snub-nosed .38, made in the U.S.A. He is invariably single (Philip Marlowe was a bachelor until Chandler's last, unfinished novel; Lew Archer lives alone, as does Spenser, although Spenser keeps company with Susan Silverman, a compassionate shrink). He is also short of cash and careless about his clothing. He is a two-fisted drinker (even though James Crumley's Milo Milodragovitch goes for peppermint schnapps) and sometimes drops his guard long enough to reveal a flash of erudition (Marlowe has atrocious taste in socks but can quote Browning). Touches of class cater...
...James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice) counterpointed violence with steamy sexuality; Chandler's signature note of sarcastic charm can be heard in the opening of his 1936 story Goldfish: "I wasn't doing any work that day, just catching up on my foot-dangling." Currently, Parker's Spenser sings the best sassy blues: "Ideal options aren't something I have much to do with. Most of the time I'm shuttling between bad and worse." Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer prefers stride (when he's not playing chopsticks), and John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee fuses bebop...