Get Shorty

by Elmore Leonard

Mob-connected Chili Palmer is sick of the Miami grind - plus his "friends" have a bad habit of dying there. So when he chases a deadbeat client out to Hollywood, Chili figures he might like to stay. This town with its dreammakers, glitter, hucksters, and liars - plus gorgeous, partially clad would-be starlets everywhere you look - seems ideal for an enterprising criminal with a taste for the cinematic. Besides, Chili's got an idea for a killer movie - though it could very possibly kill him to get it made.

• ISBN10: 0385301413
• ISBN13: 9780385301411
• Publish Date: 1 July 1990
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Delacorte Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 292
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Chili Palmer is a shylock with mob connections working in Miami. However he is sick of the grind and it seems that his friends in the industry have a bad habit of dying. While chasing a deadbeat across America, he eventually ends up in Hollywood, where he decides to stay and start a new life. Besides, he has a killer idea for a movie and this is the town where dreams can come true…or do they?

It is no secret that Elmore Leonard has a bitter opinion towards Hollywood and Get Shorty allowed him to vent his feelings. In 1984 Leonard won an Edger Award (Best Novel) for his novel LaBrava and during the hype, Cannon Films brought the rights for a film adaptation. Dustin Hoffman had signed on to play former Secret Service agent Joe LaBrava in what was dubbed “the richest star deal in entertainment history”. Elmore Leonard had to do multiple rewrites (all unpaid) at the request of the star only to have Hoffman terminate his contract citing ‘contract desputes’. The reason behind Hoffman’s departure from the project was due to some advertising; Cannon Films two full page ads in some trade papers which showed him pictured under the heading “Welcome to the Cannon Family Dustin Hoffman”. His contract granted him final approval to all advertising for the upcoming movie.

When reading Get Shorty you get a real sense of Elmore Leonard’s bitterness towards Hollywood and the failed movie. According to IMdb Dustin Hoffman is 5’5” and his depiction in the novel is the over compensating Michael Weir (who was portrayed by Danny DeVito in the film adaptation). Despite what Leonard may have thought about the movie industry, Get Shorty turned into one of the great satires depicting Hollywood. The film adaptation was the next of his novels to make the transition to the screen, this time with only minor changes to the main plot. This lead the way to a range of great Elmore Leonard adaptations, from Jackie Brown, Out of Sight, Be Cool, 3:10 to Yuma and the TV show Justified.

Get Shorty is probably one of the best modern crime novels I have read in a long time. I tend to find that modern authors in the genre do not explore social issues within their books. Elmore Leonard was one of the best crime novelists and it was sad to lose him back in 2013. I plan to read the next book in the Chili Palmer series, Be Cool and I think I should rewatch the movies sometime soon as well.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/literature/book-reviews/genre/pulp-fiction/get-shorty-by-elmore-leonard/

[jamiereadthis]

Week before last I took a trip by myself. It’s one of my favorite things to do, to disappear off the grid, to land up someplace in a [slightly sketchy; always slightly sketchy] motel. It’s not so much a vacation from anything as it is just a change of scenery.

One of the rules, and it hasn’t failed yet, is to make as many new friends as possible. I can do this on trips, because there’s so much wide open space of solitude that it’s hardly an intrusion. I’ll talk to anyone. I’ll talk to a lamppost.

This time, it was the beach. I made friends with the staff at this cheap old motel to the point where they were letting me have late breakfasts and a free ‘suite’ (I paid for a double and they gave me a king) and the run of the pool after closing, where I could swim all night if I wanted. I knew their kids’ names and grandkids’ names. I knew everyone in housekeeping. I was ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart’ in the inviolable rule of southern hospitality.

So yes, this book was covered in sand from the hot salt ocean, it was read in the pool at 1 a.m. (One night it rained. A night swim alone near the ocean in the rain: how could you want that to end?) But more to the point I’m making, I pick the books I read on these trips with a purpose. They have to fit the mood but they have to be friends too, they have to sit by my plate at meals— to show it’s okay I’m eating alone— but never read through the meals because they’ve started too many conversations.

And the whole trip, I didn’t eat a meal alone. My favorite spot is this bar on the dock, the best burgers and shrimp on the beach, the local joint for all the retirees and fishermen. They’d tie up their boats right there on the dock and four out of every five meals, there I’d be. “Whatch-you reading?” is like “whatch-you fishing?” The best starter-kit for conversation there is.

I say all this not to say how many people went “Elmore Leonard!” or “Get Shawty?” or “That’s the one with Danny Devito?” I say it because I’m not convinced yet there’s a soul on the earth, asshole or saint, that can’t be won over with a good joke or a good story or someone just being an interesting, real human person. Where that isn’t enough to break all the rules and get away with anything and make family out of strangers. I’m sure those people exist. I’m saying I haven’t met one yet. And since that seems to be the basic law of Elmore’s universe too, well. It makes me feel like I’m not naive. It makes me feel like maybe that’s the basic law everywhere. And maybe, the more who believe that: it just might be.

Plus, my room number was 325. Chili Palmer’s with the guns and the money and newfound friends was 325. How’s that for kicks?

“What you don’t understand,” Catlett said, “is what the movie is saying. You live clean, the shit gets taken care of somehow or other. That’s what the movie’s about.”
“You believe that?”
“In movies, yeah. Movies haven’t got nothing to do with real life.”