Booze, Bullets & Broads

Film historian Bruce Scivally focuses on the films and the people who worked in them, but he also discusses Donald Hamilton and the Matt Helm novels. Most of the quotes from Hamilton should be familiar to anyone who has read interviews with the author. Scivally catalogs the characters and plot details taken from the novels and how they were used or abused in the movies. He discusses the effect that the Matt Helm films appeared to have on the James Bond franchise. In his narrative, he outlines a relationship between the movies, the publication of new Matt Helm novels, Dean Martin's popularity, and Hamilton's career. I found the book surprisingly interesting, but I was disappointed that there are no references at all. I thought that would be standard practice for this type of book.