Comments on: Million Dollar Movie

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:46:15 +0000

6) Brotherly Love may be Dexter’s darkest book and that’s saying something. Good Philly mob atmosphere in that one, though.

By: Jim in Binghamton

Jim in Binghamton — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:42:06 +0000

[6] Don’t know about the Chicken Man in the novel, but the one the Boss sings about was a real dude — mob boss who did get blown up, with his house, in a South Philly hit in 1981. Philip Testa.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:19:03 +0000

6) NICE! You are the MAN for that bit of trivia.

By: joejoejoe

joejoejoe — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:58:30 +0000

There is a little bit of a back and forth between Pete Dexter and Bruce Springsteen in the lyrics of ‘Atlantic City’, one of Dexter’s novels, and then again by Bruce in The Big Muddy. Springsteen sings ‘they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night’ and then Dexter writes a character ‘the Chicken Man’ who actually does get blown up in Philly in the novel ‘Brotherly Love’. Then Springsteen references Dexter’s ‘Paris Trout’ by singing ‘I had a friend said watch what you do, poison snake bites you and you’re poison too’ in ‘The Big Muddy’.

By: Sliced Bread

Sliced Bread — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:46:14 +0000

Great flick, great review, excellent lead paragraph, Jon… and great tune to boot.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:21:03 +0000

Lancaster also did some really fine, unshowy work here, as Jon mentioned.

By: krad

krad — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:59:48 +0000

Springsteen grew up a few miles from Atlantic City, so he didn’t really need the movie to inspire him.

BTW, I generally prefer this version of “Atlantic City,” m’self:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aQgU_Kxekc

By: RIYank

RIYank — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:43:43 +0000

Yeah.
I couldn’t have remembered the plot of that movie for the titular million bucks, but the imagery is burned into my brain.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:06:07 +0000

Man, I’ll never forget those lemons…Sarandon was also good in Malle’s movie about the prostitutes…PRETTY BABY. And she wasn’t bad to look at in THE HUNGER neither.