Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968)

In essence, The Bride Wore Black is the culmination of everything Cornell Woolrich had been building up to in the pulps. Here he completely abandoned his original dream of becoming the next Fitzgerald. The Bride Wore Black reaches for greatness, and nearly attains it. Anyone who has read it before, or has heard discussions about it, knows that the ending is flawed, a letdown of the wonderful journey the reader has taken. But like the film Apocalypse Now, that journey is so galvanizing we show more can’t stop reading despite what we know.

Though a fully fleshed-out novel, in The Bride Wore Black you can feel the influence of the pulps much more so than in his other big works. It moves at a pace reminiscent of the whiz-bang pulp story, only lengthened, and is mesmerizing. A girl works her way into the lives of several men, and then kills them as police try to connect the killings and make sense of it. Woolrich gives the impression she must be a tragic figure, a pretty angel avenging some dark and horrible deed the reader has yet to discover. The reader becomes sympathetic to a murderer, sensing that once all is revealed, these men must have done something to deserve their fate. The reader is in a way almost rooting for her, eager to discover what’s behind it all, so we can feel her pain and wish for some last-second reprieve where she gets away.

It is at this point, near the finish, when Woolrich pulls the rug out from under us. Reading The Bride Wore Black after decades, I couldn’t help feeling that Woolrich began to have doubts about the long-form, at least for this particular story, and reverted to a pulp-style ending. It might have worked in a short story, but having created so much sympathy for the avenging angel over the course of the novel, it does just the opposite. It doesn’t negate how wonderful 9/10 of the book is, but it does mar the reader’s experience.

Woolrich himself felt the work had flaws, and basically rewrote it seven or eight years later, this time with a male protagonist — and a much, much darker mood — in Rendezvous in Black. The Bride Wore Black is better known today for the 1968 film adaptation by French filmmaker Truffaut, who also changed the ending. It’s much like Apocalypse Now, in that each person must decide whether the mesmerizing journey is enough to make up for the flawed ending. Probably 4.3 stars for me, so I’ll have to go with four, but the first 9/10 is so good, that I ache to rate it higher. Definitely (as all Woolrich is) well worth reading, just be forewarned that Woolrich is not everyone's cup of tea, and may not be yours.

On a technical note, the Kindle version is very poorly edited. I ran across a more than normal and acceptable number of typos for a work this size, which obviously were not in the original published version. It also had some formatting glitches. Nothing serious, but with a crime classic like this, even a flawed one, someone needs to address it for the Kindle version. show less

Slated to appear in a collection of stories about New York called Landmark Series, which never made it to print, this terrific little Woolrich gem from 1935 is a very fun pulp read. It works as both a detective story, a mystery, and a short story of suspense. Woolrich gave Red Liberty a facelift in the 1950s and retitled it The Corpse in the Statue of Liberty, but Red Liberty, published in July 1935 in Dime Detective, remains a very enjoyable short pulp story.

Second-grade Detective show more Denton’s nagging wife, Katie, thinks he’s a lowbrow. She further believes it’s preventing him from moving up faster in the ranks, and suggests he spend some time appreciating statues, of all things. To appease her he hops the ferry to the biggest statue he can think of, the Statue of Liberty. On the way up he meets a wheezing fat man who has sat down for a breather. Denton has a bonding moment with the man when he discovers the man’s pretty, petite wife — or the woman Denton saw him talking to and assumes is his wife — is always pushing him to do such things. The moment becomes important when the delicate young woman arrives at the top with Denton, but the fat man does not. Turns out he doesn’t arrive at the bottom either — not even by the quick but deadly scenic route. When Denton finds the fat man’s hat, he knows in his gut something is terribly wrong.

What follows is a fast-flowing and fun-to-read mystery as the second-grade detective, unsure of himself and his abilities at first, slowly comes into his own trying to discover what happened to the man. The pretty girl is indignant, claiming she was accosted by the fat man on the ferry and didn’t even know him; worse, she might be telling the truth. When Denton finally discovers what happened to the fat man, the story really takes wing, as the detective decides to figure it out before the Feds become involved.

It’s a nifty little gem, with a very 1930s New York tone. Denton begins calling the elevator operator Suicide Johnny, because the young man would be almost grateful for a jumper, just to relieve his boredom. Murder’s even better, though. What’s that strange thing the alleged wife wrote at the top of the Statue of Liberty? Can Denton figure it all out and make the collar before the Feds become involved? If he does, will it give him the confidence he needs?

Overall a very nifty pulp detective story, as fun to read today as it must have been between the covers of Dime Detective in 1935. In tone and pacing Red Liberty is sort of a cross between Woolrich’s Mystery in Room 913, and Death Sits in the Dentist’s Chair. Definitely one that any true Woolrich fan won’t want to miss. show less

"La Mariée Etait en Noir" is François Truffaut's homage / pastiche of the works of Alfred Hitchcock. The story, from the novel by Cornell Woolrich, sees Julie (Jeanne Moreau) as a mysterious femme fatale who kills successive men in meticulously planned assassinations. It is slowly revealed that she is on a mission of revenge to kill the five men who accidentally gunned downed her husband on the steps of the church moments after they were married. The film is beautifully constructed by show more Truffaut - it is taut, cool and stylish and isn't afraid to let the mystery linger. It is also full of gleeful references to Hitchcock, both in homage and at times comedically. The cinematography is beautiful and a great score by Bernard Hermann adds to the Hitchcockian charm. Topping it all off is Jeanne Moreau who is excellent as the bride on a "roaring rampage of revenge". show less

“She wouldn’t beg the masked faces in the crowd for a friendly look any more. She wouldn’t hope for the slot in the letterbox to show white any more. She wouldn’t wish for the telephone to ring any more. Let the world have its wakefulness—she’d have her sleep.”

“Loneliness is all the same, the world over.”


One of the last tales ever penned by Cornell Woolwich is one of his finest short stories. Imbued with loneliness and hopelessness, there are passages of great beauty within show more the narrative. And when his protagonist, Laurel, gets a second chance at life, and then love, Woolrich uses his gift for words to make us feel the rush of hope filling her heart. As in any Woolwich tale, a cloud looms on the horizon, and we have yet to discover whether it is a benign white one, or a dark raincloud. This is without any doubt, a Woolrich masterpiece of short fiction.

It begins with Laurel turning on the gas, and lying down to await the end in her lonely apartment. Through her final thoughts we get a sense of her despair, and her resolve to be done with it all. But a wrong number dialed in the middle of the night, someone trying to reach Schultz’s Delicatessen, gives her a reprieve. The air coming through the widow she opens — the reason she opens it is logically explained — and the euphoria of having a reprieve, is wonderfully written by Woolrich.

When Laurel gives herself one more day to decide, an attempt to snatch her purse while she’s playing hooky from work brings her into contact with Duane, a man who helps her. Woolrich is at his best here, dispelling the apocryphal notion often espoused by the inexperienced, unromantic, and hard-hearted, that love never blossoms quickly, or that two souls meant to be together can’t meet by chance and feel love in their hearts. As Woolrich describes their sudden falling in love, hope replacing despair, he writes one of the loveliest paragraphs about love, and the way it happens or doesn’t happen, you’ll ever read. Yes, I said Ever. It is staggeringly spot-on. In any Woolrich story, however, one must never forget fate.

Will the cloud be white and puffy and harmless, or will it be dark gray and threatening, bringing with it rain? Woolrich’s oeuvre includes more happy endings than one might think from how much people — rightly — speak about his propensity to show fate as some inescapable force laughing at us all, dooming us. In just over twenty pages, Woolrich reminds us how good he was at the short form.

Too Nice a Day to Die is a must read for anyone wishing to know why so many return to Woolrich’s work time and again. Woolrich and Bradbury were two writers so unique, that no one can ever say that they wrote like anybody else — not even remotely. This one will leave your heart aching. Whether your heart aches with joy or despair, I cannot say… show less