The Woman Chaser

Absolutely batshit insane noir about a proudly shady used car salesman who fails miserably at the Hollywood game. Has a level of casual debauchery hard to match, even within the genre. All of that, however, takes a backseat to the strong metafictional elements and structure, which manages to be clever and satirical, as well as hysterically funny.

Richard Hudson is a driven, amoral, thirty year-old used car salesman in Los Angeles in the 1950s. With his stepfather - a washed-up director who is only seven years older than Hudson - he writes, directs, and finishes a film about a truck driver gone berserk. The film, which he embezzles money from his employer to finance, reflects Hudson’s misanthropy. In the inevitable conflict with THE MAN – the head of Mammoth Studios – about the release of the Hudson’s film, The Man Who Got Away, Richard storms out of the studio and takes his revenge on those who he feels let him down.

Willeford creates wonderfully twisted characters and has them do bad things that are leavened with humor. He pulls it off perfectly with Richard Hudson.

Yes, it's Willeford ... and well liked (i guess) but- this didn't do it for me at all. I rather liked the 1st half the book- setting up our character as a slick and successful used car salesperson/wunderkind. Sleazy and amoral enough to be interesting for future developments, but it is hard to square that half with the 2nd half the book- the real story here. Turns out out anti-hero is an aspiring film maker. Yes, he has an idea and finds a way to sell the notion (with his father in law, has been of the movie industry) to Mammoth studios for the most lean, dirt cheap movie you can make. A profound anti sort of movie showing a normal man truck driver driven to extremes. He is able to make the movie- the screenplay, the directing show more everything! but... the movie comes in at 63 minutes- exactly. Everyone knows movies must be 90 minutes, so a struggle ensues.... the pure artistic vision of the director at exactly 63 minutes vs the dumb commercial needs of a 90 (or it later transpires ... a shorter version for tv) minute movie. Our anti hero plays out his dream of artistic integrity, burning down the studio to show his anger, punching a pregnant lady out because- why not .... and waiting for the law to close him down. Piffle... artistic self indulgence ... of the author (not the pretend filmmaker). Maybe there is a story there somewhere (the struggle of artistic integrity) but not with this dull sledgehammer... kind of hated it by the end and not because of the cinematic violence ... but due to the lazy author. acknowledges that he just hasn't grown up like the others- but says that with the sure knowledge that we are supposed to be awed by your unspoiled purity. bleck. show less

Bizarre story. A used car dealer decides to make a motion picture. As he's going about it, he manages to french kiss his mother and do despicable things to a few other people. Along the way, Willeford gives us his opinions on the movie business, screenwriting, hiring ex-servicemen, and various other things. The ex-servicemen part would appear to be autobiographical. It appears that the publisher let Willeford do whatever he wanted to do for this one, then gave it a semi-lurid, inaccurate title to help it fly off the drug store book racks.

None of which is to say you shouldn't read it. It is Willeford, after all. This was made into a movie in 1999.