Classic Cinema: "Best Seller"

June 24, 6:27 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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                              James Woods in Best Seller

Like Roger Corman, screenwriter (and sometime director) Larry Cohen is one of those unpretentious schlockmeisters who give trash a good name. Best Seller (1987), one of Cohen’s few scripts that don’t fall into the horror or sci-fi genres, may be his best work.

Brian Dennehy plays Dennis Meechum, an ex-cop turned novelist (think Joseph Wambaugh) suffering from writer’s block. Along comes Cleve (James Woods), a professional hit man who has just been given the pink slip by his wealthy employer David Matlock (Paul Shenar). Cleve offers Meechum a Faustian bargain: Cleve will give the inside scoop on every murder he has committed to further his boss’s business ambitions, if in return, Meechum will document them in a literary expose. Meechum accepts, and the two of them embark on a cross-country trip to gather the evidence, with the ex-boss’s hired goons in hot pursuit.

But Cleve is not your typical paid assassin. He is gregarious, optimistic and patriotic, with a weakness for children and elderly people. Woods’ charismatic performance makes Cleve the screen’s most lovable psychopath since Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire.

A perfect example of the film’s offbeat quality occurs at the midway point. In order to figure out what makes a killer like Cleve tick, Meechum demands to meet Cleve’s family. Instead of finding Hollywood’s usual caricature of rural Midwesterners as ignorant rubes, the types who might conceivably spawn a monster, Meechum discovers a genuinely loving, supportive family straight out of Norman Rockwell.