Once again it is time for me to do another literacy critique/comparison between novel and movie. I feel the need to do this for several reasons. 1) I'm on Spring Break and that's always a good opportunity to rid my head of useless shit so it can fill up with more of the same for the last 6 weeks of school. 2) I do not see many literary critiques online the way I want to read them, so the best thing to do is write my own. 3) I always enjoy watching my viewership graph rise if just for a day.
OK, the subject for today is...Fletch. Specifically, Irwin Maurice Fletcher, the star of 9 fun-to-read novels by Gregory McDonald, RIP. I suppose one or two people have also seen an obscure Chevy Chase film from 1985 called "Fletch", which was based loosely on the original 1974 novel. There was another Fletch film in 1989 called "Fletch Lives". I've always wondered if this film was a result of blackmail by or against Chevy Chase. In either case, it sucks (a valid literary opinion!)
Let us first visit the character of Irwin Maurice Fletcher in the first novel. He has a very interesting moral code. As a reporter, he refuses to give up until he gets the whole story. As a former soldier (Marines), he earned a Bronze Star yet refuses to collect it. On this, one may presume that Fletch feels he did what anyone ought to do and therefore does not feel the need to be decorated for it. He already got a lifelong friend (private turned public attorney Alston Chambers) out of it and that is enough for him.
Sex for him is natural and frequent, as he is described as a naturally sexy man. He was married twice, once to Barbara and once to Linda. The marriage to Barbara ended due to many infidelities, and the marriage to Linda ended with his intolerance for the house cat (he threw it out of the window). During one assignment it is strongly implied that he has screwed a 15 year old female junkie in exchange for her using his pad to sleep in, and Fletch justifies this by iterating his goal to find the whole story. Even Linda's gay divorce attorney expresses an attraction to Fletch, which is smoothly tricked out of him by Fletch himself on the phone just for fun. His 2 ex-wives can't get over him and want to be with him on a casual basis. Fletch, however, feels once was enough with both of them.
In the first book, Fletch juggles 2 cases. One is an assignment to find the source of drugs on "The Beach", a fictional southern California town. It is over an hour's drive from the newspaper office and his apartment, which are presumably in Los Angeles, so The Beach may be a disguise for Santa Barbara. Possibly, The Beach is just another L.A. suburb and the long drive is just because of famous L.A. traffic jams. Fletch forms friendships with the junkies on the actual beach in order to find the source, which turns out to be the police chief. While on the case, Fletch has to contend with an editor named Clara Snow who has risen a few levels above her competency as a result of her affair with the managing editor Frank Jaffe. She demands that Fletch gets his stories in on time so that she can heavily edit them. These edited stories have gotten printed with a lot of backlash towards Fletch who is himself infuriated because the edited articles are far from what he actually wrote. In the end, he bypasses Clara to get the drugs story printed before she and Frank can "fix" it.
His other case is a man named Alan Stanwyk, who hires Fletch to kill him because he is presumably dying of bone cancer. He offers Fletch $20 grand to do this job and go to South America. Fletch gets Stanwyk to up the offer to $50 grand with no resistance. As Fletch is a badger-like reporter, he is determined to find out if Stanwyk is the real article after agreeing to do the job. He manages to interview Stanwyk's doctor, wife, father-in-law, father, best friend, mistress, and supposed real estate broker to find out what is the truth. Fletch even sleeps with Alan's wife Joan. It is a less-than-passionate affair, more like something to do on an otherwise dull afternoon, but Joan gives Fletch a clue about Alan: both men have a similar bone structure. Fletch has managed to make himself unmemorable to all of Alan's people except for Joan, who takes his picture during their first meeting and has her family's security men find out who he is. Fletch eventually puts it all together: Alan wants out of his current life as a successful businessman and family man so that he can be with his high school sweetheart and her son. Stanwyk plans to do this by dying his hair blond (Fletch is blond as well), killing Fletch likely by boxing and strangling him to death, his justification being that he has a right to kill someone who has agreed to kill him. Alan Stanwyk is, in Fletch's opinion, a decent man despite a twice weekly infidelity and being torn between 2 worlds (family in California and family in Pennsylvania). Given Fletch's own moral code, this opinion is understandable.
Stanwyk's plan is foiled by Fletch's threat to send letters to his family about the murder plan if he goes through with it. Fletch, knowing he has deflated Stanwyk, is ready to leave when Stanwyk is shot to death by the chief of police, who thought he was killing Fletch after the drugs article was seen all over town. Fletch takes a briefcase with $3 million that Stanwyk had skillfully embezzled from his company Collins Aviation in the guise of a down payment for a ranch in Nevada, and heads to the airport, where he takes an arranged private plane to Rio, but not before calling in Stanwyk's murder to the newspaper. As he flies to Rio in style, he contemplates his freedom from his 2 ex-wives, his Bronze Star pickup ceremony, and employment in general.
The book is full of colorful dialogue that moves the story along well. I always find something new each time I read it, and I've held my copy for 35 years.
Then we come to the movie. I will say that "Fletch" is one of Chevy Chase's better films....I say this knowing the turkeys he has madefrom the 90s on. A younger actor may have done the Fletch character more justice, though, Woody Harrelson or Tim Robbins being 2 possibilities, or even Val Kilmer, at least in the 80s. Tim Matheson as Stanwyk, however, was completely well-cast. Joe Don Baker as the police chief was also good, though he smiles too much to be menacing.
The movie is definitely silly at times, while also maintaining a mystery theme. This makes the movie a bit disjointed at moments.
A few differences between the book and the movie:
-Alan's wife is named Gail instead of Joan, probably because Joan's maiden name is Collins. One could get away with that in 1974, but not Dynasty-rich 1985! In fact, in the movie the family's name is Boyd, not Collins.
-The chief of police is named Karlin in the movie, where in the book his name is Cummings. This change makes no sense
-Stanwyk's doctor in the movie is Dolan, in the book it is Devlin, again a nonsense change
-Clara Snow is not in the movie, nor is Bobbi, Fletch's teenage junkie roommate in the book.
-Stanwyk's supposed land investment is in Utah in the movie, in the book it is in Nevada. One consistency is that in both cases, it is embezzlement.
-In the movie, Fletch's boss is Frank Walker, in the book the last name is Jaffe. Another nonsense change.
In the movie Fletch charges his country club meals to the Underhills, in the book it is the unseen Underwoods.
In the movie, Stanwyk tells Fletch he will take a plane to Rio, in the book it is to Buenos Aires (although Stanwyk actually plans to go to Rio himself with his true love)
-In the movie, Fletch takes Gail to Rio with him. In the book, Joan leaves his apartment after a hinted last fling.
-In the movie, the chief kills Stanwyk; however, it is because Stanwyk was about to double-cross him, not mistaken identity.
Of course, the movie also had a lot of Chevy Chase antics: a Doberman chasing him out of an office, a car chase with a teenage car thief as his copilot, escaping the police by rallying a bunch of Shriners, a daydream about Fletch being an L.A. Laker, and posing as a doctor at the hospital to look at Stanwyk's medical records. Some of Fletch's lines befit the novel character's personality while others are just Chase egotism.
I will cover some of the other Fletch books later that round out Fletch's character better. In the meantime, I'll take a steak sandwich...and a steak sandwich.
