This is the only significant piece of film criticism that I’ve written that wasn’t included in HARLAN ELLISON’S WATCHING. It was omitted on purpose, for inclusion here. That rather irked Gil Lamont, who served as shadow-editor, amanuensis, skilled factotum, indexer and all-around general nuhdz on that hefty volume. Irked him—and in that irkability revealed his secret trepidation—because deep down I believe he—like Jack Chalker and the thousands of demented dipsticks who chivvied him over the years—always thought this book would not be carried to term.
Now understand something:
Jack Chalker, for twenty years, did not belabor me with calumny about my dilatory behavior. He was, he says, sanguine in the knowledge that when it was Hornbook Time, I would produce the Hornbook for him. But like the many contributors to THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, as months grew into years and they waited for their stories to appear, a dolorous fatality about the project had to grow in Jack. Yet he maintained. He waited, becoming a prolific and bestselling author just to pass the time; and in large measure specifically because of Jack’s faith and rectitude, I resolved to get this book to him.
In lesser degree—because he’s only been affiliated with this project for three years—Otto Penzler also kept the lamp burning. I was to have gotten the manuscript to him within ninety days (as I recall) of his sending me an advance payment check for the trade hardcover edition…and it’s been three years. But apart from the usual verbal bamboo shoots under my fingernails that form a necessary part of our peculiar friendship—for Otto and I are as dissimilar an Odd Couple as has come down the pike since Burke & Hare—Otto has been nothing but supportive. (Granted, Otto’s support occasionally resembles the support Long John Silver visited on Jim Hawkins; nonetheless, he is a Prince.)
And it was this column that assuaged Otto’s irk about a year ago. He saw a note of advance publicity for publication of HARLAN ELLISON’S WATCHING, and called to inquire (ever so quietly, sweetly, politely) as to why I was having this other book published when he was sitting on an unfulfilled contract from two years earlier.
I explained it all so logically, so thoroughly, and so simply that Otto fell into a paroxysm of apologia, offering me even more money to tide me over till I could get the Hornbook assembled. (Those who know Otto will vouch for this sort of philanthropic, effusive behavior. Largesse, as a common practice.)
But I could not, in conscience, permit such an extension of friendship. And to return the favor I promised Otto I would not include this Hornbook installment of film criticism in that other book. So it is (as I write this) the only chunk of movie comment to be found outside HARLAN ELLISON’S WATCHING.
One must keep faith with one’s friends.