Own the rights?
I, MOBSTER may have some historical significance, of a sort. This may be the first film based on a paperback original. When I say "paperback original" I'm referring to the flood of two-bit (literally, they sold for a quarter) paperback books that were NOT reprints: these books, published by Dell, Gold Medal (Fawcett) Lion and others had a boom after World war II, taking over the newsstands, drug store racks, etc. and hastening the demise of the pulp magazines. Writers like Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Jim Thompson and Charles Williams got their start in the paperback originals, and established writers like David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich turned to them for quick money.Many of these books have now been filmed by the likes of Truffaut (SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER from Goodis' DOWN THERE) Cornfield (THE 3RD VOICE from Williams' ALL THE WAY) and others -- Jim Thompson most frequently --but as far as I can tell, Roger Corman's I, MOBSTER was the first, from an "anonymous" Gold Medal Original, I, MOBSTER, published in 1951.Can anyone find an earlier?
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