Today on Alphabet City: Jon Paul’s love of Dick (Tracy) reminds him of his Turkey cliffhanger with Tyra Banks. New Excerpt Available.
A good, dramatic cliffhanger has always had a special place in my heart. I was reminded of this love yesterday upon opening a parcel from my sister Paige. She had been going through the DVD collection of my father who recently passed away and thought there were a few gems I might enjoy. Thankfully, there was no Terror of Tiny Town, perhaps the all time worst movie ever produced that my father watched endlessly. But peeking around Liza-Sally Bowles on the cover of Cabaret was an entire set of Dick Tracy serials. Now I’m not talking the Warren Beatty-Madonna version, but the original 1937 campy series with the legendary (to me) Ralph Bird in the marquee role battling the evil villain Spider.
I fell in love with Dick (pun intended) when I was about five and my father took the family every Sunday afternoon to Dallas’ old Grenada Theater to watch a black-and-white classic like Freaks (a horror film about sideshow performers) preceded by an episode of Dick Tracy. I remember screaming out for my hero about to be killed by San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, collapsing from the villain Spider’s dangerous sonic weapon! How could I possibly wait until the next week to find out what happened to my detective boyfriend? My father just smiled knowingly.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized I had left ABCityblog readers with a cliffhanger of sorts. A friend who was catching up on postings wrote me to say that she couldn’t believe I just left everyone hanging at the end of the Turkey Trouble episode—my fateful encounter with an Istanbul hustler before Tyra’s arrival.
So, here’s the ending to that tale, with a viewer advisory: this will probably be the last excerpt released before the entire book is published in print and e-book form early next year. How’s that for a cliffhanger?
(Ahh, don’t worry. I’ll keep posting original stuff.)
CLICK HERE for Second Excerpt from Alphabet City’s Episode 7: Turkey Trouble.
