Had the trailer featured even one note of Wojciech Kilar’s score or a scintilla of the mood that pervades the film, I could tell you why I went to see The Ninth Gate in early 2000. I went alone, to a pre-noon screening, and I’m pretty sure I drove straight from the theater to Barnes & Noble where I bought the book it was ostensibly based upon.
EL CLUB DUMAS (1993) by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, translated by Sonio Soto is a Favorite. As much as I loved the movie, I was astonished to discover that the screenplay by John Brownjohn & Enrique Urbizu and Roman Polanski had effectively omitted half the story—the better half, in my opinion—dealing with the works of Alexandre Dumas, père, and supplying the title to the novel. Thus began my love for literary mysteries. I’d read Umberto Eco’s IL NOME DELLA ROSA (1980) for a grad school class the next year and Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s LA SOMBRA DEL VIENTO (2001) four years later. And, if I can ever achieve some degree of momentary stability again, I’ll finish my own long-gestating entry in the genre, put off time and again to look after other people’s books.