The Best American Noir of the Century

David Goodis (1917-1967) was born in Philadelphia and received a BS in journalism from Temple University, briefly working for an advertising agency after graduation. He quickly became a prolific freelance fiction writer, his first novel, Retreat from Oblivion, being published in 1939. After numerous short stories sold to various pulp magazines, under both his own name and several pseudonyms, he had tremendous success with his second novel, Dark Passage (1946), which was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and was bought for the movies. Delmer Daves directed and wrote the screenplay, and Humphrey Bogart starred as Vincent Parry, the wrongfully imprisoned convict who escapes from prison in order to find the real killer of his wife; Lauren Ba-call also starred. Other films made from his work include Down There (1956), filmed by Francois Truffaut as Shoot the Piano Player (i960); Street of No Return (1954), a 1989 film directed by Samuel Fuller; The Burglar (1953), adapted for a 1957 film with a screenplay by Goodis; and many others, mainly in France. Although his early novels and some short stories are powerful and memorable, his later work is so hopelessly dark that he has failed to maintain his place among the top rank of noir or hard-boiled writers. The people in his books are losers and know it. This sense of utter despair seems to appeal to the French, where Goodis is ranked among the greatest American crime writers. Goodis himself was a recluse, and his appraisal of his own work suggests a familiarity with depression. “My first novel was published when I was twenty-two,” he wrote in a letter shortly before he died. “It was nothing and the same applies to most of the sixteen others published since then.”

“Professional Man” was televised as an episode of the Showtime series Fallen Angels, on October 15, 1995. The script was by Howard A. Rodman, Steven Soderbergh was the director, and it starred Peter Coyote as the Boss and Brendan Fraser as Johnny Lamb. It was first published in the October 1953 issue of Manhunt.

At five past five the elevator operated by Freddy Lamb came to a stop on the street floor. Freddy smiled courteously to the departing passengers. As he said good night to the office-weary faces of secretaries and bookkeepers and executives, his voice was soothing and cool-sweet, almost like a caress for the women and a pat on the shoulder for the men. People were very fond of Freddy. He was always so pleasant, so polite and quietly cheerful. Of the five elevator-men in the Chambers Trust Building, Freddy Lamb was the favorite.