Jack Finney

Last updated
Jack Finney
BornJohn Finney
(1911-10-02)October 2, 1911
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
DiedNovember 14, 1995(1995-11-14) (aged 84)
Greenbrae, California, United States
Occupation Novelist, short story writer
Alma mater Knox College
Period1946–1995
Genre Noir fiction, science fiction, thrillers, comedy
Subject19th century American history
Notable works The Body Snatchers , Time and Again

Walter Braden "Jack" Finney (born John Finney; October 2, 1911 – November 14, 1995) was an American writer. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers and Time and Again . The former was the basis for the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its remakes.

Contents

Personal life

Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and given the name John Finney. After his father died when Finney was three years old, he was renamed Walter Braden Finney in honor of his father, but continued to be known as "Jack". He attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, graduating in 1934. He married Marguerite Guest, and they had two children, Kenneth and Marguerite. After living in New York City and working for an advertising agency there, he moved with his family to California in the early 1950s. He lived in Mill Valley, California, and died of pneumonia and emphysema in Greenbrae, California, at the age of 84.

Writing career

Finney's first article, "Someone Who Knows Told Me …", published in the December 1943 issue of Cosmopolitan, reflects the message of the Office of War Information's (OWI) "Loose Lips Sink Ships" campaign of World War II. As an advertising copywriter, Finney was doing his part, driving home the point that careless remarks by otherwise patriotic citizens can aid enemy agents, resulting in the death of US servicemen.

His story "The Widow's Walk" won a contest sponsored by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1946. [1] His first novel, 5 Against the House, was published in 1954. It was made into a movie the following year.

Finney's novel The Body Snatchers (1955) was the basis for the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and multiple remakes.

Another novel, Assault on a Queen (1959), became the film Assault on a Queen with Frank Sinatra as the leader of a gang that pulls a daring robbery of the RMS Queen Mary.

Finney's greatest success came with his science fiction novel Time and Again (1970). It involves time travel to the past, a theme he had experimented with previously in short stories. Its protagonist, Simon Morley, is working in advertising in New York City when he is recruited for a secret government project to achieve time travel. Morley travels to the New York City of 1882. The novel is notable for Finney's vivid and detailed picture of life in the city at that time and for the art and photographs supposedly made by Morley during his experiences, which are reproduced in the pages of the novel. Morley sees many actual historical sites, some now gone (e.g., the post office that, until 1939, stood in what is now the southern tip of City Hall Park) and some still existing (e.g., St. Patrick's Cathedral, then the tallest building in its Fifth Avenue neighborhood).

In 1987, Finney was given the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement at the World Fantasy Convention, held in Nashville, Tennessee. [2]

Finney's story "Such Interesting Neighbors" (Collier's, 6 January 1951) was the basis for the second episode of Science Fiction Theatre , entitled "Time Is Just a Place". It was first broadcast on 16 April 1955. It co-starred Don DeFore and Warren Stevens; it was then published in 1957, in the collection The Third Level by Rhinehart and Company; later, the story appeared as an episode of the Steven Spielberg-created anthology series Amazing Stories , starring Adam Ant and Marcia Strassman. Spielberg's version was first broadcast on 20 March 1987.

In 1995, twenty-five years after Time and Again, Finney published a sequel called From Time to Time featuring the further adventures of Morley, this time centering on Manhattan in 1912. Finney died at the age of 84 not long after finishing the book.

The 1998 television movie The Love Letter , starring Campbell Scott and Jennifer Jason Leigh, is based on Finney's short story of the same name, which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1959.

The Third Level, Knox College's science fiction and fantasy publication, is named for Finney's short story "The Third Level", published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in October 1952. [3]

Works

Short stories

Novels

Several Finney novels were adapted as feature films (); see below.

Collections

Plays

Film adaptations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Siegel</span> Film director and producer

Donald Siegel was an American film and television director and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Leinster</span> American science fiction writer

Murray Leinster was a pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, an American writer of genre fiction, particularly of science fiction. He wrote and published more than 1,500 short stories and articles, 14 movie scripts, and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leigh Brackett</span> American novelist and screenwriter (1915–1978)

Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American science fiction writer known as "the Queen of Space Opera." She wrote the screenplays for The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Long Goodbye (1973). She worked on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), elements of which remained in the film; she died before it went into production. In 1956, her book The Long Tomorrow made her the first woman ever shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and, along with C. L. Moore, one of the first two women ever nominated for a Hugo Award.

<i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> 1956 horror film directed by Don Siegel

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science-fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The black-and-white film was shot in 2.00:1 Superscope and in the film noir style. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's 1954 science-fiction novel The Body Snatchers. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures as a double feature with the British science-fiction film The Atomic Man.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Crispin</span> British composer and crime novelist (1921–1978)

Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery, an English crime writer and composer known for his Gervase Fen novels and for his musical scores for the early films in the Carry On series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Tevis</span> American writer (1928–1984)

Walter Stone Tevis Jr. was an American novelist and screenwriter. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth. A fourth, The Queen’s Gambit, was adapted into a miniseries with the same title and shown on Netflix in 2020. His books have been translated into at least 18 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Collier (fiction writer)</span> British writer

John Henry Noyes Collier was a British-born writer and screenwriter best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the '50s. Most were collected in The John Collier Reader ; earlier collections include a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which won the International Fantasy Award and remains in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Wyndham Lewis, and Paul Theroux. He appears to have given few interviews in his life; those include conversations with biographer Betty Richardson, Tom Milne, and Max Wilk.

<i>Welcome to the Monkey House</i> 1968 collection of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut

Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of 25 short stories written by Kurt Vonnegut, published by Delacorte in August 1968. The stories range from wartime epics to futuristic thrillers, given with satire and Vonnegut's unique edge. The stories are often intertwined and convey the same underlying messages on human nature and mid-twentieth century society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul W. Fairman</span> American novelist

Paul Warren Fairman (1909–1977) was an editor and writer in a variety of genres under his own name and under pseudonyms. His detective story "Late Rain" was published in the February 1947 issue of Mammoth Detective. He published his story "No Teeth for the Tiger" in the February 1950 issue of Amazing Stories. Two years later, he was the founding editor of If, but only edited four issues. In 1955, he became the editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic. He held that dual position until 1958. His science fiction short stories "Deadly City" and "The Cosmic Frame" were made into motion pictures.

Charlotte Armstrong Lewi was an American writer. Under the names Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine she wrote 29 novels, as well as short stories, plays, and screenplays. She also worked for The New York Times' advertising department, as a fashion reporter for Breath of the Avenue, and in an accounting firm. Additionally, she worked for the New Yorker magazine, publishing only three poems for them.

Body snatcher or The Body Snatcher may refer to:

<i>The Body Snatchers</i> 1954 science fiction novel by Jack Finney

The Body Snatchers is a science fiction horror novel by American writer Jack Finney, originally serialized in Collier's magazine in November–December 1954 and published in book form the following year.

<i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> (1978 film) 1978 film by Philip Kaufman

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 American science-fiction horror film directed by Philip Kaufman, and starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy. Released on December 22, 1978, it is based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. The novel was previously adapted into the 1956 film of the same name. The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect biological clone of the person replaced, but devoid of empathy and humanity.

<i>Body Snatchers</i> (1993 film) 1993 American film by Abel Ferrara

Body Snatchers is a 1993 American science fiction horror film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Gabrielle Anwar, Billy Wirth, Terry Kinney, Meg Tilly, Christine Elise, R. Lee Ermey, and Forest Whitaker. It is loosely based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, with a screenplay by Nicholas St. John, Stuart Gordon, and Dennis Paoli.

Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge were pen names under which Hugh Callingham Wheeler, Richard Wilson Webb, Martha Mott Kelley and Mary Louise White Aswell wrote detective fiction. In some foreign countries their books have been published under the variant Quentin Patrick. Most of the stories were written by Webb and Wheeler in collaboration, or by Wheeler alone. Their most famous creation is the amateur sleuth Peter Duluth. In 1963, the story collection The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow was given a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. In 1949, the book Puzzle for Pilgrims won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière International Prize, the most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Slesar</span> American writer

Henry Slesar was an American author and playwright. He is famous for his use of irony and twist endings. After reading Slesar's "M Is for the Many" in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock bought it for adaptation and they began many successful collaborations. Slesar wrote hundreds of scripts for television series and soap operas, leading TV Guide to call him "the writer with the largest audience in America."

<i>The Invasion</i> (film) 2007 American film by Oliver Hirschbiegel

The Invasion is a 2007 American science fiction horror film initially directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and written by David Kajganich, and starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Unhappy with the original edit, the production company hired The Wachowskis for additional writing and James McTeigue to re-shoot some scenes. The plot follows a psychiatrist (Kidman) in Washington, D.C. who finds those around her turning into emotionless beings shortly after a major Space Shuttle crash.

John Evan Weston-Davies, known to his friends as Jasper Davies and published as Berkely Mather, was a British writer who wrote fifteen published novels and a book of short stories. He also wrote for radio, television and film.

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1889–1955) was an American novelist and short story writer. She primarily authored fiction in the hardboiled subgenre of detective novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holly Roth</span> American novelist

Helen Holly Roth-Franta was an American writer who authored novels and short stories in the genres of spy fiction and detective fiction. She also published works under the pseudonyms P.J. Merrill and K.G. Ballard. Roth published twelve novels in her lifetime and many short stories, one of which was nominated for an Edgar Award.

References

  1. "Jack Finney biography" . Retrieved June 11, 2007.
  2. "1987 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on May 19, 2007. Retrieved June 11, 2007.
  3. "FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION: ANTHOLOGIES (by content)". sfsite.com. SF Site . Retrieved July 21, 2015.