Capri Pants, Safecracking, Mimosas & More
Dear Readers & Friends:
Welcome to my monthly newsletter, where I share different discoveries I’ve come across while doing research for my book. I try to share something involving John Robie, Francie Stevens, and the French Riviera.
I also share something about my writing journey, and some of the insights and challenges I’ve come across.
I love doing research -- it’s one of the best things about writing. I hope you enjoy it, too
John Robie’s World
Any accomplished jewel thief like John Robie would be familiar with safecracking, especially back in the 1950s. After all, people locked up their valuables. And for a thief to steal those valuables, they often had to pick a lock to get inside, then crack a safe to get to the jewels.
In a prior newsletter, I went over how I learned to pick a lock… (https://www.art-of-lockpicking.com/how-to-pick-a-lock-guide/)...which was really challenging for me.
Safecracking is exponentially more difficult, but it’s doable. It requires you to track different possible numbers, and it takes a significant amount of trial and error (meaning time). You also need good hearing, or a good stethoscope.
To understand the complexity of safe cracking, check out Mike Boyd’s video below…I don’t know Mike, but I like how he films from the inside of the safe so you understand how the different parts work together. Also, his enthusiasm when he succeeds is contagious!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiDsXtp46XU
I don’t have access to a safe, and after watching the video, I can’t imagine myself putting in the time to try to open a single one. I’ll stick with my amateur lockpicking for now.
Along those lines, another good resource is the Art of Lockpicking website. For anyone who is interested, this site is a wealth of resources for this intriguing skill. They have great animations to help you understand how lockpicking works. Overall, it’s a great place to learn.
https://www.art-of-lockpicking.com/
Francie Steven’s World
Fashion is very important to the Francie Stevens character.
During the course of my research, I stumbled upon capri pants and their interesting history. They were invented in the late 1940s and are named after the Italian island of Capri, where they were broadly adopted in the 1950s.
Audrey Hepburn was one of the first celebrities to embrace capri pants (see below), and they became a key part of her signature style.
And there were others too….
Glamorous celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Bridgit Bardot also became synonymous with capri pants, as you can see in the pictures above. On a side note, I think we can all agree the guy in the Bardot picture would have benefitted from a looser fitting suit.
In the early 1960s, Mary Tyler Moore made the controversial decision to wear capri pants on the Dick Van Dyke Show… (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/01/mary-tyler-moore-pants#:~:text=On%20the%20series%2C%20Moore%20played,studio%20and%20sponsor%20hand%2Dwringing)
Imagine the courage it took for a young actress to buck the male-dominated TV industry! She did it for the right reasons, and the impact of her decision was substantial.
After reading all this, I had to work capri pants into my first book. No spoiler alerts; you’ll have to wait for it to be published. I hope you’re happy with what you find.
Riviera Life
Even though I don’t drink anymore (that’s for a separate newsletter, or maybe even a book), while doing research on popular Riviera cuisine and cocktails in the 1950s, I stumbled across a few articles that mentioned Alfred Hitchcock was the inventor of the mimosa. Here’s one…https://chilledmagazine.com/drink-in-history-mimosa/
Imagine my delight! While his status as expert mixologist is contested, I was fascinated by the idea that the director of To Catch a Thief actually invented such a popular cocktail…
And what a great cocktail it is! It’s a perfect drink and found its consummate placement -- brunch! The two ingredients, orange juice and champagne, bridge the morning/afternoon gap perfectly, the mix can be easily adjusted, and it even looks spectacular! The coincidence was too much for me, so you’ll find characters drinking mimosas in the book.
There are so many creative variations today, it might take years to try them. The Wicked Spatula website has several. Check them out, and if you’re feeling up to it, try one or two. I made some for my wife and our friends, who all liked the Orange Cranberry Mimosa. Oddly enough, the more variations I made, the more they seemed to like them. It took a minute, but I figured out why.
https://www.wickedspatula.com/cranberry-orange-mimosa/
The only adjustments to the recipe was using ground cinnamon instead of scraped vanilla beans for the rim coating. I mean, who’s got time to scrape beans?
My wife & our friends Neil and Nancy sampling mimosas
My World
I had a dilemma with the John Robie character when I started writing the sequel to To Catch a Thief. The challenge had to do with the John Robie in the David Dodge book compared to John Robie in the Hitchcock film. As background, Dodge’s book was published in 1952, and Hitchcock’s film was released in 1955.
Here was the problem -- Cary Grant portrayed a John Robie who was different from the character in the book. As you can imagine, Cary’s version was charismatic with an easy sense of humor and an ever-present grace. David Dodge’s version was different -- Robie was more muscular, physical, and serious. To confound the issue, a lot more people saw the film than read the book.
So what to do? Well, I have an agreement with David Dodge’s estate to write sequels to the book, not the film. So I started there. But I also saw seeds of charisma and confidence in Dodge’s version of John Robie, so I evolved those traits.
Where I landed is a version of John Robie that is true to the original book -- he’s physically fit and strong almost to the point of being intimidating. Add in charm and extroversion, then add a dash of humor, like Cary Grant’s personality in any of his films. Give Robie an absolute confidence in his ability to confront wrongdoing, and a willingness to use his physical traits to look out for others, and you have my version of John Robie!
In many ways, he’s the man I always wanted to be. I’m not, but that’s the point of creating such an aspirational character.
As a writer, you give yourself a second chance.