Source: Book cover for ‘Quick Change’ by Jay Cronley

So, I was doing some preliminary research on my next film review for the ‘90s-era “cromedy” (crime-comedy) Quick Change, when I stumbled across one of the most hilarious book introductions I’ve ever read.

Firstly, since you may not know, Jay Cronley was an author and newspaper columnist who wrote for Tulsa World, who achieved some notoriety in the late 1980s/early ‘90s for a string of comedy films made from his books. These adaptations include Good Vibes, made into the 1989 comedy Let It Ride, starring Richard Dreyfuss. Funny Farm, made in 1988, starring Chevy Chase. And Quick Change, which was adapted twice into film. First in France in 1985, then in America in 1990, starring and directed by Bill Murray, and co-starring Geena Davis and Randy Quaid.

Cronley had quite an under-the-radar run. For awhile, he was like the comedy version of Ira Levin. Everything he wrote got filmed. However, we’re not here to talk about his films, but about his writing. More specifically, his introduction to his 1981 novel Quick Change, rereleased in 2006 (not an affiliate link) with his reflections on the impact of his book.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/author-newspaper-columnist-jay-cronley-dies-at-73/

Quick Change is “about a bank robbery,” as Cronley writes in the opening line of his introduction. It’s a comedy about three thieves who mastermind a clever heist in New York City, only to run into every problem imaginable trying to escape Gotham.

Cronley’s book introduction for Quick Change contains a lot of interesting, useful, and funny writing tips that I felt would be good to share. As an author of dark comedies and satires myself, I certainly appreciated happening across this gem. And I’m someone who almost always skips author intros.

So, here are four writing secrets from Jay Cronley’s Quick Change intro:

1. Dig Deep to Find an Original Idea

Writes Cronley:

Before I began to write this novel, I sat down with a pencil and a notepad and I thought of every way I had ever seen anything stolen…Name it, I noted it. Then I began making notes of all the angles and methods ever used to take what isn’t yours.

It’s fair to say that the crime genre is a fairly well-mined one. Especially with famous authors like Donald E. Westlake (more on him later), Agatha Christie, and classic writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, among many others, having hatched almost every conceivable crime story over the last 150 years of publishing history. It’s true now. It was also true back in the early ’80s, when Cronley wrote his book.

This sounds like an easy thing to do. Just research a bunch of plots and then write something that hasn’t been done before. What’s so hard about that, right? Except few writers do that. Instead, they grab hold of whatever new idea they have, refusing to let go. But if you’re trying to break through, you have to do something that hasn’t been done before, that will get you noticed ahead of the many other writers working in your genre.

Speaking of genre, this little tip also means you have to know your genre through and through. And that means reading the hell out of it. Or at least knowing some of the common tropes and twists, so that you can surprise with some of your own.

2. Don’t Give Your Good Ideas Away to Other Authors!

Apparently, all of Cronley’s research for the “last great bank robbery idea on earth” attracted the attention of Donald E. Westlake, whom Cronley considered, “arguably the greatest living American writer.” Westlake actually wanted to use Cronley’s idea for Quick Change in one of his own books. But, as Cronley writes:

“No,” I said to Don on the phone that night. “You can’t have my idea. It took me a year to think of it and a year to write it.”

It’s actually rather hilarious to me the idea of Westlake, the legendary crime author with almost 100 titles to his credit, coming to a lesser known author like Cronley hoping to procure a good story idea. It makes me wonder if this is a common thing amongst best-selling authors. It just seems wrong and impolite. Popular musicians borrow, steal, and pay homage to one another all the time, though, so I suppose published authors would do the same. I know I’ve provided good feedback, and even suggested story plots and ideas to other writers on forums and comment threads. But I’ve never given away, or even discussed an idea of mine that I felt had merit for a good book or screenplay.

3. Hollywood Sucks Because Nobody Reads

This is right in line with Stephen King’s famous On Writing maxim: “Read a lot, write a lot.” Cronley, who was criticising the creative shortcomings that were plaguing Hollywood even back in the early 2000s, goes on to say:

The simple reason behind the creative crisis is that nobody reads good stuff, which is the old stuff. The only way to learn how to write well is to read. If nobody reads, you get that Adam Sandler baby-talk thing.

This is especially true nowadays. It is so so easy to get wrapped up in the mindless bits and pieces of Twitter and other short-form-style social media. I find myself getting caught in this no-reading trap all the time. But sadly, so many today are smartphone slaves, addicted to the dopamine-giving hits from divisive news headlines, celebrity gossip, or vapid Buzzfeed-style articles that convey little to no useful information. To say nothing of the infinite scroll of YouTube videos, TikTok shorts, streaming shows and movies, Twitch broadcasts, and immersive video games. Who has time for classic literature?

This problem extends even beyond the general population, to English majors, writers, and novelists like myself, as well. When I was in college, I rarely encountered classmates who’d read much of anything beyond the Harry Potter series, or other modern books published prior to the 1980s. And that’s honestly a crime, because classics are classics for a reason.

4. Movie Deals Don’t Always Lead to a Pot of Gold — In Fact, They Might Even Get You Sued For $10 Million

Source: Warner Bros. ‘Quick Change’ (1990)

Quick Change quickly landed a movie option, which is a contract during which someone has a given amont of time to make a piece of intellectual property into a film. Sometimes options may only last for a year, and an author might be paid a few thousand dollars. The company that first landed the option to Quick Change wound up in bankruptcy. Right before the option expired, Cronley’s agent offered the book to a producer in France. However, this caused the first option holder to sue Cronley for almost $10 million.

Fortunately, the lawsuit was eventually tossed. The French producer went on to make Quick Change into the film Hold-Up in 1985, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. The Bill Murray version would, of course, come later. But it goes to show that sometimes Hollywood deals can actually be spring-loaded boxing gloves ready to punch you in the face.

If you haven’t checked out some of Jay Cronley’s books, now’s a good time. If you can find them, of course. Many of them are out of print. But evidently, judging by the Amazon link above, Quick Change is still readily available.

Pagliacci meets the heist genre in a comical crime caper that proves there are no easy getaways.

Source: By The poster art can or could be obtained from Warner Bros.., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5364770

In July of last year I initated a review of the late ‘80s/early ’90s sub-genre I’ve dubbed the “cromedy” (crime/comedy), beginning with early 1992’s Christian Slater-starring Kuffs as my inaugural piece. This article will constitute the second in what I’d like to make an ongoing series.

But why bother commencing a cromedy concatenation, especially about a largely underappreciated sub-genre relegated to a bygone era? There are several reasons. First, a personal one. Many of these films were in perpetual rotation on such channels as TBS Superstation and USA back in the late ’90s, a time when I was a teenager and constantly curating my isolative boredom on the weekends with middling minor hits. The network channels had all the big movies (which I’d already seen), and my house didn’t have premium cable. So, I satisfied myself with more niche fare. Most importantly, this was a sub-genre I’d discovered for myself, rather than one presented or pre-screened for me by friends, family, or parents.

Secondly, I’ve recently begun seeing movies beyond mere vehicles of entertainment, but as time capsules. Little glowing glimpses to particular periods in history. The crime/comedy sub-genre is, of course, not unique to the late ‘80s/early ’90s. Abbott and Costello were satisfying studio contracts with such films as Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff back in the 1940s and ’50s. However, the “cromedy” era is one I’ve designated as ranging from about 1984, with the release of Beverly Hills Cop, the sub-genre’s undisputed apex predator, concluding with the Tarantino-penned True Romance (1993). The foot fetish dialogue virtuoso would effectively obliterate cromedies forever with Pulp Fiction the following year, a film that instantly rendered any crime flick obsolete if it didn’t have henchmen riffing on about cheeseburgers and pop culture.

Odd as it is to say, but American movies set in the late ’80s/early ’90s, and earlier, are practically period pieces at this point. They depict a very different cultural landscape. Before the internet, cell phones, social media, largescale racial integration, and the financialization and digitization of the economy. Politically, the era takes place right at the tail end of the Cold War, and well before 9/11 pricked the USA’s bubble of security. People smoked (on airplanes even!) without verbal warning signifiers, words like “faggot” and “retard” were casually slung around by film protagonists, and sexual harassment and violence, even against underage teens, were often playfully portrayed. Unacceptably strange behaviors that would obviously never fly in today’s Puritanical woke climate.

Aside from Eddie Murphy’s monster ’84 smash about a Detroit cop who fish-out-of-waters in upscale L.A., and A Fish Called Wanda, there are few if any other diamonds in the cromedy genre. It’s an oddball assortment of sapphires, rubies, occasional pearls, and a whole lot of quartz.

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures ‘Quick Change’ (1990)

Which brings me finally to Quick Change, a strong sapphiric entry. A 1990 crime comedy starring Bill Murray, Geena Davis, and Randy Quaid as three bank robbers who pull off the perfect heist on a New York City financial institution, only to get hilariously bogged down in Looney Tunes-esque fashion in their escape from Gotham. The film remains Murray’s only directing credit, a distinction he shares with Howard Franklin, who co-helmed the picture.

Despite having watched the film numerous times during its syndication heyday on cable in the late ’90s, and then again recently, I only just find out that it’s actually based on a book. The novel of the same name was published in 1981 by Jay Cronley. Cronley was an author of eight comedy novels, most of which became films in the mid-80s through 1990, starring such actors as Chevy Chase (Funny Farm) and Richard Dreyfuss (Let It Ride, based on the novel Good Vibes).

If the cromedy genre has Founding Fathers, Jay Cronley is perhaps its Ben Franklin. Even his last name sounds serendipitously similar. Cromedy/Cronley. How nice is that?

According to Cronley in his introduction to the 2006 re-release of his novel Quick Change, he spent almost a year wracking his brain looking for the last great heist idea. His efforts more than pay off with a clever high-concept robbery that appears to do a little more than inspire the Joker’s mob bank hit in the opening to The Dark Knight 18 years later. Granted the Joker character predates Quick Change by decades, and the Clown Prince of Crime no doubt pilfered many a vault in the comics, but I’d be surprised if Christopher Nolan hadn’t seen and been a fan of the Bill Murray film before making the Batman sequel.

Murray, playing “Grimm,” shows up a Manhattan bank dressed in a full-on clown costume, complete with a suicide vest packed with dynamite. After initially failing to garner any attention with his droll announcement that “this a robbery,” (this is Manhattan, afterall) he fires his gun into the air. That does the trick. Police are summoned by the notorious under the counter RED BUTTON alert system, and a SWAT team assembled. The criminal clown is quickly surrounded. Except this is all part of his perfect plan. Grimm makes some outrageous demands, including a monster truck, which the hapless but earnest Police Chief Rotzinger accommodates in exchange for hostages. Except the first three hostages are actually Grimm’s accomplices, Phyllis (Geena Davis) his girlfriend, Loomis (Randy Quaid) his childhood best friend, and Grimm himself (sans clown make-up). Who have all taped the stolen money under their clothes. Hence the film’s double-meaning title.

Unrecognized due to disguises, the trio slip away to a rendezvous point in a ghetto section of town, where they plan to leave for JFK Airport and eventually, a spot in the Caribbean, with their ill-gotten gains.

It’s a masterful plan. The police are completely fooled. But just when it appears Grimm and company are set to make a clean getaway, all their good luck runs out. They get lost en route to the “BQE” (Brooklyn Queens Expressway), held-up by a gun-wielding apartment visitor, robbed by a conman, lose their car, stymied by a rulemeister bus driver, and have to fool their way through the mob, a foreign cab driver who doesn’t speak English, and a bizarre assortment of NYC characters. All the while Loomis regresses into infantile buffoonery, and just-pregnant Phyllis threatens to leave her beau to protect their baby from a life of crime.

Quick Change has a lot going for it aside from its clever concept. It has some cool cameos, including Phil Hartman, Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, and a post-Robocop pre-That 70’s Show Kurtwood Smith. An amusing, if one-note, musical score. And some endearingly nostalgic technical touches: Payphones, paper maps, and film spool recording equipment.

The film seems comfortable relying mostly on its comedic sequences. What little dramatic character moments there are barely register. Unlike the turbulently jocular relationship dynamic between Wanda, Archie, and Otto in the smartly-scripted A Fish Called Wanda, another heist film that focuses on the aftermath of the crime rather than the crime itself, Quick Change remains more plot-focused and surface-level. Yet its superficial trappings don’t seem to hurt it. It still boasts witty dialogue, colorful performances, surprising enough twists and turns, all delivered with a well-paced flair. It gets the job done, and more than earns its distinction as a sadly forgotten cromedy gem.

What questionable points remain are largely ignorable, if not workably humorous. Grimm’s bank robbery adds up to a whopping one million dollar haul, split three ways. 1990’s $333,000 in today’s inflation-spiked currency is about three quarters of a million dollars. Hardly enough to go on the lam permanently from law enforcement. Much less raise a new family. Though it comes close to Walter White’s initial, uh, fundraising goal of $737,000, which the chemistry teacher sets for himself when he first starts selling meth in Breaking Bad.

Then there’s the glaring issue of Police Chief Rotzinger seemingly figuring out the criminal trio are escaping on a plane just taking off, after Grimm provides the false name of “Skipowski” (he’d used the name “Skip” as an alias while robbing the bank). Are we to assume the NYC Police Chief wouldn’t have the ability to have a plane grounded if he suspected there were three bank robbers on board, which the city has been on a manhunt for all day? Even as a credulous teen, I found the movie’s ending rather implausible. As a middle-aged adult, even more so. I imagine a Spongebob-style “Three Hours Later” time card popping up, then cutting to Grimm and friends getting arrested on the tarmac by the feds. Fade to black.

For a very brief time, Quick Change was my favorite film, if only because I hardly encountered people that knew it existed and it therefore felt like something I alone had “discovered.” And this was even back in the late ’90s, well before Bill Murray’s resurgence as a serious actor in Lost in Translation and a fixture in Wes Anderson films. As a Murray vehicle, Quick Change’s Grimm hardly competes against his more popular roles. Which is a shame, because it’s one of his most natural performances. Although, I will say that in addition to possibly influencing The Dark Knight’s bank robbery opening, I noticed a lot of similarity between Murray’s quippy, quick-thinking, and smart-mouthed portrayal of Grimm, and Bob Odenkirk’s wily criminal lawyer Saul Goodman. Grimm dances out of danger with his mouth at multiple points. Even talking down a gun-wielding psycho, outwitting a local mob boss, and of course, playfully taunting the police. Grimm and Goodman could practically be brothers.

Quick Change may lack the charisma and energy of Bevery Hills Cop, and the intelligence of A Fish Called Wanda, but as a cromedy entry, it’s a solid sapphire.

Do yourself a favor, and check out Quick Change, both the movie and the book.

Dean Brooks

Tag: Quick Change

Four Helpful and Humorous Writing Secrets From Jay Cronley, Author of ‘Quick Change’