pattern has been isolated in the public psyche. It is an oil strike 
or a gold mine that can be depended on to yield a fair amount 
of boodle to the careful and canny processor. Hollywood 
bankers, that is, are smarter than literary historians, for the 
latter despise popular taste except when it has been filtered 
down from lecture course to literary handbook.

      Lillian Ross in Picture  wrote a snide account of the 
filming of The Red Badge of Courage . She got a good deal of 
easy kudos for a foolish book about a great film by simply 
assuming  the superiority of the literary medium to the film 
medium. Her book got much attention as a hybrid.

      Agatha Christie wrote far above her usual good level in a 
group of twelve short stories about Hercule Poirot, called The  
Labours of Hercules . By adjusting the classical themes to make