Stephen King as 1970s Movie Critic? What Might Have Been...
A couple of years before he began writing stories that became movies, Stephen King explored writing about movies for a local newspaper in Colorado
In 1974, a young, newly published author reached out to the Boulder Daily Camera and offered to review movies. According to his cover letter to the Colorado newspaper, the budding critic had “a book called CARRIE out in hardcover” and was hoping to provide film analyses that would be “entertaining” and sometimes written “with my tongue tucked firmly into my cheek.”
“By the way,” the applicant added, “I work cheap.”
That applicant was then-26-year-old Stephen King, who was two years away from seeing Carrie adapted into a hugely successful, Academy Award-nominated film. Yet, as the Camera now acknowledges in an article as part of its 125th anniversary celebration, King didn’t get the gig.
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The paper has published King’s letter as well as two sample reviews he submitted in September ‘74: a rave for Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (“a merciless dissection of human greed”) and a pan of California Split from director Robert Altman, whom he calls “a smart director who has made an amazing succession of stupid movies since M*A*S*H, his masterpiece.” (King also placed Split in the stupid category.)
The Camera piece, shared on Twitter by media columnist Jim Romenesko, explains that King made his pitch while he and his family were living in the Boulder area. “I don’t want to write snotty avant-garde reviews of obscure foreign films,” King wrote in his appeal to the features editor, “but I would like the chance to shake down what’s playing at the Boulder or the Fox or the Basemar Twin Cinemas once or twice a week.”
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Laurence “Laurie” Paddock, the paper’s editor in 1974, says King was turned down because the Camera simply didn’t have a job to offer him at the time.
In response to an email from Yahoo Movies, King confirmed the Camera’s account, but did not offer any additional comment.
Clearly, it all worked out for the best. As fun as it would have been to read King’s takes on Jaws and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his time was better spent writing The Shining, Misery, and the many other novels and short stories he has penned, many of which turned into movies far better than most of the ones he would have reviewed.
Watch a promo clip for 'Carrie,’ based on the book Stephen King had just seen published when he inquired about writing movie reviews for the local paper:
