Papazian-Hirsch to Produce Films With Publishing Powerhouse Hard Case Crime

Low-Budget, High-Impact Movies to Be Based on Award-Winning, Best Selling Hard Case Novels

( EMAILWIRE.COM, February 13, 2007 ) Hollywood, CA -- Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment, one of Hollywood’s leading independent production companies, founded in 1987 by award-winning producer Robert Papazian (The Day After) and award-winning writer James Hirsch (The Rape of Richard Beck), announced today that it has formed a production relationship with independent writer/producer James Polster and Hard Case Crime founder and publisher Charles Ardai to produce a series of movies to be based on award-winning, best selling Hard Case novels.

Wildly successful new publishing imprint boasts such best selling authors as Stephen King, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Pete Hamill, and Lawrence Block, as well as giants of the pulp era such as Cornell Woolrich (author of Rear Window), David Dodge (author of To Catch A Thief), Wade Miller (author of Touch of Evil), and George Axelrod (author of The Seven Year Itch and Academy Award nominee for the screenplay of Breakfast At Tiffany’s).

Critics have called Hard Case Crime “the best new American publisher to appear in the last decade” and the imprint has been profiled by dozens of major media outlets ranging from Time magazine and CBS Sunday Morning to USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Entertainment Weekly, which chose Hard Case Crime as publisher of the year in its annual “Must List” issue.

“These movies will adhere to the visual and storytelling style that have made the Hard Case Crime novels so popular,” said Papazian and Hirsch, whose 30-year track record includes, most recently, the HBO series Rome and the Raw Feed line of thrillers distributed by Warner Home Video. “We want to capture everything that makes these books irresistible, from the great plotting and hard-boiled action to the film noir atmosphere, which just begs to be brought to the screen with musical scores by the legends of American jazz.”

“Some of the most popular films of the past fifteen years belong to the same pulp tradition as Hard Case Crime,” said Ardai. “Whether you’re looking at a down-and-dirty story of crooks and cops like The Departed or a heist story like Ocean’s Eleven or a cat-and-mouse story like The Fugitive or a revenge story like Kill Bill, you’re looking at classic character-driven crime fiction done with enormous style and energy. We’re proud to publish books in this tradition, and to be working with a highly respected production team in Papazian-Hirsch.”

Hard Case Crime has enjoyed enormous industry buzz since its 2004 inception. Ardai, formerly founder and CEO of the Internet company Juno, turned his passion for the sexy, suspenseful, sometimes lurid paperback crime novels of the 1940s and 1950s into a line of books that revives the look and feel of the pulp era. Each book features new cover art painted in the grand pulp style, including a number of covers painted by Robert McGinnis, the legendary illustrator responsible for the movie posters for the original Sean Connery James Bond films.

The first film, currently gearing for later in 2007, is Little Girl Lost, based on the award-nominated novel by Richard Aleas about a young detective who discovers that his high school sweetheart, who he thought had gone to medical school and become an eye doctor in the Midwest, has just been found brutally murdered on the roof of New York’s seediest strip club. John Blake’s search for his true love’s killer takes him on a journey through his own past to a dark destiny he never imagined. “Richard Aleas” is a pseudonym of Hard Case Crime publisher Ardai, who will collaborate on the screenplay for Little Girl Lost with writers Polster and Hirsch. Robert Papazian and James Hirsch will executive produce.

Little Girl Lost was a finalist for both the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Shamus Award, two of the mystery field’s highest honors, and the Chicago Sun-Times called the book “excellent,” writing “Aleas has done a fine job of capturing both the style and the spirit of the classic detective novel.” In an advance review, the publishing industry bible Publishers Weekly said the book “barrels forth at the speed of [a] Manhattan taxi...and contains some whiplash-inducing plot twists...Tightly written from start to finish, this crime novel is as satisfyingly edgy as the pulp classics that inspired it.”

About the Companies
Papazian-Hirsch Entertainment is recognized for its successful television dramatic series, movies of the week, and top-rated miniseries. Productions include Nash Bridges starring Don Johnson, The Invaders starring Scott Bakula, Hart to Hart television movies starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers (produced with Jim Polster), Crazy From the Heart starring Christine Lahti, The Betty Ford Story, which won an Emmy for Gena Rowlands, and the HBO mega-miniseries Rome. Papazian and Hirsch have most recently provided production expertise in a partnership with Tony Krantz, John Shiban and Dan Myrick, whose Raw Feed label is producing a line of low-budget thrillers for release by Warner Home Video.

Hard Case Crime is a venture of Winterfall LLC. The Hard Case Crime books are published in collaboration with Dorchester Publishing, the oldest independent mass market publisher in the United States, and are available in bookstores, newsstands, drugstores, supermarkets, truck stops, and military PXs throughout North America. Additional information about Hard Case Crime can be found at www.HardCaseCrime.com.

Contact: Gerry Porter /Gene Schwam Hanson & Schwam Public Relations
Ph: 310 248-4488 or 310 248-4479 Email: gerryporter@hspr.net

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