Get Shorty

Name: Get Shorty
Author: Elmore Leonard

The Run Down.

Mob-connected loanshark Chili Palmer is sick of the Miami grind—plus his "friends" have a bad habit of dying there. So when he chases a deadbeat client out to Hollywood, Chili figures he might like to stay. This town with its dreammakers, glitter, hucksters, and liars—plus gorgeous, partially clad would-be starlets everywhere you look—seems ideal for an enterprising criminal with a taste for the cinematic. Besides, Chili's got an idea for a killer movie—though it could very possibly kill him to get it made.

Published: 1990

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Genre: Crime

Adaptation: Film (1995)

Location: Los Angeles

Character: Chili Palmer

I am an Elmore Leonard fan. I tell you this primarily so you will understand that I would never, ever, under any circumstances read a review of a new Elmore Leonard book.

— Nora Ephron in The New York Times

Chili Palmer

Later on, watching Taxi Driver on TV, Chili kept thinking of the way Karen had looked at him and wondered if she was telling him something and if he should’ve asked her to stay and have a drink. But then when Robert De Niro shaved his hair into a Mohawk, Chili started thinking of Ray Bones, even though Ray Bones didn’t have a Mohawk or look anything like Robert De Niro. Maybe it was all those guns De Niro had, wanting to shoot somebody.

Get Shorty

Adapted for film in 1995
Starring John Travolta — Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Screenplay by Scott Frank

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