Final Notice

Local author Jonathan Valin, who lives over in the Clifton section of Cincinnati, from 1980 to 1995 wrote eleven novels featuring Harry Stoner, private investigator in Cincinnati, Ohio. He won the Shamus Award for best mystery novel of 1989. His second novel, published in 1980, was FINAL NOTICE, and it was made into this movie in 1989.

The novel made rich use of local color, with particular attention to Eden Park where significant elements of the story took place. Lots of movies, before and after this one, have been filmed partially or totally in Cincinnati. This movie was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Now, Toronto is a beautiful place but it isn't Cincinnati. Had they changed Harry Stoner to a Toronto detective, instead of attempting to pass off Toronto as being Cincinnati, then anyone who did have a familiarity with this city wouldn't have been eye-stumbling and the movie wouldn't have been nearly as amusing to partially offset the fact that it was a pretty lame B-movie.

In the first scene to supposedly take place in Eden Park, which has no hedges, we're greeted with ubiquitous giant hedges so large I flashed on the topiary scene in THE SHINING.

The thing which got to me, though, was the Romulus and Remus statue. In Eden Park it's a little thing, not even chest high, dedicated to Cincinnati by a sister city in Italy, and unfortunately now marred by vandals. In Toronto, apparently, they too have a Romulus and Remus statue in one of their parks, but seeing it for the first time in this movie brought back memories of Fay Wray's character first laying eyes on King Kong. At that point I cracked up and had to stop the videotape while I cleaned coffee spew off the television screen.

There was nothing really spectacular about this movie. I believe it was originally done for the USA Network. It's a run-of-the-mill detective story in which the detective (Harry Stoner) attempts to find the person responsible for some murders that are related to the vandalism of art books at the library. As I said, it's mildly entertaining for the average viewer, but not for someone from Cincinnati. Y'see, this movie is based on a book by Jonathan Valin and set in Cincinnati. I cringed as I was watching it, hearing the actors and actresses mispronounce street names and neighborhoods.