Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Still on Finnish tie-ins

I wrote (in February) about tie-ins and said this:

"Finland has been pretty slow to produce its own novelizations. There are some, though. Katri Manninen who has later gained some fame for her fitness books started out writing books on the Salatut Elämät (Secret Lives) soap series. My pal Tapani Bagge wrote his first novel (after many pseudo- and anonymous paperbacks) on a TV series called Pelastajat (it's about fire men). But this was in the nineties and I can't think of any previous examples."

I should've mentioned the paperback Markku Selin published when his and his buddy Renny Harlin's first film, "Born American/Jäätävä polte" was out. The book was written by Hyeena Hämäläinen, who's a pretty prolific Finnish mystery writer (and former surf guitarist). The publisher was actually Kustannus 21, and the film is called "Arctic Heat". But clearly this was Selin's idea of publishing a real American-style tie-in paperback. I don't think the book sold very well, but would love to hear corrections.

Kustannus 21 published also humour column books by Jammu and Veikko Ennala.

The film, by the way, seems to stir up controversy and conflicting thoughts even now. Check out the IMDb comments site here. One of them says:

"This film makes me want to stay home and thank God every day that I live in such a wonderful country. Even the good guy turned out to be a bad guy in "Born American". Shook me to my foundations."

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