First Blood (novel)

First Blood

First edition
Author	David Morrell
Language	English
Genre	Adventure Thriller novel
Publisher	M. Evans
Publication date	1972
Pages	252
ISBN	0-214-66814-2

First Blood is a 1972 novel by David Morrell which was adapted into the 1982 film starring Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo.^[1]

Plot

Rambo (no first name in the novel), a Vietnam War veteran, is hitchhiking in Madison, Kentucky and is picked up by Police Chief Wilfred Teasle and dropped off at the city limits. When Rambo repeatedly returns, Teasle finally arrests him and drives him to the station. He is charged with vagrancy and resisting arrest and is sentenced to 35 days in jail. Being trapped inside the cold, wet, small cells gives Rambo a flashback to his days as a POW in Vietnam, and he fights off the police as they attempt to cut his hair and shave him, beating one officer and slashing another with the straight razor. He flees, steals a motorcycle, and hides in the nearby mountains. He becomes the focus of a manhunt that results in the deaths of many police officers, civilians, and National Guardsmen.

In a climactic ending in the town where his conflict with Teasle began, Rambo is finally hunted down by special forces captain, Sam Trautman, and Teasle. Using his local knowledge, Teasle manages to surprise Rambo and shoots him in the chest, but is himself wounded in the stomach by a return shot. He then tries to pursue Rambo as he makes a final attempt to escape back out of the town. Both men are essentially dying by this point, but are driven by pride and a desire to justify their actions. Rambo, having found a spot he feels comfortable in, prepares to commit suicide by detonating a stick of dynamite against his body; however, he then sees Teasle following his trail and decides that it would be more honorable to continue fighting and be killed by Teasle's return fire.

Rambo fires at Teasle and, to his surprise and disappointment, hits him. For a moment he reflects on how he had missed his chance of a decent death, because he is now too weak to light the fuse to detonate the dynamite, but then suddenly feels the explosion he had expected—but in the head, not the stomach where the dynamite was placed. Rambo dies satisfied that he has come to a fitting end. Trautman returns to the dying Teasle and tells him that he has killed Rambo with his shotgun. Teasle relaxes, experiences a moment of affection for Rambo, and then dies succumbing to his wounds.

Development

Morrell stated he was inspired to write the novel by hearing about the experiences of his students who had fought in Vietnam.^[2] The author also said "When I started First Blood back in 1968, I was deeply influenced by Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male."^[3] The character's name was derived in part from the Rambo apple, a supply of which his wife brought home while he was trying to come up with a suitable name for his character.^[4] In the DVD commentary for 'First Blood' Morell comments that one of the inspirations for Rambo was World War 2 hero Audie Murphy. The town that Madison, Kentucky was modelled after was Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

Reception

While John Skow of TIME described the book as "carnography",^[5] this negative review appears to be the exception: the book was praised by Newsweek as "First-rate", by the New York Times Book Review as "A fine novel" and by the thriller writer John D. MacDonald as "one hell of a hard, fast novel".^[6] When Stephen King taught creative writing at the University of Maine, he used it as a textbook, and the book has been translated into 26 languages.^[7]

Adaptation into film

Films development

In 1972, Morrell sold the film rights to First Blood to Columbia Pictures, who in turn sold them to Warner Bros. This trend continued for ten years. The story passed through three companies and eighteen screenplays. Finally, Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar, two film distributors looking to become producers, obtained the film rights. They altered the story from a transposal of the Vietnam War to America to a "cheer for the underdog" story, thus beginning the Rambo film series.

Further reading

• First Blood by David Morrell (1972). Morrell's 2000 introduction, entitled "Rambo and Me," gives insight on the inspirations and development of the novel, as well as the development of the film adaptation and its first two sequels (pp. vii-xiv).
• Stiffed by Susan Faludi (1999). Chapter 7 (pp. 359–406) offers a fuller treatment of the genesis and metamorphosis of First Blood from book to theater, including the screenplay's radical and reactionary swings in development and the alternate movie ending.

References