Search for ‘Flim-Flam Man’ will be rewarded

Paul Krugman’s recent  column in the New York Times got me thinking about Guy Owen, the Clarkton native and N.C. State writing teacher best remembered for “The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man” (and the subsequent movie starring George C. Scott).

And that got me thinking about how “out of print” is no longer such a disheartening condition. Both the 1965 edition (Macmillan)  of “Flim-Flam Man” and the 2000 reprint (Coastal Carolina Press) are available only second-hand — but thanks to the Internet, that’s no barrier to distribution (even though these transactions leave both publisher and author empty-handed).

And the 1967 movie, though not yet officially released to DVD, is offered by a number of online sellers. Scott called Mordecai Jones, the Eastern North Carolina con man, one of his two favorite roles (the other being Buck Turgidson in “Dr. Strangelove”).