Trivia / Dortmunder

• Adapted Out: The rights to use Dortmunder and other characters in movies went with the rights to The Hot Rock, so movies based on other stories in the series (Bank Shot, Jimmy the Kid, Why Me?, and What's the Worst That Could Happen?) have had to create new characters to replace them.
• Divorced Installment: The Hot Rock originally began life as a draft for a novel in author Donald E. Westlake's Parker series. Westlake came up with the idea of a story in which Parker had to repeatedly steal the same object. However, the story didn't work with Parker's personality (the pragmatic Parker would have just walked away from the caper), so he abandoned it. However, the idea would not let go of him, and he returned to the manuscript and created a new protagonist for whom the plot did work: the Born Unlucky John Dortmunder.
• Mythology Gag: In Watch Your Back!, the regulars at the OJ are trying to come up with names of the guys that meet in the back room (the regulars realize these guys are crooks planning heists, but do NOT want to know any details). One of them comes up with the suggestion "Ballantine" — the name of the Dortmunder-equivalent (see Adapted Out above) character in the movie Bank Shot is Walter Upjohn Ballentine.