Comments on: Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: HOWARD BROWNE – Halo in Brass.

By: Walker Martin

Walker Martin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:24:56 +0000

I met Howard Browne when he was a guest back in the 1980′s at Pulpcon. He did not like SF and once attacked the genre in a funny editorial in MAMMOTH DETECTIVE. Some of the issues of this title(also MAMMOTH WESTERN and MAMMOTH ADVENTURE) were so big that you realized immediately why it was called mammoth.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:14:41 +0000

I remember a few episodes of BOURBON STREET BEAT fairly well considering I was nine when it started. Richard Long’s character later moved to 77 SUNSET STRIP and continued there a while, but without Andrew Duggan’s character. I’m sorry to say that if I saw the pilot I don’t recall it.

The New Orleans setting gave it a look distinctive from its other Warner companion series like HAWAIIAN EYE and SURFSIDE SIX.

Thanks for the title of ‘The Veiled Lady,’ my mind went blank on that one. I’ve read it, but don’t have a copy, and the book it is reprinted in is goes for $450 a shot on Amazon.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:25:20 +0000

Nothing in what you say that I might disagree with, David, opinion-wise, only to add that it was the third issue of the digest-sized FANTASTIC (not FANTASTIC STORY). The title was “The Veiled Woman” and it appeared in the November/December1952 issue.

Getting back to BOURBON STREET BEAT, the TV detective series that had the good sense to use THE TASTE OF ASHES as the basis for their first episode, I have been thinking about it, and I can’t remember ever watching the program.

It was on for only one season, 1959-60, which was the first year of college for me. Neither Houghton (Michigan Tech) nor Cadillac (where I grew up) had an ABC station anywhere near, so I have large gaps in my TV upbringing, and BSB is in one of them.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:45:54 +0000

Pine is the rarity, a Chandleresque private eye who may be superior to Marlowe in some ways. I actually rate them a little higher than Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer because Pine is a more fully realised character than the self confessed cipher Macdonald intended Archer to be.

But only a little higher. Macdonald’s intent was much different, and his achievement ultimately much greater.

But Browne is one of the great semi-neglected writers in the field. Maybe only Bart Spicer’s Carny Wilde is as neglected and as deserving of being rediscovered.

When Browne was editor at Fantastic Story he solicited a science fiction story from Mickey Spillane (I think for the debut issue). For once Mickey missed the deadline, but with all the heavy promotion Browne felt he couldn’t disappoint readers so he wrote the thing himself. Surprisingly it’s a good pastiche of what you might expect a Spillane sf story to be.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:26:17 +0000

If you’ve read all of Chandler’s novels recently and you’re looking for more in the same vein, then you can’t go wrong by picking up any of the Paul Pine books, that’s for sure.

According to IMDB, the first episode of BOURBON STREET BEAT was “A Taste of Ashes,” based on the Paul Pine novel of the same title, a book that came out in 1957, some eight years after BRASS.

This isn’t noted in Hubin’s CRIME FICTION IV. As mentioned before, he doesn’t generally include individual episodes of TV series that are based on novels, though of course he does all films.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:25:08 +0000

Even Chandler praised these if I recall. A good and adult entry in the private eye stakes.

Is this the one that was the basis for the pilot for BOURBON STREET BEAT?