March 2015


RAYMOND KHOURY – The Devil’s Elixir. Dutton, hardcover, December 2011. Signet, premium paperback edition, August 2012.

   This is the third in a series featuring FBI agent Sean Reilly and his close lady friend, Tess Chaykin, who’s been along with him on his two previously recorded adventures, neither of which I’ve read, nor did I need to. This one stands on its own very well.

   In physical size, the book’s a bruiser. It’s over 500 pages of tall premium paperback pages long, almost all of cramjack filled with small print, and after a month or so of short reading bursts just before bedtime, I’ve finally finished it. It begins with Michelle Martinez, one of Reilly’s former girl friends calling on him for help. Her boy friend is dead in a house invasion, but she and her four-year-old son luckily managed to escape their assailants, a gang of guys with guns completely unknown to her.

   Reilly rushes cross-country to be at her side, which is when she tells him that her son is his. After that, all hell breaks loose. A Mexican crime lord is trying to track down the formula for a wildly hallucinogenic drug discovered centuries ago by Indians dwelling deep in Mexico’s densest inland jungles. Hence the title of the book, of course.

   Let me not dwell on the 500 pages this book is long. Khoury’s writing style is one that can be skimmed read very quickly. There is a lot of action, ending in many deaths and much destruction, and before you reach the end, any doubts you have have about the existence of reincarnation will be shaken to the core. Well, maybe.

   I hope I won’t be spoiling anything for you by telling you that all ends well, except for the bad guys and one loose end that will carry over to the next book in the series. My one complaint might be that after so many pages, the end for the main bad guy, a particularly nasty gentleman at that, comes far too quickly and easily.

   All in all, though, I’d have to say that I got my money’s worth from this book. But while it’s solid enough entertainment — nearly a month’s worth, for me — here I am at the end of this review, and I find that I’m struggling with something crucial. I can’t find anything to point out to you about the book that would tell you why I’ll be reading another of Sean Reilly’s adventures any time soon, for I’m sure I won’t. If your results have varied, feel free to let me know.

INTRODUCTION: The following discussion between Michael Shonk and Randy Cox has been taking place mostly in secret, as a series of comments following a review, of all things, a sci-fi movie called The Monolith Monsters. The discourse changed, as it sometimes does, into a conversation about TV viewing in the past and carrying over into the future.

I thought the exchange interesting and even important enough to rescue from a comments section already several days old and in an out of the way place where no one would be likely to come across it. Please read and enjoy, and feel free to respond on your own, if you wish.

michael Says:
March 11th, 2015 at 1:16 pm e

Randy, I am sure Steve doesn’t mind us using this place to have a virtual email exchange:)

I remember back in the 70s when I memorized the TV schedule and made sure to watch every show at least once.

Now I rarely watch TV series on TV. I find my favorites and buy season pass at iTunes. Many of the new series offer the premiere episode for free there so I pay less and less attention to what is on TV tonight. At the moment I am considering either Netflix or Hulu to add to Acorn for streaming TV series so I can watch whatever I want to watch depending on my mood.

There is some great stuff on TV today no matter what your taste. I buy season passes for BLACKLIST, JUSTIFIED, PERSON OF INTEREST (speaking of comic books), and SHERLOCK (whenever its on). I watch regularly ARCHER, DOCTOR WHO, and VENTURE BROTHERS (whenever it is on). Acorn gives me a better and more up to date British fix than PBS and BBC America. YouTube offers me the past. I just finished watch season one of MR ROSE and now am watching ADAM ADAMANT. My TV offers me sports and the El Rey network.

TV has never been better…I just don’t watch much of it on my TV.

Randy Cox Says:
March 11th, 2015 at 4:29 pm e

Michael,

While I still watch some TV shows on TV I have found that I am able to enjoy them more fully on DVD. The lack of commercial breaks helps me to concentrate on the story.

michael Says:
March 11th, 2015 at 6:39 pm e

I have DVDs as well, heck I have three DVD players, one with a VCR. I did have to adjust to the lack of commercial breaks, especially if the show aired on the Big 4. Shows that air on commercials networks are written differently from movies or those on networks such as HBO. Every commercial break demands a mini climax and tease to hook you and get you to stay and wait for the show to return. Even without the breaks on the DVD the story still has them. The TV shows on networks with no commercials can tell a story with a pace and structure that increases the drama rather that make artificial stops to keep the audience from straying. It is one of the seldom mentioned and lesser reason shows such as GAMES OF THRONES work better on HBO and suffers if copied by any major commercial network.

Randy Cox Says:
March 12th, 2015 at 9:48 am e

I have also discovered that I can fall asleep just as easily in front of a DVD story as a TV show.

Randy Cox Says:
March 12th, 2015 at 6:30 pm e

Michael, I’ve been working my way through the 1966-71 Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows via Netflix. I guess you certainly can’t call it a decent story and the acting is only so-so. Steve was once tempted by a deal for getting the entire series in one chunk. If he succumbed we haven’t heard about it.

I watch a few episodes and then take a break.

michael Says:
March 12th, 2015 at 10:10 pm e

I remember DARK SHADOWS. i grew up in a neighborhood of about a dozen and a half kids my age. One summer we would all run inside to watch DARK SHADOWS. Then school demanded our time again and I never saw another DARK SHADOWS.

Binge viewing, watching multiple episodes of the same TV series, is nothing new. We did it with VCRs and once holiday TV marathons (such as Thanksgiving of TWILIGHT ZONE) became popular. But it seems so easier on streaming. It really gives you the feel and rhythm of the series that you miss waiting a week or more between episodes.

Randy Cox Says:
March 12th, 2015 at 10:58 pm e

I was really a fan of Dark Shadows in its day, but I could only see it during vacations and breaks from the college where I worked. One of the first episodes I saw was the one that introduced Barnabas Collins and I also remember the very last episode where they lampooned the show with the final voiceover that said that investigation proved this was no werewolf after all, but just a wild animal.

I saw a few episodes when it was syndicated and I remember seeing a few of the VHS copies of episodes and thinking that to collect those was madness because there were more than 1,200 episodes. Then came DVDs and I came upon a collection of the very first episodes before Barnabas Collins and bought it thinking it might be fun to see how it all began.

At some point I came to my senses and realized that to get all of the dvds would be expensive and (as my brother said) I might not want to watch them more than once. So I started subscribing to Netflix. Each disc has 10 episodes and that’s enough. I need frequent breaks because I lose track of the story, even with the aid of good episode guide.

Randy Cox Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 9:48 am e

Michael,
I should probably add that I turned 30 when Dark Shadows began so there was none of this “running home from school to watch” that I read about so much. I started watching mainly because one of the actresses was from my state of Minnesota and would be mentioned in the entertainment column of one of the Twin Cities newspapers. I tried one episode and was not impressed, but the one I tried sometime later that ended with a hand reaching out of a coffin to grip Willie by the neck was memorable!

You mentioned SHERLOCK in number 32. The Brits don’t beat a good thing to death and there have been only 3 series with 3 episodes each. (I think another series is planned.) It’s fun to see how they will twist elements from the original stories to fit the 21st century.

michael Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 2:42 pm e

Much has been made about the difference between the e-book and print, but in reality it has not changed the basic way we read a book – words, sentences, chapters, etc.

The digital world has changed how we watch TV. And more is coming. From days of limited choices to a possible future that will offer us an unlimited number choices much like books do, from days when you had to adjust your schedule to fit your TV watching to days when you can watch nearly any TV series from any year whenever you fell like it. From small black and white only pictures to 60inch TV screens with Ultra HD 4K (and beyond). TV entertainment itself has changed from Ad agency run TV shows to independently made shows airing on YouTube.

The future of publishing has settled in and while the e-book will become an increasing popular format, print will survive.

It is the future of the visual medium, TV and film that are in chaos. How will viewers enjoy the visual programs of the future remains unknown.

Randy Cox Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 7:45 pm e

And what will be the next new thing?

michael Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 9:33 pm e

Too many possibilities to be sure. Mobile and streaming seems to be where the money is heading.

A la carte cable will fail. One the political clout of the huge multi-corporations that own the networks (such as Comcast) will slow the process until the companies will be able to find a profit with that system or control its replacement system (most likely streaming which is cheaper). Two, why spend money for one network if you only watch one program? Logically the next step for cable providers if it wishes to survive is find a way to offer programs not networks in its packages.

The networks were created as a distributor of programming. It is a function not necessary anymore. This is why the corporations that own the networks (and CBS) are involved in cable networks and their own production studios. And why they, especially CBS, are interested in their own streaming services.

What will probably happen is the content providers will drop the middle man and sell directly to the viewer. Watch what happens to HBO Go and the CBS streaming that will start soon. It could be an early sign of the future demise of cable.

Free TV future is really hard to predict. The broadband its on is worth a fortune. Politically, it would be unwise for free TV to vanish – the poor and those who don’t want to pay for TV would be upset as well as the rich powerful people who own and run your local TV station. I see free TV following the example of free radio with nearly all live programming.

Who would have guessed what the cellphone did to the land phone?

The discussions I have read see the future home with a large 60 inch+ TV screen in the home’s living room. It will be connected to a box such as Apple TV which will connect you to all your mobile devices including video games and the single desktop computer you have in your bedroom. You will attach a sound system such as Bose for theatre like sound.

Programs will stream into the main TV or your mobile devices. Pictures will become more and more lifelike but will still try to keep the feel of film. Film will be like LP, where a small but supportive group keeps the format alive.

Movie theaters will survive, people will always need a place to go, but it needs to find some solutions to the major problems it faces. It needs to find a way to make a profit while lowering costs to the moviegoer, not only for the ticket but the popcorn and drinks as well.

There will be fewer theaters and bigger ones. The movie house needs to return to being an event (see today’s IMAX) and because of that the studios will continue to focus on the huge blockbusters and send its smaller movie stories to the local household via TV and streaming.

The technology can do all of this and more if the big money and politicians let it.

Randy Cox Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 9:48 pm e

It’s still a bit of a case of 99 channels and nothing’s on.

Regarding landline phones, I called on someone at his apartment complex and pushed the buttons beside his name at the door to tell him I was there and heard the voice tell me the number was not in service. I say down and waited and he soon came out to tell me the device didn’t work because he doesn’t have a landline phone.

I was watching the special features on a DVD and all the behind the scenes stuff. PBS makes specials out of this sort of thing to promote the new seasons and raise money. Sometimes the interviewees pat themselves on the back a little too much, but they certainly wouldn’t bad mouth their bread and butter.

michael Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 10:32 pm e

Randy, looking for something to watch in this possible TV future will offer more choices than a library has books. I have heard people tell me there is nothing to read, so you could be right.

NOTE: Michael and Randy continued their conversation briefly in its old location, unaware I had diverted it over here:

Randy Cox Says:
March 14th, 2015 at 12:22 pm e

Lots of choices require much thought and decision, maybe more than we have time to decide. Shows will be available in so many venues just like movies. You used to have to wait for a movie to show up on TV so you could see it again, then wait until it would be available on VHS then DVD. I remember someone telling me the waiting time between versions would someday be non existent and the DVD would be released along with the film premiere (maybe on the way out of the theater). Have we reached the point where a TV show could be launched and canceled in the same breath?

michael Says:
March 14th, 2015 at 4:09 pm e

Randy, movies and TV programming will remain separate as long as there are movie houses. The economic system of the two is different.

But I am sure you remember the direct to video movies of the past. Those are not as successful as in the past. Why, I am not sure, it may be caused by the increase in piracy. Why buy a cheap rip-off of the current hit film in the theaters when you can download the hit film itself.

The time between films and released on DVD and streaming has shorten perhaps due to piracy.

TV shows today are available to download on iTunes a day or two after the episode aired. It is one of the reasons the networks have pushed Nielsen to find a way to count us computer TV viewers.

For example, I buy a season pass at iTunes for TV series I would have bought the DVD. I bought the season pass for PERSON OF INTEREST shortly before the season premiered. Every week a day or so after the newest episode aired I am emailed letting me know it is ready to watch. If I were to wait for the DVD I would have to wait months after the season had ended.

TV programs have been cancelled after one episode. One of the most famous was TURN-ON (February 5, 1969 ABC). Tim Conway was the host and has joked the series was cancelled midway through the first episode.

Today, the Big Four networks are trying the direct to series route for some. MICHAEL J FOX SHOW was the most famous where no pilot was done and a full season of episodes were ordered.

Now a few of those such as Fox’s HIEROGLYPHICS that received a full season order was cancelled during filming without ever reaching the air.

PETER LOVESEY – Bertie and the Seven Bodies. Mysterious Press, US/UK, hardcover, 1990; paperback, US, 1991. Arrow, UK, paperback, 1991.

   Bertie in this case refers to Edward VII (1841 – 1910), but with the story taking place in 1890, when he was still Prince of Wales, the heir apparent to his mother, Queen Victoria. It is Peter Lovesey’s delightful conceit that Bertie, as he was commonly known, besides being a notorious playboy and philanderer, fancied himself as detective of some merit, even though the results are usually far off the mark, and quite amusingly so.

   A phase of his life, previously unrecorded, that continues the affair of the seven bodies, which takes place in an English manor where an array of English society has gathered for a weekend of shooting, perhaps the last of the season. But when the deaths start occurring, each tied to the day of the week, it is up to Bertie to solve the case before the police are called in. The scandal it would cause, you know, not to mention Bertie especially not wishing the story to reach the Queen’s non-approving ears.

   So not only is the story comic and light in nature, except for the deaths, of course, but Lovesey also makes sure the mystery is well-clued as it could be. Bertie and company come up with any number of explanations, which an appropriate of who the killer might be, all of them very convincing, only to have some small detail not fit, with the whole house of cards falling only to need another to be built up again.

   I hedged there at the beginning of the previous paragraph in my statement that the story is as well-clued as it could be. It is a minor tour de force for Lovesey to have constructed a tale with so many possible solutions, but the key to case is not discovered until page 209 of a 228 page book, and I challenge anyone to put the pieces of the plot together before then. But when everything falls into place as smoothly as it does here, all is forgiven.

   Highly recommended.

   The Albert Edward, Prince of Wales series —

      Novels —

Bertie and the Tinman (1987).
Bertie and the Seven Bodies (1990).
Bertie and the Crime of Passion (1993).

      Short stories (may be incomplete) —

Bertie and the Fire Brigade. Royal Crimes, Maxim Jakubowski & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, 1994.
Bertie and the Boat Race. Crime Through Time, Miriam Grace Monfredo & Sharan Newman, editors, 1997.

THE GETAWAY. National General Pictures, 1972. Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Johnson, Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri, Slim Pickens, Richard Bright, Jack Dodson, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins. Screenplay by Walter Hill, based on the novel by Jim Thompson. Director: Sam Peckinpah.

   I’m going to disagree with Roger Ebert about the merits of this film. I think it’s terrific, a flawed masterpiece, if you will, and if you want to read all about the flaws, you can read Roger’s review, available online here. He seems to have picked up all of them.

   To tell you the truth, though, the first time I saw this movie, I was rather underwhelmed myself, but for two reasons that Roger doesn’t mention. Well, maybe three. I’d have to agree that Ali McGraw as never much of an actress, that Steve McQueen was always Steve McQueen in whatever movie he was in, and (playing My Grumpy here) the long sidebar with Sally Struther’s character (the wife of the veterinarian that McQueen’s fellow bank robber kidnaps to medicate his broken collarbone) was totally unnecessary and quite frivolous besides.

   The second time through, none of Roger’s quibbles mattered, nor any of mine as well. I enjoyed myself thoroughly all the way through. The photography is brilliant. The little bits of business tossed in here and there all came together, and the action is spectacular. It is not non-stop action, however, as the story takes the time to focus on the rocky romance that develops between the two leading characters for long stretches of time. And the ending was even more enjoyable the second time, maybe because of the anticipation. (If Slim Pickens ad-libbed his conversation between the runaway couple, as I’ve been told, my admiration for his ability as an actor is even higher.)

   I think Ali McGraw does everything that was asked of her, including not giving her a lot of dialogue. But the uncertainty in her face I saw the first time fit right into place the second time, as she does not know how Doc McCoy (McQueen) will react when he learns what she did in order to get him sprung from jail when after the parole board turns down an early release. And react he does, probably in a way that wouldn’t be permitted in a movie today.

   As for McQueen being McQueen, wasn’t Bogart always Bogart? Gable always Gable? Scott always Scott? McQueen’s presence on the screen is always a plus. What was I thinking? The business with Sally Struthers, well, I’m still not so sure about that, but in parallel and it contrast with the McCoys’ journey, I grew to accept it the second time around.

   The story, which I think it’s about time I got around to telling you about, is about a bank heist gone bad, and the problems that result when both big things and little things go bad. Mostly big things, such as having a con man steal the key of the train locker containing the loot, and hiding in a grbage dumpster just before the truck comes along to pick it up.

   This movie’s in my top twenty now, no doubt about it.



JIM THOMPSON – The Getaway. Signet #1584, paperback original, 1959. Reprints include: Bantam, paperback, movie tie-in edition, 1973. Black Lizard, softcover, 1984.

   I don’t own a copy of the Signet book; in fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a copy. (The least expensive one on abebooks.com is $60.) For some reason, and I’m not sure why I thought this, but I’ve had it in my head all these years that the Bantam edition which I’ve just read (after watching the film) was a paperback adaptation of the movie. Wrong. It was just the opposite. The movie was based on the Signet paperback published in 1959.

   And surprisingly enough, within the restrictions of big studio movie-making, the adaptation is reasonably well done. Up to a point, that is, and I’ll get back to that shortly.

   But the Doc McCoy in the book is a killer as well a bank robber, and a vicious one at that. There’s no way that Steve McQueen could play a villain as cold-blooded as his character is in the novel. In the movie, Doc McCoy is a killer when he needs to, and only then. His companion in crime, his wife Carol, who helped bring about his parole by sleeping with a member of the parole board, is also not as good-looking as Ali McGraw, nor do we have any feeling of sympathy or rapport with her. She (Carol in the book) has made her bed and all we’re waiting for is how far that will get her.

   The story of the two increasingly desperate movie stars fugitives on the lam eventually diverges from the book around page 132 with just over 50 pages to go. Or to better phrase that, this is where the movie ends. The movie has a much happier end than the book does, and that it putting it mildly. What follows is either a totally allegorical fantasy, or a getaway that only ends when the pair of fugitives reaches safety in Mexico pure hell.

   Let me tell you this. One “refuge” the couple on the run find themselves in is a pair of tiny cramped caves in a cliff along the California coast just above the water line. When Carol manages to maneuver herself around in the dark so she can sit up, then finds that she cannot move an inch to lie down again, it was two AM in the morning and I had to stop reading, right then and there.

   I’ve not read enough Thompson to say, but other people tell me that this is one of his best. Now I know why.

THE GETAWAY. Universal Pictures, 1994. Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, Michael Madsen, James Woods, David Morse, Jennifer Tilly, James Stephens, Richard Farnsworth, Philip Hoffman, Burton Gilliam. Screenplay by Walter Hill & Amy Jones, based on the novel by Jim Thompson. Director: Roger Donaldson.

   There were a few changes made from the earlier version of the film, but in a way, only a few of any consequence. Instead of robbing a bank, Doc McCoy and two others hold up a dog racing track instead, and some additional back story was added, but not particularly for the better. Personally I think that when back story is added, it takes away from the mystery behind the characters. Not always, but often enough.

   Walter Hill was the screen writer of both films, with the addition of Amy Holden Jones on the second. Perhaps that helps explain why in the scene in which McCoy slaps his wife around when he learns what she had done to help free him from prison, Carol (Kim Basinger) slaps him right back.

   There are some subtle changes that are more difficult to put words to. Alec Baldwin, whatever his accomplishments, does not have nearly the screen presence of Steve McQueen, and while Kim Basinger is a much better actress than Ali McGraw, I somehow found Ali McGraw a more fitting actress for the character, at least the cinematic one.

   The sex scenes are far more explicit in the later movie, and the action seems more violent, but somehow I don’t believe either facts are to the second film’s advantage. The most striking difference between the two films [SPOILER ALERT] is that I found the happy ending rather appropriate [NOT IN THE BOOK], but in the second film, I wondered a whole lot more if I cared that these two rather unpleasant people were going to get away with it.

THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck


AUSTIN J. SMALL – The Master Mystery. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1928. First published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1928, as by Seamark. Lead novel in the pulp magazine Detective Classics, March 1930, as “The Crimson Death.”

   Everything red in Gairlie Castle disappears sooner or later, usually sooner. On the night that the betrothal of Lord Gairlie’s daughter, Lenora, to Tommy Delayn, all-round sportsman, dilettante chemist, and recent pauper, the Gairlie Rubies, 811 perfect stones, are stolen. Since Delayn was left alone to watch the room containing the rubies, he is naturally accused, as the room was — and here we have to take the word of the author — hermetically sealed except for the door at which he was standing lookout.

   While Delayn is in jail, a housemaid is murdered in the library. There are no marks on her body, but her purple uniform is stained an uneven red, with streaks of vivid scarlet, and there are pieces of glass in her clothing. Then a Scotland Yard detective is found dead, under the same circumstances in the same room — a windowless room with only one door, and that door being watched in his case.

   Another detective, in the hope of capturing whatever it is committing the murders, stakes out the library, with the room being observed closely by his colleagues. He fires his gun, and when the others rush into the room they find it unoccupied except for his corpse. His clothes, too, have red streaks. Meanwhile, the removal of all red items continues.

   The case is solved — or, more accurately, the criminal, who could only have been one person, is revealed — by a mysterious and utterly strange person named John Argle, who was in love with the murdered housemaid. Argle spends a fair amount of time impersonating, literally, a statue of Rodin’s The Thinker, but he spots the killer while he (Argle), again literal!y, is up a tree.

   Of course, Delayn gets the girI and saves her father from ruination. The locked-room murders are explained to the satisfaction of The Chief, a Scotland Yard man who has no name, but not to this reader. There’s at least one gaping hole in the explanation.

   This novel was no doubt exciting in 1928, but those interested in it today are probably limited to impossible-crime fanciers who don’t mind straining their credulity.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 9, No. 6, November-December 1987.


Editorial Comment:   I didn’t know why this novel sounded so familiar until I used the Google and discovered that, yes, I’d read it before, but in the pulp magazine version, and more than that, my review of it was posted on this blog about five years ago. Check it out here, and be sure to read the comments also. As always, they are very useful.

Reviewed by JONATHAN LEWIS:         


MISS MEADOWS. Entertainment One, 2014. Katie Holmes, James Badge Dale, Callan Mulvey, Jean Smart, Mary Kay Place, Ava Kolker. Written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins.

   Miss Meadows, starring the very talented Katie Holmes, whose acting skills can’t save the movie from being a complete misfire, is not so much a feature film as it is a quirky premise caught on tape. Imagine a tap-dancing, prim and proper schoolteacher who is also — wait for it – a vigilante killer. She’s quirky, charming, funny, and deadly with a small pistol. She kills the bad guys because, you know, someone has to. Call her a softer, gentler, Charles Bronson.

   Intrigued? So was I.

   Which is why I decided to watch Miss Meadows in its entirety, unaware that the entire story is the premise. Well, that’s not entirely true. We get subject to an entirely forced love story between Miss Meadows and a law enforcement officer we only get to know as Sheriff (Yes, just Sheriff) and a series of flashbacks that show that Miss Meadows (Holmes) is the way she is because she witnessed her Mom being shot dead when she was an innocent child.

   Disclosure: I actually really like revenge and vigilante films and feel that they are continually under-appreciated as a film genre. When they work best, it’s mostly on a visceral level. We empathize with the protagonist, hoping he (or she) will achieve his necessary revenge. We very much want the bad guys to get what’s coming to them. Proportionally, of course. But we also are nuanced thinkers and realize that revenge has to have a cost. (Even Charles Bronson’s character in Death Wish was forced to leave New York at the film’s end).

   Case in point: William Lustig’s brilliant Vigilante starring Robert Forster, in which Forster’s character succeeds in avenging the murder of his son, but at the cost of his wife leaving him. In some ways, it’s an exploitative and nihilistic film, but it’s a hell of a good one.

   That’s not the case in Miss Meadows, where the gun-toting vigilante ends up with a loving, quirky husband, a child, and a beautiful, large home in the suburbs. If this is meant to be satire or a black comedy, it falls flat. If it is meant to send a message, it’s an entirely nauseating one. Not so much because the bad guys didn’t deserve it, but because the film refuses to engage with the revenge/vigilante film genre in a serious manner and promotes the idea that a quirky premise should hold the viewer’s attention for nearly ninety minutes.

REVIEWED BY MICHAEL SHONK:


RADIO SERIES: NBC. 4 July to 19 September 1951; 30 minutes. Cast: Jack Webb as Pete Kelly, Meredith Howard as Maggie Jackson. Pete Kelly’s Big 7: Dick Cathcart, Matty Matlock, Moe Schneider, Ray Schneider, Bill Newman, Marty Carb and Nick Fatool. Announcer: George Fenneman. Created by Richard Breen. Writers: James Moser and Jo Eisinger.

TV SERIES: NBC / Mark VII Ltd., 1959; 30 minutes. Cast: William Reynolds as Pete Kelly, Connee Boswell as Savannah Brown, Than Wyenn as George Lupo, and Phil Gordon as Fred. Music by Dick Cathcart. Additional Music by Matty Matlock, Gus Levene and Frank Comstock. Produced and directed by Jack Webb.

   Pete Kelly was born from Jack Webb’s love of jazz and survives because of the music. Pete Kelley’s Blues began as a summer replacement series on radio in 1951 (On The Air – the Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by John Dunning (Oxford University Press, 1998. The radio series lasted just thirteen episodes but that was not the end for Pete Kelly.

   There was a film, a television series and the music. Besides the more famous film’s soundtrack there was music released from both the radio and TV series. Capitol Records released music from the radio series featuring Pete Kelly’s Big 7 led by Dick Cathcart with singer “Maggie Jackson,” including the song “Funny Man” (1951). An on the air credit announced the TV series music was available from Warner Brothers and featured the sounds of “Pete Kelly’s Big 7” (Dick Cathcart, Eddie Miller, Jud De Naut, George Van Eps, Moe Schneider, Nick Fatool and Ray Sherman).

   While the TV series had been planned to follow the radio series (more on that later), it would have to wait until 1959 when it aired on NBC as a summer series that lasted only 13 episodes.

   Both the radio series and the TV series focused on the daily struggles of Pete Kelly, a cornet player and leader of a Dixieland jazz band called Pete Kelly’s Big 7. All Pete wanted was to avoid trouble and play his music but it was the 1920s in Mob-run Kansas City, and even accepting the corruption was not enough to keep Pete out of trouble.

   Surviving TV episodes are a rare find. Thanks to the collector’s market I found one episode of the TV series, “Poor Butterfly Story.”

“Poor Butterfly Story.” Teleplay by Jack Webb. Based on Radio Play by Jo Eisinger. Produced and Directed by Jack Webb. Guest Cast: Whitney Blake, John Hudson, and Marshall Kent. *** Pete finds himself trapped, surrounded by a deadly romantic triangle involving Matty his record producer, Matty’s ex-wife Zelda and Zelda’s new husband gangster Johnny Angel.

   Zelda begs Pete to help her get a record back from Matty. The record featured the Pete Kelly’s Big 7 performing “Poor Butterfly.” Matty and Angel are not happy about Pete getting involved. Pete is not happy about his involvement either, especially when finding that record becomes a matter of life or death — his.

   While I have been unable to find any TV episode of Pete Kelly’s Blues available online to watch, the radio version is available. It was common during the fifties for TV series based on radio series to reuse the radio scripts. The TV episode “Poor Butterfly Story” was a remake of the radio episode “Zelda” that aired originally September 5, 1951 on NBC. The Great Detectives website has all six of the known surviving episodes of the radio series. Click on the link and scroll down for the episode “Zelda.”

   The story and most of the dialog from the radio show remained the same in the TV version. Different songs were used but in the same style, with Dixieland for Pete Kelly and the blues for Maggie Jackson (in radio and film) and Savannah Brown (in television). The most noticeable difference was changes in two characters. Pete’s friend “across the river” blues singer Maggie Jackson (on radio and film) got a new name Savannah Brown in the TV series. Pete’s other friend, the failed bootlegger and loquacious drunk Barney in the radio series was replaced by the band’s piano player, a Southern with a folksy sense of humor, named Fred.

   I preferred the radio version mainly because of the cast. Webb was the better Pete Kelly. When Angel confronts Kelly about Zelda, Webb’s voice in the radio version ranges in emotion from fear to anger while in the TV versions Reynolds failed to show those emotions. Known best for his role in The F.B.I (1965) as Special Agent Colby (1966-74), William Reynolds was a bland actor at best. Webb was visually limited in range as an actor, but his voice talent was among the best in radio.

   Webb’s former high school classmate, Meredith Howard as radio’s Maggie had the voice and acting ability to make you believe she lived on “the other side of the river” (the black side). Ella Fitzgerald made the character of Maggie her own in the film. Connee Boswell as Savannah had the voice but being white and shot in the pre-Elvis TV style (where the singer stands stiff and still as he or she sings) ruined the character. But it did allow Southern NBC stations to carry the series.

   According to TV Tango, TVGuide.com and IMDb the TV episode aired April 26, 1959, Sunday at 8:30pm. There is some confusion over dates the show aired. The NBC series premiere date is uncertain. Broadcasting (April 6, 1959) and Billboard (March 30,1959) claim Pete Kelly’s Blues premiered on Tuesday March 31, 1959 at 8-8:30pm. Yet today’s databases and books give the premiere date as Sunday April 5, 1959 at 8:30pm. IMDb has the skill to disagree with itself. The database gives March 31, 1959 as release date for TV series but the episode index list April 5, 1959 as the premiere’s airdate.

   Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine, Ninth Edition) claim the series debuted April 5, 1959 and aired on Sunday until July when it move to Friday at 7:30 pm until its final broadcast September 4, 1959. The episodes on Friday were probably reruns as the series lasted just thirteen episodes. TVTango.com agree with the Sunday and Friday time slots.

   It took jazz fan Jack Webb several years to get the TV series on the air. While the radio series aired first, there were plans for a TV series from nearly the beginning. In Broadcasting (December 22, 1952), details of the proposed TV version of Pete Kelly’s Blues was reported with shooting to begin in June 1953 and Webb as director, Stan Meyer as executive producer and Michael Meshekoff as producer. There was no mention of the cast.

   In July 13, 1953 Broadcasting, during a report about Dragnet starting syndication in the fall under the title The Cop (that would be later changed to Badge 714), the article mentions Webb’s plans to do a Pete Kelly’s Blues TV series in color with Webb as star.

   According to Hedda Hopper (Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1954), Webb had originally planned to follow the radio series with a TV series version, but “instead of which he’ll make it into a movie, playing the title role, a trumpet player.”

   Plans to make a TV series continued as the film version played in the theatres (Broadcasting, March, 28, 1955). Billboard (May 27,1957) reported Jack Webb and ABC were in talks for a Pete Kelly’s Blues weekly TV series with sixty-minute episodes.

   The December 16,1957 issue of Billboard claimed Bob Crosby was being considered for the part of Pete Kelly in the possible TV series. A few months later Broadcasting (February 17, 1958) noted that Bob Crosby would not star due to commitments he had with CBS. A new lead was been sought. The magazine added that Webb would supervise production with Harper Goff as producer and George Stevens Jr. and Joseph Parker also involved in production. Plans were to start shooting in May.

   In a Chicago Tribune (April 30, 1961) interview Webb said he thought the failure of the TV series was in part due to timing. He believed airing Pete Kelly’s Blues at the end of the season rather the beginning hurt and regretted it aired only a year or so before interest in the 20s music, fashion, and crime would explode among the public.

   I doubt timing was the problem. The more entertaining ABC’s Roaring 20s (1960) had the timing but lasted only a season and a half. The real problem with both the radio and television series was with the protagonist Pete Kelly, who lacked the qualities of the type of hero the audience at the time wanted. Joe Friday would have disapproved of Pete Kelly. I think the audience did as well.

Editorial Comment:   The video clip obviously comes from the movie version of Pete Kelly’s Blues, and more than likely the two photo images do, too. I apologize for that, but I thought it was more important to give you an idea of what the radio and TV series were like, in spite of the bit of inaccuracy involved.

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review
by Ed Gorman & Max Allan Collins


HORACE McCOY – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1935. Reprinted several times, including Penguin Signet #670, paperback, 1948; Berkley #108, paperback, 1955; Avon SS10, paperback, 1966; and included in Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s, Library of America, hardcover, 1997. Film: Cinerama, 1969; director: Sydney Pollack.

   The basic plot of Horses is simple enough. In Hollywood during the early years of the depression, two young people, Robert and Gloria, meet and decide to become partners in a marathon dance contest. They need the prize money desperately. And there’s always the possibility that they will be “discovered” by a talent scout in the crowd of onlookers. Robert and Gloria both have aspirations of being stars. This seems to be just one more sweaty and forlorn part of the necessary ritual.

   There are other characters in the novel, of course — Rocky the emcee, the quintessential cynic; the Reverend Oscar Gilder, who manages to debase even the notion of God; and assorted doomed figures, each alive only to his or her pain, who grind in endless circles on the dance floor- but Robert and Gloria remain the indisputable focus of the book. Early on she says, “Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me — who want to die but haven’t got the guts.”

   And so we have Gloria, failed beauty, misery addict, in a life perfectly symbolized by a marathon dance: You dance till you drop, literally, in a process without dignity or meaning.

   McCoy’s novel is told in fragments — in effect, flash-forwards as well as flashbacks. Robert’s narration is interspersed with the words of the judge who sentences Robert to death, for we know from page one that Robert killed Gloria. The burden of the book is to explain why — much as, in a similar work, Orson Welles hung the life of Citizen Kane on “Rosebud” as a way to drive the narrative.

    “It was the first time I had ever seen her smile,” Robert says in the first fragment. He refers to the last look on Gloria’s face before he pulled the trigger. Then: “I was her very best friend. I was her only friend.” That, of course, was why he killed her — because he was her friend and because she asked him to. It was perhaps the one transcendent act of his life. Not that society understands. Robert will be executed for his action.

   In almost every respect — from the bitter tone of the narrative, to the complicated ethics of killing somebody out of mercy, to the curiously innocent perceptions of Robert as revealed in key scenes — Horses is arguably the most original novel in American literary history. Sartre and the French existentialists agreed, embracing it as one of the great novels of their movement; its success in France far exceeded its impact here.

   McCoy had hoped that the novel would free him from Hollywood and studio hackwork. It didn’t. Like Robert, he was doomed to a dance that would go on and on until he dropped (literally, from a heart attack). Yet Horses remains a “perfect” book — perfect in the way a poem can be but a novel almost never is. It is both dirge and hymn and is without peer in the language.

   Horses was filmed in 1969, starring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, and Gig Young (as the master of ceremonies, a role which won him an Oscar).

   McCoy’s other works are tough-guy in flavor, certainly; but like Horses they are concerned (as critic Paul Buck puts it) with “social comment rather than crime.” I Should Have Stayed Home (1938) deals with a naive extra coping with a Hollywood that couldn’t care less about him. Somewhat neglected, this novel is worth a look; although its criminous aspects are tangential, the crisp prose and dark out make it read like a particularly good James M. Cain novel, minus the murder. No Pockets in a Shroud (1959)is a somewhat autobiographical crusading-reporter tale. McCoy’s posthumous Corruption City (1959) is, like Chandler’s Playback published the previous year, a novelization of an unproduced screen treatment.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

   As regular visitors to this blog will have noticed, postings have been much sparser than usual this week. It’s been a combination of factors, including some severe weather fatigue (I’m tired of snow!) and a backed-up ice jam in the roof (no serious damage done, I hope).

   I also had a Wednesday deadline for my annual trek to see our accountant. Judy and I used to be able to do our taxes ourselves, but with pensions, Social Security only partial taxable (I think) and an investment portfolio that I understand only one line of: Market Value, it’s far too complicated for me to handle any more.

   So I’ve had to take a few days off from blogging this past week. They promise me that yesterday’s snow storm will be the last one, and I’m going to believe them. Things should be back to normal in a day or so. There’s a large backlog of reviews and other posts to get caught up on, and I’ll be working my way through it as quickly as I can, starting in the morning.

Reviewed by MIKE TOONEY:


THE MONOLITH MONSTERS. Universal-International, 1957. Grant Williams, Lola Albright, Les Tremayne, Trevor Bardette, Phil Harvey, William Flaherty, Harry Jackson, Richard H. Cutting, Linda Scheley, Dean Cromer, Steve Darrell, William Schallert. Writers: Norman Jolley (screenplay) and Robert M. Fresco (screenplay); Jack Arnold (story) and Robert M. Fresco (story). Director: John Sherwood.

   The Monolith Monsters came near the end of the ’50s Giant Stompers film cycle that basically began with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953; pace, Ray Bradbury) and continued with Them! (1954), Godzilla (1954), Tarantula (1955), The Giant Claw (1957), Beginning of the End (1957; Peter Graves’ salad days), and a host of similar Big Critter films, with most of them escaping from Universal Studios.

   What distinguishes The Monolith Monsters from those other movies isn’t the acting (not much there) or the production values (an obviously low budget, signalling the studio’s lack of faith in the project). No, the best part of this film is the sheer inventiveness of the underlying premise.

   I can think of only one other science fiction movie that dared to bring novel IDEAS to the audience, namely Forbidden Planet (1956). The concept that ordinary, dumb, and inert ROCKS could constitute a threat to anybody comes perilously close to being a joke — but thanks to writers Jack Arnold and Robert M. Fresco and the straight-faced, earnest underplaying by the actors, the thing works.

   The Monolith Monsters is one of those ambitious little movies that you find yourself wishing had a bigger budget — but then upon reflection you realize that more money would have turned it into an empty special effects extravaganza and ruined everything. Note to anybody considering a remake: Keep it small; it works better that way.

   Grant Williams’ greatest role was his smallest as The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), but he did have a regular gig on Hawaiian Eye (1960-63; 49 episodes).

   Most of us baby boomers remember Lola Albright for her 84 appearances as Peter Gunn’s steady (1958-61).

   Les Tremayne, English by birth, did quite well in American radio, TV, and the movies; science fiction fans know him from his small but memorable role in The War of the Worlds (1953).

   Even more ubiquitous in American entertainment from the ’30s through the ’60s was Trevor Bardette, who, as IMDb notes, “took on just about any role offered him,” thus racking up an impressive 239 film and TV credits, including a regular role as Old Man Clanton in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (34 episodes; 1959-61).

   If you’ve never seen Monolith Monsters, watch it first and be kind; then resort to IMDb’s “Goofs” page, where more than one of the movie’s shortcomings is adduced.

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