Sat 16 Apr 2011
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: ELLERY QUEEN – Ten Days’ Wonder (Book and Film).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[7] Comments
ELLERY QUEEN – Ten Days’ Wonder. Little Brown & Co., hardcover, 1948. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover & paperback. Film: La décade prodigieuse; French, 1971. Released in the US as Ten Days’ Wonder. Anthony Perkins, Michel Piccoli, Marlène Jobert, Orson Welles. Director: Claude Chabrol.
I tried Ellery Queen back in High School and quickly tired of him/them because it wasn’t Raymond Chandler. But when someone hereabouts recommended Queen’s 1948 mystery Ten Days’ Wonder, I decided to give it a look.
Well, Queen-as-author doesn’t exactly sparkle, and Queen-as-character never really comes alive on the page, but I found Wonder a pretty well crafted thing: something about a friend of Queen’s with a god-like father, sexy young step-mom, desire-under-the-elms, blackmail, blackouts and criminous suspicions.
Given that Queen’s friend/suspect is a sculptor, the overall pattern of the thing (and hence the killer) is pretty transparent, but — given that pattern and the morality it references — there’s something sort of subversive in the way Queen-the-character keeps morphing: from sleuth to accomplice, from celebrity to pariah, then back to celebrity, all without himself changing.
And there’s an odd sub-text flirting with the nature [**WARNING**] of a God who imputes our fall to sin. Lenny Bruce put it more succinctly when he observed that if man is sinful, the fault lies with the manufacturer, and Fredric Brown put it more sharply with the God-as-comic-punster ending of The Screaming Mimi, but Queen’s handling of the notion has its merits. [**END OF WARNING**]
In 1972 Claude Chabrol did a pretty faithful movie version of Ten Days’ Wonder; Michel Piccoli plays a suitably colorless detective (here a philosopher, but for the French it’s pretty much the same thing); Anthony Perkins is neatly cast as the unstable sculptor; Marlène Jobert the cute step-mom; and Orson Welles, in the fakiest fake nose of his career, simply perfect as God-the-Father.
Like most Chabrol films, it’s thoughtful rather than gripping, definitely watchable, but damn! that schnozz they stuck on Orson; I’ve seen better noses on a pair of Groucho glasses.
April 16th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Lenny Brice?
Fanny Brice’s favorite relative-comedian? (*wink*)
I think that should be Lenny Bruce. 🙂
April 16th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Yipes. Good catch. My error totally. Since my scanner’s upstairs and still inaccessible, I typed this review in by hand, which ought to be slapped.
I’ll fix it immediately!
— Steve
April 17th, 2011 at 11:41 am
Ellery Queen fans seem divided on the merits of the film of TEN DAYS WONDER.
I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a good movie.
THE DVD comes with the film’s two soundtracks – English and French. I much prefer the English – one can hear Welles and Perkins acting in their own voices and own language. Both of the performers are outstanding.
If the book had been made into a movie in 1948, when first published, the ideal choice for the young friend/sculptor would have been Burt Lancaster.
April 18th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
I’ve not seen this movie, and it’s about time that I did. I read the book, way too long ago to do any good, and I get the sense from Dan’s review that reading it ought to come first.
So that makes two things to add to my Must Read / Must See list.
Mike, Burt Lancaster as he was as a younger man in the 1940s sounds like an interesting choice to play Tony Perkins’ role.
You didn’t mention it, but I’ve discovered your comments on the movie on your website:
http://mikegrost.com/chabrol.htm#Ten
As is often the case, they’ll make even better reading after I see the film.
April 18th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
The sculptor in EQ’s book is supposed to be a muscular, athletic type, whose looks are covering emotional problems. Lancaster would be perfect.
Perkins is actually a big, athletic man. He didn’t usually play his roles that way, and no one thinks of him in those terms. But he’s credible as such a character. And very good with the emotional problems.
April 19th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
[…] my previous thoughts about Ellery Queen, it occurred to me that we read a mystery like Ten Days’ Wonder for the pleasure of seeing […]
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