Tue 9 Nov 2010
Reviewed by Jeff Meyerson: JULIAN SYMONS – A Three-Pipe Problem.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[11] Comments
JULIAN SYMONS – A Three Pipe Problem. Harper & Row, US, hardcover, 1975. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1975. Reprints include: Avon, US, pb, 1976; Penguin, US, pb, 1984.
A Three-Pipe Problem is a very enjoyable book! Symons’ hero is Sheridan Haynes (nicknamed Sher), an actor who portrays Sherlock Holmes in a British TV series that was once popular but is now slipping in the ratings.
Sher demands absolute fidelity to the Holmes stories, which angers those who want to make the show more attractive to the audience by adding a love interest, etc.
Haynes not only longs for the days when Holmes stalked London, but has even insisted on living in the old rooms in Baker street. His obsession with Holmes causes doubts about his sanity, and problems with his wife and co-workers.
Haynes, in his role of Holmes, becomes gradually more involved in a case known as the Karate Killings, to the consternation of all. He states that Sherlock Holmes could have solved the case, then sets out to do it with the help of a Watson, and some Baker Street Irregulars (actually Traffic Wardens).
Symons keeps the various strands of his story well in hand until they all come together on a cold and foggy London night, with Haynes/Holmes tracking the Karate Killer.
Sher Haynes is a sympathetic character and the book, if improbable, is a lot of fun and very well done. Sherlockians should enjoy it.
Bibliographic Note: Sheridan Haynes made an encore appearance The Kentish Manor Murders (Viking, 1988).
November 9th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
I echo Jeff’s delight with this book, although I’m relying strictly on memory from a long time ago.
Which makes it all the more strange that until five minutes ago, I did not realize that there was a second Sheridan Haynes book. I have a copy of it. I wonder if I can find it.
But getting back to A THREE-PIPE PROBLEM, I wonder why it is that no one has made a film of it. If there has, neither IMDB nor Al Hubin knows anything about it.
For some reason, though, I picture George C. Scott as Haynes. I wonder why that is.
— Steve
November 9th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Steve-if that George C. Scott remark is not a dead-pan joke, then you may be recalling Scott’s dry run as a kind of mad Holmes character in THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, with Joanne Woodward as his “Watson”…
November 9th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Rick
If I had a prize to offer, you’d be the winner. How about a long distance handshake?
— Steve
November 9th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I think what struck me at the time about this book was how ordinary the hero’s life was, instead of what you would expect of the life of an actor starring in an American television series.
At the time I didn’t know the differences were so great for a working actor in England and an American ‘star.’ It was a little bit of a culture shock, though once I knew more about how the BBC operated, I caught on quickly.
I still wonder if most viewers watching various British productions shown here or on video realise that the actors we see are often more journeymen than stars doing theater, radio, and other films and series when not appearing in the series we see them in and associate them with?
November 10th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Thanks for using this, Steve. Like you I remember this fondly at great distance – I read it in January 1977 – and like you I hadn’t realized there was a second Haynes book. Or possibly, if I did know it I’ve long forgotten it. I’ll have to see if I can easily find and copy.
November 11th, 2010 at 2:02 am
It’s funny about perceptions, because when I read this one the actor I imagined as Haynes was Peter Cushing, who played Holmes so often on British television.
Now if it was Anthony Gethryn I might have thought of Scott … Besides, the really memorable thing in THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS was Jack Gilford as the Scarlet Pimpernel …
November 12th, 2010 at 9:13 am
I always enjoyed Julian Symons’ work. Thanks for reminding us how good he could be. And what a good reviewer Jeff Meyerson is.
November 12th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
George
More of Jeff’s old reviews coming up, which ought to indicate that I agree with you.
David
Going way back to your Comment #4, the the hero was actually quite ordinary and not a “star” is something I’m sure I didn’t pick up on when I read the book the first time, and if I did, it’s not anything that stayed in my memory.
But that’s an excellent and very interesting point, and thanks for pointing it out. It makes reading the book again all the better an idea.
George C. Scott as Anthony Gethryn. It worked for me, but from your Comment #6, I think I enjoyed him more in GIANTS than I did.
Quite coincidentally, in today’s mail came a video cassette of THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (TV, 1986), in which Scott played Auguste Dupin. I’m anxious to see it.
This is a legit tape, still sealed. Never on DVD, and who knows, maybe never will.
— Steve
November 12th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Steve
By now you have likely seen the Scott “Rue Morgue” and suffered the regrets. It’s one of those ‘what the heck were they thinking’ projects. I’ll only say that for me I preferred Leon Ames, Patric Knowles, and Steve Forrest as Dupin!
I enjoyed THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, but in the end the whimsey threatened to overpower me despite some sharp performances and James Goldman’s script. The ending however does redeem the whole thing.
That said, a lot of it depends on your tolerance for the New York eccentric school of humor, and I have to admit a few times the film stretched mine to its limit — that and whatever accent Joanne Woodward thought she was doing.
That said, THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER is probably the only film I ever saw him in where I didn’t think Scott was overacting and scenery chewing, but since THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS calls for that he is more tolerable than usual. Who wants a subtle Sherlock Holmes?
November 12th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
No, RUE MORGUE is still in its shrink wrap. Maybe I’m not so anxious to see it after all.
Though I’m sure curiosity will get the best of me, sooner or later!
November 13th, 2010 at 2:08 am
Re the rather ordinary life of Sheridan Haynes in this one, you might, for comparrison, check out Michael Gilbert’s THE 92nd TIGER, another book where the hero is the hero from a popular television series (in this case hired by an Arab sheik who has confused him with his role on television) or Donald Westlake’s Samuel Holt books about an actor from a Hollywood detective series turned actual private eye.
Haynes in comparison seems much closer to my understanding of the life of many British actors who do six or so episodes of a television series and supplement that with theater, radio, film, and other television work the rest of the year not unlike Simon Brett’s Charles Paris. It’s a much less glamorous and more workaday world than stars of most American series may experience.
Hope I didn’t spoil RUE MORGUE for you, but forewarned is forearmed in this case — the sets are nice though. Pretty bad when the best film of the premiere work of all detective fiction is the one with Steve Forrest, Karl Malden (overacting painfully), and Merv Griffin (PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE directed by Roy del Ruth 1954 with Claude Dauphin and Patricia Medina). As for the one with Jason Robards Jr. the less said of that the better — it has even less to do with Poe than the others.
Actually THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET with Patric Knowles as Dupin isn’t bad for a B programmer even if Knowles Dupin is fourth billed, and THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE from Robert Florey has a John Huston script, Bela Lugosi (as Dr. Mirakel) and one of Arlene Francis rare acting roles, with Leon Ames (billed as Waycoff) as Dupin, but it works better as an expressionistic horror film than Poe’s story, and the ‘strong stuff’ is pretty tame now.
I’m sorry, but I just had trouble with Father from MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and MR.ED’s neighbor (The Colonel) as Dupin. Scott, sadly, as you will find, isn’t much better, and no relation whatsoever to Poe’s creation. I’m sorry, but I can promise you Poe would never have made his protagonist any kind of a policeman.