THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD. TV movie/episode of Agatha Christie: Poirot. First shown in the UK on 2 January 2000 [Season 7, Episode 1]. David Suchet, Philip Jackson, Oliver Ford Davies, Selina Cadell, Roger Frost, Malcolm Terris, Nigel Cooke, Daisy Beaumont, Flora Montgomery. Based on Agatha Christie’s novel of the same name. Screenwriter: Andrew Grieve. Director: Clive Exton.

   It’s been a long time since I first read the book — something like 55 years ago — and it was also the last time. This is one of only two detective novels for which I remember the ending and who did it, and the other was by Agatha Christie also.

   Which is why the book has been only a one-time affair for me. The details I don’t remember, but I do remember Hercule Poirot — it was probably my introduction to him, but I couldn’t swear to that — and once you’ve read a novel he’s in, if you’re a detective story fan of any kind, he’s a character you’ll also never forget.

   Confession time. I’ve never seen David Suchet as Poirot until now. Pure negligence on my part, or a certain lack of resolve, whatever. Right now, at the moment, I am typing this, I’m a convert. 100 percent. Suchet is Hercule Poirot, to the ultimate and finest detail.

   If you know the story about Roger Ackroyd’s murder, and without my saying more, I am assuming that you do, you might wonder how it could be filmed. If it were up to me, I’d do as direct an adaptation as I could, but Andrew Grieve goes at it sort of sideways and this misses the point of the tale entirely. (At the beginning of the film Poirot is reading from the killer’s diary.)

   The characters in this film are among those that are also in the book, but some research into other reviewers’ commentaries say that not all of the characters in the book are in the movie, present and accounted for.

   There is also an extra murder that is not in the book (or again, so I’m told). And on my own, with no help from others, I certainly did not recognize the shootout in the chemical factory between the killer on one side at the end, and Poirot and Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) on the other. Good grief. What were they thinking?

   I also wondered about the scene in Poirot’s old semi-abandoned city apartment (the movie begins as he’s “enjoying” his retirement far out in the country). Poirot seems choked up about the place, the furniture covered in sheets, with bad memories flooding his mind. What was that all about? (Perhaps it has to do something with the fact that I started watching the Suchet series with Season 7?)

   All in all, I suppose one could easily enjoy this made-for-TV movie if one did not know the story, nor the character, ahead of time. I can usually tune things out so that I can watch the film the screenwriter and director want to tell while I’m watching, which I did just fine. But why on earth did they want to tell this one?

   I exclude David Suchet from blame. Even if he had something to say about the story, I’m going to say he didn’t, and I’m looking forward to his next outing in the boxed set I just bought myself as an early Christmas present.

JOHNNY RYAN. Made for TV. 1990. Clancy Brown, Julia Campbell, Jason Beghe, Robert Rossilli, J. Kenneth Campbell, Teri Austin, Robert Prosky. Director: Robert E. Collins.

   So far my research hasn’t turned up which network or cable channel first telecast this very much retro-1940s cops-against-organized-crime show, but IMDB says the date was 29 July 1990. My copy came from Encore’s Mystery Channel some time later on, but that’s no help.

   IMDB also says the story takes place in 1949. Could be, but it felt more like 1946 to me, just after the war, when old Model T’s were still on the road and little else but old coupes and boxy sedans were available.

   As far as the cast is concerned, they’re all pretty much unknown to me. Clancy Brown plays Johnny Ryan, the stalwart new head of a special task force against the mob in Manhattan, very much in the Robert Stack mode, complete with pulled down brim.

   His broad features (but still good-looking) and Bronxish accent (at least in this film) hardly made for very many other leading roles. Most of his subsequent career has been as a voice artist for superhero cartoons.

   The picture you see of him here is not from this TV movie, I’m sorry to say, but it’s from the same time period. I also apologize that it’s in black and white. The film’s in color.

   Johnny’s job in the movie is to break the stories of the two cops supposedly watching an important witness in a hotel room. (The witness is thrown from the window when their backs are turned.)

   Night club owner Steve Lombardi (either Jason Beghe or Robert Rosilli – IMDB lists them both) is in on the killing. When Johnny tries to find a way to get at him, he uses Lombardi’s girl friend and club entertainer Eve Manion (Julia Campbell), not expecting the next obvious plot twist, but the avid viewer of movies of this type certainly will. (The photo here of Julia Campbell is not in 1940s mode, but it’ll give you an idea.)

   There are a few other plot twists, but none of them are particularly earth-shattering, or even bending. Well, maybe bending. I certainly didn’t mind the 95 minutes or so it took to watch this movie. If it happened to be a pilot for a projected series, which is a strong possibility, I’d have wanted to see more, but I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. Maybe nobody else is.

ETHEL LINA WHITE – The Spiral Staircase.  Ward Lock, UK, hc, 1933; Harper & Row, US, hc, both as Some Must Watch. Harper & Brothers, 1941. Published as The Spiral Staircase. World, 1946 as a movie tie-in to the film of that title: RKO, 1946 (Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore). Remade: Raven Films, 1975 (Jacqueline Bisset, Christopher Plummer, John Phillip Law); and as a TV movie: Fox, 2000 (Nicollette Sheridan, Judd Nelson, Alex McArthur). Paperback reprint, as The Spiral Staircase, Popular Library #120, 1946; and as #60-2381, late 1960s?

   It is a dark and very stormy night as the novel opens, for a terrible gale howls around Professor Sebastian’s rambling but solidly built house, twelve miles from the nearest village. The entire countryside is gripped in terror after five local girls have been murdered, and once darkness falls few people venture abroad.

   Protagonist Helen Capel works as “lady-help” to the scholarly professor; his chilly sister Blanche, who is firmly under the thumb of their invalid mother Lady Warren, who may or may have killed her husband “by accident” years before; and sinister, mannish Nurse Barker. There is also the professor’s son Newton, married to and insanely jealous of his flirtatious wife Simone, who has her eye on a fling with the professor’s resident pupil Stephen Rice.

   Mr and Mrs Oates, faithful servants, round out the residents of the house, one of those rambling edifices with a warren of cellars, many rooms, and two staircases — and not all of it fitted with electric light.

   After learning of another murder committed not far from the house, Professor Warren announces that as a matter of safety everyone must stay inside and nobody is to be admitted under any circumstances that night. But just as he gives this order, there is a thunderous knocking at the front door….

My verdict: The Spiral Staircase was originally published as Some Must Watch, a much better title given the plot hinges on efforts by the nine people locked in the house to protect themselves and each other during a long and extremely stressful night.

   The manner in which one by one they fail in the task is extremely clever, for the reader cannot be certain if events come about naturally or if someone is pulling strings to arrange matters. I cannot say more for fear of spoiling an excellent work in which tension increases every chapter, characters are not always what they seem, and expectations based on behaviour turn out to be completely false.

   I read this book in a few hours and regret I’m not just beginning it again! In fact, I name it without hesitation as my top read this month.

Etext: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300931.txt

[EDITORIAL UPDATE]  As you’ve probably already noted, there were three film versions of this book, all duly cited in Al Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV or its online Addenda. While searching for possible additional details, I found a fourth: a 60-minute NBC production telecast on 4 October 1961 starring Edie Adams, Eddie Albert, Lillian Gish, Jeffrey Lynn, Hayley Mills, Elizabeth Montgomery and Gig Young.

   That’s quite an array of acting talent, but at the moment that’s all I know about the film. It seems to have been a special presentation, but it’s possible it was an episode of some other overall series, but which one, if any, I do not know.

   In any case, it will appear in the next installment of the Addenda.

[UPDATE] Later the same day.   I’ve found it — the overall series, I mean. Theatre ’62 does not have its own entry on IMDB, but BFI describes it as “a series of TV specials commemorating the films of producer David O. Selznick.”

   In this series, seven live adaptations of Selznick movies were presented:

      4 Oct 1961. The Spiral Staircase.
      19 Nov 1961. Intermezzo. Jean-Pierre Aumont, Ingrid Thulin.
      10 Dec 1961. Notorious. Joseph Cotten, Barbara Rush.
      14 Jan 1962. The Farmer’s Daughter. Lee Remick, Peter Lawford.
      11 Feb 1962. Spellbound. Hugh O’Brian, Maureen O’Hara.
      11 Mar 1962. The Paradine Case. Viveca Lindfors, Richard Basehart, Boris Karloff.
      8 Apr 1962. Rebecca. James Mason, Joan Hackett, Nina Foch.

   It’s doubtful if any of these exist, but wouldn’t it be nice?

   The George Harmon Coxe reviews and views and responses are fascinating. An author I’ve always been aware of yet, rather shamefully, one that I have not yet read. I am aware, however, of his big and small screen associations. (Which doesn’t mean that I have seen most of these either.)

   But if several of the following films and TV work were easily available, I’m sure there would be much pleasure to be had in the viewing (or at least, the experience). While one can respect and appreciate that viewing screen adaptations of any author’s work is not the same as experiencing the original art of the written word, there remains with me a certain fascination of how the literary concept is translated into a (albeit condensed) visual storytelling form. An art in itself, of course.

   Research shows that the following have Coxe credentials (in one form or another) and are worthy of further investigation. Well, some of them, perhaps!

Women Are Trouble (1936, d. Errol Taggart). With Stuart Erwin as Matt Casey, a newspaper reporter following up a series of robberies and murders. Screenplay by producer Michael Fessier, from story by GHC.

Murder With Pictures (1936, d. Charles Barton). Lew Ayres is Kent Murdock in a plot that kicks off with the murder of a gangland lawyer. Screenplay by John C. Moffitt and Sidney Salkow, from story by GHC.

The Shadow Strikes (1937, d. Lynn Shores). Based on the story “The Ghost of the Manor” by Maxwell Grant in The Shadow (15 June 1933). Rod La Rocque as Lamont Cranston. Screenplay by Al Martin, from adaptation by Martin, Rex Taylor and GHC. Intended by producer Colony Pictures to be the first of four “Shadow” films.

Here’s Flash Casey (1937, d. Lynn Shores). Based on the short story “Return Engagement” by GHC in Black Mask (March 1934). Eric Linden is Flash Casey. Screenplay by John Krafft.

Arsene Lupin Returns (1938, d. Geo. Fitzmaurice). Silky Melvyn Douglas was the silky Arsene Lupin. Based on characters created by Maurice Leblanc, the story and screenplay was by James Kevin McGuinness, Howard Emmett Rogers and GHC.

The Hidden Eye (1945, d. Richard Whorf). Based on the novel The Last Express (1937) by Baynard Kendrick. Screenplay by GHC, Harry Ruskin, from story by GHC. One of the two pleasing MGM Captain Duncan Maclain films starring Edward Arnold (the other being Eyes in the Night, 1942).

   For the home screen, there was Crime Photographer (CBS, 1951-52) featuring Richard Carlyle (brief stint, 1951) and Darren McGavin (1951-52) as Casey of The Morning Express.

    “The Category is Murder” (1957) for Kraft Television Theatre (NBC), about a TV quizmaster who drops dead of poisoning during a show. Betsy Palmer and Gene Lyons featured. And that’s about all I know about this one. GHC as teleplay or story source?

    “Focus on Murder”(1958, d. Bill Corrigan) for Kraft Television Theatre featured Si Oakland as Kent Murdock in a story about a Pulitzer Prize reporter found murdered in his apartment. Mel Goldberg adapted from novel by GHC.

    “Mission of Fear” (1963, d. Harvey Hart) for U.S. Steel Hour (CBS) involved the statuesque Salome Jens and Robert Horton in a blackmail story written by Richard F. Stockton [from story/source by GHC?].

   A list of credits without benefit of personal insight or opinion can be somewhat dreary, I know, but I have not been fortunate enough to view most of the above titles, especially the rare TV work. Perhaps others with more opportune moments of viewing access may offer a more satisfying sense of form and flavour.

   For my part, it is hoped that I have viewing pleasures to look forward to — one day.

   The following entries will appear shortly in the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. The annotations, links and images have been provided by me (Steve) as usual. Note that the bulk of this post is taken up by novelizations and other tie-in’s connected with the BBC television series, Between the Lines.

GRANT, GRAEME. 1961- . Born in Aberdeen, Scotland; occupation: writer. Pseudonym: Tom McGregor, q.v. Under his own name, the author of three novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, all novelizations of either a film or television series.

McGREGOR, TOM. Pseudonym of Graeme Grant, 1961- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of 15 books cited in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, most of them novelizations of various television series, including Cracker, Due South, Kavanagh QC and two for the BBC-TV police drama series Between the Lines. Add/revise series characters in each of the latter two: Complaints Investigation Bureau (Tony Clark, Harry Naylor, Maureen Connell). [The C.I.B. is the department responsible for investigating other police officers.] See also author Diane Pascal for one other novelization of the series.
      The Chill Factor. Warner, UK, pb, 1994. Novelization of the “Between the Lines” BBC-TV series.
      Close Protection. Warner, UK, pb, 1994. Novelization of the “Between the Lines” BBC-TV series.

MANRING, E(RNEST?) H. 1931?-1998? Add as a new author entry.
      _Man Alone. Belmont Tower, pb, 1975. Retitled edition of Steve Douglas of Sleepy Cat Ranch (Belmont, 1971).

      Steve Douglas of Sleepy Cat Ranch. Belmont, pb, 1971. Reprinted as Man Alone (Belmont Tower, 1975). “Steve Douglas could have walked away and let the Mafia goons take over his ranch for their own dirty reasons, but this stubborn wild horse tamer … didn’t take kindly to having city trash telling them what [he] could and couldn’t do.”

PASCAL, DIANE.
   Between the Lines: Breaking Point. Warner, UK, pb, 1993. Setting: Liverpool. Novelization of the BBC-TV police drama series Between the Lines. Add series characters: Complaints Investigation Bureau (Tony Clark, Harry Naylor, Maureen Connell). [The C.I.B. is the department responsible for investigating other police officers.] See also author Tom McGregor for two other novelizations of the series.

NOTE: At the present time, the book below, another tie-in with the BBC-TV series Between the Lines will not be added to the Revised Crime Fiction IV unless supporting evidence in its favor can be found or is provided:

ZUKOWSKA, KRYSTYNA.
   Between the Lines: Tony Clark’s Dossier. Boxtree, UK, pb, 1994. According to a description provided on one website, this book purports to be “a collection of case reports assembled by Clark [a character in the TV series] while he was trying to work out who had been sending him death threats. There [is also] a collection of photographs from the first two seasons, pretending to be from his own photo album.”

Q. E. D.   CBS, 1982. Cast listed below.

    “Q. E. D.” are the initials of Professor Quentin Everett Deverill (Sam Waterston) who, on a self-initiated exile from Harvard University in the year 1912, ends up in England, where he puts his scientific abilities to good use in having a fine time going on far-fetched adventures and solving crimes, and in the process, saving the world more than once.

   I only vaguely remember this series when it was on. It lasted only six weeks, although I’m sure more were planned. The sets and general ambiance, with the series filmed in the UK, are nicely (if not lavishly) done. The performances are doubly fine — I’ll get to the primary cast shortly — but the stories themselves are creaky and old, disconnected and disjointed, too short of material for the hour time slot, and frankly, rather dull.

   I’ve found a few photos to use here on the blog, and since I still don’t know how to embed videos here, you’ll have to follow the link to see a long clip from the first show, including the opening credits, complete with the light-hearted type of music that signifies that this is going to be a comedy as well as a serious adventure. (And how can you not look at Sam Waterston in the image above and not at least smile?)

   But when you watch too many episodes in as short a time as I did — just over a week — the music will also all but drive you up a wall, or into a moat, or some such more or less drastic means of trying to avoid it.

   Thankfully, though, Kilkiss’s role is dropped by the fourth episode, his name and face no longer appearing in the opening credits. There are, after all, only so many ways, someone can take over the world, even a diabolically clever genius.

   Having been kept from firing rockets at London in the first episode and the pilot for the series, there is only one way to go from there, and that’s down. Assassination plots and the winning of motor races simply do not compare, either in magnitude or innate possibilities.

   When I saw Deverill described by wikipedia as being a Sherlock Holmes type of mystery solver in Edwardian England, I jumped at the chance to obtain DVDs of the complete series, but alas! There is very little deduction, although the last two shows seemed be heading in that direction, but unfortunately, too late.

            Episode list:

      1. 03-23-82. Target: London.
      2. 03-30-82. The Great Motor Race.
      3. 04-06-82. Infernal Device.
      4. 04-13-82. The 4:10 to Zurich.
      5. 04-20-82. To Catch a Ghost.
      6. 04-27-82. The Limehouse Connection.

   In “To Catch a Ghost,” for example, Deverill and company are required to find the culprit behind the ghosts haunting Jenny’s aunt’s castle of a home, and perhaps it’s the best episode of the series. “The Limehouse Connection” is the grittiest of the six, taking place as it does in the opium dens of Limehouse, London’s original Chinatown, and the underground boxing matches of the era, but I’d also have to add that when you get down to details, the story itself doesn’t hold a lot of water.

   In spite of the weak plots that contained too much filler for this fellow — the uniformly favorable comments by others on IMDB are due to a rather common combination of nostalgia and faulty memories — I grew fond of the cast over the course of the six episodes and ten evenings, and believe it or not — faults and all — I would have willingly watched more of them if I could have.

THE D.A. TV mini-series. ABC, 2004. Cast listed below. James Duff, executive producer; Gil Garcetti, consulting producer.

   This was one of the best shows about the inner workings of the legal system of a large US city (Los Angeles) that viewers, for whatever reason, never saw. The ratings were bad, and any hope that this short term, pre-summer series would come back in the fall was nipped at once in the bud.

   Only four episodes were made, and all four were telecast. Thank goodness for small favors:

         19 March 2004. Episode 1: The People vs. Sergius Kovinsky

         26 March 2004. Episode 2: The People vs. Patricia Henry

         2 April 2004. Episode 3: The People vs. Oliver C. Handley

         9 April 2004. Episode 4: The People vs. Achmed Abbas

                  Cast:

         Steven Weber … Distrist Atty. David Franks

         Bruno Campos … Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Camacho

         Sarah Paulson … Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Patterson

         J. K. Simmons … Deputy Dist. Atty. for Major Crimes Joe Carter

         Peter Outerbridge … Deputy Mayor Jerry Weicker

         Felicity Huffman … Charlotte Ellis, noted defense attorney, formerly of the D.A.’s office

         Michaela Conlin … Jinette McMahon, Mr. Franks’ media and campaign assistant

         Cheryl White … Kathy Franks, the D.A.’s wife

   I’ve not burdened you before now by commenting on the television shows I’ve watched while this blog has been active, but in this case, I thought I’d make an exception. The show came and went very quickly, so I’m willing to wager that most of you did not see it when it was broadcast, including myself. Before last week, I’d never even heard of it.

   I happened to come across someone who had all four episodes on DVD, and I obtained them from him. And the last four nights I’ve spent watching them, one after the other. Time well spent, in my mind.

   I’ve found only two images to show you. The first is the one above of the major players in the cast, the second that of David Franks below as he opens a suicide note in episode 3, and immediately recuses himself from the case and refuses to talk about it, to the consternation of his staff. It turns out that the dead woman’s husband had died of leukemia because their HMO had refused to pay for a bone marrow transplant, part of a pattern of similar denials.

   In episode 4, a case of terrorism is reopened when the suspected killer’s body is found under a parking lot — one that had been paved over two days before the killing. The only problem? He can’t be conclusively identified.

   Episode 2: A well-known comedy entertainer is gunned down as he enters his home. His wife pleads spousal abuse. Defending her is Charlotte Ellis (Felicity Huffman), one of two possible contenders for Franks’ job in an upcoming election. The deputy mayor is the other.

   Episode 1 [and I seem to have done this wrong] centers on the shooting of a prosecution witness while in seclusion. Question: Where did the leak come from?

   While the detective work conducted by young Mark Camacho (Bruno Campos) is extremely well conceived — and I do not say that lightly — what makes this series of cases all the more watchable is the peek it provides into the power politics that goes on behind the scenes in the offices of a most highly politically motivated district attorney’s office and his staff, some of whom dislike him very much. Camacho, who’s new on the job, walks right into the midst of it. Who’s loyal to who? That’s what he needs to know, and soon.

   One of the few reviews I found of the show called it dull. A typical TV-beat hack reporter at work here. Because there is little actual gunplay (well, now that I think about it, there was once a fairly graphic scene, but all of the other deaths were well after the fact) nor car chases in any of the four episodes, it is therefore dull? Not on your life. The total combined intellectual level is as high or higher here than in any other full-season series I have ever watched. (Admittedly there are very few that fall into that category, but the statement is still true.)

   Steven Weber as D. A. David Franks is man of contradictions. Derided by his staff as a hack, he also has a bent for justice, the word “bent” used deliberately, as bending the rules sometimes is exactly what is needed to make the wheels of justice go around. Gil Garcetti, mentioned in the credits, was himself the D.A. for Los Angeles County at one time, as some of you may remember. I’ll bet he wishes some of his cases could be finished in 45 minutes at a time, that’s what I bet.

   Note to self: Both Garcetti and James Duff have been involved with another television series, The Closer, shown on TNT. I’ve not been watching it, and perhaps I should have been.

   Perhaps the limitation of only four shows was a Good Thing, as certainly there was not enough time in the few episodes The D. A. was on to have the stories to become predictable in any way, for they were not. I was caught leaning the wrong way more than once.

   Don’t you just love it when that happens? I do.

Hi Steve,

   Regarding your recent posting, in the interests of perhaps useless footnotes and trivia, I’d like to add some further film and TV notes to the following names:

      Stephen COULTER

Film: Embassy (UK, 1972) d. Gordon Hessler. Screenplay by William Fairchild, based on the novel by Stephen Coulter. Story revolves around the efforts of a U.S. diplomatic mission in Beirut to smuggle out Max Von Sydow’s Russian defector. For followers of the absurd, this Mel Ferrer production cast Chuck Connors as a KGB assassin impersonating an American Air Force colonel.

      Ian MACKINTOSH

TV: Warship (BBC, 1973-77) co-creator with Anthony Coburn of this 45 eps x 50 mins. drama about Royal Navy life onboard a frigate.

TV: Wilde Alliance (ITV, 1978) producer and occasional scriptwriter of the 13 x hour comedy-thriller featuring the amateur sleuthing adventures of a thriller novelist and his busybody wife (the latter in the Pamela North, Jennifer Hart vein).

TV: The Sandbaggers (ITV, 1978; 1980) creator and main writer (until his death in 1979) of this tightly made and occasionally grim espionage saga.

TV: Thundercloud (ITV, 1979) creator/writer/executive producer of the 13 half-hour comedy series featuring a group of sailors operating on a shore-based station that the Admiralty thinks is a destroyer in the North Sea.

      William MARSHALL

TV: Yellowthread Street (ITV, 1990) was a 13-episode series adapted from the novel by William Marshall focusing on British detectives in the Hong Kong force; a costly, on-location production attempting Miami Vice on the seemingly Triad-ridden streets of steamy Hong Kong. Marshall also scripted the episode “Spirit Runner.”

      James MAYO

Film: Hammerhead (UK, 1968) d. David Miller. Screenplay by William Bast, Herbert Baker, based on the 1964 novel by James Mayo. Features Vince Edwards as U.S. secret agent Charles Hood. The Variety review in July 1968 suggested that it ‘might be dubbed a junior edition of Goldfinger without any of the sock elements of the James Bond film’.

      Alfred MAZURE

Film: Secrets of Sex (UK, 1969) d. Antony Balch. Screenplay by Martin Locke, John Eliot, Maureen Owen, Elliott Stein, Antony Balch; ‘Lindy Leigh’ segment based on the story by Alfred Mazure. Exploitation sex film featuring a collection of titillating stories connected by the view that sex is less often fun than funny (with truckloads of 1969 nudity for the furtive front-row viewer).

   Mazure’s story tells of Agent 28 Lindy Leigh’s assignment by the British Home Office to rob the safe at the Moravian Embassy; she succeeds in her mission to enter the safe, only to discover that it’s a harem housing female agents who have failed in the same mission. The topless Maria Frost plays the topless Lindy Leigh.

      Alan WHITE

Film: The Long Day’s Dying (UK, 1968) d. Peter Collinson. Screenplay by Charles Wood, based on the 1965 novel (US: Death Finds the Day) by Alan White. Men trained in the art of killing, in this instance three British paratroopers somewhere in occupied Europe during the Second World War, as skilled practitioners in nothing more than a competitive game (war) is the core of this film, starring David Hemmings, Tom Bell and Tony Beckley. The director takes some 95 dreary minutes to make his point.

   Now, if only Secrets of Sex was available on DVD (for research purposes, of course)…

               Regards,

                  Tise

>>> Thank you very much, Tise, and do I have news for you. Secrets of Sex is available on DVD in this country, subtly disguised as the following:

L A. CONFIDENTIAL. Unsold television pilot, 2003. Keifer Sutherland, Josh Hopkins, Melissa George, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Eric Roberts. Director: Eric Laneuville. Based on the novel by James Ellroy.

   Filmed in 1999, says IMDB, as part of a deal with HBO in 2000 as the first installment of a 13-part mini-series. When that didn’t happen, Fox took interest, but in the end, they also turned it down. Their loss, and ours.

   The date 2003, by the way, is when the cable network Trio finally aired it as part of a long marathon of similar bankrupt and cancelled projects.

   I’ve not read the book, which is number three in Ellroy’s series of 1950s L.A.-based novels: The Black Dahlia was the first; number two was The Big Nowhere; and the fourth was White Jazz. I’ve also not seen the full-length movie version of L. A. Confidential (1997), a huge gap or gaffe on my part (take your pick), but at least you can say that this review of the TV version is unbiased in terms of any sort of comparisons, or any other kind of useful information.

   This TV film, all that was ever made, is only 50 minutes long, and it ends with a large TO BE CONTINUED across the screen. Just as all of the pieces were coming together! Utter frustration.

   Keifer Sutherland, not yet a 24-carat star, is Det.-Sgt. Jack Vincennes in this one, the role played by Kevin Spacey in the film. Melissa George is would-be movie starlet Lynn Bracken, played by Kim Basinger in the movie. I could go on and on like this, but the TV version is not the same story as the earlier version (or so I’m told), but essentially a different (and ultimately longer) adaptation of the book, produced and created by men with different ideas, limitations and goals in mind.

   Basic story: Vincennes, having killed an innocent man during a drug bust gone bad, tries to make up for it by anonymously sending money to the dead man’s widow. This means that he needs more money than he makes, which means in turn that he has to go on the take. Not a good idea when Internal Affairs is watching, not to mention the editor and publisher of Hush Hush Magazine.

   The TV version is visually striking in color, but in terms of overall production values, I doubt that it holds up in that regard to the movie. Note to self: watch the movie, and report back.

[UPDATE]   I haven’t found any images to add to this review, but for as long as it’s there, you can watch this short pilot online in five parts, beginning with http://www.truveo.com/Part-1of-5-LA-Confidential-TV-pilot-Kiefer/id/1356656397

[UPDATE #2] 03-07-12. As suspected, the video above is no longer there. See the comments, though, for information as to how to find a copy.

   I was looking over the previous post here on the M*F blog this morning, the one on Gardner paperbacks, wondering if I need tweak anything here or there, and it occurred to me that that last cover was the only one that I could remember having a portrayal of Perry Mason on it.

   Perhaps I could have you just go back and take a look, but since it’s handy, why don’t I simply show it to you again:

   The covers on the earliest Pocket paperbacks, going back to the early 1940s, always seemed to me to be attempts to imitate the art on hardcover jackets, rather subdued and far from lurid:

   Later on toward the end of 1940s, the covers at Pocket seemed more and more designed to do their job properly, to catch the eye of the guy (usually) at the newsstand:

   That cover at the top of this page must have come from the end of the Pocket era. If that’s Perry Mason who’s pictured on it, it certainly doesn’t look like Raymond Burr, who was perfect in the part, but very much an establishment figure. He was a whole lot younger when he started, though. Here’s the cover of the recent box set, which I’ve bought but (all together now) I haven’t started to watch yet:

   To me, the guy on the Pocket cover looks more like Monte Markham, who had the role for about half a season, 1973-74, before they pulled the plug on him. To TV viewers, it was Raymond Burr who was Perry Mason, and no one else. Even though he may not have been playing Mason at the time, this is what Markham looked like then:

   But getting back to covers with Mason himself on them, I think I may have found an earlier one after all. It’s from the late 1940s era, and as a character, I don’t think all of his rough edges had rubbed off yet. Mason was a tougher guy at the beginning, his roots (as well as Gardner’s) being solidly in the pulp era, and more specifically Black Mask and Dime Detective.

   I think those roots are still showing here: