Mon 29 Jan 2007
This post began as an UPDATE to be found at the end of the previous one, but as I kept writing, it became long enough, I thought, and substantiative enough, to survive on its own. And so, on its own two feet, here it is:
Taken from an email message from Al Hubin this morning: “Looks good. The only connection you haven’t made is that Murder in Mayfair was reportedly the basis for the movie “Hour of Decision” (Tempean, 1957).”
>> No, I didn’t catch that, and I’m certainly happy to know about it. When I checked how many copies of Murder in Mayfair were offered for sale yesterday on the Internet, the answer was none. Zippo. If someone were interested in knowing what the book’s story line was, all I could offer right now in reply are the comments of a single viewer on IMDB, which I’ll add below. And, yes, I know that the movie may be NOTHING like the book, but here goes something better than nothing, at least:
To which I add, ah yes, Hazel Court. I remember her from a short-lived TV series called Dick and the Duchess (CBS, 1957-58). It was an American series filmed in England and was mostly a comedy, but with criminous overtones.
Hazel Court’s co-star was Patrick O’Neal, who played Dick Starrett, an American insurance claims investigator based in London and married to an Englishwoman, the “duchess” of the title. That is to say, his wife Jane, whose efforts to help her husband invariably ended in disaster.
I may be the only person I know who remembers this series, but even though I was only 15 or 16 years old at the time, I think that I was slightly in love with Hazel Court. Yes, she was too old for me, but at that age what possible difference could a few years make, and a distance of only a few thousand miles away … ?
Thus began a lifelong love of British crime fiction. And yes, I do digress.
