PORT OF NEW YORK. Samba Films, 1949. Scott Brady, Robert Rober, K. T. Stevens, Yul Brynner, Arthur Blake, Lynne Carter; narrated by Chet Huntley. Director: László Benedek.

   Filmed as a semi-documentary on behalf of US Customs and the Treasury Department, with narration throughout by (uncredited) Chet Huntley, there’s enough solid drama stuck in between the various drop-in chunks of stock footage — suitable for PTA meetings and 4H clubs, not that there’s anything wrong with that — to make this a rather respectable (and enjoyable) crime thriller.

   Unlike the film Dangerous Lady, which I reviewed here not so very long ago, Port of New York takes its crime seriously. When a load of dangerous narcotics is smuggled into New York City from the sea, an entire contingent of federal men are summoned to work on the case, led by Jimmy Flannery (Richard Rober) as a treasury agent, assisted by “Mickey” Waters (Scott Brady) on customs detail. (Unless of course I have their job assignments switched around. In the context of the movie, it didn’t seem to matter.)

   Their roles pale in comparison with that of the villain of the piece, though, a suave but nasty piece of work named Paul Vicola (Yul Brynner, in his film debut, and with hair, as I think every retro-reviewer of this movie is going to say, so why shouldn’t I?). When his girl friend Toni Cardell (lovely brunette K. T. Stevens) discovers that murder is involved, she begins to have second thoughts.

   Her fate is sealed from that point on. It will not take much experience as a crime movie buff to know exactly what I mean: Says Yul Brynner’s character: “You are most ungrateful, Toni.” [See Footnote.]

   Arthur Blake’s role is small but hardly insignificant. As a weak, somewhat effeminate nightclub entertainer named Dolly Carney (specializing in imitations of Charles Laughton) who is nabbed as go-between in the dope-peddling business, he’s caught between the cops and big guys and with no way out.

   Some other impressions: The film was shot in Manhattan, along the port, in the harbor, and on the streets Even if filmed in only black and white, the city makes a impressive setting. Of course it is that the movie is filmed in black-and-white, with the dark contrasting shadows at night and in the interrogation room, that makes this film a noir, lessened of course by the story itself, with its naturally positive ending. (I probably shouldn’t give this away — that this movie has a happy ending, that is — and in fact, for some of the players, rest assured that it is simply just not true.)

   And oh, one more thing, without trying to go political. I was wholly on the side of the federal guys, but their tactics were at times — to use a new word I just looked up — rather cringeworthy. As the single most egregious example, breaking and entering one of the bad guys’ offices at night might have helped break the case, but there was no mention of warrants, and the evidence itself was worthless.

   Take my advice anyway. If you’re a fan of black-and-white crime movies with more than a touch of noir, you could a lot worse than watching this minor but still suspenseful and well-plotted example. You could do worse, without even trying.

FOOTNOTE. Thanks to a commenter on IMDB for providing the exact phrasing, which I think is pitch-perfect in every way.

DANGEROUS LADY. PRC, 1941. Neil Hamilton, June Storey, Douglas Fowley, Evelyn Brent, Jimmy Aubrey. Directed by Bernard B. Ray. Based on a story by Leslie T. White.

   With bargain basement movies like this one, you get what you pay for, which is – unless you’re not particularly careful with your wallet – almost nothing. Most of the online reviews for this movie, out on DVD, include the line “Neil Hamilton and June Storey play the married sleuths with a bemused and breezy ease in this clever Thin Man-style mystery thriller.”

   Bemused, maybe, wondering why on earth they’re in this film. Breezy, yes, with a plot having holes in it wider than the cheesiest Swiss you’ve ever seen. Thriller, not at all. In the first ten minutes what passes for witty repartee between husband (private eye Duke Martindel, played by Neil Hamilton) and wife Phyllis (a hot shot lawyer lady played by June Storey) as they prepare for bed (and quite noticeably, separate beds) will get you to sleep even more quickly than they do.

   It is difficult to say who should bear the brunt of the blame. All of the players have long careers in the movies, but they’re as a group awfully wooden in this one. Neil Hamilton lasted long enough to become Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV series; by that time his gray hair made him look distinguished.

   June Storey was in maybe ten of Gene Autry’s western movies – but this photo of her below with William Henry was probably taken from a 1941 musical drama starring Carole Landis entitled Dance Hall – and Jimmy Aubrey’s comedic efforts were on display in over 400 films.

   Leslie T. White wrote a long list of tales for the pulp magazines, but they must have run out of both film and shooting time to fill the gaps in what passes for a story line in this one. Nor was this director Bernard B. Ray’s only chance at directing a film. Also known as Raymond K. Johnson, he did over 60 of them.

   The music in the background was stolen from an early 1930s comedy, though of course in Dangerous Lady, some of the action was intended for laughs, as most mystery and detective movies were obliged to do before noir came along, not that they called it noir back then. Looking back at the first paragraph of this review, I suppose this was what was meant as “breezy.”

   You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the story itself. You’re right. I haven’t.

CRACK-UP. RKO Radio, 1946. Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford, Mary Ware. Director: Irving Reis. Based on “Madman’s Holiday,” a long novelette by Fredric Brown.

   I’ve not read “Madman’s Holiday,” but I do have the July 1943 issue of Detective Story Magazine, where it first appeared. Later on it was paired with “The Song of the Dead” in the Dennis McMillan hardcover collection of the same title, Madman’s Holiday (1985).

   As a director, Irving Reis is best known in some circles (such as this one) for several of the early Falcon movies, but in terms of a well-paced and well-told black-and-white thriller, he seems to have lost his touch with this film, his first after the war, following Hitler’s Children in 1943.

   Pat O’Brien plays George Steele, a museum spokesman about to be fired for daring to bring fine art down to the level of ordinary people, much to the dismay of museum’s board of directors. That doesn’t seem to be offense enough for him to fall into the malicious plot that follows, in which a train wreck that he was in apparently (he is told) never happened.

   Only his girl friend Terry Cordell (Claire Trevor, and even more beautiful and blonde than ever) believes his story after Steele, suffering from either the aftereffects of the accident or a wartime psychosis, smashes his way into the museum at night, assaulting a policeman in the process.

   A very noirish, nightmarish opening that promises a fine tale in the offing, but alas! the fine tale never materializes. Steele is also an expert in art forgery, and what the tale boils down to is simply that, a gang of deadly art forgers whose dastardly doings are neither (double alas!) very interesting nor wholly explained. Everybody speaks in a calm, soft-spoken and unexcited manner, including the mysterious Traybin, played by the never flappable Herbert Marshall, and his non-exertion is contagious.

   Rather than a noir film, and regarded highly as such in some quarters, as I’ve discovered, I was reminded more often of those old spooky house pictures made in the 1930s, with much standing around (when it comes down to it) and little of consequence on the screen.

   A hodge-podge of this and that, in other words, and in two words, very disappointing. [You may follow the link in the paragraph above, however, for a diametrically opposed opinion.]

CHARLES TODD – A False Mirror. Harper; paperback reprint, January 2008. Harper hardcover edition, January 2007.

   Some facts first, some of which you probably know already, but if so, please bear with me. Or not, if you prefer, if your interest in mystery fiction consists more often of espionage thrillers, comic heists and/or high grade private eye dramas, none of which applies here.

   According to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, “Charles Todd” is the joint pen name of the (I believe) unique mother-and-son writing team of David Charles Todd Watjen & Carolyn L. T. Watjen. A Test of Wills, their first mystery novel, was also the first case solved by Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. The book appeared in 1996, and they’ve averaged close to a novel a year ever since. A False Mirror is their 10th, and Rutledge has appeared in all but one of them, a standalone entitled The Murder Stone.

   From here it gets complicated. As a survivor of World War I (as yet unnumbered in 1919 and the 1920s, when the stories take place), Rutledge carries bitter memories of the conflict wherever he goes. In particular, in his head he hears the voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scottish soldier he had executed for refusing to obey orders during the worst of the war. The irony is that Rutledge now knows that given one more day of battle and the bloody onslaught, he would have refused orders to keep fighting on as well.

   Such is the background if not the underlying theme, and for folks like me, who pick up the ninth one as the first one, it takes some time for the explanation to be worked into the opening pages without disrupting the flow of the new tale being told. Hamish acts not only as a nagging conscience, but also as a Watson upon whom Rutledge tests his thoughts and observations, except that this particular (and antagonistic) Watson is not at all interested in telling the tale himself.

   It’s an interesting concept, and the Todds’ books have attracted a lot of attention, including mine, although until now only in terms of curiosity, having not picked one up to read until now. My first reaction: This is a dark and gloomy tale filled with sharply drawn characterizations.

   In the small coastal town of Hampton Regis, a man Rutledge knew not well (and not favorably) in France has taken a woman as a hostage in her home, and he refuses to budge until Rutledge arrives. The man is believed to have attacked the woman’s husband, once of the Foreign Service, and left him near death on the shore.

   Rutledge arrives, and my second reaction is this: Very few detective stories can withstand the weight of nearly 400 pages of small print. Rutledge seems to do a lot, but very little gets done; and what seems as though should have been done as standard procedure seems to get little thought. Such as (primarily) the failure to keep a guard over the badly wounded victim, who disappears into the night soon after he begins to gain consciousness, leaving the doctor’s wife bludgeoned to death.

   The ending – the revelation of the killer’s identity – is equally mismanaged – not badly, but without the sureness (and brilliance) that one expects (and hopes for!) after several nights of intense reading just before bed. (It took me around eight installments averaging fifty pages each.)

   To be more precise, the tale is not strong on fair play detection, although the opportunity’s there. It could have been done. Toward the end an accusing finger is pointed at each of the possible killers in turn, but to do this well, an expert is needed. When the strings trailing from the authors’ hands begin to show, that’s when you’ll know the authors aren’t that kind of expert yet. (Or at least, not this time.)

   On the other hand, I wouldn’t have kept reading if the authors who write as Charles Todd didn’t know people, and knew how to make them come alive, as often in anguish (mental) as they are. Noir? You bet. All the way.

THE WRONG BOX. Salamander Film Corp., UK, 1966. Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Peter Sellers, Wilfred Lawson, Tony Hancock. Director-producer: Brian Forbes. Based on the book by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne. [Osbourne was Stevenson’s stepson.]

   When I was a kid and growing up, I read a lot of Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, as did a lot of kids my age, but I never read The Wrong Box, nor have I rectified that omission any time since. It was published in 1889, which would have made it a contemporary novel instead the period piece it obviously was in 1966.

   So I don’t know, and I’d obviously be guessing, but I imagine that a number of liberties were made to the story — or on the other hand, perhaps not, as the book is described in many places as a “black comedy.” You may or may not recognize the names of some of the players, but on the other hand, you may very well know them better than I do. These are some of the finest British comedians of their era, and there are some who believe that The Wrong Box is the funniest British comedy ever made.

   Personally, I don’t know about that, but sitting here at the computer and typing this off the top of my head, there are some parts here that remember laughing at out loud when I was watching and (this is strange) are even funnier as I think about them now.

   And I’ll get to some of those in a moment. First, though, something about the story. I guess they’re not very common now, but the main item of business that makes the story and keeps it going is a tontine, a legal agreement between a group of individuals that provides for a common total contribution to be bestowed into the hands of the single survivor.

   There’s obviously a lot of material involved in one of these things to power any number of crime stories, which is what allows this movie to be called a mystery movie, but truth be told, looking back in retrospect, there really wasn’t a lot of mystery, nor crime involved.

   Two brothers are the last two survivors in this case, and they have not spoken to each other in over 40 years. Michael Caine is the shy grandson of one; gloriously beautiful Nanette Newman is the niece of the other; and they have admired each other from afar (and through windows) for many years. (The two families live next to each other in attached homes.) One glimpse of Caine’s bare upper arm is enough for the lady to fall solidly in fluttering love.

   There is a mixup between boxes, naturally enough, one containing a body, the other a statuary being returned. There are attempts at murder, funeral carriages galore, fudged death certificates…

… decrepit old butlers, cheerfully loquacious elderly gentlemen who can speak hours on end on almost anything:

   From the book itself, which is online at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1585, and repeated very closely in the film:

   I thought the movie was wonderfully rendered for the first hour and 15 minutes, plus or minus five, but by the end the pace had quickened significantly, and I confess that I had become lost with what body was there, who was dead and who was not. I shall have to watch it again; there’s no way around it.

   I do recommend the film to present-day writers and directors who believe that a film cannot be funny without flatulence, bowel movements, lousy language, nor more than a look at a lady’s ankle. None of those here, and all to the better. (I confess that there is one significant scene of nose-picking.)

   And any movie with Nanette Newman in it is worth seeing more than once, no matter the genre nor who else is in it.

REPEAT PERFORMANCE. Eagle-Lion Films, 1947. Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta. Director: Alfred L. Werker; based on the mystery novel of the same title by William O’Farrell.

   William O’Farrell wrote 13 or so crime novels between 1942 and 1962. Toward the end of his career he wrote paperback originals (Dell, Gold Medal, Lancer), but the first one he wrote was Repeat Performance, a hardcover from Houghton Mifflin in 1942. His next book didn’t come out until after the war, in 1948.

   As sometimes happens, it’s the first book that attracts the most attention, and so it was with this book. It was the only one of O’Farrell’s novels that was made into a movie until 1987, when a French company made Dernier été à Tanger, based on The Devil His Due (Doubleday, 1955). O’Farrell does have a handful of TV credits, according to IMDB: Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock, and so on, and a TV remake was made of Repeat Performance in 1989, a film entitled Turn Back the Clock, with Connie Sellecca in the leading role.

   In 1947, it was Joan Leslie who was the star, one of a number of leading roles she had for smaller companies like Eagle-Lion, and her career lasted long enough, thanks to television, for her to be given a walk-on role in the remake as a guest at a party. She was full-faced and very pretty without quite being beautiful, but then again your opinion need not necessarily be the same as mine.

   The beginning and end of Repeat Performance is dark and stylish enough for it to be considered in many quarters as a noir film, but without the beginning and end, it is frothy and soap opera-y and very nearly not a crime film at all. It begins with Sheila Paige (Joan Leslie) shooting a man in a Manhattan apartment on New Year’s Eve, then fleeing the scene of the crime through streets crowded and filled with merry-makers.

   The man, as it turns out, was her husband Barney, a failed and now-alcoholic playwright played by Louis Hayward. We don’t know any of the details right away, only that Sheila is frightened and needs help. And on the brink of the New Year, her wish to live the year over again, and to make things come out right, is granted.

   A nice fantasy touch. She remembers the year before, but no one else does, except (gradually) poet William Williams (Richard Basehart, in his first film), a tragically weak creature with hints of self-esteem. Sheila’s husband is not only a lush, but a louse and a womanizer, the woman in this case being an ultra- glamorous British playwright named Paula Costello (Virginia Field).

   Can Sheila live the year over again and make the outcome turn out differently? Can she keep her husband away from Paula by shuffling him off to California? Can she convince William that having Mrs. Shaw (Natalie Schafer) as a patroness, and a controlling one at that, is not likely to be in his best interest?

   You’ll have to watch and see. The fantasy elements give the movie a premise, but otherwise they are not followed up on. The crime element is shoved to the background. It’s always there, mind you, as you watch Sheila relive her life, with differences, but as I say, trim five minutes from both the beginning and the end, and you don’t have a mystery movie at all. And probably not much a story, either, so no, don’t trim it … a mystery film it is.

   Is it noir? Yes, if one aspect of noir films is seeing lives swirl and careen out of control, and another is a dark beginning and (hints are) a dark ending. No, if noir does not involve froth and soap flakes, which too much of this one does.

[UPDATE.] 01-22-08. For those of you conveniently located near San Francisco, Repeat Performance will be the lead-off attraction for this year’s Noir City film festival. Date: Friday, January 25th. Joan Leslie will be in attendance, and after the screening she will be interviewed by festival host Eddie Muller.

   Connecticut, unfortunately, is a mere 3000 miles away, else I’d be there for sure.

EVELYN PAYNE – Held Open for Death

Arcadia House; hardcover; c. 1958.

   The author’s only mystery, nor is it one that’s particularly easy to find. There are two copies online that are both in the $30 range, and one other in Norway for $80 or so. I paid less than either asking price for mine, and – as long as you’re asking me my opinion – neither should you.

   It starts out promising enough, with a heroine sleuth with an unusual occupation for, um, a heroine sleuth: that of real estate agent. There certainly must have been others, before and since, but at the moment, none seem come to mind.    [FOOTNOTE.]

   Tillie Latimer is her name, the locale is El Paso, and truth be told, when the book begins, Tillie’s been a real estate agent for only a couple of weeks. Her first big assignment on her own: holding an open house for the home next door to her mother’s, where Tillie still lives.

   It proves to be a big success, so big that keeping track of incoming visitors proves impossible. This turns out to be a big problem when Granpa Tellfair, aged 89, and father of Miss Sadie, who owns the house, is later found dead in the basement, stabbed to death with a knife still in his back. Strangely enough, he also still has $1000 in his pocket. This is doubly strange. Since time he was once robbed, he never carried more than five dollars with him at a time.

   Tillie had met Granpa during the open house, and as it so happens, while he managed to maintain his well-deserved status as a curmudgeon in his short conversation with her, he was also one of the more likable people who happened to stop by. The question is, who’d kill an old man like this, and why?

   Going hand-in-hand with the mystery, there is also a strong romantic interest for Tillie in the person of Miss Sadie’s son Rick, the “town’s star juvenile delinquent for a few years,” now out of the Army and perhaps on his way to becoming a solid citizen. Nor is Rick the only one who is showing an interest in Tillie. Trying to place the book into its proper category, I am not sure whether the two or three more murders that occur qualify this detective yarn as a cozy or not, but if Agatha Christie’s books are cozies, then so is this one. And after thinking about it some more, I shall happily concede that it is, no matter what.

   I mentioned Agatha Christie. That was a rather unfortunate reference, now that I think about it. While the author is obviously very familiar with the ins and outs of the real estate business, she’s also in over her head in making sure that the story keeps on going in the direction she wants it to. The characters are fun at first, but their lack of depth soon begins to tell. Soon after the halfway point, the many loose strands of the plot get tangled, cluttered and confused, and seemingly beyond repair. In wrapping things up, the author makes it clear she had a goal worthy of the telling in mind. It is the getting there that is the problem.

   Everything that a good mystery should have is in this book. It’s just that the ingredients have been assembled – well, not badly, exactly, and I have not come up with a more positive way of saying this – but by an amateur, in a truest sense of the word. Without a stronger pro at the helm, to come to the point a little more quickly, this is little more than a “nice try” and/or a “might have been.”

[FOOTNOTE.] This is the review that was my springboard into creating a list of all the real estate agents who ever happened to become detectives as part of their occupational duties. Check it out here, a post made back in January of this year.

BRIAN AUGUSTYN – Gotham by Gaslight: An Alternative History of the Batman.

DC Comics; graphic novel; 1st printing, 1989. Script: Brian Augustyn; pencils: Michael Mignola; inks: P. Craig Russell. Introduction by Robert Bloch.

   What it is that makes (and establishes) a cultural icon is difficult if completely impossible to predict, but with plenty of hindsight at our command, it is absolutely certain that both the Batman and Jack the Ripper each and individually most definitely are.

   Did they ever meet? Of course not, but on the other hand, why not? This particular graphic novel (or sophisticated comic book, if you prefer, with sturdy cardstock covers, glossy pages and no ads) was not designated with the “Elseworlds” label, but according the various comic sites on the Internet, it was the first, and it was so successful that an entire series of such novels followed.

   So what is (or are) Elseworlds? Allow me to quote from the equivalent of the DC handbook: “In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.”

   After Robert Bloch’s introduction, supplied just in case an unwary comic book reader does happen to be unfamiliar with Jack the Ripper – and a nice touch, at that – comes a retelling of the origin of the Batman: the holdup man who guns down Bruce Wayne’s parents before his very eyes; the young lad then devoting his life to take up the cause of justice against criminals and the underworld behind a mask, a costume and a long, free-flowing cape. Except this time it is the late 1880s, and this is not the current Batman at all.

   At the same time as Bruce Wayne is taking up his new career, a horrible slayer of prostitutes in London seems to have made his way to Gotham, a city well-known to comic book readers as the home stomping grounds of the Batman, Inspector Gordon and all of the other characters of current legend (and so it appears) no matter what universe they may happen to be in.

   The coincidence in timing is far too obvious for some, and Bruce Wayne, unable to account for his whereabouts and not being home at night, is first confronted, then arrested and convicted of being the Ripper. In his jail cell, going over the piles of documents, photos and other evidence against him, provided by Gordon, not convinced of his guilt, it is Bruce Wayne the detective that spots the clue that will nail the killer, if only he were not scheduled to be executed for the crimes himself in the morning.

   Truthfully, however, while this certainly qualifies Gotham by Gaslight as an entry in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV – it is not there now, but other Batman graphic novels are – the detection, if not minor, is hardly of the fair play variety. In terms of the reader playing detective him- or herself, this is also mere child’s play, as it were, there being only one other suspect and that being one who only appears in one previous panel.

   The attraction here is the small delights provided by viewing the Batman legend from another perspective in an unexpected context – as if with new eyes – and the delightful art from Mignola and Russell. Grays and blues and browns dominate, as well as exquisite details in Victorian-era architecture, wearing apparel and facial foliage.

   You have to be a Batman fan, perhaps – and if you’re not, it’s sure as shouting that I’m not going to make you one – but if you are, this is a sure-fire classic must-read.

[UPDATE] 09-22-07. I’ve reprinted this review, of course, because of the coverage of the original Batman in the previous post. Other than that, there’s been no attempt to rewrite it to make it more of a followup than this. It’s as I wrote it when it first appeared. But as I suggested, though, this particular book now does appear in the Addenda to the Revised CFIV.