THE SCARLET CLUE. Monogram, 1945. Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Benson Fong, Virginia Brissac, Ben Carter, Janet Shaw, I. Stanford Jolley [uncredited]. Director: Phil Rosen.

   My brother and I used to watch these Monogram entries in the Charlie Chan series on television every Friday night when we were kids, and we sure got a hoot out of them — even, I’m sure, the earlier ones with Warner Oland as well. We had to keep the sound down, since our parents were sleeping in the downstairs bedroom then, so we sat as close to the screen as we could, and enjoyed the heck out of staying up late, because it didn’t happen often.

   The funny thing is, I don’t remember any of them, only some general impressions. The crimes, the oddly stiff Sidney Toler, the interchangeable actors who played the number two or number three sons, and we wondered why Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) wasn’t in all of them.

   A major clue in this one is a bloody footprint found at the murder that occurs in the opening scene. The plot has something to do some radar plans that foreign agents want to steal, but because the scientific laboratory is in the same building, most of the action centers around a radio station where a relatively bad soap opera production has their on-the-air studio. (When Charlie visits the lab and is shown a wind tunnel with temperature and wind effects, we know immediately that the this same wind tunnel is going to play a large part of what happens later on. We are correct.)

    The detection is minimal. I was steered to the most obvious guilty suspect as being the killer, but I didn’t have my head screwed on too carefully, I’m afraid. There are spies, stooges, blackmailers, and people in funny masks, enough to keep your eye off the fact that, as one obvious question among others, how was the elevator with its deadly surprise constructed? It must have been quite a feat, especially with nobody noticing.

   I mentioned Mantan Moreland, the black comedian who later on got a bad rap, or so I’m told, for playing such broad comic relief in movies like this one. Actually, I think that he and Tommy Chan have more screen time than does Mr. Chan himself, and never a serious part of the investigation are they ever. (One wonders why a great detective like Mr. Chan would put up with … but, oh well, never mind.)

    Moreland and fellow comedian Ben Carter do a couple of great turns in an old vaudeville bit called the “infinite” routine, wherein both men carry on a conversation something like this, with neither one ever quite completing all of their sentences:

    “Why if it isn’t …”

    “Yes, and I haven’t seen you since …”

    “No, it was longer than that. Last time I saw you, you were …”

    “Well, I’ve lost weight! And you lived in …”

    “No, I’ve moved to …”

    “That’s a bad neighborhood. How can you live there?”

      and so on, and so on …

   Afterward, a thoroughly befuddled Tommy Chan asks, “Who was that?”

   Birmingham’s answer: “He didn’t say.”

   Well, my brother and I thought it was funny. We also woke our parents up and we were sent to bed.

WILLIAM MAGNAY – The Hunt Ball Mystery.

Ward Lock, UK, hc, 1918. Brentano’s, US, hc, 1918. Other later printings exist, including Aldine Mystery Novels #22, UK, 1927. Etext at the Gutenberg Project.

   Give me a novel opening with a fellow arriving for a social gathering at a country house, and I’m as happy as the proverbial clam.

   The Hunt Ball Mystery begins in just this fashion, and right away we are in crisis mode. Hugh Gifford discovers he is without evening clothes due to a mistake made by the guard unloading luggage. Gifford and his friend Harry Kelson are going to a Hunt Ball to be held that evening at Wynford Place.

   The station master arranges for Gifford’s traps to be transferred to a down train at the next stop, although Gifford won’t get them until about ten. However, this still leaves time for him to attend the ball.

   The two men share a fly to the Golden Lion Hotel with a stranger who mentions he is also staying there and will be going to the ball. Gifford sniffily decides the man is not of their class, a conclusion based largely on the other’s looks and manner. The man is Clement Henshaw, brother of Gervase, whom Gifford knows by repute as a fellow legal eagle.

   Gifford insists Kelson goes on to the ball ahead of him, and Kelson and Henshaw depart. While waiting for his missing luggage, Gifford decides to stroll over to Wynford Place to take a look at its exterior. He returns two hours later, obviously having had a shock. Even so, he dons his now retrieved evening clothes and tootles off to the jamboree, where he makes the acquaintance of Dick Morriston, owner of Wynford Place, and Dick’s sister Edith.

   Not long before four next morning the hotel landlord pops in to ask if the Hunt Ball is over as Henshaw has not returned. After encouraging the landlord to lock the doors against his missing guest, Kelson pours himself a drink and suddenly notices blood on his shirt cuff.

   Then the missing Henshaw is found dead in a locked room with the key on the inside and an 80 feet drop from its window. The general consensus is Henshaw committed suicide. Gervase Henshaw, the dead man’s brother, disagrees, and so does the doctor who gives evidence at the inquest.

   At this point the mystery gallops off in full cry after the fox of whodunnit, how, and why. Revelations follow concerning what upset Gifford on his nocturnal walkabout, whence came the blood on Kelson’s cuff, the solution to the locked room matter, and so on.

   My verdict: I have long been a fan of the Country House Mystery and so was disposed to like The Hunt Ball. Alas, this particular visit to a rural estate was not too successful. The locked room solution is pedestrian and most readers will guess it. I found the characters unsympathetic and the police presented as inept, not least in overlooking a couple of clues — including one of a particularly glaring nature. Then too the introduction of an important witness was without previous hints of this person’s existence.

   It may be this novel was intended as a spoof of the Country House Mystery, but all in all, I found The Hunt Ball Mystery something of a disappointment.

   From Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, a chronological listing of Sir William Magnay’s other mystery fiction:

MAGNAY, [Sir] WILLIAM, 2nd baronet (1855-1917)

* The Fall of a Star (n.) Macmillan 1897.
* The Heiress of the Season (n.) Smith, Elder 1899. Appleton, US, 1899.
* The Pride of Life (n.) Smith, Elder 1899.
* The Man-Trap (n.) Smith, Elder 1900.
* The Red Chancellor (n.) Ward 1901. Brentano’s, US, 1901.
* The Man of the Hour (n.) Ward 1902.
* Count Zarka (n.) Ward 1903.
* -Fauconberg (n.) Ward 1905.
* -A Prince of Lovers (n.) Ward 1905.
* The Duke’s Dilemma (n.) Long 1906.
* The Master Spirit (n.) Ward 1906. Little, US, 1906.
* -The Amazing Duke (n.) Unwin 1907.
* The Mystery of the Unicorn (n.) Ward 1907. Street & Smith, US, 1910.

* The Pitfall (n.) Ward 1908.
* The Red Stain (n.) Ward 1908.
* A Poached Peerage (n.) Ward 1909.
* The Powers of Mischief (n.) Ward 1909.
* The Long Hand (n.) Paul 1912.
* Paul Burdon (n.) Paul 1912.
* Rogues in Arcady (n.) Ward 1912.
* The Fruit of Indiscretion (n.) Paul 1913.
* The Players (n.) Hodder 1913.
* The Price of Delusion (n.) Paul 1914.
* The Black Lake (n.) Paul 1915.
* The Cloak of Darkness (n.) Ward 1915.
* The Hunt Ball Mystery (n.) Ward 1918.
* The Flamards Mystery (n.) Pemberton 1942.
* The Eleventh Hour (n.) Odhams n.d.

   This will not be an easy comment to make, since my one quibble with the movie involves a plot point, and I want to avoid giving vital information away to anyone who has not yet seen the movie. As Poirot did, I prefer the easier solution. So, first, for the simple matters.
   I agree completely with your assessment of Albert Finney’s performance. He is almost demonic at times, almost scary, which is the last thing one expects of a Poirot. His performance was a most pleasant surprise.

   Lauren Bacall’s performance was enjoyable, but I liked Ingrid Bergman’s better. And I had never realized until now not just how beautiful Vanessa Redgrave’s face was, but how wonderfully she could use it. I also enjoyed John Gielgud’s and Richard WIdmark’s performances as well as several of the others.

   If the movie reflects the novel faithfully, I can see which aspect would have troubled censors. It’s a sobering question that such a matter could keep the story off the screen for so long.

   Finally, the plot point: the resolution, as presented on screen had a ritualistic aspect that I found far-fetched. I can say no more until everyone in the world has seen the movie or read the novel. When that happens, we can discuss my objection openly.

         Peter

      Detectives Beyond Borders
       “Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”

      ========================

Peter

   Or should I call you “Artful Dodger.” Thanks for being so skillful in saying what has to be said about the movie without actually revealing what it is that can’t be talked about.

   Why is it, I wonder, why so many otherwise intelligent people can’t resist giving the solutions away to detective story plots? Only this morning I read an op-ed column in the Hartford Courant which, to make another point, gave away for nothing the ending of Murder on the Orient Express.

   And as for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the mystery that Christie is even more famous for, you can forget it. Even people who are trying to recommend the novel to others do so by saying, “You’ll never guess who did it. It was …” And every kind of variation on blab, blab, blab comes spouting forth.

   In any case, however, I certainly agree with you about the way the crime itself was committed, as shown on the screen. It seemed to me to be borderline distasteful. But more than that, because of the sensationalistic nature of this aspect of the film, the point that (I think) was intended to be conveyed was lost.

   One other thing. While I enjoyed Lauren Bacall’s performance more, in more ways than one, I would not have considered it worthy of an Oscar. Ingrid Bergman’s, yes, even if I quibbled about it.

      – Steve

      ========================

   I thought it was less distasteful that it was slightly ridiculous. I’ll have to go read the novel to see how Christie made the same point and if she did so any differently.

   Regarding people who give away plots, they are selfish, stupid, or simply unable to distinguish between contemporary crime stories, in which who did it tends to be less important, and older ones, in which the mystery aspect is paramount. They add obtuseness and lack of taste to their selfishness or stupidity.

   I realize now that one aspect of Ingrid Bergman’s performance may have especially endeared it to Oscar voters. She was a beautiful woman playing an unbeautiful character. It’s been noted that Oscar voters tend to reward that sort of thing.

          — Peter

      ========================

   I responded by describing what I cannot divulge here, but I mentioned Ingrid Bergman’s performance in a way that *might* disclose plot points that I shouldn’t, and Peter agreed with me about her. I also spoke in detail about what I saw behind the way the murder was committed. Peter replied that he hadn’t noticed or realized that, and that in retrospect the clues were fairly planted, a nice touch.

   Now of course you may be wishing you had a rolling pin to throw at me, and if I were in your shoes, I think I might be wishing the same. To that end I have uploaded the continuation of our conversation here. Please note that the ending will be discussed in detail, and it is up to you to decide whether it is safe for you to go read it or not.

ANN WALDRON – The Princeton Imposter

Berkley, paperback original. First printing, January 2007

   This is the fifth mystery novel from Ann Waldron’s pen, all of them in her McLeod Dulaney series. According to her website, she’s also the author of a number of well-regarded biographies and a number of children’s books, both fiction and non.

   Like her fictional character – who’s female, by the way, which I’d better add in case you’re seeing her name for the first time and you’re not sure – Ann Waldron has been a journalist and writer her entire working career. For the record, here’s the list of all five of her mysteries, each of them taking place in and around Princeton University:

   I imagine you see the pattern here as well as I do. Whenever McLeod Dulaney is on campus, that’s the semester you should be heading abroad or taking a sabbatical. McLeod herself is not a full-time faculty member; she’s an award-winning journalist and a visiting professor from Florida who teaches one course in journalism a year at Princeton University. Not so coincidentally, that is precisely where the author herself began working more than 30 years ago.

   Which is why the love of the school and campus – the students, the staff and the professors, the legend and the lore – is as much of a key ingredient of the story as it is. The “imposter” in the title is Greg Pierre, one of McLeod’s better students, an older student who managed to gain admission to the university under an assumed name and falsified credentials. It seems that he’d previously been arrested in Wyoming – on false charges he says – and in order to come to New Jersey, he had to break parole.

   And soon after his arrest the fellow who turned him in is found murdered, a grad student in the chemistry department who (as it turns out) was highly unliked for a number of reasons, which makes for a long list of suspects. But when McLeod’s good friend in the police department, Lt. Nick Perry, seems to settle in on Pierre as the most likely of them – no surprise there – she thinks otherwise, and she sets out to prove it.

   Waldron writes in short, crisp, no-nonsense sentences, and McLeod Dulaney, in a number of ways her fictional alter ego, perhaps, conducts her investigation in very much the same style. Investigative journalists, by the nature of their profession, soon acquire the knack of asking questions in a way that people answering them sometimes reveal more than they intended, or if not, they quickly find another line of work. McLeod doesn’t need to worry on that account.

   On the other hand, while she does a whole lot of detecting, she does not do a whole lot of deducting. (One does not necessarily imply the other.) First she decides that this student is the guilty party, then that professor, and as a result, she always seems to be one step behind – she doesn’t ever seem to catch up. Which of course leads to the ending. In my book, it comes as a letdown, leaving the reader (me) feel caught standing on the wrong foot at the wrong time, or should that be the right time? It also feels cluttered — more for dramatic effect, I thought, than for any other reason.

   Overall, then? Here’s a book that’s well worth reading for anyone who’s fond of mysteries which either take place in academic locales or rank well above average in the writing department, or both. You can take my other caveat for whatever it might be worth.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. Paramount, 1974. Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Denis Quilley, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, Michael York, George Coulouris. Directed by Sidney Lumet.

   They don’t make movies with all-star casts like this anymore, and maybe for a couple of good reasons. First of all, I don’t think you can convince me that in this modern, contemporary era of movie-making there are enough stars with the on-screen magnitude to match the ones you see above to make a film like this today.

   And secondly — and here’s a point in favor of the small-scale modern day casting — having too many stars can sometimes detract from the story and divert the audience’s attention away from it.

   Your eye sees the star, in other words, and you don’t see the character. The actors play roles rather than disappearing into parts. It probably can’t be helped in extravaganzas like this, but — and this is a rather subtle “but” — in thinking it over afterward, in terms of this grand, elaborate production of one of Agatha Christie’s masterpieces of deductive detective fiction, it may have even helped.

   I’m sorry if I’m being cryptic here, but if you’ve seen the movie, it’s possible that you very well know what I mean.

   Before going on, and perhaps I shouldn’t admit it, but last night was the first time I’ve seen the film. I don’t know how I missed it when it first came out, or if I did, I’ve forgotten it completely, and I hardly believe I could have done that.

   So in what follows, you’re getting my opinion as it’s just been formed, with a “mature” eye, and not by the eye of a 30-something. (Notice that I put “mature” in quotes, keeping in mind that being old enough to collect Social Security does not necessarily imply mature.)

   Albert Finney as Poirot. Other than the later BBC productions with David Suchet, and I regret to say that I have seen only one of them, I think too many actors play Poirot as a comic character, what with his large assortment of eccentric mannerisms and sometimes faulty English.

   In the opening minutes of Orient Express, I could feel myself cringing at the anticipation of yet another performance played for laughs, but when Poirot gets down the business of solving the murder of a notorious crime figure traveling incognito on the train heading from Istanbul to England, he is exactly that. Down to business.

   The final scene, confronting the group of passengers who are the only suspects on the snowbound Express, takes at least 20 minutes of intense revelation, going over the clues and the deductions the Belgian detective made from them.

   I should have timed how long the scene actually takes. I know that I’ve read somewhere that filming the scene, in the restricted confines of the dining car, took several days. I can believe it.

   Luckily the flashback scenes, with the crime being reconstructed, piece by piece, break up the sequence of talking heads in a rhythm that slowly builds and builds upon itself.

   Even so, the lack of action that this approach entails means that there’s hardly action enough to suit modern day audiences, or am I only being cynical again?

   Finney is probably the only actor to play a detective concerned with clues and not the third-degree in back rooms to have been nominated for an Oscar, but on second thought, without going to check on it, there’s a finite chance that I’m wrong about that.

   But as for his performance, as regarded by others, according to IMDB: “An 84-year-old Agatha Christie attended the movie premiere in November of 1974. It was the only film adaptation in her lifetime that she was completely satisfied with. In particular, she felt that Albert Finney’s performance came closest to her idea of Poirot. She died fourteen months later, on January 12, 1976.”

   If she was pleased, then how I dare say anything otherwise? I can’t, and I don’t. As for the rest of the cast, while I enjoyed Lauren Bacall’s role as the the outspoken (and never stopping) American tourist more, it was Ingrid Bergman who actually won an Oscar, for her much briefer part as a semi-demented Swedish missionary lady. A good performance, even a very good one, but I have a feeling it may have been a slow year for the Academy.

   Should I say something about the plot, more than I have so far? Perhaps not, but this is a tour de force of some magnitude, based as it was on the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. The book was first published in England in 1934, and as Murder in the Calais Coach in the US later the same year.

   Before the movie was shown on Turner Classic Movies, which is where I taped it from, the host, Robert Osbourne, pointed out that it took 40 years before the movie could pass the Movie Code. If you know the story, you will know why, and once again, that is all I am able to say about that.

   In terms of the detective work — well, let me tell you a story. Back when I was young, and maybe even younger than that, I decided that the next Agatha Christie novel I read, by golly I was going to take detailed notes and actually solve the murder myself. Well I did, and I didn’t.

   I was so upset at how the crime was committed and who did it that I literally threw the book across the room. Carefully, of course.

   The movie was extremely successful. Albert Finney was asked, but he turned down the opportunity to play Poirot again. Peter Ustinov, chosen in his place, played the part in Death on the Nile (1978), Evil Under the Sun (1982), and Appointment with Death (1988).

   He also appeared in three made-for-TV films: Thirteen at Dinner (1985), Dead Man’s Folly (1986), and Murder in Three Acts (1986). From what I remember — I haven’t seen any of these films in a while — I mostly regretted Ustinov in the role. Albert Finney, I think I could have gotten used to, now that I’ve had some time to think it over, and even more so as time goes on.

[UPDATE] 03-11-07. Looking back on my comments above, I regret not saying more about the opening terminal scene with the passengers boarding the train in the Istanbul station. Beautifully photographed, highly choreographed, and true to the period, it is nearly worth the price of admission in itself.

   Before I say anything more about it, though, I’m going to have to go back and watch it again. It was far too “visual” the first time, but for me, opening scenes often are. I find myself trying to make sure I’m not missing anything of the story while, at the same time, I’m struggling to take in everything there is to see. Delightful!

[A little bit later.] It was too hard to resist. I’ve just ordered the DVD from Amazon, the version with director Sidney Lumet’s commentary on “The Making of the Movie,” and who should know more how the movie was made than he?

MARY ROBERTS RINEHART – When a Man Marries (Bobbs-Merrill; hc, 1909. Hardcover reprint: Grossett & Dunlap, no date. Wildside Press, trade ppbk, 2004)

   Being excessively fond of locked room mysteries, imagine my delight once I began reading When A Man Marries to find it based on a twist on same. Set in a house full of Bright Young Things (sent up mercilessly by the author, Mary Roberts Rinehart, whose The Circular Staircase is occasionally mentioned within these walls) the plot unspools as several BYT’s suddenly find themselves sequestered in a large house under quarantine because the butler has just been stricken with smallpox.

   Meantime, the protagonist has agreed to pretend to be the wife of the house owner. This came about because the BYTs are attending a dinner party at the house, during which their host learns his dragon of an aunt — who holds the purse strings — is coming for an unexpected visit. This rich aunt has not been told he is now divorced because then the flow of money would end (fortunately she hasn’t met the now ex-wife). Complications of course ensue including the rest of the servants decamping before the Board of Health quarantines the house, leaving in such haste they do not even bother to tell the master why they are leaving, the ungrateful things.

   There’s a policeman imprisoned in the furnace room, and no sooner is the house and its inhabitants securely locked down for the duration when valuable items such as jewelry start going missing … meanwhile, the ex-wife having arrived just before quarantine was declared is now concealed from the aunt’s eyes in the kitchen below stairs, Rich Aunt is also locked in the house with the entire bunch, and one of other Bright Young (Male) Things foolishly wagers a large sum the entire crew will get out of quarantine within 24 hours — quite illegally of course and talk about chronic lack of social conscience — plus there are newspapers reporters and photographers camping around the house as well as on the roof of the house next door to keep an interested public fully informed.

   It struck me as I read that it would have made a wonderful screwball comedy/mystery with Cary Grant playing the fellow imprisoned engineer from South America, who is most emphatically *not* a BYT. How could you not laugh out loud at the whole frothy affair?

   And I did, Oscar, I did.

[UPDATE] 03-09-07. When I asked Mary to say some more about the criminous content of When a Man Marries, this was her reply:

   Thinking that Al Hubin might like to know this, I sent Mary’s comments on to him. Here’s what his response was, which was pretty much what I suspected it would be:

Wed 7 Mar 2007

Review: MARY ROBERTS RINEHART – The Yellow Room

Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews
1 Comment 

MARY ROBERTS RINEHART – The Yellow Room

Dell 9790; paperback reprint, later printing, April 1971. Hardcover, first edition: Farrar & Rinehart, 1945. Previously (?) published as an eight-part serial in The Saturday Evening Post, September 28 through October 27, 1945. Cassell & Co., UK hardcover, 1949; Thriller Book Club, UK hardcover, 1950.

Bestseller B95, digest pb, 1947. Bantam 314, pb, April 1949. Other Dell paperback editions include: Dell D179, 1956; Dell 9790, October 1962; Dell 9790, 1967. Also: Zebra (Kensington), pb, 1973, 1988, 1990 (3rd pr.), 1991, 1996 (5th pr.). Included in Mary Roberts Rinehart: Three Complete Novels by America’s Mistress of Mystery [contents: The Bat, The Haunted Lady, and The Yellow Room] Zebra, pb, 1995.

   It is quite possible that I’ve missed a few editions of this book. In particular, there are at least nine listings on ABE of a hardcover edition from 1955 (Farrar & Rinehart), but whether that’s a misprint or no, I do not presently know. There may also have been a US hardcover book club edition, but with no definitive information to back this statement up, I have not included it. Suffice it to say, however, if you’d like to locate a copy of this book to read, even a hardcover edition, you shouldn’t have any trouble.

   Rinehart’s writing career, as least as far as her novels and collections are concerned, began with The Man in Lower Ten from Bobbs-Merrill in 1909, but the story’s even earlier appearance was in serialized form, in All-Story Magazine for January through April, 1906.

   According to various online sources which I haven’t attempted to verify, Rinehart suffered a severe heart attack in 1938 while living in Maine, and apparently was a semi-invalid for much of her later life. In any case, from that time on there were only four more novels to come from her pen – she never used a typewriter, according to one source – and of those, The Yellow Room is next to last. Only The Swimming Pool (1952) came later. (This statement excludes several collections of novelettes and short stories.) Still perhaps one of the most famous mystery writers of all time, Mary Roberts Rinehart died in 1958.

   Appearing after a three-year gap, following Haunted Lady in 1942, The Yellow Room was written when the author was 67, which may go a long way in explaining some apparent slippage in the her writing ability, or perhaps the flaws I saw were always present. I will have to rely on someone more familiar with her earlier work than I am to be able to say more.

   The book itself takes place in 1944, and the opening chapters go far in describing the general difficulties of life at home in wartime, what with rationing, limited travel opportunities, the absence of men except for the oldest and/or the feeblest, and the hardest of all – waiting for news of loved ones fighting (or reported missing) on the front lines. When Carol Spencer’s invalid mother wishes to move from New York City to the family’s summer home in Maine, it is up to Carol, with only three female servants to assist, to tackle the work involved in doing so.

   Little did she suspect or know – and yes, that’s the kind of book that Mrs. Rinehart is famous for writing – that she would find the house still shut up and not opened. Lucy, a local woman who is the housekeeper, she learns the next day, is in the hospital with a broken leg. Lights have been seen in the house, Carol is told, shining from the room where Lucy says she never was before her accident.

   Another discovery occurs on page 27: Another woman is found dead in a linen closet, partially burned as if someone had been hoping to dispose of her body. When asked, Lucy’s story does not ring true; there is something she is not telling. And it is precisely here that the reader’s frustration begins, or at least they did with at least one reader: me. There are many, many questions that if asked are not answered, and there other questions that seem never to be asked, and if they were answered, at the right time and the right place, the mystery – one has the uncomfortable feeling – would, at that time and that place, simply cease to exist.

   Coming to Carol’s aid is her next-door neighbor, the worldly but still young Major Dane, who has been injured from work for US Intelligence, or so it seems. He has been recuperating in the area until deemed fit to go back to duty. The police, generally speaking, are of little or no help. Truth be said, they seem far more antagonistic toward Carol than any evidence seems to say they should be.

   By page 126 – I jotted a note to myself to this effect at this exact spot, so I am indeed able to be this precise – the facts, what there are of them, are so far muddled that the average reader, it seems to me, will either (A) have given up or (B) have shrugged their shoulders and allowed themselves to follow along, no more and no less, just to see where the author may be headed. There are 256 pages of small print, so at page 126, it is an important decision that must be made whether or not to stop or plunge on, keep going, and rely on the author’s name and reputation that the story may yet be salvaged.

   I often exaggerate, and the previous paragraph is one of those times, but not by much. Considering Major Dame, who by proximity feels himself becoming closer and closer to Carol, to be the primary detective, there are too many times when we (the reader) are not given total access to his thoughts, and too many other times when the point of view has shifted, and we (the still faithful reader) are shown scenes that Dane knows nothing about.

   Frustration, yes, but please (if you are ever the reader) keep the faith. The ending, with all of its revelations, is worth waiting for. Mrs. Rinehart has some nifty tricks up her sleeve for you. Even though the buildup to the final couple of chapters might have been more capably accomplished, and whether the end result is realistic or not, I think that even at this late stage in her career, in terms of pulling off the (almost) totally unexpected, she still had the right stuff. I feel quite justified in myself in sticking with Plan B.

— written in October 2006.

[UPDATE] 03-10-07. For more about Mary Roberts Rinehart, see Michael Grost’s informative article about her career as a writer on his extremely comprehensive Guide to Classical Mystery and Detection website.

 

Sun 4 Mar 2007

Review: DAVID HUME – Requiem for Rogues

Posted by Steve under Authors , Characters , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews
[5] Comments 

DAVID HUME – Requiem for Rogues

Collins, UK, hc, 1942. Reprints: 1946?, 1952. Collins White Circle #380, Canada, pb, 1949.

   The author, first of all, is NOT David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776), who was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian, and according to at least one source, one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and of the Scottish Enlightenment.

   Nor is it his real name, for which see below. One does idly wonder why Mr. Turner chose it as a working by-line, though. It also makes it difficult to come up with information about him on Google, most of the searches picking up the wrong man, obviously.

   On one website, I did come across the following, however:

   In a jacket note in 1934, David Hume was described as having spent nine years in newspaper work, during which he was a frequent visitor to Scotland Yard. Apparantly, “in order to keep in touch with the criminal world,” Hume used to leave his home two or three times a year to live in the underworld. No doubt, this caused Howard Spring to say of Hume that “he shares Edgar Wallace’s practical knowledge of the techniques of crime.” Collins were happy to promote Hume as the “new Edgar Wallace.” His main series character was Mick Cardby.

   From Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, which of course I turned to next, if not first, comes the following list of titles by Mr. Hume. These are the British editions only:

HUME, DAVID; pseudonym of J(ohn) V(ictor) Turner, (1900-1945); other pseudonym Nicholas Brady.
   * Bullets Bite Deep (n.) Putnam 1932 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Crime Unlimited (n.) Collins 1933 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Murders Form Fours (n.) Putnam 1933 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Below the Belt (n.) Collins 1934 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * They Called Him Death (n.) Collins 1934 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Too Dangerous to Live (n.) Collins 1934 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Call in the Yard (co) Collins 1935 [Det. Insp. Sanderson; England]
       • Call in the Yard • na The Thriller Mar 2 1935
       • The Murder Trap • na The Thriller Apr 13 1935
       • The Secret of the Strong Room • na The Thriller Dec 1 1934
   * Dangerous Mr. Dell (n.) Collins 1935 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * The Gaol Gates Are Open (n.) Collins 1935 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Bring ’Em Back Dead! (n.) Collins 1936 [Mick Cardby; France]
   * The Crime Combine (co) Collins 1936 [Det. Insp. Sanderson; England]
      • The Crime Combine • na The Thriller May 2 1936
      • Midnight’s Last Bow • na [unknown]
      • The Murder Rap • na The Thriller Jul 25 1936
   * Meet the Dragon (n.) Collins 1936 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Cemetery First Stop! (n.) Collins 1937 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Halfway to Horror (n.) Collins 1937 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Corpses Never Argue (n.) Collins 1938 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Good-Bye to Life (n.) Collins 1938 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Death Before Honour (n.) Collins 1939 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Heads You Live (n.) Collins 1939 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Make Way for the Mourners (n.) Collins 1939 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Eternity, Here I Come! (n.) Collins 1940 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Five Aces (n.) Collins 1940 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Invitation to the Grave (n.) Collins 1940 [England]
   * You’ll Catch Your Death (n.) Collins 1940 [Tony Carter; England]
   * The Return of Mick Cardby (n.) Collins 1941 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Stand Up and Fight (n.) Collins 1941 [England]
   * Destiny Is My Name (n.) Collins 1942 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Never Say Live! (n.) Collins 1942 [Tony Carter; England]
   * Requiem for Rogues (n.) Collins 1942 [Tony Carter; England]
   * Dishonour Among Thieves (n.) Collins 1943 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Get Out the Cuffs (n.) Collins 1943 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Mick Cardby Works Overtime (n.) Collins 1944 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Toast to a Corpse (n.) Collins 1944 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Come Back for the Body (n.) Collins 1945 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * They Never Came Back (n.) Collins 1945 [Mick Cardby; England]
   * Heading for a Wreath (n.) Collins 1946 [Mick Cardby; England]

TURNER, J(ohn) V(ictor)
   * Death Must Have Laughed (n.) London: Putnam 1932 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Who Spoke Last? (n.) London: Putnam 1932 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Amos Petrie’s Puzzle (n.) Bles 1933 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Murder-Nine and Out (n.) Bles 1934 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Death Joins the Party (n.) Bles 1935 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Homicide Haven (n.) Collins 1935 [Amos Petrie; England]
   * Below the Clock (n.) Collins 1936 [Amos Petrie; London]

BRADY, NICHOLAS
   * The House of Strange Guests (n.) Bles 1932 [Rev. Ebenezer Buckle; London]
   * The Fair Murder (n.) Bles 1933 [Rev. Ebenezer Buckle; England]
   * Week-End Murder (n.) Bles 1933 [England]
   * Ebenezer Investigates (n.) Bles 1934 [Rev. Ebenezer Buckle; England]
   * Coupons for Death (n.) Hale 1944 [England]

   I don’t know about you but these are all new names to me, both that of the author (and his pen names) and his characters. Back to Google, it seems. Here’s a snippet of a review from The Bookman, 1933, of the US Holt edition of Nicolas Brady’s The House of Strange Guests:

   “Murder in an English country house, the headquarters of a blackmailing gang. Expert detective work by the erratic Reverend Ebenezer Buckle who, tired of saving souls, tries his(?) …”

   Another snippet of a review, this one from The Librarian and Book World, date?, of Brady’s The Fair Murder:

   “This is another detective story [in] which the Rev. Ebenezer Buckle unravels [a] mystery. But what a mystery! What [a] story! It is as gruesome and horrible … ”

   Seeing a few shorter works of fiction collected under David Hume’s byline, I checked out the online Fictionmags Index, with the following results. [* = included in CFIV list above, either as a novel serialized earlier in magazine form, or as a story collected later in book form]

HUME, DAVID; pseudonym of J. V. Turner, (1900-1945)
   * The Secret of the Strong Room (na) The Thriller Dec 1 1934 [Det. Insp. Sanderson]
   * Call in the Yard (na) The Thriller Mar 2 1935 [Det. Insp. Sanderson]
   * The Murder Trap (na) The Thriller Apr 13 1935 [Det. Insp. Sanderson]
   A Basin of Trouble (ss) The Thriller Jun 29 1935
   The Crook’s Day Off (ss) The Thriller Aug 31 1935
   He Was Pinched for Nothing (ss) The Thriller Oct 19 1935
   * Meet the Dragon (sl) Detective Weekly Jan 4, Jan 11, Jan 18, Jan 25, Feb 1, Feb 8, Feb 15, Feb 22, Feb 29, Mar 7 1936 [Mick Cardby]
   Anything to Say (ss) The Thriller Feb 15 1936
   The Wrong Bottle (ss) The Thriller Mar 7 1936
   Times Were Bad (ss) The Thriller Mar 28 1936
   * The Crime Combine (na) The Thriller May 2 1936 [Det. Insp. Sanderson]
   * The Murder Rap (na) The Thriller Jul 25 1936 [Det. Insp. Sanderson]
   Who is Midnight? (na) The Thriller Sep 5 1936

   More googling, this time on Hume’s detective Mick Cardy. At this point I still knew nothing about him. On a website devoted to Inspector Maigret I discovered the following piece of art:

  1.   2.      3.      4.     5.   6.     7.       8.

   Maigret is the second gentleman on the left. Although they don’t have the original art, this cartoon came from the Storm-P museum in Copenhagen, and the curator, Jens Bing, identifies it as first appearing on the cover of the Danish pulp crime magazine Stjernehæftet in 1946. Bing sent a a copy to the Danish branch of the Sherlock Holmes Society, and here are the results they came up with for the others in the scene:

1. Dostoevski’s Porfiry, from Crime and Punishment
2. Maigret
3. G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown
4. Sherlock Holmes
5. Agatha Christie’s Poirot
6. David Hume’s Inspector Cardby
7. Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin
8. H.C. Bailey’s Reggie Fortune (?)

   I don’t think I would gotten many of those, assuming that these are the right answers. How would you have done? But no matter, it would seem that Mick Cardby was actually Inspector Cardby, but this is not so, as we shall see in a minute. I didn’t include them in the CFIV listings, but two of Hume’s books were indicated as being the sources of films based upon them. So off I went to www.imdb.com, where I found the following useful information:

   Plot summary for The Patient Vanishes (1941) aka They Called Him Death [The latter being the title of a 1934 book by Hume.]

   James Mason as a private detective [Mark Cardby], whose father is a Scotland Yard man [Gordon Maclead as Inspector Cardby], takes a case involving extortion and kidnapping. A young girl is kidnapped from a nursing home and he advises the girl’s father not to pay the ransom. After several near-misses on his life, he learns that the doctor in charge of the nursing home has been taken prisoner by the kidnappers. And then the wicket gets stiff or stuffy, or whatever wickets do.

   Aha. Mick Cardby is a PI, not a gent from the Yard at all. We’ve learned something. (And you who knew already can stop the knowing looks at each other.) One more movie from the IMDB:

   Too Dangerous to Live (1939) aka Crime Unlimited. [The latter being the David Hume title from 1933.] With Edward Lexy as Inspector Cardby, but no Mick Cardy listed in the credits, and no synopsis of the story.

   But from the All Movie Guide comes the following Plot Description:

   It took two directors to bring this modest British thriller to the screen. The story concerns a gang of international jewel thieves, headed by a “mystery man” who is never seen and who communicates with his minions through a microphone. Rival criminal Jacques LeClerq (Sebastian Shaw) gains the gang’s confidence, joining them on their biggest caper. Only when it’s too late to back out does LeClerq reveal that he’s actually a member of the French police. Without revealing the identity of the criminal mastermind, it’s worth noting that one of the actors plays a dual role, a fact spelled out in the opening credits.

   And from BFI, apparently there is a PI involved, after all:

   A private detective wins the confidence of a gang he is after, but has to rob a woman whose niece he finds attractive. The leader turns out to be an old friend and he fights his way from a burning garage.

   I am sure that if you were to find a copy to watch, all of this confusion may be very easily straightened out. But a question remains: Who was the more important of the two characters, Inspector Cardby or his son Mick? Should both of them be included in CFIV as significant Series Characters?

   And as you can easily see, Hume under his many aliases was extremely prolific. I’m sure you thought the same thing when you read through that list of mysteries up above. Could anyone who wrote so many detective novels so quickly be any good at it? Hold that thought. We’ll get back to it in a minute.

   Hume also died young, at only 45. Could war injuries have had anything to do with his death? Having no answers, only these questions and more, unless you can enlighten me, I’ll move on to the major business at hand, which is a review of Requiem for Rogues.

    In which the leading character in is neither Cardy, father or son, but rather Tony Carter, a wisecracking crime reporter who appeared in three of Hume’s adventures, of which this is the third. He’s rather full of himself as well, as one might put it. Here’s a piece of a conversation that takes place on page 22 between Carter and his immediate superior at the Echo:

   Cartwright pressed his fingers together, stared at the ceiling. Carter also looked up. He wondered if his reprimand was written on the plaster. He sighed slightly as he waited for the attack to commence.

   “To commence,” announced Cartwright, your methods are so unconventional that one day you will land this paper into most serious trouble. So far the luck has been with you. That cannot last for much longer. Then you’ll be in jail, and the Echo will be faced with a heavy libel action. In the future follow a more conservative line of conduct, be more orthodox. See?”

   “Surely. You don’t want any more exclusive stories. The paper really wants the official news handed out in the Press room at the Yard – and nothing else. If that is so you’re wasting your money, and my time. Get a fourteen-year-old office boy, pay him ten shillings a week, let make the Yard call three or four times a day. And he’ll be a howling success.”

   Cartwright wriggled. This interview was not what he had anticipated – not by a long, long way.

   Suffice it say that Carter convinces Cartwright to give him a free hand in this case of the drive-by killing of one Percival East, dead by means of a bullet between the eyes on page eight, and right before the eyes of a later berated Detective Spriggs.

   By page 69, the police are confused enough – and well they should be – to give Carter a free hand as well, as the case is seemingly awash with far too many clues and then again, far too few. But the more Carter digs into the case, the more deeply Percival East is discovered to have roots in the world of crime: the rackets, blackmail, the works.

   Incidentally, totally relevant to nothing, I don’t know why everyone in this book refers to members of the police force as “splits.” It’s a new one on me, but the rest of the slang I managed to decipher with no particular difficulty. Conversations, though, which should have taken a page at the most to start and end invariably took four or five, which means that Hume was either a master of dialogue or he needed these long dialogues to fill the novel to a proper length. As for myself, I will not say padding, as I found these conversations to be rather imaginative, at the least.

   There is no detection in this mystery novel, per se. Carter runs around London a lot, meets with his crew of regular informers a lot, and in so doing irritates the killer a lot, and enough so to make him (or her) make moves and counterattacks he (or she) really shouldn’t have done. If Carter had only been left alone, one might think, the case would never have been solved. One might very easily be right.

   This probably also answers the question I asked up above but didn’t answer until now.

— January 2007

 

Sun 4 Mar 2007

Reviews: Three Murder Mystery Movies.

Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews
[3] Comments 

HAVING WONDERFUL CRIME. RKO, 1945. Patrick O’Brien, George Murphy, Carole Landis, George Zucco. Co-screenwriter: Stewart Sterling; directed by A. Edward Sutherland.

   Based on the novel of the same name by Craig Rice, which I haven’t read, but all the sources which I have read say that the movie is nothing at all like the book. Murphy and Landis play the newly wed Jake and Helene Justus, while O’Brien is their long-suffering buddy in crime-solving, lawyer Michael J. Malone. (It was John J. Malone in the books. That much I do know.)

   The story has something to do with a magician who disappears in the middle of his stage act, then reappears in a trunk brought to a lakeside resort by his female assistant – or does he? In spite of the trio’s suspicions, he’s not in the trunk, but not to worry – he eventually turns up dead and there really is a case to be solved.

   I couldn’t tell you one way or another if the plot (the motive and where the body is when) makes any sense, and truthfully I don’t think that anyone involved in this madcap sort of affair, near slapstick at times, really cared.

   Pat O’Brien doesn’t nearly match the image of Malone I have in my head – for some reason, I see him as a shorter, more somber sort of fellow – but George Murphy is right on as Jake Justus, and Carole Landis is even more perfect as Helene. Her beautiful, smiling face, her lithesome figure and (as Helene) her slightly scatterbrained approach to life and solving murder mysteries, makes me wonder why her career in the movies never went any further than it did. (Due to illness, among other factors, she committed suicide only three years after this movie was released.)

   Even though from a murder mystery point of view there is much to be desired from this particular film, the performances of the three main characters make this a must-see, especially to watch Miss Landis in such high form, high spirits and in high fashion.

01-15-07

THE GREAT FLAMARION. Republic, 1945. Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Stephen Barclay. Directed by Anthony Mann.

   A curiously flat film noir with oft-time director Erich von Stroheim as Flamarian, a vaudevillian headliner who falls for the wiles of femme fatale Mary Beth Hughes, an assistant in his pistol markmanship act. Her husband, Dan Duryea, is the other assistant in the act, a man driven to jealousy and as a consequence, given heavily to drink.

   Flamarion is a stolid, impassive, lonely man, once thrown over in love by a double-crossing woman, who’s vowed to never allow it to happen again. Contemptuous, however, of the weakness he sees in Al Wallace and tempted by the flirtatious Connie Wallace, he at length lets his guard down, to his own disaster – and as it happens, to the others in this ill-fated triangle.

The long scene during which Flamarion waits for Connie in a hotel bridal suite in buoyant anticipation, only to realize the inevitable, is as painful to watch as anything I’ve seen in a film in some time. Duryea is perfectly cast in his role, slickly conniving yet weak-kneed and a somewhat pitiful excuse for a man – a fact that the viewer is quickly made aware of. It’s a part made just for him.

   I don’t believe I’ve seen Mary Beth Hughes in a movie before, although she was around throughout the 1940s in B-movies like this, though often in uncredited performances. Her body language in the role was as crucial as her spoken dialogue, and she made the best of both.

   But the reason I called the film flat? The main story is presented in the form of a long, uncomplicated flashback. When you know the fate of two of the characters from the beginning, and you can soon guess that of the third, it’s just about impossible for any movie or any director or any cast to generate a feeling of suspense, and The Great Flamarion is no exception.

   On the other hand, if it had been filmed linearly, which would have been the only alternative, there simply aren’t enough twists and turns in the plot for the otherwise lightweight tale to have gone anywhere at all. Mann made the best of two choices, in my opinion, but in spite of some more better than average performances from the players, the movie didn’t ring any bells for me.

01-16-07

ROAR OF THE PRESS. Monogram, 1941. Wallace Ford, Jean Parker, Jed Prouty, Paul Fix. Directed by Phil Rosen.

   What this Grade B murder mystery movie is more than it is a murder mystery is a comedy about crime beat newspapermen and their wives who never see them. Wallace Ford is the reporter (Wally Williams) who spots a body falling from the top of a Manhattan skyscraper on the day and his bride of one day come to the city to spend a few days honeymooning. Jean Parker, of Detective Kitty O’Day fame (in certain circles), is his bride Alice, who hails from a small town in New England and who quickly joins the club – that of the long-suffering wives of the other reporters on her husband’s newspaper.

   Dead is the head of a pacifist league, in case it matters, and it doesn’t much, which turns out to be a front for fifth columnists and saboteurs. When Wally finds yet another body before the cops do, the cops get sore, and rightfully so, as all of the clues are in the pockets of Wally. Jed Prouty plays Wally’s editor, who cleverly keeps him on the case, even with the lure of a dinner of corned beef and cabbage waiting for him at home. One would think that the slim and decidedly pretty Mrs. Williams would be lure enough, but not so.

   Paul Fix is the head of a numbers racket with a heart of gold, and thereby saves the bacon of both Mr. and Mrs. Williams when the gang of bad guys start to get overly worried about what Wally knows, which truthfully is very little, even with the clues he obtained before the police did.

   As for director Phil Rosen, who later directed a number of Charlie Chan films, he makes the best of also truthfully very little, and the result is surprisingly entertaining.

03-03-07

 

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