From today’s emails:

    Hi, I have a query….Hope you may be able to help me out… On which Edgar Wallace story / novel was the 1960 Vernon Sewell movie The Man in the Back Seat based? I would appreciate any responses. Thanks. Regards, Ashish Pandey.

Me again:

    No online resource seems to say. Or to clarify, Edgar Wallace is always given as the author, but the name of the specific short story or novel the 1961 film’s based on is never stated. It was part of a series of 46 films entitled The Edgar Wallace Mysteries produced by Merton Park Productions.

    From http://www.britmovie.co.uk/, here’s a list of the cast members along with the longest recap of the storyline that I’ve found anywhere, in case anyone recognizes it. The director was Vernon Sewell. And believe it or not, I’ve even found a photo from the film that I can show you, but — nothing more re Wallace.

   Derren Nesbitt – Tony
   Keith Faulkner – Frank
   Carol White – Jean
   Harry Locke – Joe Carter

Plot Synopsis

   Taut B-movie adapted from an Edgar Wallace mystery with an intriguing premise that’s ingeniously executed by director Vernon Sewell. Sewell outdoes himself with this well-plotted and haunting story of two incompetent crooks and an unwanted passenger which obviously has its roots in the Banquo’s ghost segment of Macbeth.

   Two youthful crooks, cold-hearted Tony (Darren Nesbitt) and his compliant best mate Frank (Keith Faulkner), try to rob bookie Joe Carter (Harry Locke) as he is leaving the dog track with his daily winnings. Unfortunately, the two discover that he’s chained the case to his wrist and consequently they are forced to take him along with them as they try to find a way to salvage the money. They drive through the London night looking for an opportunity to break the chain but wind up back at Frank’s house – much to the chagrin of his nagging wife Jean (Carol White). Having beaten the bookie unconscious, the pair douse him in alcohol and dump him near a hospital in the expectation of a passer-by discovering him, but the pair have to retrieve the lifeless bookie when they realise they’ve left fingerprints behind. They return to Jean’s with the body, where a neighbouring back-street doctor declares the bookie practically dead, Tony and Frank drive north to Birmingham to dispose of the body, but on the North Circular the pair encounter a eerie experience.

LOAN SHARK. Encore Productions/Lippert, 1952. George Raft, Dorothy Hart, Paul Stewart, John Hoyt, Helen Westcott, Margia Dean, Larry Dobkin. Director: Seymour Friedman.

   Loan shark racketeering must have been big business in 1952 to have warranted the production of an entire movie devoted to it and warning the American citizenry of its evil perniciousness.

   Filmed on location in part in a tire plant, the film occasionally has the feel of a documentary feature, and then in others (but not enough) as a film noir.

   Such as the opening scene, with a frightened, hunched up blue collar type of guy trying to make a getaway from the gang of hoodlums he’s in too deep with. With the rain coming down at night, the sidewalks glistening in the street lights, fear exuding from every inch of the man’s being – this is it, the real thing, you think.

   And once in while the promise of this prelude is kept, but not often enough to warrant a recommendation from me. Other reviewers have been more positive, but George Raft’s monotone approach to acting has never appealed to me, and at 57 he’s far too old to be romancing Dolores Hart, who was just over half his age at the time.

   Raft plays Joe Gargen, recently released from prison. When his sister’s husband is killed by the lone shark syndicate, Gargen is convinced to work undercover not only to obtain proof that they did, but to nab the guy at the top as well.

   Dolores Hart, whose first appearance on this movie is bound to make the jaws of the male half of the audience drop in awe. One barely remembers what a cleverly cantilevered bra can do for a woman’s figure, but in the 1950s, geniuses walked on this planet.

   Alas, this was the last movie she ever made. She appeared in a few television shows over the next two years, and that was it. The end of her show business career, a loss to movie viewers I’m still mourning today. (She went on to work for the Red Cross and the United Nations.)

   She’s Ann Nelson in this movie, the downstairs neighbor to Gargen’s sister, and one simply cannot fathom her interest in him. Vice versa, yes. Just out of prison, he forcibly takes a kiss the same evening he meets her. She angrily pushes him away, but are they still friends the next day? Yes,and no matter how long I think about it, I still don’t get it.

   But as for the bad guys, now we’re talking. Paul Stewart, John Hoyt and Larry Dobkin are perfectly cast, oozing evil from their very pores. They’re names you should remember if you watch many crime films like this from the 50s and 60s.

   Margia Dean didn’t have a movie career that anyone remembers, but as Ivy, a good-looking waitress in a joint across from the tire factory, she can take a pass with the best of them, with plenty of repartee to go with it. It wasn’t a big part, but she made the most of it.

WHY ME? 1990. Christopher Lambert, Kim Greist, Christopher Lloyd, J.T.Walsh, Michael J. Pollard, Lawrence Tierney. Based on the novel by Donald E. Westlake, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Director: Gene Quintano.

   Some changes were made. The locale was changed from New York City to Los Angeles (budgetary, I’m sure) . The name of famed hapless burglar John Dortmunder was changed, too. To Gus Cardinale. You figure that one out. (I don’t think the book had a question mark, either.)

   Other than that, some of the remaining story is still the same. Dortmunder/Cardinale robs a jewelry store and manages to get away with the fabulous Byzantine Fire, a ruby that has just been hijacked by Armenian nationalists while on its way back to Turkey.

   And on his trail (and his friend Bruno and Bruno’s daughter, who is also Gus’s girl friend) are the CIA, the Turkish government, the Armenians, and the entire L.A. underworld, tired of their endless hassle by the L.A.P.D.

   The book was better. By the movie’s end, it was very difficult to keep track of who was who, what they were doing and why they were doing it. Mostly it’s played for laughs, and mostly it comes off silly and not nearly as funny as the book.

   Also note the presence of Lawrence Tierney in the credits. If it weren’t for the closing cast notes, I never would have recognized him. He’s gained sane weight and lost some hair. He probably doesn’t make too many movies any more, but he looks like he’s still a pretty tough guy.

[UPDATE] 01-03-09. First of all, I was correct in saying that while the title of the movie has a question mark at the end, there is no such device in the title of the book. See the cover image to the right. I will also so inform Al Hubin.

   At this much later date, I can’t say that I remember much about the movie I reviewed over 17 years ago, but right now my opinion is that any movie with Christopher Lloyd in it as a star is going to be sillier than the actual script, however it reads.

   I’ve not found very much in the way of images taken from the film itself, only the two posters above, but there is a trailer for it that I’ve found online.

   Follow the link, and I think you might agree with me as to silly the movie might be.

THEY WERE SO YOUNG. US title of Mannequins für Rio. 1954-1955, Corona Filmproduktion [Germany]/ Lippert Productions [US]. Johanna Matz, Scott Brady, Ingrid Stenn, Raymond Burr, Gisela Fackeldey. Director: Kurt Neumann.

   One wonders, when one often does it situations such as this, why on earth Scott Brady and Raymond Burr found themselves in a German movie about (of all things) white slavery in Brazil. There is only one answer. The second and third do not count.

   The production code in the US would not even allow the movie to be shown over here, or so I’ve been told, until some scenes were added at the beginning and end to change the emphasis from prostitution to everyday ordinary racketeering. (The scenes are not included in its recent repackaging for DVD, thank goodness.)

   I’m referring to a box set called Forgotten Noir, Series 1, and I can tell you frankly that if one of the leading players weren’t in it, Raymond Burr, an absolute icon of film noir in his pre-Perry Mason days, this movie would still be forgotten, Scott Brady’s presence 100% notwithstanding. Brady made some good movies, but a heavyweight in the genre of film noir, he’s not.

   The idea is that young European women are enticed by ads in newspapers and magazines into becoming models for an agency that trains them, treats them well, then ships them off to Brazil while keeping their passports and other papers, then forcing them (in a high-class way) to becoming good friends with the male “buyers” who come to their staged and strictly phony fashion shows.

   One girl who rebels, Eve Ullmann (Johanna Matz), finds a friend and ally in American engineer Richard Lanning (Brady), whose boss Jaime Coltos (Burr) he does not realize is really behind the racket. Don’t worry. You’ll realize the same thing as soon as you see him (Raymond Burr, that is). Brady is a little slow on the uptake, but that’s OK. His intentions are good.

   So a noir film? No, not really, but if you wanted to stretch the point, I suppose you could make a decent case for it. All it really is is a low budget black-and-white crime thriller that’s moderately entertaining in its better moments, and having a plot twist or two in between. It falls to less than mediocre at other times, though, so it’s your dime, and you can call it.

PostScript. I see that I didn’t say much about Johanna Matz, who plays the innocent Eve Ullmann with a double-barreled combination of virtue and courage that the role required. I don’t think it was an easy task. (She’s the girl on the left in the photo just above.)

   In all honesty, the more I think about it, if she hadn’t been up to it, I don’t believe that the story would have been palatable at all. (According to IMDB she appeared in about 50 German movie and TV productions; this may be the only one she was in that was ever released in the US.)

MADE MEN. Decade Pictures, 1999. James Belushi, Michael Beach, Timothy Dalton, Steve Railsback, Carlton Wilborn, Vanessa Angel, Jamie Harris, David O’Donnell. Director: Louis Morneau.

   I found James Belushi’s performance in this fine shoot-em-up comedy crime caper to be a work of art, and I’m not kidding. Rated R for good reason (language and flying bullets), I enjoyed every minute of it. (Well, not every minute, but you have to allow me a small bit of exaggeration in the first paragraph of a review, don’t you?)

   Belushi plays Bill “The Mouth” Mannuci, a guy on the run from the mob, and he’s not the only reason the mob’s after him. He took a stash of 12 million dollars with him.

   I’m not sure where the small country town is that he’s holed up in, along with Debra, his ultra-shapely girl friend (Vanessa Angel), but it might be Iowa (lots of corn), Oklahoma (crooked small-town sheriff, played by Timothy Dalton), or Michigan (hidden meth labs way out in the sticks), but it probably doesn’t matter. I’m sure you have the idea already.

   It is the kind of country where blacks (including Michael Beach as Miles, one of the more intelligent mobsters after him) stick out like sore thumbs and have to mind their manners every step of the way.

   One wishes that Vanessa Angel might have had more screen time, but Timothy Dalton in his more immediate post-Bond days is a revelation of his own, playing against type, you might say, in more ways I might have thought possible.

   But James Belushi plays his part to perfection: a crook, a liar, a thief, and a guy possessed with a natural gift of gab, talking away incessantly, possessing the mouth of a pure-born salesman, selling his various stories to anyone who would believe him along the way. Including me. He sure had me leaning the wrong way more than once.

   In any case, a combination of better-than-average dialogue and production values with a minimum of actual bloodshed (in comparison with all of the shooting) makes this movie the top half of a drive-in double feature by far, not the bottom. If there were drive-in theaters any more.

   I miss them.

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. Paramount, 1973. Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats, Alex Rocco, Joe Santos. Based on the novel by George V. Higgins. Screenwriter/director: Peter Yates.

   My wife and I upgraded our cable boxes last month, two of them, and part of the package (at an additional ten dollars a month) were all of the Cinemax channels, while the HBO ones came free, if you don’t include the cost of the high-definition box we converted to downstairs.

   You don’t need to know all of this, but as far as I am concerned the extra $10 Cimemax surcharge was paid for in one swoop, when I taped this movie late one night last week. For some reason — no one seems to know why — The Friends of Eddie Coyle has never been released commercially, on either video or DVD, but right now it’s strong in the running as the best Robert Mitchum movie I’ve ever seen.

   And that’s saying some, as Robert Mitchum has always been one of my favorite movie actors, bar almost none. His sleepy-eyed facade belies some of the most complex and interesting characters ever portrayed on film. I don’t know if he and I would get along in person, but on the screen, he’s a giant, as far as I’m concerned.

   Until yesterday, I’d have said that Farewell My Lovely, which came a couple of years later and was the first time around that he played Philip Marlowe, was my favorite Mitchum role, but no more. (Of course, if I were see Farewell, My Lovely again right now, I might change my mind.)

   As usual, I’ve not read the book that The Friends of Eddie Coyle is based on, so I’m not reviewing that, only the movie. It takes place in and around Boston, where Eddie Coyle (that’s Mitchum) is doing the best he can to stay out of jail for a job he did, got caught for, didn’t rat out on the guy who hired him, but is thinking of making a deal with the Feds (à la Richard Jordan) on some of the other criminal activities going on that he knows about, including a gang of professional robbers hitting suburban banks.

   Obviously — isn’t it? — the title of the movie is a misnomer. Eddie Coyle has no friends. The life of a criminal is hard. You get old, and even if you don’t, you never know whom to trust, not even the guys you’ve always though were your best pals. Eddie Coyle is tough but wearing out.

   If you thought that noir movies were never made after 1960 or that noir movies could never be made in color, you’d be wrong on both counts. The bright brisk color of Boston and environs in the late autumn are in a not-so-subtle contrast with the quiet desperate of Eddie and his acquaintances as they try to scrap up a buck here and there, and the dingy bars, diners, bowling alleys and shopping malls where they transact most of their business.

   I’ve looked but I’ve not come up with scenes from the movie that are in color. Black and white will have to do. It’s appropriate enough, but if you see the film, you have to see it in color. The movie exists, but you’ll have to do some scrambling around to get it.

   And when you do, don’t be distracted and put off by the lack of straightforward storytelling. You’ll see for a while what seems to be two movies going on at the same time and in the same place, switching back and forth from one to the other, small snippets of Eddie’s life here, the gang of bank robbers pulling off their jobs there, and in between Stephen Keats as Jackie Brown, plying his trade as a young but experienced dealer in illegal guns (or so he thinks).

   I didn’t mention any women in the credits I listed up above. There are none. None that have more than three minutes on the screen. This is a man’s movie, and while women are in the film, they have no say in what happens. Not that the men in it have much say, either.

   Have I gotten you interested but not convinced? Here’s a link to a three-minute trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WtR-mi6VtU. That ought to do it …

   … but if not, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR-_m4CLzM8&feature=related.

   Perfect!

DRESSED TO KILL. Fox Film Corporation, 1928. Irving Cummings, director; Edmund Lowe, Mary Astor, Ben Bard, Robert Perry, Joe Brown, Tom Dugan, John Kelly, Robert Emmet O’Connor, Ed Brady, Charles Morton. Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   This silent movie bears no relationship to any of the three films released between 1941 and 1980 that have the same title. This Dressed to Kill is what we used to call “a cops & robbers movie.” The stars are Edmund Lowe and Mary Astor (whom we all remember for her role in The Maltese Falcon).

   Lowe’s character is the boss of a gang that specializes in big heists, and Astor plays an attractive young woman who becomes his girlfriend. On the night of a robbery, the gang dresses in formal clothes, pretending to be a group of wealthy gentlemen going out on the town.

   When they arrive at the site of the robbery, they change into their regular duds, and when making their getaway they again put on their formal clothes. I suppose this explains the meaning of the title.

   A mystery element enters the plot when Astor’s character becomes Lowe’s girlfriend (read mistress). We wonder why such a smart young lady would get involved with gangsters. Is she working for the police? Or is she just a pretty gal who’s seeking a fast, glamourous life?

   Dressed to Kill is well directed by Irving Cummings. Lowe and Astor give good performances. The photography has a noirish look, and the sets and costumes nicely represent the art deco era. Although not a masterpiece, certainly not in the same class as von Sternberg’s 1927 Underworld, the film is very entertaining and would certainly please silent movie buffs.

   I’ve been continuing with the alphabetized listings for the online Addenda for the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. I’m now in the C’s, as you may recall.

   Note that many of these new listings are of film versions of stories and novels already included in CFIV. If such is the case, bibliographic details for the books themselves are omitted.

CHARLES, ROBERT. Pseudonym of Robert Charles Smith, 1938- . Other pseudonym: Charles Leader. Author of numerous spy and adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. Add the titles below, and SC: Capt. Mark Falcon = MF, for the two books so indicated.
      Falcon SAS: Blood River. Linford pb, 1999. Setting: Borneo. MF
      Falcon SAS: Firestrike. Linford pb, 1999 MF

      Persons Reported. Linford pb, 2000

CHARLES, THERESA. Pseudonym of Irene Maude Mossop Swatridge, 1905-1988 & Charles John Swatridge, 1896-1964. Add birth and death dates. Under this name, the author of seven books published in the US as gothic romances. Other pseudonyms for Irene Swatridge: Leslie Lance & Jan Tempest. For a short discussion of this author’s books, see this earlier post on the Mystery*File blog.

CHARTERIS, LESLIE
      The Saint Goes West. Show second film as: Lux, 1960, as Le Saint mène la danse, aka The Dance of Death (scw: Albert Simonin, Jacques Nahum, Yvan Audouard; dir: Nahum). SC: Simon Templar (Félix Marten).
      Vendetta for the Saint. [ghostwritten by science fiction writer Harry Harrison] TV movie: ITC, 1969 (scw: Harry W. Junkin, John Kruse; dir: Jim O’Connolly). SC: Simon Templar (Roger Moore).

CHASE, JAMES HADLEY
      My Laugh Comes Last. Film: MGM, 1995, as The Set Up (scw: Michael Thoma; dir: Strathford Hamilton)

CHASTAIN, THOMAS
      Death Stalk. TV movie: Wolper, 1975 (scw: John W. Bloch, Stephen Kandel; dir: Robert Day)

CHESTER, PETER. Pseudonym of Dennis Phillips; other pseudonyms Simon Challis, Peter Chambers & Philip Daniels. As “Peter Chester,” the author of five mystery stories listed in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. A series character named Johnny Preston is in three of them, although not the one below. A British writer, Phillips was much prolific as “Peter Chambers.” Under this byline he wrote over 35 mystery and detective novels, many with American private eye Mark Preston. Whether Johnny Preston is also a PI is not known. Note that “Peter Chambers” is also the name of the PI who was one of US writer Henry Kane’s most frequent series characters.
      The Traitors. Herbert Jenkins, UK, hc, 1964. Add setting: England

CHESTERTON, G. K. TV movie, based on the Father Brown stories: Marble Arch, 1979, as Sanctuary of Fear (scw: Don M. Mankiewicz, Gordon Cotler; dir: John Llewellyn Moxey). SC: Father Brown (Barnard Hughes)

CHILD, LEE. Add: Pseudonym of James D. Grant, 1954- . Born in England; studied law; living in NYC; TV director turned writer. Author of four “Jack Reacher” novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV through the year 2000; the series continues through the present day. Twelve have appeared so far, with a 13th scheduled for 2009. Reacher is a former Army MP officer who attracts trouble wherever he goes.

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.

MAD DOG AND GLORY. Universal Pictures, 1993. Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Bill Murray, David Caruso, Mike Starr, Kathy Baker. Screenwriter: Richard Price; director: John McNaughton.

   I’d never heard of this movie until I accidentally stumbled across it on HBO one late night last week. Figured I’d watch 10 or 15 minutes, then on to Cinemax or TCM to see what else was on, but the funny thing is, I kept watching.

   It’s not a dump-in-the-time-slot sort of filler at all, but an mostly entertaining “where was I when this film came out” type of pleasant surprise.

   Most of the R-rated violence comes at the beginning, then things settle down to an edgy nervous-comedy sort of picture, with Robert De Niro playing Wayne ‘Mad Dog’ Dobie, a mild-mannered (if not timid) police photographer who is rewarded for saving the life of a tough guy in the crime business (Bill Murray). Frank Milo – that’s his name – is not a crime lord per se, but a stand-up comedian who is also one of those guys who has connections and a carful of even tougher thugs who obey his every command.

   The reward? Glory (Uma Thurman), who stops by Wayne’s apartment to treat his injured hand, and in some obvious discomfort informs him that she is supposed to stay for a week. Now this would ordinarily be delightful, but it’s also unseemly – being in debt, that is, to a guy with connections to the mob like this.

   The usual complications ensue. What makes this movie entertaining, when so many other movies made on smaller budgets would fail, is the level of acting on the part of all the players involved. The characters’ smallest facial expressions and their slightest gestures and body language add enormously to a plot that seems silly but is eventually made as real as tomorrow’s news. Uma Thurman is especially delightful; visibly nervous when she first knocks on Wayne’s door, she gradually gains confidence and begins to tell him the proverbial story of her life.

   Where the edginess comes in is Wayne’s unanswered question of how much he should believe her, and in fact what it is that she feels for him, as he (against his better judgment) begins to respond to her in turn. The ending, unfortunately, dissipates all of this edginess – too wacky perhaps and (also perhaps) not as true to the story as it should have been, no matter (once again perhaps) it may (or may not) be what we (the viewers) are (and have been) anticipating.