THE DIPLOMATIC CORPSE. Rank, UK, 1958. Robin Bailey, Susan Shaw, Liam Redmond, Harry Fowler, André Mikhelson. Director: Montgomery Tully.

   Robin Bailey, known best to me for playing Charters in the British TV series Charters & Caldicott, is a newspaper reporter in this one, along with Susan Shaw, who works the paper’s woman’s news desk. To tell you the truth, though, she seems to have more a nose for news than he does. Shaw is a pretty blonde who ought to have had a greater movie career than she seems to have had (even looking at her IMDb list of credits, they all seem to be minor – I don’t recognize any of them).

   Dead is an attaché for a foreign embassy in London. While the viewer knows who the villains are as soon as they appear on the screen, it takes our stalwart detective pair a little longer, even with the reluctant assistance of a Scotland Yard detective, whose hands are tied because, as everyone knows, embassies are not legally on British soil.

   Which as it so happens, without really giving anything away, I hope, is the key to the case, as a purely legal matter, although I do think the bad guys give up way too easily.

   The Diplomatic Corpse is a minor film from any perspective, but its mere 60 minutes running time makes it seem that it’s moving faster than it really is. It’s stagy and severely handicapped by a lack of more than the three or four sets than are actively used, all indoor. Even when Susan Shaw’s character is caught impersonating the switchboard operator in the embassy and locked in an upstairs bedroom, it doesn’t move the needle on the suspense meter more than one small notch, if that.

   And yet, and yet, after all this carping, as minor as this movie is, I enjoyed watching it. Whatever the story and production may be lacking, the actors were pros at the job and they seemed to having a good time. That counts for a lot.

KATHERINE HALL PAGE – The Body in the Vestibule. Faith Fairchild #4. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1992. Avon, paperback, 1993.

   Faith Fairchild, her husband Tom and their three-year-old son are in Lyon, France, while Tom researches his dissertation on the Albigensian heresy. A friend of his has secured them lodging across from the St. Nizier’s Church, where a clochard (homeless man) begs. Two weeks into their stay, Faith discovers the clochard’s body in a dustbin at the foot of the stairs (they live five flights up), but when she gets her husband and returns with the Police, the body is gone.

   The next day, the clochard has apparently returned to his spot, but Faith realizes he is not the same man. Then a young prostitute whom Faith has befriended “commits suicide.” After being warned not to meddle in the clochard’s disappearance, naturally Faith does meddle and ends up getting abducted herself.

   Early on, mention is made of a burglary ring , and one expects this will tie in with the killings. Some surprises at the end and a few likeable characters make this a tolerable effort.

   For the titles, see below. Cast: James “Shamrock” Ellison, Russell “Lucky” Hayden, Raymond Hatton, “Fuzzy” Knight, Julie (later Julia) Adams, Tom Tyler, George J Lewis, John Cason, Stanley Price, Dennis Moore, George Chesebro, Bud Osborne, and Stanford Jolley. Written by Ron Ormond and Maurice Tombragel . Directed by Thomas Carr.

1. HOSTILE COUNTRY. 1950.

2. MARSHAL OF HELDORADO. 1950.

3. CROOKED RIVER. 1950.

4. COLORADO RANGER. 1950.

5. FAST ON THE DRAW. 1950.

6. WEST OF THE BRAZOS. 1950.

   Six movies with the same set of credits. There’s a story here.

   About the time William Boyd achieved TV stardom with his old Hopalong Cassidy movies, producer Robert Lippert hit upon the notion of making a little cash with the erstwhile sidekicks of Hoppy’s salad days, James Ellison and Russell Hayden. (For background on Lippert, see my review of MAN BAIT.)

   Lippert announced his new series with all due fan-fare: Press releases about multi-year contracts and big-budget Western epics… then proceeded to make all six films in a month(!) using the same actors in the same costumes on the same sets and locations, playing the same roles, or analogous ones, in all six entries.

   Actually, the first three aren’t bad, as B-westerns go. The action is plentiful, the actors show a certain chemistry playing off each other, and there’s a sly, subtle humor flirting about the edges of the scripts. HELDORADO offers James Ellison a chance to masquerade as an Eastern Dude, just as William Boyd did from time to time in the Hoppy series, and the result is pleasingly humorous.

   With COLORADO RANGER, a sort of carelessness began to creep in, betrayed at first by a bit of mis-matched footage from a Bob Steele Western in COLORADO RANGER. FAST ON THE DRAW opens with about ten minutes of “Prologue” made up of unrelated stock footage (a favorite ploy of writer Ormond’s) that meanders into a tired story of Shamrock Ellison seeking out the criminal mastermind behind the murder of his parents — the guilty one turns out to be not only the least likely suspect but also the least convincing. WEST OF THE BRAZOS, which opens with the same footage as FAST ON THE DRAW, brought the series slouching to a close.

   Which is kind of a shame, actually. There was an abundance of talent here, some beloved faces, and an indefinable sense of sheer Fun in the early entries. Just a shame Lippert – who never wasted a penny foolishly, or ever spent one wisely—couldn’t see what he had and do better by it.

PETER O’DONNELL – I, Lucifer. Modesty Blaise #3. Souvenir Press, UK, hardcover, 1967. Doubleday, US, hardcover, 1967. Fawcett Crest T1234, US, paperback, 1969. Mysterious Press, US, paperback, 1984.

   Enter Lucifer, the strange young man whose belief that he is Satan incarnate is matched only by his ability to predict the death of those soon to die of natural causes.

   In the hands of the sinister Seff, killer Jack Wish, and nervous Dr. Bowker, Lucifer is the key to a murderous extortion racket with Seff extracting ransom from the wealthy whose death Lucifer predicts — helped along when needed by Wish, Seff’s executioner.

   But Lucifer has a wild talent and Seff needs more control in order to insure their continued profit.

   A young man named Stephen Collier, who just happens to be a close friend of Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin, whose unexpected presence will put them both in deadly danger at Lucifer’s rocky island fortress in the North Sea Hau Lobrigo.

   Exotic Modesty Blaise and her Cockney partner Willie Garvin first appeared in a hit comic strip written by veteran comic strip writer Peter O’Donnell and artist James Holdway. With the popularity of the James Bond craze, O’Donnell decided to branch out to books as well, with Modesty soon appearing in the a bestselling hit bearing her name, which also produced a film with Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp as Modesty and Willie (the less said about that, the better). Sabre Tooth, the second Modesty Blaise novel followed, and in 1967, I, Lucifer.

   Of the twelve novels and two collections of short stories that followed (not including the collections of the long running comic strip), I, Lucifer is my favorite.

   Collier is involved with Modesty, whom he finds as mysterious as her history (one time head of the criminal organization the Network turned very wealthy and well connected sometime helper to Sir Gerald Tarrant and the British government). Nor does he quite understand the non-sexual but close relationship with Willie Garvin, a former kick boxer she rescued and made into her second in command and most trusted friend. Willie purchased a pub with his profits and lives near Modesty.

   Readers of the long running series know the Platonic but close friendship of the two is the most intriguing mystery the series offers, and O’Donnell keeps that puzzle and that relationship at the heart of the series front and center, even as others move in and out of their lives. It’s a question O’Donnell cleverly doesn’t answer even in Cobra Trap when he writes the final story in the series.

   Somehow Modesty never did successfully transfer to the screen despite a television pilot with Ann Turkel, and a Quentin Tarantino produced movie My Name Is Modesty, made to keep the rights to a bigger production that never came.

   But the books are more than enough compensation, along with the internationally syndicated comic strip.

   Modesty and Willie are put onto Seff and Jack Wish by their friend Sir Gerald, but their plan to infiltrate Hau Lobrigo is thrown a loop when Modesty gets in only for Willie, observing from binoculars, to find Stephen Collier there as well ready to blow Modesty’s cover.

   As complications arise it becomes clear to Modesty she not only has to get Collier free, but also the innocent Lucifer, victim of his own delusion and Seff’s deadly plans despite Collier’s objections of how dangerous her plan is.

   Through battle, near death, serious injury, and scrapes so close there are tooth marks in them Modesty and Willie will triumph and the bad guys will meet the kind of fate they deserve in the most satisfying of ways. It is indeed, their “kind of business.”

   And as always Modesty remains Modesty, she and Willie enigmatic as her American millionaire friend John Dall (Sabre Tooth) explains to Collier.

   Which pretty much sums up my long relationship with Modesty.

   I’m never so busy I won’t answer her call.

SLEEPERS WEST. Twentieth Century Fox, 1941. Mike Shayne #2. Lloyd Nolan (Michael Shayne), Lynn Bari, Mary Beth Hughes, Louis Jean Heydt. Based on the novel Sleepers East by Frederick Nebel and the character created by Brett Halliday. Director: Eugene Forde.

   To answer your first question first, yes, they changed the title of the film from that of the book, but there’s an easy explanation. In the book the train all of the characters are on are going to New York City from someplace in the Midwest, Ohio perhaps, and in this second filming of the book, they’re going from Denver to San Francisco.

   And, yes, they changed that, too. Instead of PI Mike Shayne home base being either Miami or New Orleans, as the books he was in would have it, they made it San Francisco. And, truthfully, I see no resemblance between Brett Halliday’s character and the one Lloyd Nolan plays in this movie. (I am somewhat reluctant to point this out, since he does such a good job playing a PI trying to escort a young blonde witness across country without anyone knowing about it that I am willing to forgive and forget and just go along for the ride.)

   And if you enjoy detective mysteries taking place in the movies on trains, then this is the movie you have you see, if you haven’t already. Well over two-thirds of the movie takes place on a train, and until a crazed engineer trying to make his last run come in on time causes a huge accident, I think the whole movie could have taken place on it.

   Jamming up the works for Shayne is Lynn Bari’s character, a former friend of Shayne who’s now a reporter for a Denver newspaper. Playing the young blonde witness-to-be is Mary Beth Hughes, who really couldn’t care less about being a star witness in an upcoming trial.

   There are more complications in this movie than there are in most other detective movies of the same era, including the friendship the young blonde witness surreptitiously makes with a man who is also looking to escape from a life he longer wants to live.

   The only flaw in this film, to my way of thinking is how quickly it wraps up and ends. I could have watched another 15 to 20 minutes of this one, easily.

JEFF VanderMEER “Fixing Hanover.” Short story. First published in Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology, edited by Nick Gevers (Solaris, paperback, 2008). Collected in The Third Bear (Tachyon, softcover, 2010). Reprinted several times, including: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books, softcover, 2009); Year’s Best SF 14, edited by Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell (Eos, softcover, 2009); The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2009 Edition, edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books, softcover, 2010); The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace (Running Press, softcover, 2012).

   Whew. Look at those credits. I knew this story was good as soon as I read it, but it’s a nice feeling to know that other people have thought it a good one, too. As far as what “steampunk” is, as a particular sub-genre of both science fiction and fantasy, here’s a description taken from Wikipedia, cut down to as short as I can make it. “Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery […] Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American “Wild West”, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. [Stories may include] presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine.”

   I’ve generally found steampunk novels tough going – they seem to focus more on the “technology” than on the people in them – but in shorter form, that’s a lot less so, and Jeff VanderMeer’s story is especially good in both regards. The hero of the tale is a man who has made a home for himself fixing things in a small enclave of survivors of the latest cataclysmic end of civilization, presumably this planet.

   His latest challenge is a strange metal contraption shaped vaguely like a man, filled with wires, bulbs, gears and lots of other unknown parts. Can he put it back together and make it work again? Blake, the former lover of Lady Salt, who is now the close companion of the fixer, insists he do so. But should he? There is a nascent Empire rising again in the distance, but more importantly, perhaps, the romantic tensions in this all-too-human triangle are as important as the right or wrongness of his decision.

   As I said up above, this is a good one.

FLAXY MARTIN. Warner Brothers, 1949. Virginia Mayo, Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone, Tom D’Andrea, Helen Westcott, Douglas Kennedy, Elisha Cook Jr., Douglas Fowley. Monte Blue. Director: Richard L. Bare.

   Speaking of Douglass Fowley, he plays a snide cop with an exaggerated opinion of his own brains in Flaxy Martin, one of those great Warner’s B’s like they just don’t do no more. Zachary Scott is an underworld lawyer who wants to quit working for gangster Tom D’Andrea, but can’t tear himself loose from chanteuse Virginia Mayo, who — unbeknownst to Scott — has a business/pleasure relationship with D’Andrea herself, and is being well-rewarded for keeping him on the string.

   Tom D’Andrea [later best known for playing Chester A. Riley’s close buddy on TV] does a fine job as a virile, half-sharp gangster, kind of in the nasty-Ronald-Reagan mode, and stands up quite nicely against noir archetypes Scott and Elisha Cook Jr., who is a bit scarier than usual here as a sawed-off wanna-be who keeps calling Scott “Shamus” – shouldn’t it be Mouthpiece?

   Director Richard Bare is best remembered for his work on 77 Sunset Strip, but he does a workmanlike job here, making the most of bits like Scott being stalked through the streets by Cook Jr., a roof-top fist-fight, and a really memorable scene of our hero leaping from a speeding train and plummeting down a ravine.

   Anyway, the story offers no surprises whatever, and the characters seem motivated by nothing so much as a need to move the plot along, but there’s enough old-fashioned Style here, backed up by a syrupy echt-40s Musical score, to make it lotsa fun.

   Among things I didn’t know until now is that in 2015 (according to Wikipedia) Grammy winner John Mayer joined three former members of the Grateful Dead and two other musicians to form the band Dead & Company. It is the latest of several reunions of the band’s surviving members since Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

   This song was recorded live at Boston’s TD Garden on 19 November 2017:

BLOOD & TREASURE. “The Curse of Cleopatra: Parts I & II.” CBS, 2 hours, 21 May 21 2019 (Season 1, Episode 1). Matt Barr as Danny McNamara, a former FBI agent who now works as a lawyer specializing in repatriating stolen art; Sofia Pernas as Lexi Vaziri, a thief and con woman partnered with Danny despite their tortured past; Oded Fehr as Karim Farouk, an Egyptian terrorist leader; Katia Winter as Gwen Karlsson, an Interpol agent assigned to the Farouk case; Michael James Shaw as Aiden Shaw (né Dwayne Coleman), an arms dealer with ties to Farouk; John Larroquette as Jay Reece, a billionaire and father figure to Danny who oversees his effort to stop Farouk’s plans to reunite the sarcophagi of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony to aid his cause. Directors: Part I: Michael Dinner; Part II: Alrick Riley.

   Thanks once again to Wikipedia for allowing me to summarize what’s going on in what’s really the first two episodes in last year’s first season of this new adventure series on CBS, or at least the players therein. But I imagine there’s enough meat there in the summary that I needn’t say more about the story.

   It seems to have done well enough in the ratings that it warranted renewal for a second time around, but on the basis of what I saw, it’s rather unlikely that be riding along with them. The production values are high, which as it should be, given that filming was done on location: in Montreal, Canada, Rome, Turin, Venice, Italy, Marrakesh, and Tangier, Morocco. The story is mediocre, however, being nothing more than watered down Indiana Jones, and while Sofia Pernas is extraordinarily adequate as eye candy, Matt Marr, her co-star in this venture, other than the inevitable stubble, has no screen presence whatsoever.

   I also think the idea of carrying one limp as dishwater story over twelve episodes was a bad idea, but I understand both the logistic and financial reasons for doing so. But carving a pie that’s luke warm at best into twelve slices, all you have is a semi-solid artificially flavored mess, no matter how you cut it.

MICHAEL COLLINS – Freak. Dan Fortune #11. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1983. Worldwide Library, paperback, 1990.

   One-armed Dan Fortune is hired by Ian Campbell, president of a computer firm, to find his recently-married youngest son and daughter-in-law. The couple have sold the house he gave them, cashed in some bonds and vanished. The only clue left behind is one word, “Freak”, written several times on a pad by the telephone. On starting his search, Fortune discovers he has competition in the hunt from someone leaving a trail of bodies.

   A pretty good effort, with interesting characters and a surprising (at least to me) twist at the end. Sometimes I suspect, though, that Collins forgets his hero has only one arm. The conclusion takes place in the wilds of Arizona, and Fortune has rented a rifle, which he doesn’t get a chance to use. While I’m sure that with proper time to set up his sights, a one-armed man could make a perfectly acceptable marksman, but I couldn’t help wondering if a rifle would have been Fortune’s weapon of choice for a running shoot-out.