TERROR IS A MAN. Valiant Films, 1959. Re-released as Blood Creature. Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Richard Derr, Oscar Keesee, Lilia Duran. Screenplay: Harry Paul Harber, based on the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells (uncredited). Co-directors: Gerardo de Leon (as Gerry de Leon) & Eddie Romero.

   The long shadow of H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau hangs over the incredibly bleak Filipino-American film Terror is a Man (aka Blood Creature). Produced in stark black and white, the movie feels more like a late 1930s or early 1940s horror film than one made at the tail end of the 1950s. This is a film that, with modifications, could have just as easily been made by John Brahm at the height of his creative output.

   Co-produced by Eddie Romero, the esteemed Filipino director whose vast corpus of work includes of a series of English-language exploitation and horror films in the 1970s, Terror is a Man features Francis Lederer in a leading role. He portrays Dr. Charles Girard, a mad scientist clearly inspired by Wells’ eponymous Dr. Moreau. He’s a man guided by both a zealous quest for knowledge and a desire to create a new kind of man, one unburdened by the effects of natural evolution. Indeed, his quest is not, in itself, malicious. Rather, it is a noble quest, but one that deliberately goes against the laws of nature.

   The plot of the movie is rather straightforward. William Fitzgerald (Richard Derr) is an American sailor who washes up on a South Pacific island. His ship went down and he’s the only survivor. It’s up to Dr. Charles Girard and his beautiful blonde wife (Greta Thyssen) to make a home for the stranded Fitzgerald.

    It doesn’t take long for our intrepid sailor to discover that there’s a panther on the loose on the island. He soon discovers that Dr. Girard’s experiments have something to do with the panther’s lethal behavior and – oh yes – that the panther may actually be a man!

   All of the tension that’s built up during the exceedingly talky first hour of the film ultimately comes to a series of catastrophic and violent clashes between the panther-man and the main characters. If the movie could be faulted for anything, it’s that it takes a little too long for any real action to occur. But when it does, it’s handled skillfully and with a genuine sense of impending doom.

   All told, Terror is a Man is a better horror movie than you might expect. True, the movie feels a little slow going at times and it wears its message of not tinkering with the laws of nature on its sleeve. But it’s much better than a lot of the American horror movies released at the time, particularly those derivative productions that blended horror with science fiction and atom age anxieties.

   What makes Terror is a Man a true horror film, as opposed to a work of science fiction, is that the real beast in the movie isn’t the panther-man, but his creator. Recommended for those viewers who don’t mind an occasionally stagey production and especially for admirers of Francis Lederer as a leading actor.

ELLIOT WEST – The Killing Kind. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1976. No US paperback edition.

   It starts fast, beginning just as private detective Jim Blaney takes out two hoodlums seen shooting a pair of undercover cops, and from that moment on, events flow in a swirling multitude of directions: a missing wife and some stolen diamonds, a raid on the home of a Las Vegas casino owner, a daughter strung out on an overdose of heroin, a $150,000 reward out the window when a client is murdered — or is it?

   That’s not all. Blaney has woman trouble as well, being happily divorced and 30 years older than his secretary, who wouldn’t at all mind his moving in with her. He may have found the case he can retire on, and if straddling the limits of the law will do it, well, maybe it’s worth the chance.

   Two murders need a solution, however, and if there’s a weakness in the tale West tells, it’s that it takes some questionable behavior on Blaney’s part before his deductions can be made to work — an objection outweighed in my mind by the many fine pages of character development and suspenseful action, with action the key ingredient of the mixture. (If you’ve come to think that I’m biased in favor of tough private eye yarns, I’d have to say you’re right.)

Rating:   A

Note:   Of the five novels by Elliot West included in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, this is the only one in which PI Jim Blaney appears.

MATT BONDURANT – The Third Translation. Hyperion, hardcover, 2005; trade paperback, April 2006.

YXTA MAYA MURRAY– The Queen Jade. Rayo / HarperCollins, hardcover, 2005. Harper, trade paperback, June 2008.

   Although neither of these novels appeared to be a conventional mystery, each of them had some element that caught my eye.

   Bondurant’s first novel traces the frantic adventures of Dr. Walter Rothschild, an American Egyptologist, who’s working on a translation of an Egyptian funerary stone at the British Museum. A night on the town with some questionable associates leads him to the unwise decision to slip into the museum after hours with an attractive young woman who expresses an interest in his work. After some steamy sex, she flees, taking with her a papyrus whose recovery leads Walter into some strange byways of London and environs that leave him both emotionally and physically damaged.

   Murray’s The Queen Jade, identified as a novel of adventure, features a young bookstore owner, the daughter of archaeologists, who treks into the hurricane-damaged jungles of Guatemala in search of her mother who disappeared looking for the legendary Queen Jade, a stone that could offer great power to its possessor.

   Bondurant is the more academic of the two writers, and his choice of a flawed protagonist who runs from one threatening situation to another, is stronger in its flashbacks, which evoke Walter’s childhood in Egypt with his engineer father, than in its somewhat muddled framing story. I read this with increasing distraction but did manage to finish it.

   Murray, the author of three previous novels, has created an attractive heroine (Lola Sanchez), with just enough of an ersatz archaeological underpinning to ground her suspenseful and, at times, exciting story. A book dealer heroine and a quest for an archaeological treasure are the perfect complements for a well-written adventure novel, and they quickly replaced the disappointment I felt with The Third Translation with a great deal of serendipitous pleasure.

Bibliographic Note:   A followup to the Yxta Maya Murray book is The King’s Gold (2008), in which Lola Sanchez must deal with “a stolen fortune in Montezuma’s gold — and of the thief’s transformation from conquistatore to alchemist … to werewolf.”

PATRICIA CORNWELL – All That Remains. Kay Scarpetta #3. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1992. Avon, paperback, 1993.

   Cornwell is one of the lucky ones who have caught the public’s attention, and is selling a ton of books. Doesn’t hurt, I imagine, that she’s into serial killers. At least it’s clear from the start that that’s what this one is about, which wasn’t the case in one of her earlier books.

   Over the past two years four young couples have disappeared within a fifty-mile radius of Williamsburg, Virginia, not being found until months after they were reported missing. All were found deep in the woods, decomposed, and without shoes and socks. The latest couple to disappear included the daughter of the national drug czar, and immense pressure comes to bear on the Richmond police, federal agents, and our hapless Kay Scarpetta.

   Kay, Virginia’s Chief Medical Examiner, has been unable to determine causes of death. It becomes apparent that the FBI has been withholding evidence from the various jurisdiction, and this, coupled with a reporter’s probing of the case, leads Kay into unexpected and dangerous paths.

   Cornwell knows how to write a page-turner. As an ex-reporter and computer analyst in a medical examiner’s office, she brings an expertise to her stories that enhances them considerably. I found Scarpetta herself to be more appealing than in the first two books, though I still couldn’t really warm to `her. Given that a serial killer is insane by definition, fair-play detection doesn’t enter into the picture; even so, the ending seemed to come a little out of left field to me.

   All told, I liked and recommend the book. I don’t think I liked it as much as many others seem to, though.

Bibliographic Update: There are now 24 books in the Kay Scarpetta series, the most recent being Chaos (2016).

  JOHN SPAIN – Death Is Like That. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1943. Detective Novel Classic #35, digest-sized paperback, no date stated [1944]. Popular Library #178, paperback, 1949.

   “Spain” was a pseudonym of Cleve F. Adams, a popular L.A. hard-boiled writer of the forties who is largely forgotten today. This book is one of his very best.

   Hero Bill Rye is a trouble shooter for millionaire Ed Callahan. Callahan once saved Rye’s life (we’re never told just how) and there is a far deeper bond running between the two than mere employer/employee.

   Callahan owns the Governor of California. However, it’s election time and the campaign is a bitter, under-handed one. The candidate opposing Callahan’s man is owned by a ruthless newspaper magnate who would like nothing better than to dig up a juicy scandal on either Callahan or the Governor to smear across the front pages of his dailies and shoo his own man into office.

   Since Callahan’s family is comprised of a promiscuous alcoholic wife, a short-tempered, hell-raising son, and an ex-showgirl daughter-in-law who still yearns on occasion for the fast life, Rye, needless to say, more than has his hands full.

   If the Rye/Callahan relationship and the casual acceptance of all-pervasive political corruption reminds one of Hammett’s The Glass Key at times, Adams was nonetheless a supremely gifted, original talent and Death Is Like That is a tough guy masterpiece of intricate plotting, non-stop pace, colorful characterization, incisive wit and a writing style evocative of Chandler at his best:

   A hard one to find, but well worth the effort to any fan of the hard-boiled genre.

Bibliographic Notes:   There was one earlier Bill Rye novel, Dig Me a Grave (Dutton, 1942). Adams (1895-1949) also wrote one other book under the Spain name, a standalone novel titled The Evil Star (Dutton, 1944).

Here’s the first track on this singer-songwriter’s only album, Gordon’s Buster, released in 1968 by Columbia.

TONIGHT WE RAID CALAIS. 20th Century Fox, 1943. Annabella, John Sutton, Lee J. Cobb, Beulah Bondi, Blanche Yurka, Howard Da Silva. Director: John Brahm.

   Although Tonight We Raid Calais is most certainly a war film, it is emphatically not a combat film. Rather, it belongs to that particular subset of movies, filmed and released as the war was raging in Europe, in which ordinary people are forced to make a choice between accommodating themselves to the Nazi occupation or fighting back against the Third Reich despite great personal risk to their families. It’s a morale booster, to be sure, but one benefits from John Brahm’s direction and Lucien Ballard’s cinematography.

   Much like the superb Edge of Darkness (1943) starring Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan, which I reviewed here, Tonight We Raid Calais tells that story of a small-town community that summons the will to take on the Nazis. Instead of a Norwegian fishing village, this film unfolds in northern France, not too far from the eponymous port city that sits across the English Channel.

   Geoffrey Carter (John Sutton), a French-speaking British commando lands in Nazi-occupied France with a mission. He is to seek out the precise location of a German munitions factory and to find a means of relaying that information to the RAF. After attacking and killing German soldiers, Carter hides out in a French farmhouse. The family, lead by patriarch M. Bonnard (Lee J. Cobb) is a house divided: Bonnard is a staunch French patriot opposed to the Nazis; his wife (Beulah Bondi) is grief-stricken by the loss of her son, Pierre; and his daughter, Odette (Annabella) who distrusts the British and is ready to somewhat accommodate herself with the German presence in her country.

   The plot, which runs at a steady clip, follows Carter as he both tries to ensure that Odette doesn’t betray his plans and works to enlist the local townsfolk into a plan to burn their crops at night so as to give the RAF a clear view of the factory. Getting in his way is the occasionally bumbling, but clearly devious Sgt. Block (a truly miscast Howard Da Silva who simply is not believable as a Nazi) who has more than a fleeting romantic interest in Odette.

   What really makes Tonight We Raid Calais a standout film, however, is not the rather standard “commando behind enemy lines” storyline, but rather a subplot that takes place (Spoiler Alert) toward the end of the film. After the local German commander executes M. Bonnard and his wife for their resistance activities, Odette takes it upon herself to avenge her parents’ deaths.

   Indeed, due to the aforementioned actions of the character portrayed by Annabella, Tonight We Raid Calais also belongs to the “female revenge thriller” subgenre that can exist comfortably within film noir, action films, or martial arts films. In this case, the female revenge narrative occurs within the context of a war film, making Annabella’s character much more memorable than the British commando she is aiding.

   Overall, this is one of the better World War II films released during the course of the war. It’s at times overly sentimental, but with an edge to it. There are some genuinely tense moments, much of it due to Brahm getting the most of his actors, including Lee J. Cobb who, although he was in his early 30s at the time of filming, was very convincing in his role a late middle-aged French farmer willing to sacrifice his life for a cause greater than himself.

RICHARD SAPIR & WARREN MURPHY – The Destroyer #31: The Head Man. Pinnacle 40-153, paperback original, 1977.

   Threatened in this, the latest adventure of Remo Williams and his North Korean mentor Chino Chiun, is the assassination of a newly elected president who has a magnificent smile and comes from the South:

   This particular president is a gutsy individual, who refuses to spend his tenure in office as a prisoner inside the White House, but of course that only makes the job harder. Sapir and Murphy have come up with a neat theory of bow presidents since Kennedy have avoided being assassinated, and their coarse comments on how affairs in Washington are conducted continue to cut across the grain of teeth-gritting liberals, but there’s no denying that the first half of this book is much talkier than usual.

   Long-time fans of this series will be crying for the action to start, and anyone else should find an earlier entry and one more substantial to try their taste buds on.

Rating:   C plus.

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse. William Morrow, hardcover, 1945. Pocket #812, paperback, 1951. Reprinted many times.

   Dining innocently in a restaurant, Perry Mason is approached by a man who wants to discuss the legal problems of bis goldfish and also, incidentally, their medical condition. The fish are a specially bred Veiltail Moor Telescope, sometimes known as the Fish of Death because they arc black, not gold.

   Though not interested in the fish’s problem, Mason’s curiosity is piqued by this prospective client and his golddigger date. As might be expected, one of them does become a client after the other becomes a corpse.

   The goldfish run, not that such a thing is possible, throughout the novel, both alive and ill and dead. They are also a clue in a standard, which is not high but also never low, Perry Mason novel.

AGATHA CHRISTIE – Funerals Are Fatal. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1953. First published in the UK as After the Funeral by Collins, hardcover, 1953. First paperback printing in the US: Pocket #1003, 1954. Reprinted many times. Film: MGM, 1963, as Murder at the Gallop.

   Hercule Poirot’s self-proclaimed procedure in investigating a case is to study the people involved, listen to them (sometimes surreptitiously), and above all engage them in conversation. Talk to a murderer long enough, he believes, and he (or she) will say something, perhaps very innocuously, that will give himself (or herself) away.

   And so it is in Funerals Are Fatal. It takes the full first chapter, a family tree and a Cast of Characters to identify all of the players firmly in the reader’s mind, but because each of the surviving members of the newly deceased Richard Abernathy’s family are such distinct individuals, as delineated so (seemingly) easily by Agatha Christie, it is not difficult to keep the various players straight from that point on.

   Not that Poirot doesn’t rely on physical evidence as well, for he does, even going so far as to hire a private detective himself, a task absolutely necessary to check out alibis and so on — not Poirot’s forte at all.

   The story. After Richard Abernathy’s funeral, his youngest sister Cora, a bit of an innocent, asks the question that perhaps the entire family (all in need of ready funds, it almost goes without saying) is also wondering: “But he was murdered, wasn’t he?”

   When Cora is found murdered the next day, the family solicitor takes it upon himself to employ Poirot to make some discreet inquiries, and so he does, in a case in which everyone has a motive and (quite surprisingly) opportunity.

   It is my firm opinion that anyone who claims that they can outwit Agatha Christie when it comes to solving the puzzles she put together when she was at the top of her game, as she is here, is — shall we say — exaggerating? Or very very lucky at guessing. (Maybe that is just sour grapes talking.)