ED GORMAN “Our Kind of Guy.” First appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July 1996. Collected in Famous Blue Raincoat, Crippen & Landru, trade paperback, 1999, and in Out There in the Darkness: The Collected Ed Gorman – Volume One, PS Publishing, hardcover (limited edition), 2007.
The late Ed Gorman spent over twenty years in the advertising and public relations business before becoming a full-time writer, and I wonder if he ever put that background to better use than in this story.
Two partners in a multimillion-dollar advertising agency in a small Midwestern town have 64.3 percent of their business tied up with one client, the Hancher Chicken account, and a crisis is brewing. It turns out that Ted Hancher, the CEO of the company has gotten religion and is about to cancel the account. Apparently he no longer wants his company to be associated with the boozing and high life of Bill and Roy, co-owners of the agency. Drinking, smoking, cursing, women? All verboten.
What to do? They come up with a plan, one involving a local former call girl named Brandy, a motel, a camera, a little blackmail, and hey presto, no more worries. What could go wrong?
Well, of course something does, and what a tricky twist of the knickers it is that fate plays on the luckless perpetrators of this far from foolproof plan. But wait! Fate steps in again. A double twist. Most stories manage only one. This one has two.
Combine this with Gorman’s usual semi-sour look at the world he always wrote about anyway, and prose written so smoothly that you think anyone can do it, but you can’t. The result is a noirish gem of the highest magnitude. An absolute winner.
GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. Paramount Pictures, 1957. Burt Lancaster (Wyatt Earp), Kirk Douglas (Doc Holliday), Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland (Johnny Ringo), Lyle Bettger (Ike Clanton), Frank Faylen, Earl Holliman, Ted DeCorsia, Dennis Hopper, Whit Bissell, DeForest Kelley, Martin Milner. Screenplay: Leon Uris. Director: John Sturges.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating one iota when I say that there is an entire generation of Americans (mine) who grew up thinking they knew everything there was to know about the famed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Well, as everybody knows now, and should have known then, there’s a lot more fiction than fact in the story of that gun battle, and what led up to it.
I won’t go into that. I’m sure you can find plenty of sites on the Internet that go into that, in quite come detail,and it won’t take a lot of effort on your part to find one of them. Let’s suffice to say that for the most part the names are the same, although not always, and that Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming), Wyatt Earp’s romantic interest, seems to seems to have made up out of whole cloth. [CORRECTION: See Comment #3.]
What this is is a buddy film, with the often prickly relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday holding the various short episodes together. In one Wyatt saves Doc’s hide, in the next Doc is the only one to come to Wyatt’s assistance.
It is therefore the performances of Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, perfectly cast that makes this movie so memorable. Burt is tall and and as upright as if he were to preach a sermon, and Kirk so scruffy and so disreputable a scoundrel that the audience can’t help but love him.
Rhonda Fleming is but an afterthought, but a most beautiful one, but for some reason Jo Van Fleet, as Doc’s lady companion/common law wife whom he treats as if with a combination of dislike and contempt, but who has no choice but to come back each time for more. For some reason this made an impression on me when I first saw this movie in my mid-teens that it came back to me immediately when I saw it again last week.
Although they appear into the movie only as the story needs them, there’s quite a supporting cast of cowboy actors who ought to be mentioned, particularly (and most recognizable) Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, Dennis Hopper and DeForest Kelley
I see that I have not yet mentioned the gunfight. I found it both highly choreographed and confusing, and way down on the list of reasons why I think you should see this movie, if you haven’t already.
If from the name of the group you’d guess they were from Akron OH, you’d be absolutely right. Labelled today as proto-punk, they began there in 1976 but re-located to Los Angeles two years later. “Such a Fool” appears on a 1977 album split with the Bizarros entitled From Akron.
STEPHEN MARLOWE – Murder Is My Dish. PI Chester Drum #4. Gold Medal #658, paperback original; 1st printing, March 1957. Second printing: Gold Medal s1078, 1961. Cover art by Lu Kimmel.
I’m of mixed opinion on this one. The first third of this adventure of Washington-based PI Chester Drum takes place in the New York City area, with Drum of the trail of the miscreants who’ve knocked off an associate of his, and in parts it’s as tough as nails.
From there, though, the tale leads him to South America, into the middle of an incipient revolution in one of the many fictional countries down there, and let’s put it this way: my mind wandered. Later on in his career Drum gave up his PI status, I believe, and he went into the espionage business almost exclusively.
I think it may have been a mistake myself, based on this story, but this was the era of James Bond’s growing popularity, and certain adjustments had to be made.
— Reprinted from Nothing Accompliced #4, November 1993 (very slightly revised).
THE ANATOMIST. Made for British TV: A Towers of London Production, 06 February 1956. Televised as part of the series ITV Play of the Week. US release, 1961.Alastair Sim, George Cole, Adrienne Corri, Jill Bennett and Michael Ripper. Written by James Bridie (play) and Harry Alan Towers. Directed by Dennis Vance.
Perhaps the oddest film ever made about the Burke and Hare thing. Which is not to say it’s any good; this is, in fact, a rather dullish film about body-snatching, murder, riots and young love — but there’s no denying it’s a strange one.
You get the point? The writers and director keep everyone wandering around one crummy set throwing dialogue at each other for about 15 or 20 minutes that seem much longer. Finally though, we get out of the drawing room and into a sleazy pub, where Burke and Hare (Hare is played by Michael Ripper, who would soon become a regular in Hammer films) start cozening a lady of easy virtue and ill repute (Adrienne Corri) plying her with strong drink and sweet words. And more words… and more words… and more….
Suffice it to say that by the time they got her out of there, I was ready for any sort of action, though I would have preferred that mayhem be committed on the makers of this thing.
And so it goes. Cole recognizes Ms. Corri’s corpse in Sim’s lecture hall and they discuss the matter till it’s talked to death. The scene shifts (restlessly) back to Bennett’s drawing room where someone tells us about Burke’s trial and the ensuing riots, just in time for the remainder of the cast to debate the proprieties of the situation. And then…
Well, dull as it is, I’m not going to give away the ending of this thing except to say it was a merciful release and even a bit of a surprise, not that I cared much by that point. The Anatomist takes an unusual view of the whole body-snatching business (though to be strictly accurate, neither Burke nor Hare ever snatched any bodies) and it’s always a pleasure to see Alastair Sim strut his stuff.
But I would have preferred less strutting and more movement.
JOHN BRUNNER – The Altar of Asconel. Interstellar Empire series #4. Ace Double M-123, paperback original; 1st printing, July 1965. Published back to back with Android Avenger, by Ted White (reviewed here ). Cover art: Gray Morrow. Previously serialized in If, April-May 1965. Collected in Interstellar Empire (Daw #208, paperback, 1976).
Pure space opera, through and through — the kind of science fiction that might also be called swords and spaceships — but none the less enjoyable, as it should be in the hands of an author who would win a Hugo for his novel Stand on Zanzibar, published only three years later.
The basic premise of The Altar on Asconel is that mankind is in the midst of a galaxy-wide decay after a huge expansion based on what they have found left behind by a prior empire, now mysteriously collapsed. Billions of interstellar spacecraft, for example, are there for the taking.
But borrowing so extensively from another civilization is no way to build another one from the ashes, as mankind has now discovered. One world that has fallen to a cult-like ruler and a priesthood that follows him without question is Asconel. Can the three brothers of the former ruler fight to win back the planet on their own, with only the female companion of one and the fortuitous discovery of a young girl with as yet untapped telepathic powers?
The answer, of course, is yes. You only need to read this book to just begin to understand what such powers can do on the behalf of a ragtag group of rebels such as this. (It’s almost cheating.) As I said earlier, this is pure space opera, such as that championed in the pages of Planet Stories a decade earlier. In one sense, this is more of the same, but with more than the usual amount of thought behind it, it’s also a jump higher — a solid, definitive jump.
GAYLORD DOLD – Hot Summer, Cold Murder. Mitch Roberts #1. Avon, paperback original; 1st printing, April 1987.
I don’t know how many full-length adventures of PI Mitch Roberts there were, but this is one of four that I have been able to track down. It takes place in Wichita, circa 1956, and even though Kansas is in the Midwest, and it’s about a decade too late, this is Chandlerville USA, no doubt about it.
Roberts, hired to find a junkman’s son, a kid who’s been sniffing around one of the wealthiest girls in town, the stepdaughter of the head of the Vice Squad, soon finds himself in some pretty deep trouble, although he never quite admits it.
While Gaylord Dold is doing some fancy work with similes and metaphors, his leading character is busily trying to cut himself in on a heroin deal. I thought he was in over his head myself, so I let the story coast on downhill, more or less on its own. It picked up some momentum in the final few pages again, and just in time, when it was almost (but not quite) too late.
— Reprinted from Nothing Accompliced #4, November 1993 (very slightly revised).
Disheveled City (1990)
A Penny for the Old Guy (1991)
Rude Boys (1992)
The World Beat (1993)
Bay of Sorrows (1995)
Schedule Two (1996)
The Devil to Pay (1999)
Samedi’s Knapsack (2001)
COMMENT: The series switched from paperback to hardcover with A Penny for the Old Guy, and so did the locale of the stories. His later cases took Roberts away from Kansas to adventures all around the world.
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN CHINA. Beijing Film Studio, 1994. Original title: Fu er mo si yu zhong guo nu xia. Also released as Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Heroine. Wang Chi, Hanson, Alex Vanderpor, Zongquah Xu. Directed by Wang Chi and Yunzhou Liu.
Don’t expect me to decipher the version I saw of this since it was in Chinese with Chinese subtitles, but basically the title says it all, Sherlock Holmes (Alex Vanderpor) and Watson (Zongquah Xu) are in 19th Century China on a case that of course involves Kung Fu and quite a bit of broad comedy at Holmes’s expense as a fish out of water, though still Sherlockian.
Holmes’s attempt at disguise as a tall gray eyed Chinese replete with pigtail is a major disaster as he and Watson duck out of a brawl that turns into an opportunity of director/star Wang Chi to show his fighting skills, but the real highlight of the film is when Holmes takes on a Kung Fu master with his own brand of Violin Fu — who knew the Japanese art of baritsu involved defeating your enemy with nothing but a bow and violin?
There is some sort of a case involved and a master criminal of sorts with Kung Fu skills, but that’s about all I could make out.
Vanderpor, wearing a black suit and stove pipe hat, who looks more as if he is trying out for Abe Lincoln than Sherlock Holmes, manages not to be too embarrassing, but there is no way this film is anything but a curiosity of the first order for Holmesians everywhere.
Desperate Holmes fans can find this on YouTube, or view it below, if you must. If nothing else it proves Holmes is universal if not always translatable.
H. C. BRANSON – The Pricking Thumb. John Bent #2. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1942. Bestseller Mystery B76, digest-sized paperback, 1946.
During his Ann Arbor days, Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar) was a close friend of H.C. Branson and an admirer of his work. It is easy to see why. Branson wrote literate, meticulously plotted (but flawed) novels in which the emphasis is on deep-seated conflicts that have their roots in the dark past.
Branson’s detective, John Bent, like Macdonald’s Lew Archer, is less a human being than a vehicle around which to build a narrative, a catalyst to mesh all the elements so that each novel’s final statement becomes clear.
In The Pricking Thumb, Bent is hired by an acquaintance, Marina Holland, to investigate the disappearance of her stepson, Bob, and the odd behavior of her husband, Gouvion. But when Bent arrives in the small town of New Paget (in an unnamed state, probably Michigan; a sense of place is almost nonexistent), he finds Gouvion dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Also found dead this same night are Marina and Gouvion’s doctor, Brian Calvert, under circumstances that suggest the two might have been lovers. It appears to be a case of double homicide perpetrated by Gouvion, who then committed suicide. But there are too many inconsistencies, leading Bent to believe that it is instead a case of triple homicide. His search for the truth takes him along a tangled trail of relationships, old and new hatreds and jealousies, and not a little double-dealing.
There is a good deal of passion among the characters; unfortunately, there is very little in John Bent or in the writing. Bent is a virtual cipher, about whom we know only that he once practiced medicine. “Someone was feeding one of my patients arsenic,” he says to Marina Holland in the first chapter. “The only way I could cure him was to find out who it was and make them stop, which was a little more difficult than it sounds. At any rate, I ended up with a new profession.” The writing, while well crafted, is so detached and emotionless that the reader tends to lose interest.
Had Branson possessed more of Ross Macdonald’s talent, had he been able to make Bent more human and sympathetic, had he injected some passion and vividness into his work, he might have become an important figure in the mystery field. As it is, he is chiefly notable not for his work but for his relationship with Kenneth Millar.
Among his other novels, all featuring John Bent, are I’ll Eat You Last (1941), Case of the Giant Killer (1944), and The Leaden Bubble (1949).
I’ll Eat You Last (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1941.
The Pricking Thumb (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1942.
Case of the Giant Killer (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1944.
The Fearful Passage (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1945.
Last Year’s Blood (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1947.
The Leaden Bubble (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1949.
Beggar’s Choice (n.) Simon & Schuster, 1953.
THE PARTNERS. NBC/Universal Studios, in association with don/lee Productions, 1971-72. Cast: Don Adams as Detective Lennie Crooke, Rupert Crosse as Detective George Robinson, John Doucette as Captain Andrews, and Dick van Patten as Sergeant Higgenbottom. Executive Producer: Arne Sultan – Producers: Earl Barret and Lee Wolfberg. Created by Don Adams.
There are many reasons for a TV series to fail, and many series are doomed from the very start. Sometimes it can be as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don Adams’ THE PARTNERS was one of those. You could say it missed it by that much.
Don Adams began as a successful standup comedian, a job he hated. One of his first major acting roles on TV was hotel detective Bryon Glick on THE BILL DANA SHOW. Would you believe that Adams and Bill Dana developed a character that began in Adams standup act and would become TV icon Maxwell Smart? The voice began as part of a comedy bit written by Bill Dana. Adams would mock the famous film scene in THE THIN MAN where the suspects were gathered together so William Powell’s Nick Charles could name the killer.
From there Adams and Dana evolved the character into Bryon Glick as seen on THE BILL DANA SHOW. A spin-off from MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, THE BILL DANA SHOW aired on NBC (1963-65) and starred Dana as a hotel busboy and co-starred Jonathan Harris and Gary Crosby.
“Master of Disguise.” April 9, 1964. Written by Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. Directed by Coby Ruskin. Executive Producer:Sheldon Leonard in association with Danny Thomas. Guest Cast: Hilary Wontner. *** Hotels are being robbed so Glick the hotel detective takes on various disguises to catch the thief.
Adams was not the original choice for Maxwell Smart, Tom Poston was. After ABC rejected the original pilot. NBC was looking for something for Adams who was under contract to the network. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry then adapted Maxwell Smart for Don Adams and his style of comedy.
GET SMART was a hit for NBC and made Don Adams a star. So when Adams came up with an idea for a TV series, NBC was eager to listen. According to TV.com, in an (unidentified) 2004 interview Adams described his original premise as a cop show with partners similar to the hit film LETHAL WEAPON (1987). Adams would play the white cop not comfortable working with a black partner. THE PARTNERS would deal with the social issues of the day including racism.
THE PARTNERS would debut in the fall of 1971. ALL IN THE FAMILY had debuted in January 1971, and the style of TV comedy was changing. NBC and Universal Studios agreed to make the series but with a major change – the social commentary Adams wanted was gone and replaced with old style TV comedy featuring two bumbling not too bright cops – one white and one black – solving crimes by accident and driving their boss crazy.
NBC’s decision is understandable. It was Adams’ voice that made his comedy work, but it is a voice that would mock any attempt at dark comedy or drama. Imagine Don Adams playing Archie Bunker and you can understand why the network and studio wanted Adams to stay close to the character audience loved.
But Adams wanted to do a serious role (something he never got the chance to do). So while he agreed to a comedy in the style of BILL DANA SHOW and GET SMART he played Detective Sergeant Lennie Crooke straight and without his popular comedic voice. The series needed that voice.
“Waterloo At Napoleon.†October 9 1971. Written by Burt Styler. Directed by Gary Nelson. Guest Cast: Stacy Harris, Pepper Martin, Bob Hastings and Robert Karvelas. *** Lennie and George’s attempt to trap a money launderer goes wrong and messes up the FBI’s plan to catch a kidnapper.
The comedy had its moments but was too fanciful and silly for where TV comedy was going in the 70s. The future of TV comedy was the edginess of Norman Lear’s ALL IN THE FAMILY (and its spinoffs) to the realistic comedies of M*A*S*H and the MTM sitcoms (MARY TYLER MOORE, BOB NEWHART, etc).
The cast of THE PARTNERS included Rupert Crosse as Lennie’s partner George. The original choice for George was Godfrey Cambridge. The reason for dropping Cambridge according to Adams and the network was a “lack of chemistry between Adams and Cambridge.†But my guess it had more to do with the change in the premise from socially conscious comedy to old school safe comedy. While the pairing of Adams and Cambridge as cops dealing with issues such as racism may not have succeeded, it would have had a better chance than the watered-down version that made it to air.
Rupert Crosse was a good comedic actor but both he and Adams played their characters too low-key. Speaking of chemistry, Crosse and Adams never really connected unlike the chemistry Adams had with Bill Dana and GET SMART’s Barbara Feldon.
“How Many Carats in a Grapefruit?†October 16, 1971. Teleplay by Arne Sultan and Earl Barret. Story by Ferdinand Leon. Directed by Gary Nelson. Guest Cast: David Huddleston and Juanita Moore. *** Lennie and George arrive at the airport to pick up George’s Mother and unintentionally ruin another cop’s attempt to catch some jewel thieves.
The production look was cheap and studio bound, something common in 60s comedies, but was quickly being replaced by the three camera comedies of ALL IN THE FAMILY and (to premiere in 1975) BARNEY MILLER and the realistic sets worthy of a drama for M*A*S*H and the MTM comedies.
THE PARTNERS opening sequence was distinct from the common TV series opening. Each episode would open with a different theme and pictures, then the action would begin. The opening titles would appear slowly through the action, at times not ending until well into the first act. The great Lalo Schifrin (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE) did each theme and the closing theme but the idea proved pointless and not worth the effort.
“Two Or False.†August 1971. Written by Bruce Howard. Directed by Earl Bellamy. Guest Cast: Yvonne Craig. *** A beautiful woman steals jewelry in front of employees of two different jewelry stores. Lennie and George catch her each time but can’t find the jewels.
This might have been funnier if they hadn’t given away the twist immediately. After we knew how Lennie and George were being tricked, there was little left but old predictable gags like the hallway chase scene.
There is a wonderful website called Classic Showbiz. It has a collection of incredible interviews with some of the people who worked during the 50s/60s era of nightclubs and TV comedies. Kliph Nesteroff has a talent for getting great stories from people such as Bernie Kopell, Dick Cavatt, Bill Persky, Sherwood Schwartz, Jack Carter, Bill Dana and more.
Several of the interviews mention Don Adams. Dick Gautier would only talk about Adams off the record while Buck Henry raved about Adams. Adams was a likable man to many while others hated to work with him.
For this review I will just highlight some of the dark side of Adams. For those who seek more information I recommend the two following posts by Nesteroff.
Adams was a successful standup comic who was a notorious joke thief, yet one of his most famous victims, Bob Newhart, became his friend and attended Don Adams memorial. In Newhart’s autobiography (I SHOULDN’T EVEN BE DOING THIS, Hachette, 2006), he wrote about how Adams’ widow asked him to tell the story about Adams stealing part of Newhart’s classic submarine commander bit.
Adams hated being a standup comedian. He considered getting laughs for a living humiliating. An unhappy man Adams main love was gambling, and because of his gambling he often had to fly to Las Vegas on a moments notice to do his standup act to pay off his gambling debts.
NBC would regret not doing Adams original premise. Ironically CBS shifted ALL IN THE FAMILY to a new time slot in the Fall 1971-72 season opposite THE PARTNERS. Socially relevant comedy ALL IN THE FAMILY was the number one show on TV for the 1971-72 season and for the five seasons after. ABC’s light-hearted comedy/music GETTING TOGETHER did not fare any better than THE PARTNERS.
THE PARTNERS aired a total of twenty episodes. The series premiered September 18, 1971 on Saturday at 8:00-8:30 and remained in that time slot until January 8,1972 when the cancelled series left the air. The series returned July 28 1972 and aired the rest of the unaired episodes through September 8, 1972 on Friday at 8pm as a summer fill-in for SANFORD AND SON. There was a TV movie CONFESSIONS OF A TOP CRIME BUSTER (UNIVERSAL, 1971), complied from THE PARTNERS episodes but I have been unable to find its original airdate or what episodes were used.
