J. J. des ORMEAUX “The Poisoned Bowl.†Novelette. First published in Clues Detective Stories, April 1939. Reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries, edited by Mike Ashley (Running Press, softcover, 2006), as by Forrest Rosaire.
I used the term “Locked Room Mystery†up there in the heading, but that’s only in the loosest of terms. “Impossible Mystery†is far better: in “The Poisoned Bowl†a man falls dead of an instantly fatal poison with several people standing around him and no one giving him anything to eat or drink, including himself. How could it be done?
It’s an interesting question, and J. J. des Ormeaux, a modestly prolific pulp writer whose real name was Forrest Rosaire, does his best to confuse the issue by a lot of hand-waving and other such means of distraction. Lots of coincidences, in other words, not to mention keeping relevant information from the reader. The final result is a veritable hodge-podge of a story, but … it all does make sense in the end, sort of.
A question is, could a better writer (or editor) have taken this story, cleaned it up and made something more presentable out of it? Answer: There’s a germ of a good story at the base of it, so I’d like to think so, but in all honesty, without the hand-waving and the holding back of vital information from the reader, it would be awfully tough. Fun to read, especially if you love pulps, but all in all, no cigars for this one.
MIDNIGHT LACE. Universal Pictures, 1960. Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall, Herbert Marshall, Natasha Parry, Hermione Baddeley, John Williams, Anthony Dawson. Director: David Miller
Kit Preston (Doris Day) is an American heiress, living with her financier husband Tony (Rex Harrison) in affluent Grosvenor Square. Three months into their marriage, all seems well, but during a night-time walk alone through the foggy London streets, Kit hears a high, ghostly voice which, as well as knowing her name, threatens to kill her. Kit escapes, though her story is received light-heartedly by Tony, who believes a merciless practical joker is behind the incident. Next day, an accident at a construction site nearly kills Kit, and she is saved by good-looking contractor Brian Younger (John Gavin), who also, somehow, knows her name. Things get even more sinister when Kit receives a mysterious telephone call and is terrorised anew by the voice – now vowing to kill her by the end of the month.
At the behest of Kit’s friend and neighbour Peggy (Natasha Parry), Tony takes Kit to Scotland Yard. Inspector Byrnes (John Williams) suspects Kit may be lying in order to receive attention from her busy husband. Kit continues to be terrorised by phone calls and remains on edge whenever she ventures outside. On one such occasion, she again encounters Brian, who reveals he used to suffer blackouts during the war. Kit is later menaced by a scarred man at home (Anthony Dawson), but nobody believes her.
Even Tony thinks she is delusional, particularly when a doctor suggests Kit may be suffering from a split personality and arranging the calls herself. Tony is already distracted by work – an embezzler is stealing funds from his company – but decides to take Kit on holiday to Venice after she breaks down in despair. The caller, though, rings again and promises to kill her that evening. Tony and Kit plan a trap, one that quickly gets out of hand…
Think Doris Day, and most people will think of romantic-comedies like Pillow Talk and That Touch of Mink, the musicals Calamity Jane and Young at Heart, and ‘Que Sera Sera’. But, of course, that song came from Hitch’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, which sometimes seems to be forgotten when considering Day’s catalogue. Perhaps because it was emphatically a Hitchcock film, with no less a titan than James Stewart in the main role, but it at least proved she could perform persuasively in another genre. She did it again, sandwiched between two Rock Hudson pairings, in 1960’s Midnight Lace. Coincidentally, or not, this psychological thriller pulls plenty from the Hitchcock playbook. In fact, it was hard for me to think of it as anything else. Aside from Day, it features three other actors who had been cast by Hitchcock in other films – Anthony Dawson and John Williams from Dial M for Murder, and almost-Bond John Gavin from Psycho.
All of whom are reliably good whatever they are in, and though Dawson has far less to do here, he remains an ominous presence throughout, skulking enigmatically in doorways and giving Day – and us – the shivers. John Williams, happily, is playing more or less the same role as he did six years earlier, remaining every bit the quintessential Scotland Yard detective. Midnight Lace has other similarities too, being set in London and revolving around a wealthy blonde woman, married to a dark-haired Englishman named Tony, while her life is in danger. Grace Kelly, of course, had no warnings, while here Day is given almost nothing else. Relentlessly menaced, and disbelieved by everyone she knows, Kit begins to lose her sanity – something which the audience may already be questioning too.
The films charts this descent, but in broad strokes, making the whole thing seem more like the grim, foreboding Suspicion rather than a psychoanalytical study like Spellbound. Obviously, it also evokes Gaslight, though this is a little less sinister as Kit never truly believes she is mad. The film would today be described as domestic noir.
Though I like this name, it does rather ignore the fact that the genre stretches back at least to the eighteenth century gothic fictions which Jane Austen partially parodied with Northanger Abbey, then onwards into the romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt and V. C. Andrews. The heroines in such things, however, were more independent than Kit is here. She doesn’t investigate the situation, merely suffers it, while a man comes to her aid at the end. There’s a short scene at the opera where she is politely assertive to a creepy, though thankfully furless, Roddy McDowall, and it would have been nice to see her demonstrate such steel elsewhere. Were it remade today, its star would almost certainly demand more fight from the character, though perhaps that would remove the elements of danger and helplessness which otherwise defines this gripping, atmospheric thriller. Highly recommended.
THE TRAP. Paramount Pictures, 1959. Richard Widmark, Lee J. Cobb, Tina Louise, Earl Holliman , Carl Benton Reid, Lorne Greene, Peter Baldwin. Director: Norman Panama.
After about ten minutes, I was about to give up on The Trap. That would have been a big mistake. What first appears to be a middling family drama slowly gives way to a gritty and violent desert noir. There is something just so stagy about the opening sequences that makes me wonder whether other people have dismissed this rather obscure crime film out of hand. Because it certainly doesn’t seem to have wide appeal, let alone be referred to very often by noir or crime film enthusiasts.
While it’s by no means a masterpiece and has more than its fair share of limitations, The Trap is an overall taut and enjoyable little thriller. Richard Widmark, always enjoyable in my book, portrays Ralph Anderson, a shyster lawyer tasked by the mob to arrange for an airstrip in his small California hometown to be operational.
Why is this such a big deal, you might ask yourself. Well, it’s because fugitive mob boss Victor Massonetti (Lee J. Cobb) needs an airfield to flee the country. So, Ralph shows up in his small desert hometown for the the first time in ten years and pleads with his father, the town sheriff, to keep the airfield open. His brother Tippy (Earl Holliman), who is now married to his high school sweetheart Linda (Tina Louise), would rather just collect the reward. There’s a longstanding feud between the two brothers which plays out over the course of the film. It’s an important part of the plot, but nothing you haven’t seen repeated time and again in westerns.
Overall, The Trap is successful in its storytelling. The movie moves at a fairly rapid clip and whenever it does seem to be slowing down or going in circles, it picks itself up and charges in a new and often surprising direction. Widmark and Cobb give solid performances, even if the latter’s rendition of what a mob boss should sound like gets repetitive and downright grating.
What’s distinctly lacking in the movie is any real cinematic sense. Although the movie is set against harsh desert vistas, neither the director nor cinematographer seemed interested or willing to fully capture the landscape in any meaningful sense. Rather, we often get a made for television aesthetic. Not bad, by any means. But just not something visually intoxicating. One wonders whether the movie would have actually been better had it been filmed in black and white.
Nevertheless, The Trap is worth a watch. It may not be among Widmark’s best films from the era, but if you like him as an actor, you will surely mind much to appreciate in this one. One final note. Lorne Greene, who I always enjoy, has a supporting role as a mob enforcer.
VECHEL HOWARD – Murder with Love. Johnny Church #1. Gold Medal #854, paperback original, 1959.
Vechel Howard is not, I strongly suspect, that mystery readers will ever have at the tip of their tongues, and even if I tell that his real name was Howard Rigsby, and that he wrote nine mysteries under that name, it would not bring any of their titles to mind. As Vechel Howard he wrote two PI novels for Gold Medal, along with three or four westerns, This is the first recorded adventure of one Johnny Church, and it’s one of those cases that gets him so personally involved that you wonder when it’s over whether there will ever be another one. (But there was, that being Murder on Her Mind, a book that was published later that same year by Gold Medal.)
The scene in this one is Las Vegas, where his client wants him to find a woman. He’s not the only one, either. Mira, as Church soon discovers, has had an uncontrollable habit of getting men to fall in love with her and then taking off with all the money and expensive gifts that had been bestowed upon her, disappearing as mysteriously as she had suddenly appeared.
This time, however, Church finds that blackmail, never part of her game before, has been added to her repertoire – and can murder be far behind? Church also stumbles across a pair of delectable twin sisters – but he’s really the kind of guy who gets hit over the head a lot and goes to bed with almost nobody. Almost.
The action is standard enough. It’s the ending that’s unusual. A bit maudlin as well, perhaps, but it’s the kind that lingers on. Longer, in fact, than the story itself.
Rating: B minus.
–Somewhat abridged from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 5, No. 6, Nov/Dec 1981.
FALSE COLORS. Paramount, 1943. William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jimmy Rogers, Douglass Dumbrille, Tom Seidel, Claudia Drake, Glenn Strange, Pierce Lyden, Roy Barcroft, and Robert Mitchum. Screenplay by Bennett Cohen. Directed by George Archainbaud.
Figure this for the plot of an imaginary film noir: Let’s say there are three War Buddies (maybe Alan Ladd, William Bendix, and Hugh Beaumont) who pick up a fourth towards the end of the war. The new guy, a veritable orphan, forms an attachment to his surrogate family of war buddies, and when he learns inherited a lot of money from the father he hasn’t seen in years, he impulsively writes a will making his new pals beneficiaries in the event of his death — which, as you might expect, comes around very soon and rather suspiciously thereafter.
The buddies, of course, have no intention of accepting the money, and when they get out of the Service they journey to their late pal’s home town — and discover an imposter there in his place, along with a cute-kid-sister-in-distress! Something sinister’s going on, and with Douglass Dumbrille and Roy Barcroft around, it’s easy to see what.
Okay. Now substitute a Cattle Drive for the war, make the three buddies cowboys and the inheritance a ranch, and you have the real False Colors, an intriguing Hopalong Cassidy effort with a fine cast of heavies, including Bob Mitchum, still in his “Right, Boss,” days. There’s the usual riding, running and shooting amid splendid backgrounds, a nice knock-down-drag-out between Boyd’s and Mitchum’s stuntmen, plus an interesting performance from someone named Tom Seidel (who?) as the neurotic buddy and his feckless impostor.
Seidel’s performance, in fact, is one of those bits of desultory inspiration that make “B” movies so much fun to watch: It’s basically a nothing part in a pot-boiler movie, from an actor whose career never went anywhere, but he’s in it for all he’s worth, quietly, intelligently working up his act, and investing it with thoughtfulness and energy, even when he must have known no one would be watching.
As for the rest, well, this was among the last half dozen Hoppy films produced by Harry Sherman, and it shows. Sherman’s care is still there in the excellent photography, locations and stunt work, but comic relief Andy Clyde is a bit tired, and Jimmy Rogers is no match for James Ellison or Russell Hayden, who preceded him. Young Bob Mitchum graduated in importance to the point where he could match stuntmen with the star, and his fellow-heavies are their usual nasty selves, but a tinge of weariness had settled in, and…
…and actually it serves the story rather well, familiarity breeding a weary worldliness (or maybe a world-weariness) that would emerge a few years later in the cynical heroes of film noir — and foremost among them, Robert Mitchum.
BURKE’S LAW “Who Killed Cable Roberts?†ABC, 04 October 1963 (Season 1, Episode 3). Gene Barry (Captain Amos Burke), Gary Conway, Regis Toomey, Leon Lontoc. Guest Cast: Mary Astor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Paul Lynde, John Saxon, Lizabeth Scott, Chill Wills. Writers: Gwen Bagni, Frank D. Gilroy Director: Jeffrey Hayden.
The gimmick in the series, as I imagine almost all of you already know, is that Amos Burke is a millionaire cop who solves crimes while being chauffeured to the scene in his Rolls Royce. The title of the series comes from his way of coming up with some pearls of wisdom to pass along to his underlings at the appropriate times. Example: “Never ask a question unless you already know the answer. Burke’s Law.”
And let’s not overlook a third major factor in the show. Amos Burke is absolutely irresistible to women, no matter their age or martial status. The only reason Gary Conway and Regis Toomey (his underlings) are on the show are to exchange knowing looks and fake commiseration for Burke’s plight whenever the latest female guest star flings herself upon him.
Cable Roberts, the victim in this, the third episode of the first season, is one of those legends of the western world who combine being a writer, a big game hunter and a producer of documentary films with being as unlikable a man as he can possibly be. He’s also rich, or does that go without saying? Rich enough to have a lithe and very limber wife like Lizabeth Scott and a maid with the strikingly exotic looks of a Zsa Zsa Gabor, not to mention a personal secretary (Paul Lynde) and a son (a very young John Saxon) whom he is very definitely on the outs with.
Plenty of suspects, that is one thing that is for certain, and all the screenwriters have to do is pick one of them to be the killer, and then figure out a way for Captain Burke to put the finger on him or her with only a few minutes to go. The end result is pleasant way to spend the better part of an hour, but also very much forgettable after that. Except, that is, for Lizabeth Scott.
ELIZABETH DEAN – Murder a Mile High. Emma Marsh & Hank Fairbanks #3. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1944. Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2001.
Colorado, that is, in the tourist town of Golden City. This is the third (and last) mystery to feature the sleuthing team of Miss Emma Marsh (of Boston) and Mr. Henry Fairbanks, of Naval Intelligence, but when an opera singer dies, it is only Emma who thinks it was murder.
It took me a while to finish this one, once started, but I think this book is a gem. The story proceeds in fits and starts, backtracking as it does every once in a while to explain some puzzling bit of stuff that took place before, and since everything means something, you really do have to pay attention.
–Reprinted from Mystery*File #13, June 1989 (mildly revised).
The Emma Marsh & Hank Fairbanks series —
Murder Is a Collector’s Item. Doubleday 1939.
Murder Is a Serious Business. Doubleday 1940.
Murder a Mile High. Doubleday 1944.
All three have been reprinted by Rue Morgue Press. This may be prove useful to know if you find yourself wanting to read any of the series. I have discovered only one or two copies of the first two in hardcover offered for sale online, and none of this third one. (Hence no photo.)
IN THE ELECTRIC MIST. Image Entertainment, 2009. Direct to DVD. Tommy Lee Jones (Lt. Dave Robicheaux), John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Steenburgen, Macdonald, Justina Machado, Ned Beatty, Levon Helm (General John Bell Hood, Buddy Guy. Screenwriters: Jerzy Kromolowski & Mary Olson-Kromolowski, based on the novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke. Director: Bertrand Tavernier.
Look at that cast, if you would. That’s quite an impressive ensemble for a movie that went straight to video. (It may have had one or two theatrical showings, but very few more, if any.) I will also tell you that this is probably the best adaptation of one of James Lee Burke’s novels about his long-time series character Lt. Dave Robicheaux of the New Iberia LA police department, that I can imagine.
It’s absolutely beautifully photographed, too. So. What went wrong? Well, for one thing, the story’s too complicated, that of two cases in one, first, that of a murdered prostitute, and secondly, and of significantly less immediacy, the finding of the body of a black prisoner, still in chains, shot to death as he was trying to escape some 40 years before, and Dave saw it happen.
It may be a case of following a book too closely. In all honesty, I’d stopped trying to follow the plot long before it ended. Nor is the rhythm exactly right. There are too many short scenes that can’t seem to muster the right amount of flow. Each scene is in miniature exactly right, but the pieces don’t fit together in a storytelling way. I will have to assume this makes sense, as I have been thinking this over and I have not come up with a better way to explain.
Tommy Lee Jones is pitch perfect as Robicheaux, a world weary alcoholic prone to bursts of violence, a man who drinks only Dr Pepper, but when someone laces it with LSD, he begins to envision a troop of Confederate soldiers in the area, commanded by a straight- but somewhat elusive talking General John Bell Hood, played by an also remarkably effective non-actor by the name of Levon Helm, whose name I am sure all of you know as one of the founding members of The Band.
An excellent a movie as I found this to be, and I have only begun to discuss many of the other things I liked about it, I can sympathize with the producers who had the job of trying to market it when the filming was over. I think it would have bombed in the movie theaters. I think it did all right on DVD and the various steaming services, though, and I’m glad I finally caught up with it.
Screenwriter, producer, actor and novelist Andrew J. Fenady, born on October 4 , 1928, died on April 16 , 2020 in Los Angeles, California. His entry in the Bibliography of Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, is small:
The Man with Bogart’s Face. Regnery 1977 [Sam Marlow]
The Secret of Sam Marlow. Contemporary 1980 [Sam Marlow]
“Way back in the seventies, during the mini-nostalgia boom for all things from the thirties and forties, actor Robert Sacchi parlayed his spooky resemblance to Humphrey Bogart into a nice little career in TV commercials and movie cameos. The big payoff, though, was the 1980 release of The Man With Bogart’s Face (1980, 20th Century Fox), wherein Sacchi was cast as, well, a man with Bogart’s face.
“It’s essentially a one-gag flick, but it’s a good gag, adapted by Andrew J. Fenady from his own 1977 novel. Seems there’s this former LA cop, short a few crayons shy of a complete set, who retires, and blows his entire life’s savings on plastic surgery so that he can look like his hero and idol, Humphrey Bogart. Then he gets a P.I. ticket, a ’39 Plymouth, a trench coat and fedora, and sets up shop as SAM MARLOW (as in, Sam from Sam Spade, and Marlow from Phillip Marlowe).”
Besides the film adaptation of The Man with Bogart’s Face, other crime or western movies, TV films and series Fenaday was involved with as either writer or producer (and often both) include:
Stakeout on Dope Street (1958)
The Rebel (TV series, 1959-61)
Las Vegas Beat (TV movie, 1961)
Broken Sabre (1965)
Branded (TV series, 1965-66)
Hondo (TV series, 1967)
Chisum (John Wayne, 1970)
Mayday at 40,000 Feet (TV movie, 1976)
A Masterpiece of Murder (TV movie, 1986)
Jake Spanner, Private Eye (TV movie, 1989)
This list is far from complete. For a complete list, go to IMDB here.
I’ll remember him most for the two Sam Marlowe books, however, and the movie made of the first one. It was one of the first books I remember reviewing for the Hartford Courant, well over 40 years ago now.
And thanks to Michael Shonk for being the first to tell me of his passing, well before any other source online.
Devoted to mystery and detective fiction — the books, the films, the authors, and those who read, watch, collect and make annotated lists of them. All uncredited posts are by me, Steve Lewis.
