STUART TOWNE – Death Out of Thin Air.  Don Diavolo #1. Coward McCann, hardcover, 1941. First published as a pair of stories from Red Star Mystery magazine: “Ghost of the Undead” (June 1940) and “Death Out of Thin Air” (August 1940). Kindle edition: Mysterious Press, 2012.

   Fresh from the pages of the too short-lived Red Star Mystery, the scarlet-clad magician detective plunges into two full blooded pulp adventures combating clever villains and outwitting frustrated police Inspector Church in both the title piece “Death Out of Thin Air” and its companion “Ghost of the Undead.” Like his creator Clayton Rawson’s other sleuth, the Great Merlini, Don Diavolo, Nicolas Alexander Houdin, is a magician sleuth mystery man who specializes in solving Impossible Crimes, though of a more fantastic and melodramatic nature than his more literary companion.

   In “Undead” Don Diavolo finds himself pitted against “the living ghost of a medieval” murderer, none other than the original Bluebeard, Gilles de Rais, that has already struck terror in the heart of London:

   â€œUndead” even features a pretty good dying message clue that would have pleased Ellery Queen.

   In “Thin Air” Don Divallo is faced with invisible killers who fade in bright light in front of the eyes of reliable witnesses, and comes to the aid of hard-nosed Inspector Church, his police ally/nemesis who, as usual, is more concerned Don Diavolo is up to no good than catching the real killer after he witnesses the murder of Sergeant Healey by an invisible killer in a locked room with no possible exit but the front door. The case also involves the infamous necklace of Marie Antoinette that started the French Revolution, and, as Diavolo, framed for the crime, tells Church, “… an Invisible Man, but he’s a different sort than you expect.”

   Despite his penchant for footnotes explaining the historical veracity of the tricks used in the story, it should be admitted going in that Stuart Towne is hardly as scrupulous as his more restrained Clayton Rawson persona, and Don Diavolo, as that red costume and opera cape suggest, is given to a deal more melodrama than the Great Merlini.

   I can’t see Merlini tooling around Manhattan in white tie and tails in a scarlet Packard.

   Along the way the Don Diavollo books often include a colorful cast of grifters, magicians, con-men, and other theatrical types, Diavolo’s assistant/valet Chan, several beautiful women assistants, his manager, trick designer, the theater owner, and favorite publicist as well as murderous bad guys and cunning plots which Diavolo solves with flair, if not quite as carefully staged as a Rawson, John Dickson Carr, or Hake Talbot impossible crime, but what the stories lack there they make up for in speed and pulp style energy.

   Hardly the only magician detectives in the mainstream or the pulps, Merlini and Diavolo are still standouts in a company that includes Walter Gibson’s Norgil, and though no magician, the impossible crimes of Edward D. Hoch’s Nick Velvet. Other sleuths who show a fair hand at misdirection would include the Shadow and Arsene Lupin both given to performance art as much as crime prevention. No few writers have even trotted Harry Houdini out as amateur sleuth, notably Daniel Stashower in a series of well done mysteries.

   There are two collections of Towne novellas from Mysterious Press available in E-book form, this, and Death From Nowhere, and both are worth the effort, bright and entertaining pulp adventures with a bit more going for them than just the speed and invention of the average pulp mystery. While far from perfect they move fast enough you may not pause to overthink things, and the mystery and detective angle is much better developed than the usual pulp hero mystery. Don Diavolo may not have had a long run on the pulp stage, but his act is worth catching.

SERGEANT RYKER. Universal Pictures, 1968. Lee Marvin, Bradford Dillman, Peter Graves, Vera Miles, Lloyd Nolan, Murray Hamilton, Norman Fell. Screenplay: Seeleg Lester and William D. Gordon. Director: Buzz Kulik.

   There is a story behind this movie, both before and after. It first appeared as a two-part episode to begin the 1963 season of NBC’s Kraft Suspense Theater, October 10th and 17th, as “The Case Against Paul Ryker,” then once Lee Marvin became a star (Cat Ballou, The Dirty Dozen), the studio pulled it out of the vaults and cobbled them together to make a 90 minute theatrical release for overseas distribution. It was released in the US on DVD in 1988, again playing up Lee Marvin’s leading role.

   The two TV episodes also served as the pilot for a television series on ABC (1966-67) entitled Court Martial, starring Peter Graves and Bradford Dillon, but this time working together fo JAG instead of against each other, and shifting the time frame to World War II rather than the Korean conflict.

   In the film itself Sergeant Ryker (Lee Marvin) is being charged with treason, being caught after trying to cross back into US territory after deserting his outfit and being identified as consorting with the enemy. His only alibi for his actions is through a superior officer, now dead, whom he claims sent him there on a secret mission.

   Complicating matters as well is his former prosecutor (Brad Dillman) has been seen staying overnight with Ryker’s wife, and when he now tries to intercede on Marvin’s behalf, there is an obvious conflict of interest. Trials on TV always hold my interest, starting with Perry Mason, of course, and even though the real culprit is obvious, this one’s no exception.

   Both Peter Graves and Bradford Dillon are rather bland in this one, and so is Vera Miles. The star of course is Lee Marvin as the beleaguered Sgt. Ryker. His character is at turns withdrawn and belligerent, simmering with anger for many reasons, subject to violent outbursts when pressed, and while not particularly intelligent, he is absolutely loyal to his lifelong career, that of a US soldier. I can’t picture another actor in the role. He’s perfect for it.
   

POUL ANDERSON “Flight to Forever.” Novella. First published in Super Science Stories, November 1950 First reprinted in Year’s Best Science Fiction Novels: 1952, edited by Everett F. Bleiler & T. E. Dikty (Frederick Fell, hardcover, 1952), and The Mammoth Book of Vintage Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1950s, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, & Charles G. Waugh (Carroll & Graf, softcover, 1990), among others. Collected in Past Times (Tor, paperback, 1984) and Alight in the Void (Tor, paperback, 1991), among others.

   This is one of Poul Anderson’s earliest stories, written when he was only 24, and a better story of Gosh Wow time travel, I can think of none better. And I do not mean that disparagingly! This tale was written back when time-traveling machines could be constructed in a garage, or if not, then in a single scientist’s laboratory, with only a modicum of assistance. Such a scientist is Martin Saunders, and his machine has been working perfectly. Inanimate objects have been sent farther and farther into the future, and in case they have also returned.

   Until now. An object sent 100 into the future has not come back, and Saunders an assistant decide to take a trip there themselves and see if they can’t figure out what went wrong. Now you and I know that this might not be the wisest thing to do, but this was also in the age (1950) when scientists did not think things out too clearly ahead of time before jumping into either homemade spaceships or time machines as they should.

   The problem does not consist of getting there. It seems, however, that there is a limit of only 70 years in going backward in time. The solution: keep going ahead into the future until they reach such a time when scientists have figured out a way to overcome the difficulty in going backward in time. Ahead they go, each stage of the in larger and larger increments of time. Fifty tears, a hundred years, a thousand years, five thousand years. Empires come and go, as they discover, oftentimes with barbarians at the gates. Some people they find are friendly; others not. A million years, a million million years, and on to the end of time?

   Well, I will leave it to you to read this to see if Saunders ever finds his way home again, but wow, what a trip he makes!
   

THE FILE OF THE GOLDEN GOOSE. United Artists, UK/US, 1969. Yul Brynner Yul Brynner, Charles Gray, Edward Woodward, John Barrie, Adrienne Corri, Graham Crowden. Director: Sam Wanamaker.

   I was skeptical at the beginning. Very skeptical. For the first ten minutes or so, The File of the Golden Goose has that cringeworthy voice-over narration found most often in second rate crime and science fiction pictures from the 1950s. Here, it is not merely grating, but downright unnecessary. Any viewer paying even the slightest bit of attention would be able to follow the proceedings without a narrator’s most unwelcome assistance.

   But a few things happen pretty quickly that make this thriller far more enjoyable than it has any right to be. First of all, the casting. While Yul Brenner may have been a bit of a fading star by 1969, his presence here as Peter Novak, a tough as nails treasury agent is most welcome, even if his character’s go-it-alone persona is more than a bit over the top. It’s the supporting, cast, however that makes this work.

   Edward Woodward, years before he got top billing in The Wicker Man (1973), portrays Arthur Thompson, a Scotland Yard inspector assigned to work alongside Novak to crack a deadly counterfeiting ring. And who might just be among the leaders of the forgery network? Well, Walter Gotell for starters. You might remember him as General Gogol in some Roger Moore-era James Bond films. Then, there’s Charles Gray who portrays Harrison, a flamboyantly gay gangster with a predilection for gamblers, bath houses, and drug-induced parties in swinging London.

   There is, to be sure, nothing remotely cinematic about The File of The Golden Goose. Sam Wanamaker, who may be more known in England today for restoring the Globe Theater than for his acting and directing, lends this movie a middling made-for-TV quality. There isn’t much in here that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a typical The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode, some of which were turned into theatrical releases. That’s the aesthetic style at work here. Yet, there is something undeniably charming about the clunky, haphazard direction. It’s never amateurish and it’s always imbued with a certain misguided passion.

   What the film lacks in cinematic merit, it more than compensates in storytelling. It does what a thriller is supposed to do. It keeps you guessing. If you allow yourself to immerse yourself in the proceedings, you might find yourself genuinely impressed by Wanamaker was able to do with his actors. None of the characters, however minor, the viewer encounter along the way are remotely the same. Each has some unique characteristic that makes them stand out from all the rest, be it the sleazy Liverpudlian hotel manager or the counterfeiting gang’s hitman.

   Now, don’t get me wrong. This movie is not remotely comparable in quality to the best thrillers of the 1970s. Not at all. In fact, I found myself to be quite surprised that I ended up enjoying The File of The Golden Goose as much as I did. Perhaps it’s the isolation recently engendered by the Coronavirus, but I found this movie to work in one particular way that genre movies are intended to do. As escapism pure and simple. It may not be overly memorable as a cohesive film, but there are most definitely scenes in the movie that I will remember fondly.
   

M. K. WREN – King of the Mountain. Conan Flagg #8. Ballantine, paperback original; 1st printing, January 1995.

   I happened to find my copy of this one soon after posting my archived review of  Seasons of Death, number five in the series. Some of the discussion that took place in the comments that followed was whether this was a cozy series or not. This was based on the fact that not only is Conan Flagg a private eye, but he is also the owner of a bookstore in Portland OR. And not only that, but the bookstore has a cat, which is featured in silhouette at least on the front cover of all of he paperback editions of the series.

   I’m still not so sure about the earlier books, but I can now tell you that King of the Mountain, the eighth and final book in the series is most definitely NOT a cozy. Flagg is a guest at a family reunion in an isolated area of Oregon near Mt. Hood, and neither the bookstore nor the cat are mentioned, except perhaps once and then only in passing.

   The King family, as it so happens, is one of those highly dysfunctional families that makes being involved with them so uncomfortable to outsiders looking in – which includes both Flagg and we, the readers – and murder so inevitable. I’ll start out by saying that the story is a good one, but it’s also a frustrating one. We know as soon as Flagg reaches the mountain lodge where the family is gathering that disaster is soon to happen, but after seventy pages in, it has yet to do so. That’s a long time for any sense of tension to keep building.

   But then, when it does, it’s a method of murder that I have never read in a mystery novel before. I won’t tell you more, but afterward the story becomes a throwback to those old Golden Age mysteries, where the rest of the group are completely snowbound for days on end, all the while knowing that one of them is a killer.

   If this sounds like a story you’d like to read, up to this point I’d agree, and say that you should. But the ending seemed quite an arbitrary one to me, with the killer’s (or killers’) motive not at all consistent with the characters’ profile as established up the point of his/her/their revealing. Wren was a good writer, but I really do think the ending could have been thought out a lot better.

REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:

CHARLES NEIDER – The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones. Harper & Brothers, 1956. Crest #368, paperback,1960. University of Nevada Press, trade paperback, 1992.

ONE-EYED JACKS. Paramount, 1961. Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Pina Pellicer, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Timothy Carey and Sam Gilman. Written (at various times) by Guy Trosper, Calder Willingham, Sam Peckinpah and Rod Serling. Directed by Marlon Brando.

   Like Day of the Outlaw, a book and film that grow widely dissimilar. But where Day’s incarnations are excellent, these are great.

   Charles Neider wrote a highly acclaimed biography of Mark Twain, and I read somewhere that he then set himself to a similar work about Billy the Kid, but gave it up after years of research and wrote the novel The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones instead. His own introduction to a later edition tends to refute this story, but I like it anyway. In fact, Neider’s prose is very much like Twain’s. No surprise that, but it’s Twain in a nostalgic, elegiac tone, as the narrator, Doc Baker, looks back on youth and friendship now gone.

   Doc, however, is only the narrator. The subject of the book is a Billy the Kid figure, here named Hendry Jones, and Neider manages to convey second-hand the attraction and fear the character evokes in those around him: the easy charm, generosity, sexual magnetism and murderous nature of a man who lives only in the moment. Make no mistake, Hendry Jones is one of the great figures of Fiction and he’s right at home in a great novel.

   No wonder then that the character and the book would attract an actor of Marlon Brando’s caliber. And even less wonder that, having bought the novel and been given carte blanche on the film, Brando would feel compelled to re-shape it to his own psyche as One-Eyed Jacks.

   The result is nothing like the book, but there’s no arguing with the beauty of the thing. Brando directs himself with a knowing narcissism that makes for powerful cinema and plenty of just-plain-fun movie moments. He knows his own strengths, and writes and plays to them, with quietly-mumbled lines like “Don’t be doin’ her that way,” shot with all the impact of a stray bullet.

   For a self-indulgent egoist, Brando is surprisingly generous with his supporting players. At the top of the list, Karl Malden’s portrayal of venal hypocrisy is as compelling as Brando’s forthright knavery. Slim Pickens and Pina Pilar play lustful and lustee, arrogant and innocent, with real feeling, and Ben Johnson, my personal favorite, damnear steals the whole show as a bloody-eyed bank robber partnered with Brando.

   And oh yes: Timothy Carey, the sine qua non of quirky movies, got most of his scenes deleted (he was fired for causing trouble on the set and demanding that his salary be doubled), but survives long enough to try to back-shoot the Star — never a good idea in a Western.

   I read that tidbit in another book: A Million Feet of Film: The Making of One-eyed Jacks (2019) by Toby Roan. It’s full of information, with snippets from just about every biography, magazine article and gossip column on the subject, some quite juicy. I would have appreciated more insight (much of the material seems self-serving and rather suspect), but there’s no gainsaying the research and effort that went into this, and there are gems of information here, including:

   One of my favorite moments in the film is when Rio (Brando) catches up with his betrayer (Karl Malden) after five years in a Mexican jail and months of searching. The scene is set for a shoot-out… and they sit down and lie to each other in an extended scene, perfectly written and played!

   So imagine my surprise to learn that this was largely re-shot without Brando, when the Studio heads decided it made Malden’s character too sympathetic. I read the original dialogue here and looked at the scene again… and I had to agree with the Suits that this works much better! Credit goes to editor Archie Marshek and Karl Malden, for a seamless and captivating bit of Cinema.
   

   Back in the early 1960s when I was in undergrad school, this was my favorite jazz song. I liked so much that I voted for Don Shirley several years running in Playboy magazine’s annual poll for Best Jazz Pianist of the Year.

   Nor was I the only one who thought so. He always got votes besides mine in three figures. Nor did my vote help all that much. A fellow named Brubeck kept winning, year after year.

COUNTERPLOT. United Artists, 1959. Forrest Tucker, Allison Hayes, Gerald Milton, Jackie Wayne, Richard Verney, Miguel Ángel Álvarez. Director: Kurt Neumann.

   Here is a rare movie from the 0s filmed on location in Puerto Rico, perhaps for budgetary reasons, but it’s where Brock Miller (Forrest Tucker) has found a haven, on the run from a framed up murder rap back in New York it. Assisting him in his abandoned house hideaway is Manuel (Jackie Wayne), a young street urchin who has taken a tremendous shine to him.

   So much so that when Connie Lane (Allison Hayes), a night club singer and Brock’s very close lady friend, come to the island in search for him, he does everything he can to keep them apart. Also in the picture is Bergmann (Gerald Milton), a shady lawyer who plays both sides of he street for as much money as he can get. Brock and the insurance agent on one side, the real killer (Richard Verney) on the other. The agent is convinced Brock is innocent, but neither of them have any proof.

   In spite of several viewers on IMDb who found this movie incredibly boring, I see what they’re saying, but I’d place it in the category of “a whole lot better than it had any right to be.” Forrest Tucker and Allison Hayes make a great pair; at 6’4″, he’s one actor who towers way above her, even at 5’8″ not counting the two inch heels she seems to always be wearing. She’s a statuesque brunette in the Jane Russell mode, if you’ve never come across her in a film before, and since she never made it out of B-movies such as this, perhaps you have not.

   Even better is the relationship between Brock and young Manuel. It’s mostly a one-sided but a very real one, with Brock always quick on the temper and annoyed at him – but only momentarily. While apparently often in Broadway shows, this was Jackie Wayne’s only film credit. Add in Gerald Milton’s fast-talking performance, channeling Sidney Greenstreet for all he’s worth, and you have a group of players who add up more “plus points” together than the story itself.

DUFFY’S TAVERN “Archie Gets Engaged.” CBS-East Coast/Syndicated. 31 August 1954 (Season 1, Episode 18.) [I am using Martin Gram’s log for this information.]  Ed Gardner (Archie), Pattee Chapman (Miss Duffy), Alan Reed (Finnegan), Jimmy Conlin. Recurring: Veda Ann Borg (Peaches La Tour). Guest Cast: Barbara Morrison. …

   Duffy’s Tavern, very much a one-man operation, that of creator, director, writer, producer and star Ed Gardner, was a long running radio for many years (1941-51), a movie (Ed Gardner’s Duffy’s Tavern, 1945) before a one season run (26 episodes) in 1954 co-produced by Hal Roach, Jr.

   While the radio show was noted for its well-known guest stars every week, the radio show was a bare bones operation, with very little movement outside of the tavern itself. “Archie Gets Engaged” was in all likelihood not the official title of this particular episode, but it is what it is generallyl known by. It can be seen here.

   It begins with Archie thinking of matrimony, and in particular with a stripper he knows by the name of Peaches La Tour (the most delightfully voluptuous Veda Ann Borg). Being more interested in monetary matters than love, she most sensibly turns him down, since love is all he has to offer. Being so emphatically turned down in such a fashion, Archie decides to bite the bullet and proposes instead to the very rich (and not nearly as voluptuous) Mrs. Van Clyde (Barbara Morrison) instead.

   The complications that follow are amusing, but not laugh-out-loud funny, except for Alan Reed’s slapstick portrayal of the slow-witted Finngan, one of the tavern’s regular habitues. (Possibly not an acceptable character today, but allow me this indulgence. I grew up when a lot of comedy was built around the antics of The Three Stooges, Lou Costello, Red Skelton, Jerry Lewis, and so on.)

   Another aspect of the show was the use of well-mangled wordplay. In the opening conversation Archie has on the phone with Duffy, he asks the latter for his advice on “maritime” relations. Talking about the chances that Peaches will accept his proposal, he says he’s not sure she will accept him or not, “With a dame like that, things are on one minute, off the next.”

   The jokes and the reactions to them are reflected by a lot of exaggerated eye-rolling. Worse, from my point of view, is the fact that Ed Gardner, never the greatest of actors, was an aging 53 when the TV series was filmed, and it shows. The show was meant for radio. As a television series, it may be best to call it a relic of its era and leave it at that.
   

RONALD TIERNEY – The Concrete Pillow. “Deets” Shanahan #4. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1995. Worldwide, paperback, 1997.

   Does anyone have any idea why St. Martin’s would price this one at $23? I didn’t know Tierney had that kind of cachet.

   Deets has a case he’s not sure he wants (do PI’s ever get one they love?) – a heroin addict thinks someone’s trying to kill him, and wants Deets to find out why. The young man is one of quadruplet brothers who were Indiana basketball phenoms, and one’s already dead (a “suicide”), and one’s crippled (an “accident”). The rest of the quite strange family is not happy with Deets’ involvement. Deets isn’t happy with his own family, because the son he hasn’t seen in 30 years is coming to visit and bringing Deets’ grandson along.

   I like this series very much. Shanahan by virtue of his age is a refreshing change from the “typical” PI (though that’s a dying breed now), and Tierney does one of the better jobs around o integrating his character’s personal life with the story. Tierney is also excellent in the creation of secondary characters, particularly Shanahan’s younger lover, Maureen, and in this story his one and grandson.

   The identity of the murderer was no great surprise, but neither was it unbelievable. Indianapolis isn’t overburdened with PI’s, but with Shanahan and Michael Lewin’s Albert Samson, it certainly boasts two of the more unique.

      The Deets Shanahan series –

1. The Stone Veil (1990)
2. The Steel Web (1991)
3. The Iron Glove (1992)
4. The Concrete Pillow (1995)
5. Nickel-Plated Soul (2004)
6. Platinum Canary (2005)
7. Glass Chameleon (2006)
8. Asphalt Moon (2007)
9. Bloody Palms (2008)
10. Bullet Beach (2010)
11. Killing Frost (2015)