THE LITTLE THINGS. Warner Brothers / HBO Max, 2021. Denzel Washington as Joe “Deke” Deacon, a Kern County Deputy Sheriff, Rami Malek as Jim Baxter, LASD Detective, Jared Leto as Albert Sparma (their top suspect). Written and directed by John Lee Hancock.

   It more or less begins like any other serial killer movie. There’s a girl being chased and a tired lawman whose best days may very well be behind him. In this case, however, the lawman is portrayed by Denzel Washington. You know you’re going to – at the very least – get to witness a solid acting performance.

   And for the first hour or so, that’s about all The Little Things has to offer. There’s very little new under the dark sun. Washington portrays Kern County Deputy Sheriff by the name of Joe “Deke” Deacon. Formerly an LASD homicide investigator, he has downsized to a slower, more rural part of California. All that changes when he’s asked to retrieve some evidence from his former employer. While there, he encounters Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), a younger and cockier version of his former self.

   The two don’t exactly get along, but they see something in each other. Before you know it, Deke and Baxter are unofficially working together to solve a series of murders. Deke happens to believe that this recent rash of killings of young women is somehow connected to the murders of prostitutes he failed to solve five years ago.

   Deke is seemingly mentally tortured by the ghost of a victim he failed to save and appears to be just a little too eager to connect the past with the present. It’s the standard stuff of serial killer movies. An obsessed detective, one who even goes so far as to pin photographs of victims on his bedroom wall.

   Expectations are subverted when Deke focuses on a prime suspect, a greasy, sleazy repairman who lives alone in a shoddy Hollywood apartment. The problem is that there is really nothing tying Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) to the crime other than the guy is weird – really weird – and seems to know a lot about the case. Maybe he’s the killer or maybe he’s just a disgustingly odd man with a true crime fascination.

   Without giving anything away, let’s just say that the second half of the movie, in which Deke and Baxter play a cat-and-mouse game with Sparma is far superior to the first hour. And, at some point, things change. And everything you thought you knew about Deke gets upended. No. He’s not the serial killer – this film doesn’t go for that level of cheapness – but he does have secrets he aims to guard at all costs.

   Although the movie isn’t nearly as clever as it purports to be, it’s nevertheless a decent thriller largely kept afloat by its stellar cast and stark, haunting cinematography. Set in the 1990s, the movie also benefits from good set design and an unmistakable sense of place. I happen to enjoy watching detective movies in which not everyone has a cell phone. Somehow adds to the allure and the mystery and danger of it all. Unless there is a call box or a pay phone, how are you going to call for help?

GREGORY MCDONALD – Skylar. Skyler Whitfield #1. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1995. Avon, paperback, 1997.

   I’m one of the relatively few people who never was particularly fond of the “Fletch” books, though I thought a later one, Son of Fletch, was pretty good. Mcdonald’s writing always struck me as okay, even better than that sometimes; I just didn’t care much for “Fletch.” Mcdonald thought he was a whole lot cuter than I did.

   Skylar Whitfield is a young man who seems determined to underachieve. His placid existence is disrupted one summer when a northern cousin who is the paragon of every virtue Skylar seems to lack comes to visit, and then a young lady widely regarded as Skylar’s is brutally murdered. Not everybody believes Skylar did it, but the law does, and he has to prove he didn’t by finding out who did.

   If that doesn’t sound like much of a plot to hang a novel on, well, it isn’t. I swear, sometimes it seems to me that there’s not a writer new or old (and by implication not an editor, either) who gives the slightest damn about plot credibility, Come up with a cute character, write some readable prose, and to hell with whether it all makes sense or not – and that exactly describes Skylar. The character is reasonably interesting if a bit superficially done, Mcdonald does his usual decent brand of prose, and the plot is absolutely, totally, unequivocally stupid.

   Unbelievable. In-fucking-credible. I’ve always been a character – rather than a plot-driven reader, but Jesus, there are limits. Well, there are with me, anyway; evidently there aren’t with a lot of people. Pass this gobbler up.

Bibliographic Update: There was but one additional entry in the series, that being Skylar in Yankeeland (1997)

BULLDOG DRUMMOND AT BAY. Columbia Pictures, 1947. Ron Randell, Anita Louise, Patrick O’Moore, Terry Kilburn, Lester Matthews, Holmes Herbert, Leonard Mudie. Screenplay by Frank Gruber from the novel by H. C. “Sapper” McNeile. Directed by Sidney Salkow.

   Whatever might be said of the novels and five short stories about Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond written by retired Major Herman Cyril McNeile, who began his career writing critically acclaimed short fiction about the First World War, it is hard to deny Drummond had a fairly good and remarkably long film career from his first appearance in 1919, finally bowing out after a last appearance during the sixties spy craze.

   Along the way there was a long running radio series, with a memorable opening, “Out of the fog, out of the night …”, a hit play, two movie parodies, and outings in the American pulps, the Strand Magazine, song, and even comics. Drummond even made it into a Warner Brothers cartoon, albeit as an actual bulldog.

   We won’t even go into the influence on writers like Leslie Charteris and the Saint, John Creasey and Department Z, Patrick Dawlish, and Bruce Murdoch, Berkeley Gray and Norman Conquest, Mickey Spillane and Mike Hammer, Ian Fleming and James Bond, and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt save to note the film Drummond was certainly as much of an influence as the literary version on later writers. An entire school of Drummond imitators exist in British thriller fiction.

   Over the years on-screen Drummond was played by a variety of actors including twice by Ronald Colman who received an Oscar nomination for his first outing in 1929’s Bulldog Drummond (ironically losing to Warner Baxter playing the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona), Rod La Roque (in a silent American film based on the book but basically ignoring it), Ralph Richardson, Ray Milland, Tom Conway, Walter Pidgeon, and Richard Johnson.

   In 1947 Australian actor Ron Randell (who was also the Lone Wolf on screen for a while) picked up the reins dropped by the John Howard Paramount Drummond series of the thirties in a remake of 1937’s Bulldog Drummond at Bay with John Lodge.

   Unlike the Lodge film, which had splendid villainy by American Victor Jory, this version, scripted by Frank Gruber (who among other things wrote the splendid screenplay for A Mask for Dimitrios), actually resembles the book it is based on, finding Drummond down in the Fen country, planning to assassinate some ducks after retiring from the army, when a stone thrown through his window in the middle of the night plunges him into adventure.

   No sooner does Drummond step outside to look about than two men in a car pull up and one (Lester Matthews) pulls a gun on him. Drummond plays dumb and they depart after a quick search, but driving away they spot what they were looking for, the man who threw the rock through Drummond’s window.

   The next morning Doris Meredith (Anita Louise) shows up with convenient car trouble and tries to drug Drummond so she can search for the message tied to the rock when he serves her tea. Curiouser and curiouser as Alice observed. Doris claims she needs Drummond’s help and that her brother is in trouble.

   At this point Drummond calls his old friend Inspector McIver (Holmes Herbert) and enlists a local would be reporter (Terry Kilburn) and his old pal Algy Longworth (Pat O’Moore billed as Patrick here).

   When Drummond’s hunting dog is killed and his housekeeper drugged while he is recruiting Algy things start picking up, then Drummond captures one of the men watching his house, who is murdered before he can talk shortly after an angry McIver arrives explaining one of his under cover men, Richard Hamilton, is missing.

   Does Hamilton have a sister? Maybe, maybe not.

   From there on the whole thing moves at a clip to a satisfying conclusion.

   Unfortunately they leave out the chief villain of the book, none other than Carl Peterson’s murderous inamorata Irma Peterson.

   As far as I know this is only available as part of a pricey set of Drummond DVD’s including all the Drummond films extant in two volumes (most, including the Conway films are easily found on YouTube and elsewhere). Picture quality is poor, but watchable and there are a few weak spots with the sound, but it and the second and final Randell film Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back are both fairly good B-programmers, largely because Randell is much closer to the Drummond of the books than most of the actors cast in the role with broad shoulders and a barrel chest.

   Whatever his limits as an actor he had easy charm on screen, a fine voice, looked good in action, and was more than capable of carrying this sort of thing effortlessly (which I rate has a fairly high level of skill, every actor doesn’t have to play Lear). Tom Conway would follow in two Drummond outings with One Step Beyond host John Newland as Algy a year later, then in 1951 Walter Pidgeon would step out in a major Drummond film, Calling Bulldog Drummond, based on the book by the McNeile’s successor and the model for Drummond, Gerard Fairlie and starring sexy voiced Margaret Leighton, Bernard Lee (M from the Bond films), and future Drummond (in a television pilot) Robert Beatty. After that Drummond was pretty much silent until 1967 and 1969’s Deadlier Than the Male (*) and Some Girls Do with Richard Johnson.

   There have been a couple of attempts at updating Drummond in recent years by various writers including one series imagining him as a modern retired SAS type. None of them have really caught on. A little over a century since he debuted taking out a classified ad looking for adventure Drummond seems relegated to nostalgia, but who knows. In popular fiction anything can happen.

   (*) The novelization of that one by Henry Reymond is supposedly by none other than master mystery writer H. R. F. Keating, though from reading the second book also by “Reymond” seems unlikely to be Keating.

RAYMOND J. HEALY & J. FRANCIS McCOMAS, Editors – Famous Science-Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time And Space. The Modern Library G-31; hardcover, 1957, xvi + 997 pages. First published as Adventures in Time in Space, Random House, hardcover, 1946. Bantam F3102, paperback, 1966, as Adventures in Time and Space (contains only 8 stories). Ballantine, paperback, 1975, also as Adventures in Time and Space.

Part 4 can be found here.

ALFRED BESTER “Adam and No Eve.” The destruction and rebirth of the earth ages ago, with the secret of rebirth the key to the story. (4)

Update: First published in Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1941. First reprinted in this anthology. Also included in Beyond Control, edited by Robert Silverberg (Thomas Nelson, hardcover, 1972). First collected in Starburst (Signet S1524, paperback original, 1958); then in Star Light, Star Bright (Berkley/Putnam, hardcover, 1976). Bester was an extremely well known author in his day, with several classic novels and short stories to his credit, but I think he’s all but forgotten today.

ISAAC ASIMOV “Nightfall.” One of the best known SF stories of all time, about a civilization haunted by fear of darkness, which recurs every 2050 years. (5)

Update: First published in Astounding Science-Fiction, September 1941. Reprinted and collected many times. Every SF reader  and collector  of a certain age must have read it at least once.

HARRY BATES “A Matter of Size.” Novella. A scientist caught up in a mysterious plot is reduced in size. The ratio of one to twelve makes the dimensions come out easy. (1)

Update: First published in Astounding Stories, April 1934. First reprinted in this anthology. Collected in The Day the Earth Stood Still & Other SF Classics (Renaissance E Books, trade paperback, 2008). Bates’ story “Farewell to the Master” (Astounding SF, October 1940) was the basis for the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Bates was also the editor of Astounding in the early 1930s (1930-33).

TO BE CONTINUED.…

DARK ALIBI. Monogram Pictures, 1946. Also released as Charlie Chan in Alcatraz, Fatal Fingerprints and Fatal Fingertips. Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan, Benson Fong as Tommy Chan, Mantan Moreland as Birmingham Brown, Ben Carter as Benjamin Brown, Teala Loring, George Holmes, Joyce Compton, John Eldredge. Based on the character created by Earl Derr Biggers. Director: Phil Karlson. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

   Charlie Chan is hired in this film by a public defender whose client has been convicted of a murder which happened during a bank robbery. He is scheduled to be executed in ten days, which doesn’t give Charlie, his son Tommy, and his chauffeur Birmingham Brown much time to save him. The damning evidence is the man’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime, even though he swears he was never there.

   The actual detective work takes up maybe 30 minutes of the just over an hour of running time. The rest is all comedy, with Tommy and Birmingham clowning it up together or long portions featuring the latter alone. The suspects all live together in the same rooming house, which makes questioning them very easy. The other major setting is that of a large warehouse filled with what looks like old leftover sets and other spooky material, especially in the dark.

   It is clear from the beginning that the crux of the case is finding out how the criminals were able to leave false fingerprints. I don’t know how, but I fingered the key villain immediately. Maybe he/she was obvious, but I still call it a Good One for me.

   But I can’t end this review here before telling you that Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter do what’s called their “indefinite” routine (*) twice, wherein both men carry on a lengthy conversation with neither one ever quite completing any of their sentences. What’s more they do it again a third time at the end with Charlie himself taking part, leaving son Tommy simply scratching his head.

(*) Changed from “infinite” routine, which is incorrect. See comment 6.
   

ROGER TORREY “Jail Bait.” Pat McCarthy & Margie Chalmers #1. Published in Black Mask, October 1936. Not known to have been collected or reprinted.

   This is Roger Torrey’s homage to The Maltese Falcon, as you might decide to call it. I lost track after a while, but there are at least four, maybe five, passages where PI Pat McCarthy tells somebody that while he disliked his partner, now dead, he didn’t kill him and he’s obliged to find out who did do it, because … well, for two reasons. The first because it wouldn’t be good if he didn’t, and secondly because to clear his name for good, what better way to do so than to find the real killer.

   McCarthy is the kind of guy who’s left several jobs with other agencies across the country, all because he has a temper and doesn’t necessarily get along with people, especially cops, and he really would like to keep this one, which he bought into as an equal partner. This means looking into the cases that Dakin was working on. The most obvious of these was a case involving city-wide police corruption.

   Where Margie Chalmers comes in is that she was Dakin’s beautiful blonde girl friend, and she introduces herself in this one by coming for him gun in hand. McCarthy escapes a bullet by the narrowest of margins and eventually calms her down, enough so that he manages to persuade her to help in trapping Dakin’s killer. Even so, there’s no indication that the two of them are going to continue as a crime-fighting duo, but apparently it was so, as they appeared together in thirteen more tales, all for Black Mask between this one in 1936 on through to the February 1940 issue.

   All in all, though, this is no more than an average story, well padded with incidental and somewhat repetitive byplay, such as with a pair of cops who hold a grudge against him, and the feeling is mutual. It’s good enough, though, to wish that someone might read this and decide to put together a collection of all the McCarthy/Chalmers stories.

ALAN RIEFE – The Lady Killers. Huntington Cage #1. Popular Library, paperback original, 1975.

   The gimmick here is that super-sleuth New York City detective Hunt Cage has a convenient twin brother in New Jersey, an artist ready to leave his models to take up the chase when needed. This of course causes much confusion to criminals, and to girl friends.

   Girls who are not friends, but are “hit-men” for the Mafia, are the brothers’ target in this adventure. Women’s lib advances. Lots of bullets – mostly between the bad guys’ eyes – but there is a light touch to be found here and there midst the shootings. I think it safe to say that you can read this at the same time as chewing gm, or even watching TV.

   There are already four more on the stands.

Rating: C.

   
      The Huntington Cage series –

1. The Lady Killers (1975)
2. The Conspirators (1975)
3. The Black Widower (1975)
4. The Silver Puma (1975)
5. The Bullet-Proof Man (1975)
6. The Killer with the Golden Touch (1975)

Note: Among other fictional work Alan Riefe might also be noted for writing a dozen or more adult westerns as J. D. Hardin, and a large number of romance novels as Barbara Riefe.

AGATHA CHRISTIE – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Hercule Poirot novel #3. Collins, UK, 1926. Dodd Mead, US, hardcover. 1926. Reprinted many times. Film: Twickenham, UK, 1931, as Alibi  (with Austin Trevor as Poirot). TV Movie: BBC 2000 (with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot).

   This novel, Hercule Poirot’s most signatory case, is the work on which not only Agatha Christie’s reputation but that of the mystery of murder and manners, that which might be called the British “high tea school,” may be said to rest. Narrated by James Sheppard, trusted family physician and self-appointed confidant to Poirot during his investigation, the novel tracks the events leading up and then subsequent to the murder of Roger Ackroyd, a gentleman of some means and too much knowledge, “an immensely successful manufacturer of (I think) wagon wheels … a man of nearly fifty years of age, rubicund of face and genial of manner … He is, in fact, the life and soul of our peaceful village of King’s Abbot.”

   King’s Abbot is deeply shaken, as well it might be, by the murder of Ackroyd, and the distinguished Belgian detective M. Poirot, now in residence incognito and in retirement in the village, comes in to investigate. As in all fair-play puzzles of detective fiction’s Golden Age, Poirot deduces Ackroyd’s murderer through the gathering of carefully planted clues, accuses that person, and resolves the tragic case. The murderer’s identity is a stunning revelation, however, owing to a narrative device so simultaneously audacious and obvious that it may be said to have altered not only the deductive mystery but the novel form itself. (It is impossible to believe that Vladimir Nabokov did not study this work before composing Pale Fire.)

   Arguably the finest cerebral detective novel ever published, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is inarguably Christie’s finest work. If she had done nothing else, her place in the literature of crime would be secure; if Poirot had done nothing else, his “little grey cells” would have been forever noted. In fact, it is possible that if Christie had written only this novel (and perhaps The ABC Murders and And Then There Were None), her reputation would be much higher than it is (if not the accounting of her estate). But every writer is entitled to be judged by his or her strongest work, and this novel stands alone.

     ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

RAFFLES. United Artists, 1939. David Niven (Raffles), Olivia de Havilland, Dame May Whitty, Dudley Digges, Douglas Walton (Bunny), E. E. Clive. Based upon the celebrated adventures of “The Amateur Cracksman” by E. W. Hornung. Directors: Sam Wood and William Wyler (the latter uncredited).

   A gentleman jewel thief who routinely baffles Scotland Yard decides to retire. This is because the thief – really A.J. Raffles, famous cricketer – has fallen in love with a girl called Gwen and has vowed to end his career of safe-cracking. However, when his friend Bunny is unable to pay off his debts, Raffles decides to help by stealing Lady Melrose’s necklace. He manages to wangle an invitation to a weekend party she is hosting at her estate and anticipates an easy success. However, Inspector McKenzie attends the party to prevent the theft and another burglary is set to go down the same night…

   Today, we’re in an era of Hollywood studios remaking films which aren’t yet twenty years old. Well, this one certainly kicks them to the curb. This is a remake of a nine-year old film from the same country, same studio, same director and same script. And, as David Niven replaces Ronald Colman, it could even have the same moustache too. But, this isn’t a criticism. For one thing, in 1939, they didn’t have DVDs (imagine!), so it had been nearly a decade since people had seen the first film. Also, this has David Niven. Also, this has David Niven. Also, this has … well, it does.

   Niven was born to play the role, and it’s a shame that he didn’t make a bigger splash with it. This could easily have been a series, like the Universal set of Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone. Of course, the war happened and Niven, quite honourably, left Hollywood to fight. And maybe the idea would have been redundant, as this was the same year in which the Saint movies started.

   With his easy charm and suavity, Niven is the best thing about this version. The plot is solid and – though set in a house for most of its run-time – features much of the cosily exciting wandering-around-the-house-at-night stuff that I love so much. It heads towards farce, at points, but you won’t read me complaining about that, as it’s all so lightly amusing and even quickens the pulse at times.

   Dame May Whitty (she of The Lady Vanishes – surely one of the best films in the history of moving pictures) plays the dowager-type part of Lady Melrose and there’s some mild comedy to be enjoyed with her oafish aristocratic husband who is straight out of a Blandings novel.

   The whole thing about giving Raffles a love-interest is non-canonical, as that never happened in the original stories by E.W. Hornung (brother-in-law of Arthur Conan Doyle). In fact, Raffles himself is softer here than he is supposed to be and Bunny’s suicide pledge is only alluded to, while it was properly depicted in the story which inspired it.

   At this point, the character had enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the British pulp magazine The Thriller, with stories written by Barry Perowne, in which the character was updated to the ’30s. This film is also set in those times (though, confusingly, there’s a scene in a Victorian hansom cab) and there’s even a television, before the invention was really popular.

   Unfortunately, this spirited film is marred by a hasty ending which, jarringly, tries to include a daring escape, a Golden Age of Hollywood romantic ending and the obligatory reminder that crime does not pay.

   The character would again find success in a 1977 television series for ITV with Anthony Valentine in the role. A one-off adaptation, titled The Gentleman Thief, was aired in 2001 and starred Nigel Havers. It was a role he was surely also born to play but, unfortunately, was not followed up on, and hasn’t even had a DVD release. Considering the original books are still in print and remain classics of the genre, it would be great to see them adapted again at some point.
   

Rating: ***

S-F YEARBOOK: A Treasury of Science Fiction, Number One, 1967.     Overall rating: 2½ stars.

JOHN D. MacDONALD “Ring Around the Redhead.” [First published in Startling Stories, November 1948.] An inventor discovers a doorway to other dimensions, then must defend himself in court when it proves dangerous. Readable in spite of weak plot. (2)

CHARLES L. HARNESS “Fruits of the Agathon.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948.] Novelette. Agathon is a word from the Greek meaning death of an individual planned for the good of society. Confusing, disturbing, and unreadable, but much better than average. (4)

MARGARET ST. CLAIR “The Unreliable Perfumist.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1953.] Intrigue between a family of Martian perfumists. (0)

GORDON R. DICKSON “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” [First published in Startling Stories, December 1952.] Two Cuperians need the help of a talking at to escape Earth. (1)

RAY BRADBURY “The Irritated People.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1947.] Warfare is conducted by radio music, confetti, and mosquitos. (2)

MARGARET ST. CLAIR “The Stroller.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947.] About strange creatures from Venus. (0)

GEORGE O. SMITH “Journey.” [First published in Startling Stories, May 1948.] Space pilot has to come up with FTL theory to prove he traveled to Alpha Centauri. (3)

EDMOND HAMILTON “The Knowledge Machine.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1948.] Two men take over an inventor’s discovery that speeds learning electronically. (3)

THEODORE STURGEON “The Sky Was Full of Ships.” [First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1947.] Strange visitors to Earth are concerned about the use of atomic power. A famous last line. (3)