WALLACE SMITH – The Captain Hates the Sea. Covici-Friede, hardcover, 1933. Film: Columbia, 1934. Victor McLaglen, Wynne Gibson, Alison Skipworth, John Gilbert, Helen Vinson, Fred Keating, Leon Errol, Walter Connolly, Walter Catlett, Donald Meek, The Three Stooges. Screenplay: Wallace Smith, based on his book of the same title. Director: Lewis Milestone.

   I can’t find out much about Wallace Smith except that he might have been a newsman in Chicago back in the 1920s — that heady Front Page era — before he graduated to novels and thence to Hollywood where he did about a dozen screenplays, including an adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Captain Hates the Sea, and it was seeing this film that prompted me to seek out the book.

   Well, the novel is a pretty fine job. Smith, obviously day-dreaming in the third-person, spins a tale of an alcoholic Hollywood writer who breaks off a doomed relationship with a movie actress to take passage on a ship bound from California to New York, telling himself he’s going to sober up and write that novel he’s been putting off.

   Also on board are a thief and his moll on the lam with stolen security bonds, a dumb (or is he?) cop who falls for the moll, a reformed floozie and her jealous husband, plus assorted side characters, some colorful and some merely backdrops, but all well thought out. And oh yes, they’re joined halfway through the trip by a hooker who got run out of Panama and seems to be channeling Miss Sadie Thompson.

   With characters like this you wouldn’t need much of a plot, but Smith provides a witty, fast-moving thing, with the stolen bonds turning up yon and hither, a couple of affairs, deceit and treachery, fire in the hold, storm at sea and a suicide. All told with a pleasantly sardonic air that somehow keeps from sounding too snide or too pat. In fact, it’s just right, and I’m going to seek out more by this elusive author.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCVB_w-TVdU

   The film Columbia made of this in 1934 was directed by none other than Lewis Milestone, legendary director of Of Mice and Men, All Quiet on the Western Front and Ocean’s Eleven, who handled it with the hip wit and snappy pacing typical of 1930s films.

   Adapting his book, Smith did a good job of paring the tale down to its essentials and softening it up just enough to keep the censors mollified without losing the sadder-but-wiser touch he did so well.

   This being a Columbia picture, Director Milestone had to settle for second-string actors — the ship’s band is portrayed by the Three Stooges — but he picked his cast well, with Victor McLaglen outstanding as the dumb cop, Helen Vinson and Fred Keating very smart and sexy and as the thieves, Leon Errol as a comic steward, and especially John Gilbert, that tragic one-time star now on the skids, perfectly cast as the boozy writer.

   Looking at him here, suave and virile, one wonders how Gilbert might have fared had Louis B. Mayer not elected to destroy his career, but we’ll never know; this was his last film. I should also throw a kudo to Walter Connolly as the eponymous Captain, radiating quiet (and quite funny) desperation, dealing out lines like “I feel sorry for the sheep-headed woman or child that tries to get into the very first lifeboat ahead of me!” and generally imparting an air of comic authority to the whole thing. Definitely one to catch.

Editorial Comments:   The video clip shows the first ten minutes of the film, but for some reason we don’t get to see the full screen. A big chunk of the left side is missing. And even though the clip says it’s part 1 of 7, those leaving comments say that part 8 has never been posted.

   The book is not included in Hubin, and the film is categorized on IMDB as a comedy, which is how I’ve tagged it, but there appears to be enough criminous content for Al to include it. (There are two other books by Wallace Smith included in Crime Fiction IV, one marginally.)

PHILIP ATLEE – The Last Domino Contract. Fawcett Gold Medal, paperback original; 1st printing, 1976.

   The title has a double meaning. Number one, most of CIA agent Joe Gall’s work in Last Domino takes place in South Korea, swarming with corruption, from President Park on down. It is also a country described on page 68 as “the last Asian domino still standing, for U.S. purposes.”

   Number two, though, and maybe even more importantly, Joe Gall is very bitter at the end of this book, and on page 175 he says, “No, Neal. It’s turned into a dirty business, and I’ve finished with it.” And he meant it. This was the last Joe Gall adventure to date.

   And so I may have made a bad mistake in picking this one up to read. I’ve not read many of the earlier Joe Gall spy novels, and I don’t believe I’ve read any of them in the past 15 years. Whatever changes have occurred to the character over his fictional career, I wasn’t aware of any of them while I was reading this book.

   Trying to summarize how I’d categorize it, before I started this one, I had the series placed solidly between the Matt Helm books and the terminally mediocre Nick Carter stories (the modern ones, not the guy from the dime novels). I wish I’d read more of the Gall series. If I had, then there’s a good chance his final adventure would have meant more to me.

   But standing on its own, as it ought to anyway, I found Last Domino barely worth reading. Atlee’s writing style, at least in this book, carries with it a strange air of unreality, one difficult to explain without delving into his purpose in writing the book, which I am totally averse to doing, even if I were able.

   One does wonder, though, how serious his intentions might be — a thought immediately contradicted , however, by the plot itself, a plot against the entire free world that Gall is trying to uncover and stop, if he can. This is not a light-hearted, semi-mocking James Bondian movie adventure. In many ways it is a chaotic, wholly dreamlike sort of fabrication instead.

   In the early chapters, for example, the scene shifts in a moment from a fatal car accident in eastern Oklahoma, to Gall’s home — a castle nestled somewhere in the Ozarks — and immediately off to Korea, and all of this somehow connected to some missing plutonium. How, it is not at all clear, and somehow it is page 85 before your realize that nothing of any substance has happened.

   Not being a fan of spy fiction in general, I need a little more than this to keep my mind occupied. Authors, beware of wandering minds!

   But I’m not you, you who are reading this review. You may be more experienced with spy fiction than I, and you may be of another mind altogether. At any rate, I think you can safely say that this is not your usual spy adventure story.

[UPDATE] 08-22-12.   I don’t usually revise these old reviews as much as I did this one, but I can assure you I have not changed anything of significance. I could tell I was struggling to put into words what I felt about the book the first time, and not quite coming to grips with it.

   I know I didn’t say very much about the story itself when I first reviewed it, and now over 20 years later, I wasn’t able to add anything in that regard. All I’ve done tonight was to improve the writing (one hopes), change some words and indifferent phrasing, chop out some stuff that no longer seemed relevant, and so on, without trying in any way to second-guess my younger self. This, then, is the result.

STAR TREK. NBC / Paramount Studios, 1966-1969. Created by Gene Roddenberry. Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, and DeForrest Kelley as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy

   While Star Trek is TV’s most famous science fiction series, many of its episodes can be considered part of the mystery genre:

  ●   “Journey to Babel.” (11/17/67) Written by D.C. Fontana. Directed by Joseph Pevney. Guest Cast: Mark Lenard and Miss Jane Wyatt

   While the episode focuses on the relationship between Spock and his parents, the story’s backdrop of political intrigue, spies, and murder will appeal to those seeking a good TV thriller. The Enterprise is escorting a group of diplomats on their way to an important conference when one of them is murdered and Spock’s Dad (Mark Lenard) is the chief suspect.

  ●   “Conscience of the King.” (12/8/66) Written by Barry Trivers. Directed by Gerd Oswald. Guest Cast: Arnold Moss, Barbara Anderson, and Bruce Hyde.

   A friend tries to convince Kirk that an actor in a touring troupe of Shakespearean actors is the long sought after mass murderer, Kodos the Executioner. When the friend is murdered, Kirk investigates the troupe further. The acting and dialog are too much over the top for my taste, but the final confession scene is worthy of Perry Mason.

  ●   “Court Martial.” (2/2/67) Teleplay by Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos. Story by Don M. Mankiewicz. Directed by Marc Daniels. Guest Cast: Percy Rodriguez, Elisha Cook and Joan Marshall.

   Speaking of lawyer Perry Mason, the courtroom was featured in more than one episode of the series. In this episode, Kirk is on trail for causing the death of a crew member. The lawyer (Elisha Cook) was right out of the Perry Mason’s school as he pulled one dramatic trick after another.

  ●   “The Menagerie, Part One.” (11/17/66) Written by Gene Roddenberry. Directed by Marc Daniels (*). “Part Two.” (11/24/66) Written by Gene Roddenberry. Directed by Robert Butler (*). Guest Cast: Malachi Throne and Sean Kenny; from the series pilot, “The Cage”: Jeffrey Hunter, Susan Oliver and M. Leigh Hudea.

   Spock kidnaps invalid Christopher Pike, his former Captain and forces the Enterprise to travel to the off limits planet Talos IV. During the trip Spock is put on trail for mutiny. The courtroom is used as a framing device so the series can save some production time and money and show the series original pilot, “The Cage.”. Spock’s motives and what happened on the original mission supply the mystery for this Hugo award winning two-part episode.

    (*) Robert Butler directed the pilot “The Cage” but was not interested in returning. Marc Daniels directed the new footage and the two split the credit with Daniels getting screen credit for Part One and Butler getting screen credit for Part Two.

  ●   “Wolf in the Fold.” (12/22/67) Written by Robert Bloch. Directed by Joseph Pevney. Guest Cast: John Fiedler, Charles Macauley and Pilar Seurat.

   This is the series’ attempt at a police procedural. During a visit to a planet, Chief Engineer Scott (James Doohan) is accused of being a serial killer. The chief investigator uses the typical procedural methods of fingerprints (Scotty’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon), and questioning witnesses and other suspects, but the story does take a supernatural turn or two CSI might not have taken.

  ●   “The Enterprise Incident.” (9/27/68) Written by D.C. Fontana. Directed by John Meredyth Lucas. Guest Cast: Joanne Linville, Jack Donner and Richard Compton.

   Inspired by the real spy drama of the Pueblo incident. Kirk takes the Enterprise into Romulan (the series other bad guys) Neutral Zone where the ship and crew are captured. Fans of Spock like this one as the female Romulan Captain seduces our hero of logic. The spy thriller plot of obtaining military secrets from the enemy is a strong one.

  ●   “The Trouble with Tribbles.” (12/29/67) Written by David Gerrold. Directed by Joseph Pevney. Guest Cast: William Schallert, Stanley Adams, and William Campbell.

   Perhaps the series’ most beloved episode was also the cutest TV episode ever to be about a terrorist plot to kill millions. Who can forget those non-stop reproducing adorable balls of fur called Tribbles? Love by all, well almost all. And that was the key to foiling the evil scheme and uncovering the villain responsible.

  ●   “A Piece of the Action.” (1/12/68) Teleplay by David P. Harmon and Gene L. Coon. Story by David P. Harmon. Guest Cast: Anthony Caruso, Vic Tayback and Lee Delano.

   The Enterprise’s visit to a planet “contaminated” a century earlier by visiting explorers from Earth leads to a fun comic caper. The planet had adopted an Earth history book on 1920’s Chicago mobs as the basis of their civilization. Someone took a Tommy gun and shot the story full of plot holes, so try not to think too hard and just enjoy this humorous nod to great gangsters movies (there is a scene that mimics Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar).

   Sadly, Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek world was too perfect for any true noir unless you wore a red uniform or was a beautiful woman one of the guys fell in love with, then you were as doomed as any noir character.

NOTE: For more information and endless spoilers I recommend a visit to Memory Alpha at http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series.

I’m having some out-patient surgery done tomorrow. Nothing urgent about it, but there’s no reason to delay it either. I’ll be home by dinner time. I don’t know how wobbly in the knees I’ll be afterward, so I thought I’d give myself a longer break and take the rest of the weekend off as well. I’ll be back here by this time on Monday, if not before. See you then.

SHELDON JAFFERY, Editor – Selected Tales of Grim and Grue from the Horror Pulps. Bowling Green University Popular Press, hardcover/softcover, 1987.

   A [recent] collection of stories, Selected Tales of Grim and Grue from the Horror Pulps, edited by Sheldon Jaffery, is wonderfully nostalgia-producing. Jaffery has collected eight novelets from magazines of the thirties like Terror Tales and Horror Stories. Some of the big names in the mystery field wrote for weird-menace pulps, including Cornell Woolrich, Frank Gruber, Bruno Fischer, and Steve Fisher.

   Jaffery apparently couldn’t get them, but the writers he does include are probably more representative of the genre. Typical is Wyatt Blassingame’s “The Tongueless Horror” from Dime Mystery for April 1934. Don’t expect a great deal of subtlety, but they’re all readable, and the authors don’t rely on cop-outs. The seemingly impossible is explained rationally, even if the reader’s credulity is stretched a bit.

   The book is loaded with wonderful cliches like the one in G. T. Fleming-Roberts’ “Moulder of Monsters” (Terror Tales, July-August 1937): “Then he turned into the room where horror dwelt.” From Wayne Rogers’ “Sleep with Me — and Death” (Horror Stories, April-May 1938) we read, “Then the shaggy-haired head lifted and I caught a glimpse of a scarred and battered face, hardly recognizable as human — a face in which the eyes of a madman gleamed triumphantly.”

   All stories are reproduced from the original magazines, which means they include the wonderful pulp ads plus the interior illustrations of monsters slavering over scantily clad women. A bonus is a fine introduction and lengthy index by the late Robert Kenneth Jones, one of the real scholars in this aspect of the pulps.

   Who can resist lists of the complete contents of the single issue, in 1937, of Eerie Stories and the five issues of Uncanny Tales published in 1939 and 1940? Certainly not I.

JEROME DOOLITTLE – Body Scissors. Pocket, hardcover, 1990; reprint paperback, November 1991.

   On the cover is a quote from the Washington Post, calling this a “riveting political thriller.” Well, I had some doubts, but I read it anyway. What does the Washington Post know? They may think this book is a political thriller, since that’s what they’re looking for, but just between you and me, what this really is is a top-notch PI story instead.

   I admit that it’s a little hard to argue the point, since on page 14, even Tom Bethany says he’s not a PI: “…I’m sort of a researcher, sort of a political consultant.” He works primarily for politicians and campaign committees, apparently, looking for leaks, trying to stop leaks before they start, that sort of thing. His home base is Cambridge, near Harvard Yard, and as you may know, Boston politics do get a little nasty at times.

   He’s hired to check out a prospective Secretary of State in this case, however, to avoid another Eagleton affair, and if the work he does isn’t PI work, I’ll turn in my trenchcoat at once. What strikes his eye first is the unsolved death of J. Alden Kellicott’s daughter, a victim of Boston’s once-notorious Combat Zone.

   That, plus some some niggling doubts about Kellicott’s character, found by industrious research and a knack on Bethany’s part to get people to start talking. Doolittle, whose first novel this is, certainly doesn’t show it. He’s a whiz at dialogue, and he has a tremendous amount of insight into his characters and the relationships existing between them.

   I quibbled a little about this being a political thriller — but as you can see, the statement’s not that far off base — and the adjective “riveting” is well taken. Myself, I’d use the phrase “prose that tingles with anticipation” — it’s that good.

   Unfortunately, Bethany also makes four major errors as the detective in this case. Since Doolittle is ultimately responsible for those as well, maybe I should point them out to you, but of course with the usual [WARNING: Plot Alert!! ]. Here they are, my advice to any new PI’s on the block:

    (1) Don’t leave would-be assassins hanging around at loose ends.

    (2) When you work with guns, don’t forget to check the bottom of the barrel.

    (3) When you bait a trap, don’t let the cheese stand alone.

    (4) When the rat takes the bait, don’t leave the cat on guard.

   There you go. No charge for these. Don’t leave home without them. But now I’m being serious: if you’re a PI fan, don’t miss this book.

       The Tom Bethany series —

Body Scissors. Pocket, 1990.
Strangle Hold. Pocket, 1991.
Bear Hug. Pocket, 1992.

Head Lock. Pocket, 1993.

Half Nelson. Pocket, 1994.
Kill Story, Pocket, 1995.

   As I think back on the many pulp conventions that I have attended, I am reminded of the many friends that I have made and the bookish traditions that we started over the years. For instance, when I was a newly wed collector, my wife and I attended the first four Pulpcons, 1972-1975.

   But then children were born and she had to stay home plus let’s face it, non-collectors eventually get tired of the dealers room and the constant discussion about books and pulps.

   Then I started driving out and sharing a room and expenses with the greatest book and pulp collector that I ever encountered: Harry F. Noble. He was so modest that most collectors really never knew anything about him. But we both lived in NJ and visited each other hundreds of times during our almost 40 year friendship. Since Harry’s death, I’ve been driving out with NYC art dealer, Steve Kennedy.

   That is how this convention started with Steve arriving at my house on Wednesday in order to sleep over so we could leave early on Thursday morning. Another tradition of a few years standing. We started off the festivities with a dinner at the Metro Grill in Trenton and five days later we ended it with another visit to the Grill and I had the same salad, pizza, and beer both times. Guess I’m set in my ways.

   But the greatest tradition in my life is Pulpcon, now known as PulpFest. I do not see a difference in the two conventions. PulpFest is not a different, separate event. It is the natural continuation of Pulpcon. The present committee had the foresight to see that Pulpcon was dying and they broke away and formed a stronger and better convention with a new name and a more enthusiastic approach to collecting. But I still see it as the natural evolvement of the Pulpcon started all those years ago in 1972 by Ed Kessel and continued by Rusty Hevelin.

   We left early Thursday morning at 7:15. We rented a van as usual because a car won’t hold all the pulps and books that will be bought. Ed Hulse was the driver; I was riding shotgun; Steve Kennedy was the official talker, and Digges La Touche, otherwise know as The Major, was laying down in the back row reading. He is not called The Reading Machine for nothing.

   Our attitude was drive hell for leather, PulpFest or Bust, and get to Columbus, Ohio in record time. Ed was willing to do this but the State Trooper on the Pennsy Turnpike took a dim view of our policy.

   Two hundred dollars poorer, we continued our mad rush to financial doom. But my attitude has always been that book collecting is the very best addiction. It won’t ruin your health like smoking, drinking or drugs. It won’t break you like fooling around with women or gambling. In fact, you might even make some money when you sell some of your collection. So I always say to hell with bills and family responsibilities; collect books and pulps instead.

   To give you an example of my madness, just a few days before the convention, my central air conditioner bit the dust after 23 years of loyal service. The repairman said not only did I need a new unit but I needed a new furnace also. I went for top of the line, high efficiency, which cost $12,000.

   Many collectors would say at this point, forget PulpFest, I don’t have the money. But serious collectors who are truly addicted will say full steam ahead, I’m not going to miss PulpFest! To top it off, I had to move dozens of boxes and hundreds of books to make room for the workers to install the furnace.

   Since I am no longer the young collector that I once was, needless to say I injured my shoulder and suffered all through the convention with a twisted and wrenched arm. This didn’t stop me either though it was not fun to try and sleep through the pain. Book collectors must have the attitude that the show must go on.

   I have a theory that collecting books and old magazines keeps you young and interested in life. I wake up each day, eager to read books or pulps from my collection. I’ve been retired many years since quitting my job at age 57 and these years have been the happiest of my life.

   Believe me work is a waste of time if you are a book collector. If you can swing it, sell some of your collection and retire, you won’t regret it.

   Let me give you another example of how book collecting keeps you young. The Major, is 70 years old, yet he had no problem with the cramped quarters in the back of the van. If fact, every time we stopped for gas or food, he leaped out of the van, hopping like the energizer bunny.

   Nine hours later, we arrived at the hotel which looked quite new and not at all like the dump we were in last year. There was an enormous complex of meeting rooms in the Convention Center, along with many stores and a big food court. Many restaurants were in walking distance. The Hyatt was worth the extra money and I gleefully paid the con rate of only $109 per night.

   At first I was stunned to discover that there was no hospitality room. Another tradition I have is after a long, hard day of buying books and pulps, I like to unwind with a nice dinner and have a couple drinks talking to other collectors in the con suite.

   I heard that the hotel wanted too high a price for the room plus they wanted to supply a bartender and the liquor. Whether or not this is all true, I found that the big bar on the second floor was a good substitute. The only problem was the annoying presence of many non-collectors boozing and talking at the top of their voices. I thought about telling them to shut up so we could talk about books, but they were quite younger than me and might injure my other shoulder.

   Speaking of drunks, several people asked me the question, “What is Pulpfest?” I not only wore my con ID badge but I also had my usual pulp t-shirt on. I noticed the Thrilling Mystery cover showing cretins menacing a young girl was especially objectionable to many non-collectors.

   Why, I have no idea. I always responded the same way, that PulpFest was a convention of people who collecting old books and magazines. This always resulted in a puzzled stare at my shirt or plain disbelief. I mean what can you expect from non-collectors.

   But I realized I may have made a serious mistake when I got on the elevator and two drunks who were younger and bigger than me stared at my shirt with angry expressions. Holding the elevator door open to prevent the elevator from moving they asked me in a very confrontational manner, “What the hell is PulpFest?” Only they used a stronger word than “hell.”

   I gave my usual answer about old books, etc. They both cursed at the same time and I figured I better take the stairs. They let me go but were not happy about it. This reminded me once again of that old saying, “the non-collector will never be able to understand the collector.” Most non-collectors may look at your collection with a straight face but they really think you are crazy or a hoarder.

   To avoid mean drunks and non-collectors, I hung out in the dealer’s room just about all the time. Attendance was similar to last year and the room was enormous with 115 dealers. The tables were full of pulps, digests, vintage paperbacks, books, dvds, pulp reprints, and artwork. For a collector, it was as if you had died and gone to heaven. It did appear to be too dark in the room, so hopefully this can be corrected next year.

   One collector I was very glad to see was Gordon Huber. He has been to every single pulp convention either under the name Pulpcon or PulpFest. Since Gordon is in his 80’s, I am always glad to see him walking around. It give me hope that I may survive so long.

   Jim and Walter Albert were there as usual and if you had told me that they would be bringing two long comic boxes filled with Adventure pulps, I would have said no way. But they did, and their table may have been the best one with the hundred issues going back to the teens.

   Also of note were the several tables of SF digests, all priced very low. Forty years ago I did not buy many issues of Fantastic and Amazing but I filled up two large boxes with back issues of these two titles.

   Also present were long runs of the digest Analog, F&SF, Galaxy, etc. And then Art Hackathorn had a 50% off sale on several tables of pulps. These bargains all proved once again that it is worth attending PulpFest even with the extra expense of traveling and room rates.

   The auction consisted of over 300 lots. It began at 9:30 pm and lasted past 1:00 am. In the beginning hours there were many bidders but as the night went on less and less collectors were present.

   I managed to last until about the half way point and then Scott Hartshorn and I went to the Big Bar on 2 for beer. I understand by the end of the auction items were going for very low prices.

   However there were some big items in the early lots. For instance there were four gigantic boxes of PEAPS mailings spread throughout the auction. Each big box contained 25 mailings. PEAPS 1-25 went for around $600; PEAPS 26-50 went for $500. I believe the two later boxes also received high bids. Lot 50 of Leonard Robbins Pulp Magazine Index (6 volumes), went for $600.

   The rest of the auction was mainly items from Al Tonik’s collection, a few pulps and many reference books. His DeSoto cover painting recreation of a Phantom cover went for $900.

   The Guest of Honor was SF author Mike Resnick and following his speech were panels such as “Barsoom and Beyond,” “J. Allen St. John,” and “Tarzan on Mars.” Saturday night we had panels on Robert Howard and “The Illustrated Conan.” Artists Jim and Ruth Keegan and Mark Schultz discussed this last topic.

   There was so much going on that I couldn’t take it all in. One discussion I had to miss was the talk that John Locke gave on pulp magazines. Even Thursday night had interesting panels such as Ed Hulse and Garyn Roberts discussing John Campbell and Astounding, Rick Lai on how French literature may have influenced writers, Henry Franke on “Tarzan: A Hero for the Ages,” and Ed Hulse again, on Burroughs as a movie producer.

   Like last year FARMERCON and the New Pulp movement were present. FarmerCon of course refers to Philip Jose’ Farmer and the New Pulp movement is about new stories and novels dealing with pulp series, etc.

   I mentioned that I bought a couple hundred digests above. But I also obtained many pulp reprints, especially those from Altus Press. I found a few pulps I needed and bought some pulp artwork from Beyond Fantasy Fiction.

   I had my usual dealer’s table and sold some dvds and a near complete set of The MYSTERY FANcier. But my biggest sales continued to be the cancelled checks showing the payment to pulp writers and artists. Talbot Mundy and Walt Colburn checks sold as well as an interesting $2.00 check to an unknown woman for “A Black Mask idea”.

   By the way, after 21 issues Tony Davis will be leaving as editor of The Pulpster. We will all miss him. I do want to correct one thing. Don Ramlow wrote some notes about the final years of Pulpcon, titled “Pulpcon’s Final Chapter.” The subtitle is “The End of the Little Convention That Could.” Pulpcon is not dead; it did not die. It lives on in PulpFest and continues to this day.

   PulpFest gives a nice award each year and this time there were two winners. Matt Moring of Altus Press received the Munsey Award for his line of pulp reprint books. Jack and Sally Cullers received the Rusty Hevelin Service Award for their many years of hard work at the conventions.

   And finally to close out this report I would like to thank the PulpFest Committee for another great convention. Without Mike Chomko, Jack Cullers, Barry Traylor, and Ed Hulse, there would be no pulp convention in the summer.

   I’ve been going almost each summer for 40 years, so I need my fix for my book addiction. These four collectors have put on another excellent event. I hope to attend again next year and hopefully so will everyone reading this report.

ANDY BARKER, P.I. NBC. Red Pulley Production. Conaco, NBC-Universal. Cast: Andy Richter as Andy Barker, Clea Lewis as Jenny Barker, Harve Presnell as Lew Staziak, Tony Hale as Simon, Marshall Manesh as Wally. Created by Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff. Music by Adam Cohen. Directed by Jason Ensler.

   Episodes are available on DVD and downloading sites, as well as at Hulu.com where they can be watched for free.

   While Barney Miller remains the greatest ever TV detective comedy, Andy Barker, P.I. may hold that title for TV PIs. But then consider the competition. Generally PI comedies featured a lucky idiot PI (The Michael Richards Show), parodies (Ace Crawford, Private Eye) or gimmicks (Small & Frye, with a six inch PI). What made Andy Barker different was he was a good and dedicated professional at both jobs, CPA and PI.

   Andy lives in a nice middle class home in Fair Oaks, California, with his happy supportive wife and young children. He is a kind, well-mannered, nice guy with a natural talent for solving murders and tax forms. Richter is near perfect as he played his typical role of an average man quick to accept and deal with any strange thing happening around him.

   Andy opened his new accounting business in a local outdoor mall. His first client is a femme fatale looking for help from the office’s former occupant, PI Lew Staziak. Out of boredom and with no other clients, Andy checks out her story. He visits Lew who has retired to a rest home. But after Andy solves the case, Lew decides to keep working as a PI and will from then on take for granted Andy’s help. Lew is as nuts as he is violent.

   Andy’s new business neighbors are not much more stable. Under Andy’s second floor office is “Video Riot”, a video store run by film buff Simon who thinks of himself as Andy’s PI partner. The mall’s restaurant is “Afghan Kebabs” run by Wally an immigrant who, after 9/11, changed his name and covered his restaurant in patriotic American décor with his surveillance camera hidden in the head of a Richard Nixon bust.

   The writing uses the contrast between the fictional PI lifestyle versus reality as a basis for some delightful off beat humor. For example, the cliché plot device of a time limit such as a bomb set to go off at midnight. In “Dial M For Laptop,” Andy has only until midnight to find his stolen laptop with his father-in-law’s tax return or miss the tax deadline (trust me, it’s visually funnier than it reads).

   This was a bad time for NBC. The network had reached new heights in its ability to keep any possible success away from any of their series. Andy Barker, P.I. was too quirky to attract a large audience, but to set it up against events such as NCAA Final Four tournament, and very popular series such as CSI and Grey’s Anatomy was one of NBC’s dumber moves.

         EPISODE INDEX:

● “Pilot” (3/22/07, Thursday 9:30-10pm) Written by Conan O’Brien and Jonathan Groff. Guest Cast: Vanessa Branch, Gary Anthony Williams, Steve Cell, and Nicole Randall Johnson

   Andy Barker, CPA, opens his new business office in a small outdoor mall, but he finds himself helping a client who mistakes him for the office’s former occupant, a hardboiled PI.

Ratings: 6 share versus ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (23), CBS’s NCAA Basketball tournament (10) and Fox’s rerun of Family Guy (5).

● “Fairway My Lovely” (3/22/07, Thursday (9:30-10pm) Written by Alex Herschlag and Jane Espenson. Guest Cast: Peter Allen Vogt, Margaret Easley, and Nicole Randall Johnson

   When Andy’s gross and massively overweight client dies on a golf course, everyone assumes it was a heart attack, except the man’s wife who hires Andy to prove the man’s mistress killed him.

Ratings: 5 share versus ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (22), CBS’s NCAA Basketball tournament (13), and Fox’s American Dad (4).

● “Three Days of the Chicken” (3/29/07, Thursday 9:30-10pm) Written by Gail Lerner. Guest Cast: Brian McNamara, Terry Rhoades, Ben Falcone, and Boogie.

   Andy helps Wally who is being shaken down by an evil Chicken cartel.

Ratings: 4 share versus CBS’s CSI (22), ABC’s rerun Grey’s Anatomy (10), and Fox’s rerun Family Guy (5).

● “Dial M For Laptop” (4/5/07, Thursday 10-10:30pm) Written by Chuck Tatham. Guest Cast: David Huddleston, Traci Lords, and Frank Santorelli.

   Andy’s laptop is stolen when Lew’s plan to help a victim of blackmail leaves Andy unknowingly in the middle.

Ratings: 4 share versus CBS’s Shark (17) and ABC’s October Road (9).

● “The Big No Sleep” (4/14/07, Saturday at 8-8:30pm) Written by Josh Bycel. Guest Cast: Jesse L. Martin, Nestor Carbonell, and Kim Coates.

   Lew expects Andy’s help in revealing a woman to be a fraud and adulteress, but Andy has trouble at home. His baby daughter refuses to sleep until he finds her missing stuffed toy, Snowball.

Ratings: 3 share versus CBS’s Cold Case rerun (9), Fox’s Cops (6), and ABC’S Saturday Night Movie (Shark, 2004) (6)

● “The Lady Vanishes” (4/14/07, Saturday at 8:30-9pm) Written by Jon Ross. Guest Cast: Ed Asner, Amy Sedaris, and James Hong.

   Andy finds a decades old lost letter from Lew’s ex-lover claiming she was framed for the murder of her gangster lover. Andy looks into the case, leading to the return of Lew’s evil former partner, Mickey.

Ratings: 3 share versus (CBS’s Cold Case rerun (9), Fox’s second Cops (7), and ABC’S Saturday Night Movie (6).

Source for ratings: TVTango.com

THE PHANTOM EXPRESS. Majestic Pictures, 1932. William Collier Jr., Sally Blane, J. Farrell MacDonald, Hobart Bosworth, Axel Axelson, Lina Basquette, Eddie Phillips. Director: Emory Johnson.

   There are some good moments in this semi-supernatural-thriller-with-a-logical-explanation movie, but they’re separated in the middle by a lengthy scene that makes no sense at all.

   Starting at the beginning, though, an engine with a lengthy component of railroad cars is derailed when it tries to stop too quickly rounding a curve heading straight for what appears to be a train coming directly toward them. Funny thing is, there was no train. None passed the signal posts along the tracks farther down the line, and none was seen by the survivors once the accident happened.

   Two of the survivors are the engineer (J. Farrell MacDonald), who is blamed, and his best buddy, the fireman (Axel Axelson, whose first and only movie this was, and whose Swedish-sounding accent is a delight all the way through). Investigating the crash is the president of the company’s son (William Collier, Jr.) , a ne’er-do-well who decides to change his way once he spots the beautiful girl (Sally Blane) who is the engineer’s daughter.

   There are any number of scenes with the boss’s son working in the railroad yard, making this movie an outright bonanza for fans of old trains. My grandfather and great-grandfather both worked on cross-country trains, so you can count me in as one of those very pleased to see them. No fake sets here. This was the real deal.

   Overall, though, the mix of comedy with tragedy is an uneasy one in this would-be thriller than doesn’t really have many thrills in it. The scene in the middle is a strange one, as a gang of the bad guys attack a couple of signal posts unmasked, tie up the workers inside, and force them to watch as the invisible train zooms by. For what reason, I do not know. No investigation is made of the incident – you’d thing the police would have at least a passing interest in it – and in fact, it is not mentioned again.

   Could the ingenious trick that was played be copied in real life? It’s ingenious, all right, but I wouldn’t go any further than that. Maybe it suffices to say, “Only in the movies!”

   Richard Deming (1915-1983) was a solid and reliable pro whose crime-writing career extended from late 1940s pulps to early 1980s digests. He also wrote several volumes of popular non-fiction late in his life.

   He is most likely to be remembered as one of the most prolific contributors to Manhunt and the early days of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and as a paperback original writer, sometimes of novels based on TV shows (Dragnet, The Mod Squad, and under the pseudonym Max Franklin, Starsky and Hutch). He was also a frequent ghost for the Ellery Queen team on paperback originals and for Brett Halliday on lead novelettes for Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

   The private-eye hero of Deming’s earliest pulp stories and a number of his Manhunt stories was Manville Moon, who lost a leg in World War II, a disability that slows him down occasionally but not much.

   The four full-length novels about Moon, all reissued as ebooks by Prologue Books and available at Amazon in the three-to-four dollar range, are notable for their uncharacteristic (for Deming) hard covers and (with one exception) their evocative titles. They reveal Deming to be, in common with Rex Stout, George Harmon Coxe, Erle Stanley Gardner, and quite a few others, a writer who drew on both classical and hardboiled conventions.

   In The Gallows in My Garden (1952), Moon tells his story in smooth, relaxed, somewhat Goodwinesque first person. The terrific title comes from G.K. Chesterton’s “A Ballade of Suicide.” The setting is an unnamed Midwestern city, and the author exhibits a comfortable postwar Midwestern sensibility. The book is dedicated as follows: “To my mother, who would prefer me to write innocuous tales about members of Dover Place Church.”

   Though he will go through all the tough-guy paces, Moon is not really such a hardass and certainly a gentleman in his dealings with women. There’s some good character drawing but the secondary regulars (girlfriend Fausta Moreni, an Italian war refugee turned restaurateur; annoying comic sidekick Mouldy Green, a Moon Army buddy; and irascible friendly enemy cop Warren Day) seem made for radio.

   The case is a classical whodunit setup, focused on an inheritance. Moon’s client, a 19-year-old heiress who will not collect her massive fortune until her twenty-first birthday, tells him a series of seemingly accidental close calls have convinced her someone is trying to kill her.

   But it is her brother who becomes a murder victim. Many will share my immediate suspicion that Deming had lifted the plot and its ultimate solution from a very famous Golden-Age detective novel, and even those who do not know the novel in question might see that solution coming.

   Does Deming have a surprise in store? Moon conducts a gathering of the suspects to reveal the generously-clued killer. The devotion to fair play puzzle spinning continues in all four novels, but this first is much the best of them.

   Tweak the Devil’s Nose (1953) begins with the shooting of the lieutenant governor of Illinois outside El Patio, Fausta Moreni’s nightclub and restaurant. Fausta is rich, which is a problem for Manny, a situation similar to those in many of William Campbell Gault’s novels. More of the obligatory gangsters and fight scenes are there to pay Deming’s hardboiled dues. It’s highly readable and entertaining, though not as good as its predecessor.

   Give the Girl a Gun was originally published as Whistle Past the Graveyard (1954), a much better title, though the new one at least fits the story. Central to the plot is a new invention designed to prevent hunters from accidentally shooting each other. Deming inserts fisticuffs and a standard girlfriend in danger suspense sequence not vital to the main plot before another gathering of the suspects clears things up.

   Juvenile Delinquent, published in Great Britain in 1958, apparently never appeared as a complete novel in the United States prior to the Prologue ebook, though it was published in Manhunt (July 1955) in a shorter version.

   It lacks the light touch of earlier books in the series, offering a serious look at the J.D. problem with much preachment and speechifying included. It has a kind of procedural feel early on, reflecting a change of style and fashion in the middle fifties. The serious intent may be admirable, and I would never go so far as to miss the comic relief, but the didacticism makes this generally less successful purely as entertainment.

   Fausta and the utterly unbelievable Mouldy finally appear in the second half, but the change to a lighter tone doesn’t help much. The cop contact is present but more subdued. The mystery plot is on the thin side, though the solution is typically well worked out.

   In sum, Deming is a consistently reliable performer, always readable and entertaining. And admirers of the classical puzzle might see through the fisticuffs to a refreshing adeptness at misdirection.

       The Manville Moon series —

   The Gallows in My Garden. Rinehart & Co., hardcover, 1952. Dell #682, paperback, 1963.
   Tweak the Devil’s Nose. Rinehart & Co., hardcover, 1953. Jonathan Press J-91, paperback, as Hand-Picked to Die, 1956 (abridged).

   Whistle Past the Graveyard. Rinehart & Co., hardcover, 1954. Jonathan Press J-83, paperback, as Give the Girl a Gun, 1955 (abridged).

   Juvenile Delinquent. Boardman, UK, hardcover, 1958. (No US print edition.)