AMOS BURKE, SECRET AGENT. ABC / Four Star Productions / Barbety, 1965-66. Cast: Gene Barry as Amos Burke, Carl Benton Reid as The Man. Series based on characters created by Frank D. Gilroy. Produced by Aaron Spelling.

    From Aaron Spelling: A Prime Time Life, by Aaron Spelling with Jefferson Graham: “Burke’s Law was one of my first great campy shows… Then ABC threw us a curveball with the ‘James Bond’ craze. Suddenly secret agents were in… So in 1965 Burke’s Law, the story of a millionaire L.A. detective, was forcibly changed to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. He became a debonair, globe-trotting secret agent for a United States intelligence agency. I hated it, Gene hated it, we all hated it, and ABC was very wrong to change it…”

    The series was a ratings failure from the very beginning. “Balance of Terror” (9/15/65) was the series first episode. The Arbitron ratings (Broadcasting, 9/20/65) found NBC’s I Spy at 37.6 share (first half hour) and 40.9 (last half hour) compared to CBS’s Danny Kaye at 32.3 share and 30.3 share compared to Amos Burke at 24.8 share and 25.8 share. By November the series would be cancelled (Broadcasting, 11/1/65).

    Interestingly, the final episode of the series, “Terror in Tiny Town, Part Two” aired at 10pm on Wednesday, January 12, 1966, the same night ABC premiered its new spy series Blue Light at 8:30pm. Could the failure of Amos Burke have played a role in ABC picking up Blue Light and the rush to get it on the air?

    So besides the audience having little interest in Amos Burke as a spy, and everyone involved hating it, the series also had a fatal creative flaw, The Man.

    The Man was supposed to be Amos Burke’s “M” (Bond) or Mr. Waverly (Man from U.N.C.L.E.). Instead The Man was one of the most unlikable, heartless, mean characters ever to play a good guy on TV. While Amos could not contact The Man, The Man gave him a watch that when it buzzed, it meant Amos had to stop everything and get to the airport as fast as possible to meet The Man. The Man’s office was the inside of a DC-9 and he conducted all meetings (but one) in the air.

    Amos would wait on the landing strip in his Rolls (the only other surviving character from Burke’s Law) for The Man’s plane. Once it landed, Amos would pull out what looked like a sonic pen light and point it at the plane, the sound would lower the stairs and Amos would enter and cool his heels in the outer “office” until The Man gave him permission to enter. Then Amos would use the door’s keypad (with comical beeps and boops) to open the door. This is how sidekicks get treated, not the hero.

    Most episodes featured at least one beautiful woman on each side. Amos enjoyed working with women, and while much of his dialog sounds condescending today, he treated his female contacts as equals. But for Amos, women were usually interchangeable. In one episode (I won’t spoil it by naming it) Amos’s contact is a beautiful intelligent woman Amos admires, but after her death in action he doesn’t even comment on the loss. At the end, he seduces her replacement.

    Production values were on the cheap side and sets and exteriors were noticeably recycled week after week. But Supervising Art Director Bill Ross and his crew did a creative job using sets to establish the style of the show, with campy odd shaped doors for the villain’s lair to menacing underground dungeons.

    While few miss Amos Burke, Secret Agent, one wonders why ABC cancelled the series instead of returning to the successful police formula of Burke’s Law.

        EPISODE GUIDE —

“Balance of Terror.” September 15, 1965. Writtenby Robert Buckner. Director: Murray Golden. Guest Cast: Will Kuluva, Gerald Mohr, Michele Carey * Amos takes the place of an arrested courier for a group smuggling gold from Red China into Latin America. (Part of the opening of this episode can be seen here on YouTube.)

“Operation Long Shadow.” September 22, 1965. Written by Albert Beich & William H. Wright. Director: Don Taylor. Guest Cast: Antoinette Bower, Dan Tobin, Rosemary DeCamp * A kidnapping of the son of an Algerian government official is the key to a mysterious plot. The “B” storyline involved two vacationing American tourists who knew Amos as the good guy detective and Amos proving to them he has turned into a spoiled playboy cad. In one of the more imaginative death traps of the series, Amos is locked in a moving train car filling up with gas. He escapes with the aid of the air in his Rolls tires.

“Steam Heat.” September 29, 1965. Written by Marc Brandel. Director: Virgil Vogel. Guest Cast: Nehemiah Persoff, James Best, Jane Walo * Exiled Mob boss mixes business with revenge when he plans to kill the Senator who got him kicked out of the country while his gang robs New York City using a knockout gas released through the city’s steam pipes. In this episode Amos receives instructions with breakfast on a record disguised as a flapjack.

“Password to Death.” October 6, 1965. Written by Marc Brandel. Director: Seymour Robbie. Guest Cast: Janette Scott, Joseph Ruskin, Michael Pate * A dying clue ‘S Day’ leads Amos to Cornwall, England and an evil villain. One of the best episodes of the series as it featured the perfect spy plot for the series premise. It also had my favorite line of the series. After quoting Shakespeare, Amos adds “Hamlet’s Law.” (It is Janette Scott seen with Gene Barry in the two photos above and to the right.)

“The Man with the Power.” October 13, 1965. Written by Stuart Jerome. Director: Murray Golden. Guest Cast: Thomas Gomez, John Abbott, Ilze Taurins * Amos’s attempt to help a scientist defect goes wrong, leaving the unconscious scientist wired to a bomb. The Man worries about America’s image as Vienna is evacuated.

“Nightmare in the Sun.” October 20, 1965. Written by Tony Barrett. Director: James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Barbara Luna, Edward Asner, Joan Staley, Elisha Cook * The Man is concerned about an assassination attempt of a Mexican Government official by two Americans because it might prevent the approval of a treaty between America and Mexico. Flawed by its predictability and many moments that make little to no sense.

“The Prisoner of Mr. Sin.” October 27, 1965. Teleplay: Gilbert Ralston and Marc Brandel. Story: Gilbert Ralston. Director: John Peyser. Guest Cast: Michael Dunn, France Nuyen, Greta Chi * Code breaking genius Waldo Bannister is replaced by a machine, rather than find something else for his “brilliant brain” to do, the American government places him under house arrest for a year. When he escapes, Amos is assigned to find Waldo. The trail leads to ruthless mercenary Indian (Michael Dunn) who ‘helps’ people on the run then sells their secrets and drains their bank accounts.

“Peace, It’s a Gasser.” November 3, 1965. Written by Palmer Thompson. Director: James Goldstone. Guest Cast: Henry Jones, Ruta Lee. Brooke Bundy * Evil Mastermind demands the end of war or he will use his gas that turns adults into self-obsessed children. His minions are teenagers who, all but one, are willing to kill for peace. This episode got dumber with every twist. In one scene The Man taunted Amos for going soft when Amos objected to The Man using him as an executioner of one of the agency’s own men.

“The Weapon.” November 10, 1965. (not viewed)

“Deadlier Than the Male.” November 17, 1965. (not viewed)

“Whatever Happened to Adriana, and Why Won’t She Stay Dead?” December 1, 1965. Written by Warren Duff. Director: Seymore Robbie. Guest Cast: Albert Paulsen, Jocelyn Lane, Joan Patrick * A drug dealer attempts to smuggle missiles into Latin America. Flawed by a weak villain (who runs at any hint of danger) and twists that needed to be treated more seriously.

“The Man’s Men.” December 8, 1965. Written by Albert Beich & William H. Wright. Director: Jerry Hopper. Guest Cast: Nancy Gates, Vaughn Taylor, Norman Alden * Bad guys break into MX3’s cover station, the American Bison Society, and steal a list of the agency’s agents. Great visual clue, shown more than once, that is harder to notice than figure out who done it. Gadget of the week featured a safe that when broken into lets out a radioactive gas that makes the back of the thieves’ ears glow.

“Or No Tomorrow.” December 15, 1965. Written by John & Ward Hawkins. Director: Virgil Vogel. Guest Cast: Abbe Lane, Lee Bergere, Ziva Rodann * Spoiled Prince gets his hands on a fungus that could destroy the world’s rice crop. He wants the U.S. to turn over two spies they have in prison so he can sell their secrets. Filled with pointless scenes like a William Tell contest between Amos and the Prince. Dumbest opening in series, Amos is greeted with a bomb in his room. His cover blown, Amos continues on the case with a bad guy following him to Amos’s local contacts.

“A Little Gift for Cairo.” December 22, 1965. (not viewed)

“A Very Important Russian Is Missing.” December 20, 1965. Teleplay: Tony Barrett. Story: Samuel A. Peeples and Tony Barrett. Director: Virgil Vogel. Guest Cast: Phyllis Newman, Donald Harron, Nina Shipman * The Russians and Americans join forces to find a kidnapped Russian official before the Chinese can. Nice plot, twists, and sets but weaken by series campy premise.

“Terror in a Tiny Town.” Part One: January 5, 1966. Part Two: January 12, 1966. Written by Marc Brandel. Director: Murray Golden. Guest Cast: Robert Middleton, Kevin McCarthy, Lynn Loring * Brainwashed by local radio station, a town with Atomic research plant becomes violently paranoid about the threat of outside influences on their way of life. Heavy-handed morality tale against the evils of bigotry and the 50s “Red Scare.”

  THE BARGAIN. New York Motion Picture Corp., 1914. William S. Hart, J. Frank Burke, Barney Sherry, James Dawley, Clara Williams, Charles Swickard, Roy Laidlaw, Herschel Mayall. Scenario by Thomas H. Ince and William H. Clifford; cinematography by Joseph H. August and/or Robert Newhard. Director: Reginald Barker. Shown at Cinevent 39, Columbus OH, May 2003.

   Hart’s first feature-length film, The Bargain, as the program notes aptly pointed out, established the basic elements that would be a hallmark of the Hart Western (notably the concept of the good-bad man who is regenerated through his love for a good woman).

   The film was shot in and near the Grand Canyon (with some sources claiming the cinematography was by Joseph August) and while the print was not always the sharpest, varying in quality from reel to reel, the Arizona landscape was captured in its startling beauty and awesome grandeur.

   I was immediately struck by the opening sequence in which each of the cast members is first shown in evening attire, then as they bend over, hiding their face from the camera, they straighten up in makeup and costume for their on-screen-roles. (Dan Stumpf commented that he had seen this device used in at least one other Hart film.)

   Hart plays outlaw Two-Gun Jim Stokes who, after he is wounded by a posse, is rescued by a farmer (J. Barney Sherry) who takes him to his shack, which he shares with his daughter Nell (Clara Williams).

   Stokes and Nell fall in love, are married, and Stokes leaves to settle some unfinished business (he plans to return the money from his most recent holdup), promising to return.

   He’s captured by Sheriff Bud Walsh (J. Frank Burke) but when Walsh, falling prey to temptation, gambles away the money he’s rescued from Stokes, Stokes strikes a bargain that will save Walsh’s reputation and allow Stokes to escape to a new life.

   In a sense, The Bargain was Ince’s response to DeMille’s The Squaw Man. It made Hart a star and confirmed the Western as a major film genre.

DAVID GOODIS – Five Noir Novels of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Library of America, hardcover, March 2012.

   I’ve been reading and collecting books from The Library of America ever since they first started coming out. At first it looked like they would just be publishing the works of the established literary figures, great authors like Henry James, Eugene O’Neill, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and so on.

   But lately they have crossed over into more popular areas and genres by publishing two volumes of crime novels (including Down There by David Goodis), Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, two volumes titled American Fantastic Tales, and now David Goodis.

   I see this as a very good sign for popular culture and the mystery and SF genres. I guess it is too much to hope for volumes dealing with great western fiction but seeing this volume on Goodis makes me hope that we will see collections by Jim Thompson, Peter Rabe, Charles Williams, John D. Macdonald, Ross Macdonald, Gil Brewer, and others.

   We should not be surprised to see Goodis singled out for such attention because the French have long thought he was exceptional and in fact the only full length biography is in French. He was the poet of the bleak, doomed, and lost. It’s been said that Goodis did not write novels; he wrote suicide notes.

   I first became aware of David Goodis back in the 1960’s when I started to collect the pulp magazines. His pulp career lasted from 1939 to about 1947. He has been quoted as saying that he produced millions of words for the sport, detective, and western pulps. But most of his work was published in what I call the air-war pulps. I eventually accumulated extensive runs of such titles as Fighting Aces, Battle Birds, RAF Wings, Dare-Devil Aces, and Sky Raiders. Goodis appeared in all these pulps with dozens of stories, perhaps over a hundred.

   I would have to admit that I found his pulp work to be less than interesting. I’ve always had a problem with the air pulps with seemed to concentrate too much on airplanes and flying, while ignoring characterization and believable plots. I eventually sold, traded, and disposed of all my air-war magazines.

   There is an excellent DVD dealing with Goodis’ life, marriage, and career called David Goodis … to a Pulp It’s a must for anyone interested in his writing and one of the extras points out that Goodis’ wife evidently felt the same way as I did concerning his pulp stories.

   His wife told her second husband that the reason she left Goodis and divorced him was because she couldn’t stand his pulp writing that he was doing for the air-war magazines.

   She must have received a shock when he broke into the slick market with his novel, Dark Passage for the Saturday Evening Post in 1946. Not only did he receive a far higher rate of pay than he was getting for his pulp work, but Hollywood paid $25,000 for the screen rights. In today’s money that is around a quarter of a million. The movie was not just your usual effort, but starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

   At this time it was goodbye to the pulps and the beginning of his Hollywood career. Despite receiving good money he still wore threadbare suits and slept on the couch of a friend for $4.00 a month. He soon found himself out of a job and back in Philadelphia, living in his parents house, and writing original novels for such paperback firms as Gold Medal.

   The Library of America edition reprints five complete novels. All five were made into interesting movies. and my comments on both the books and films follow:

● Dark Passage.   Though this is Goodis’ first real success, I don’t think it is an outstanding novel. My feeling on a second reading was that it is OK, good in spots by nothing that special.

   The story is not too believable and suffers from the happy ending. It reminds me of Cornell Woolrich, only not as good. I find the plot absurd with the rich, pretty girl falling in love with the loser convicted of murder. Also ridiculous to think that a cab driver and doctor would help the hero without even knowing anything about him.

   I watched the movie for the sixth time (I have a Bogart book which I annotate every time I see one of his films), and it’s hard to believe that they would cover up his face in bandages for most of the movie. But it does follow the plot of the novel and I find it better than the book.

● Nightfall.   This also is just OK but nothing that special. Another innocent man framed for murder and robbery. Both these novels have a silly scene where the hero gets the gun away from the criminal by distracting him with talk. And another beautiful girl.

   Again I found the movie better than the book. It follows the basic plot with some changes but Aldo Ray is bland as the innocent man in trouble. Great villain.

● The Burglar.   I found this novel to be better than the two above. Instead of the typical innocent man wrongly accused plots, this one was more believable with a professional jewel thief becoming involved in killings. Very downbeat ending, just what you would expect from Goodis.

   The movie stars Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield and follows the plot of the novel. The fact that David Goodis wrote the screenplay makes this even more interesting.

● The Moon in the Gutter.   With this book, it appears the novels are getting better. This one does not star a criminal or men framed for murder but has as a protagonist a laborer working on the docks and living in a slum area of Philly.

   He hangs out in a dive called Dugan’s Den, which has the atmosphere and characters right out of a Eugene O’Neill play. Vernon Street in Philadelphia takes on a life of its own and becomes a character in the novel.

   The movie was made in 1983 and is French with subtitles, starring Gerard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski. It follows the basic plot of the novel.

● Street of No Return.   Mediocre and not too believable. Skid row bum and drunk (a former famous singer) defeats criminal plan to cause race riots. Dialog is poor and the police act like idiots. Another beautiful girl falls for our hero.

   The movie was directed by Samuel Fuller and stars Keith Carradine. However in this case, the film was even more disappointing than the novel. Believe me, you don’t want to see Keith Carradine in a fright wig, trying to act like a bum.

   Despite the critical comments above, I did enjoy reading the five novels but lucky for me after reading them I immediately spent some time at a book convention buying and reading pulps. Otherwise, I might have hanged myself. No wonder Goodis lived such a short life, from 1917 to 1967.

       Bibliography (novels and story collections only)

Retreat from Oblivion, 1939.
Dark Passage, 1946.
Nightfall, 1947.
Behold This Woman, 1947.
Of Missing Persons, 1950.
Cassidy’s Girl, 1951.
Of Tender Sin, 1952.
Street of the Lost, 1952.
The Burglar, 1953.
The Moon in the Gutter, 1953.
Black Friday, 1954.
Street of No Return, 1954.
The Blonde on the Street Corner, 1954.
The Wounded and the Slain, 1955.
Down There (Shoot the Piano Player), 1956.
Fire in the Flesh, 1957.
Night Squad, 1961.
Somebody’s Done For, 1967.
Black Friday and Selected Stories, 2006.    [A collection of his shorter work from such magazines as Ten Story Mystery, Colliers, New Detective, Manhunt and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.]

HUSTLE. BBC-TV, UK. Series Four: April 18 to May 23, 2007. (Seen on the American Movie Classics cable channel in US.) Marc Warren, Robert Glenister, Jaime Murray, Robert Vaughn, Rob Jarvis. Created by Tony Jordan.

   Hustle has returned for a new series (the fourth: one hour each, no adverts) about the ‘lovable’ group of London conmen (one woman) who, of course, delight in fleecing those that deserve to be fleeced.

   In the first episode we hear that leader Mickey Stone is pursuing a mark in Australia (actually actor Adrian Lester has left the series) and so the group go about pursuing an oil-rich Texan (played by Robert Wagner) by flying to Los Angeles and attempting to sell him the Hollywood sign.

   These stories are, in general, quite enjoyable but the problem is that they tend to be very similar and we have already had 24 of them. This first tale, with its Californian setting, seems particularly unlikely, but then realism is not the aim.

   The second story returns to England with a story involving passing a dud horse off as a high-flying racer and selling it to an upstart cockney millionaire. Very watchable, but you run the risk like with a box of chocolates of eating too many all at once — and you don’t want to look too closely at what’s gone into it.

Editorial Comments:   This review was reprinted from Geoff’s apazine Caddish Thoughts #127, July 2007. The series has proved successful enough that four more seasons of episodes have appeared since he wrote this review. (The eighth season, which ended in February 2012, is reported to be the last.) Only the first four seasons have been released on DVD in the US.

        #12. INDIAN JOHN SEATTLE, by Charles Alexander.

   This next installment of my columns for Mystery*File features a look at another series character who appeared in the pages of Detective Fiction Weekly. The “Indian John Seattle” stories by Charles Alexander made up a short series of at least fifteen stories published in DFW from 1933 through 1939, plus two stories in Ace-High Detective Magazine 1936-37.

   The stories are rural in setting. Stories published in DFW were a mixture of settings, both urban and rural. Many stories took place in urban environments, but there were a large number that were rural in setting. The Tug Norton series by Edward Parrish Ware was one that had stories in both urban and rural settings. Ware’s Ranger Jack Calhoun series was mostly rural, with a little in small towns. Even an urban series such as Morton & McGarvey by Donald Barr Chidsey had some stories in a rural environment.

   Indian John Seattle is a sheriff of primarily rural Plainview County in Oregon, and his shabby office is in the courthouse in the town of Plainview. He gets his name from his learning all about Indian ways and outdoor skills. He spent his boyhood with the Nez Perce Indians. “He was an instinctive and Indian-trained hunter; criminals were his prey.” (Head Hunt)

   The first story, “Death Song,” states that to catch a killer, “he must play Indian cunning on them.” This seems to work, as he flushes out the guilty man into running and later confessing the murder. This story also notes: “Many crimes of the forest Seattle had solved. He knew men—knew them through and through when they placed themselves against the background of canyon and forest where he had gained his wisdom.” In a later story, “Up Death Creek,” Seattle is called “A human steel-trap in the path of the evil-doer.”

   In the second story, “Head Hunt,” his deputy sheriff is introduced: “Hal Minton, … a tall and neat and taciturn man in his late twenties.” He is also described as “tight-lipped and grim of eye, advertised the dignity of the law.”

   Minton does not always approve of the way Seattle does things. Seattle, by contrast to his deputy, was “a bandy-legged figure in worn moleskins, wearing a time-honored Stetson, …” He is slightly bent from much time in the saddle, although he regularly uses an ancient Ford automobile he calls Flap-fender.

   No mention is made of any family of Seattle’s, nor is it known where his home was. He kept odd hours as sheriff, and was likely to turn up making the rounds of the town of Plainview at 3 A.M. He seems to have lived for his job.

   His cases were murder-involved, and Sheriff Seattle had plenty of experience. He “had a nose for trouble, a reaction, perhaps instinctive, to the lurking threat of danger. Years in the wilderness had equipped him with the wariness of the wolf, the cat-like cunning of the cougar.” (Head Hunt)

   In “Head Hunt” he tracks down two murderers and finds the missing head of their victim, meanwhile avoiding a death-trap. Seattle carries an old .45 Frontier Model Colt, and certainly knows how to use it.

   In the story, “The Weeping Lorena,” there is also no mystery as to who are the murderers and what they did. The story is regarding Indian John Seattle’s discovery of the crime and dealing with the criminals. The criminals in this story are contemptuous of the local law enforcement, calling them “hick cops.”

   However, they find that Sheriff Indian John Seattle is no fool as he quickly uncovers their scheme and crime. This story reveals that Seattle has no confidence in the abilities of his deputy, Minton. Seattle mentions that Minton is usually the first on the scene of the crime, but the last to solve the crime. In “Death Watch,” Minton actually interferes with Seattle’s attempt to uncover the crime and fasten the guilt where it belongs.

   There were other series in DFW about rural sheriffs who solved crimes. One of these was the series about Sheriff Whitcher Bemis, written by Harold de Polo and published in DFW from 1927-1928. De Polo also had another rural sheriff series in DFW: Sheriff Ollie Bascomb from 1931-1941. Both of de Polo’s series have a bit of humor in them, and the Whitcher Bemis series attempts a rural dialect for the characters.

   The Sheriff Indian John Seattle series is different than these two series primarily in having no humor present in the stories, and presenting the sheriff as a person of dignity, and not just a hick sheriff.

   â€œDeath Watch” involves another criminal who thinks he can outsmart Sheriff Seattle, and tries to kill him when his plans are failing. However, the criminal overlooks a simple thing in his plan, and it comes back to point the finger at him. In this story, Seattle actually kills one of the criminals. Usually he prefers to catch them alive for trial, although a number of times he has to wound the criminal in order to get his man. One of the better stories in the series.

   In “Up Death Creek” Seattle has to solve a bit of a puzzle in order to finish this case. The blurb for the story reads as follows: “The bullet pneumonia of Whisky Brown, the torn boot with the missing calk—Indian John had to read those sinister signs to save an innocent man from the gallows.”

   In “Claws of the Killer” the two murderers think they have a good plan by killing someone and claiming a wild bear did the crime. However, Sheriff Seattle manages to capture both and point out a large flaw in their scheme.

   â€œDeath is a Hummingbird” involves a bizarre and very improbable method of murder that I have not seen before. Using hummingbirds to start fires! An absurd idea. The story basically falls apart, and Sheriff Seattle uses a ridiculous bluff on the murderer to make him confess.

   In “Rat Nest,” a much better story, Seattle is investigating some poachers, and when he arrests one of them for murder he winds up making the biggest mistake of his career. However, when he investigates further, he learns the truth behind the matter.

   In “Deputy Sheriff Rattlesnake” the murderers kidnapped Seattle and placed him in a death trap, from which he escaped. However, while he was missing, deputy sheriff Minton and the coroner argued over who should be sheriff if Seattle did not show up. So it sounds like he was feared, but not missed.

   This was an average series of stories compared to the many other series that ran in DFW, but it is better than the two rural sheriff series written by Harold de Polo. I prefer the series without much humor in it, compared to the humor present in the de Polo series.

      The Indian John Seattle series, by Charles Alexander:

   In Detective Fiction Weekly:

Death Song     April 8, 1933
Head Hunt     August 12, 1933
The Weeping Lorena     October 7, 1933
Bullet-Hole Business     January 27, 1934
The Hicks Have It     March 17, 1934
Death Watch     June 16, 1934
Up Death Creek     June 30, 1934
Back-Fire Murder     July 28, 1934
The Lady Says     October 6, 1934
Claws of the Killer     March 23, 1935
Homicide Expert     November 23, 1935
Death Walks on Water     June 4, 1938
Death is a Hummingbird     June 18, 1938
Rat Nest     September 24, 1938
Deputy Sheriff Rattlesnake     February 4, 1939

   In Ace-High Detective Magazine:

Black Creek Brimstone     September, 1936

Drummer of Doom     February-March, 1937

    Previously in this series:

1. SHAMUS MAGUIRE, by Stanley Day.
2. HAPPY McGONIGLE, by Paul Allenby.
3. ARTY BEELE, by Ruth & Alexander Wilson.
4. COLIN HAIG, by H. Bedford-Jones.
5. SECRET AGENT GEORGE DEVRITE, by Tom Curry.
6. BATTLE McKIM, by Edward Parrish Ware.
7. TUG NORTON by Edward Parrish Ware.
8. CANDID JONES by Richard Sale.
9. THE PATENT LEATHER KID, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
10. OSCAR VAN DUYVEN & PIERRE LEMASSE, by Robert Brennan.
11. INSPECTOR FRAYNE, by by Harold de Polo.

ERIC AMBLER – A Coffin for Dimitrios. Alfred A. Knopf, US, hardcover, 1939. First published in the UK as The Mask of Dimitrios: Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1939. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and paperback.

   Eric Ambler has long been known as a master of international intrigue. His novels typically involve a more or less ordinary protagonist who has blundered into some sinister situation and has become enmeshed in it against his will. He must then extricate himself by appearing to take part in the intrigue, often as a reluctant agent for the authorities.

   Ambler’s narrative style is straightforward and economical; his plots, whether simple or complex, are suspenseful; his action scenes are high points in the books.

   A Coffin for Dimitrios is the story of a man with an obsession. Charles Latimer, a writer of detective novels, is on holiday in Istanbul when he meets Turkish Secret Police colonel Haki; Haki admires Latimer’s work and, like many policemen, has an idea for a novel, which he thinks Latimer should write.

   The idea is old-hat, but the story Haki tells Latimer as an aside — about the criminal Dimitrios Makropoulis — fascinates the writer. Dimitrios, who has been fished out of the Bosphorus, dead of a knife wound, has been involved in murder, an assassination plot, pimping, and drug trafficking; now he lies in the morgue, and Latimer impulsively asks to view the body.

   The viewing affects Latimer powerfully, and he becomes determined to trace the life of Dimitrios. His search takes him to Smyrna, Athens, Sofia, Geneva, and Paris. It reveals more facets of Dimitrios’s life than the police dossiers hold, and it throws Latimer into the company of a mysterious man named Peters who seems very interested in the fact that the writer saw Dimitrios’s body in the morgue. So interested, in fact, that he aids the investigation, and Latimer finds himself in a situation stranger and more dangerous than any in his own detective stories.

   This is an intriguing and suspenseful novel with an ironic twist at the end that causes us to reflect on how little we really learn from life’s experiences. More or less faithful to it is the moody 1944 film version starring Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, which appeared under the original British title of the novel, The Mask of Dimitrios. The film’s screenplay was authored by another mystery writer, Frank Gruber.

   Charles Latimer reappears in one other novel, The Intercom Conspiracy (1969).

         ———
   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.

SHOTGUN SLADE. Revue Studios/MCA TV. Syndicated, 1959-61, 78 episodes. Created by Frank Gruber. Executive Producer: Nat Holt. Cast: Scott Brady as “Shotgun” Slade.

    “Shotgun” Slade (his first name was never mentioned) was the lone member of the Slade Detective Agency, with his office in Denver. He traveled all over the Old West for clients who had hired him.

    Scott Brady (He Walked by Night) was convincing as a tough Western PI who could handle himself in a fight, but less convincing as Slade the ladies man. Oddly, while he had a beautiful woman waiting for him in virtually every town, Slade thought of himself as a loner.

    It was 1959, the PI was beginning to replace the Western on TV, this gimmick heavy syndicated TV series wanted it both ways. Creator Frank Gruber is a familiar name to Pulp and Westerns fans alike. Gruber had worked with Executive Producer Nat Holt on several B-Westerns including The Great Missouri Raid, as well as the TV series Tales of Wells Fargo. Holt is also remembered for his movie work with Randolph Scott (Rage at Dawn). At one point Ralph Dietrich, whose producer credits include a couple of Charlie Chan films, took over as producer from Gruber.

    The series was typical of 50s TV-Film syndication. Stories required a least one fight and, as often as possible, for Slade to be knocked out from behind so he could wake up in the care of the beautiful woman of the week.

   Slade would narrate over scenes to give exposition so not to slow down the action in this time limited thirty minute PI/Western. The mysteries offered few clues and suspects, but focused on twist after twist until the villain was revealed.

   While the locations were pure Western, the stories were more noir PI than the morality plays of TV Westerns. In “Golden Tunnel,” Slade’s old friend and owner of a mine called Slade for help. He was seventy years old and had a young wife he trusted (and shouldn’t) and a nephew he trusted (and shouldn’t) helping him run the place.

    There were problems at his mine, someone had taken a shot at him, and, oh by the way, he just discovered the son he thought dead was alive and wanted Slade to make sure his new Will gets to the probate court when he dies, which he does in the next scene.

    Throughout the series the guest cast was filled with character actors (Alan Hale, Stacy Keach), B-movie favorites (Marie Windsor), and an occasional surprise (Ernie Kovacs).

    There is a reason so much of TV-Film syndication from the 50s and 60s look alike. In Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television, by Tom Stempel (First Syracuse University Press, 1996), D.C. Fontana (Star Trek) discussed the limitations imposed on writers of half hour TV film syndicated shows established by Ziv and followed by Revue (Universal).

    There were countless Westerns and PI shows on the air in 1959. Every series needed something to stand out from the crowd. Shotgun Slade had two obvious gimmicks.

   First was his weapon, a gun he had made himself, with a rifle barrel atop a double barrel shotgun. While it had its uses, such as using the barrel to knock the handgun out of the bad guy’s hand, it looked awkward as Slade carried it everywhere he went.

    The other gimmick was the jazz soundtrack by Gerald Fried (The Killing). The idea of using jazz music as the soundtrack for a show set in the “Old West” was an interesting but doomed experiment. It proved that no matter how popular the music is at the time of the viewers, the music needs to fit the time of the characters.

    A review in Billboard (8/22/60) gave the soundtrack album (The Original Jazz Score from Shotgun Slade, by Stanley Wilson and his Orchestra; Mercury Records) three out of four stars and said, “…Altho the TV show is a Western, the music is much more closely allied to current ‘private eye’ type, jazz-oriented music than to the old-fashioned Western ditties. It makes for good listening tho it doesn’t have the same melodic appeal of the Mr. Lucky or the Peter Gunn material.”

    Words can not come close to properly describing this song, from an episode of Shotgun Slade, sung by Monica Lewis. (Follow the link.)

    Shotgun Slade gave Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa) his first director job. In The Directors: Take One, Volume One, by Robert J. Emery (Allworth Press 2002), Pollack explained how he got his chance when Shotgun Slade had been cancelled but had a few episodes left to film so they gave him a chance to learn on the job.

    The series was popular and, according to Broadcasting (May 30, 1960), it was syndicated in 170 markets. But if you expect Peter Gunn on horseback, you will be disappointed. It had some interesting talent in front and behind the camera, and tried new things with music and drama, but in the end Shotgun Slade offers little (beyond what not to do) worth remembering.

    Episodes of Shotgun Slade are available from various DVD sellers and all over the Internet from archives.org to YouTube.

DEBORAH GRABIEN – New Slain Knight. St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne, hardcover, November 2007.

Genre:   Paranormal/Suspense. Leading characters:  Ringan Laine/Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes; 5th in “Haunted Ballad” series. Setting:   England.

First Sentence:   In the large upstairs room at the pub called the Duke of Cornwall’s Own, a local band, the Tin Miners were playing to an enthusiastic audience.

   Traditional musician Rupert “Ringan” Laine and theater producer Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes are looking forward to a rare vacation off together. Plans change when Ringan’s sister, whose mother-in-law needs her, asks to send him her 14-year-old daughter, Rebecca, a violin prodigy.

   Staying with Gowan, a musician friend in Cornwall, seemed like a good idea until Penny has a vision of a man dying and Becca starts sleep-walking. What are the forces from the past and beyond the grave influencing these two women?

   Books that include a cast of characters and a map are such a treat. It is even better that Ms. Grabien’s characters are so distinct and strong that I didn’t need reminding of them, but it’s still a lovely thing to have.

   The recurring characters of Ringlan and Penny are now old friends to me, but the author doesn’t assume they are known to every reader. New readers will have no problem learning who they are and uncovering their backstory. I think this is an important thing for an author to do.

   The new characters are interesting, and fully dimensional. There is one character, Gowan, you start by liking but the shine dims a bit; for another, Lucy, the reverse is true. It is very well done. Lucy is a particularly interesting character as she is a researcher and a true skeptic — something you don’t usually see in a book with paranormal elements. She is very believable and adds the perfect balance to the story.

   Ms. Grabian’s powers of description not only create a sense of place by showing us around Cornwall, but provided us a sense of the characters through their personal environments. When including old documents, I appreciate her leaving them in the appropriate Old English and Victorian spelling and grammar. She trusts the ability of her audience, which is wonderful.

   Each of Ms. Grabian’s “Haunted Ballad” books is based on an actual old ballad, with a verse from the ballad at the beginning of each chapter. From that, she constructs a story each with a unique use of the paranormal element and a solidly constructed plot. Just when you think you’ve found a hole, she closes it.

   The characters ask the questions you mentally ask, and she answers them. The tension and suspense increase at a steady rate but without ever crossing over into graphic horror. The result is even more frightening than if she had, and then she adds excellent twists.

   I thoroughly enjoyed this book and closed it without identifying any flaws in its construction. The only question for potential readers is whether they enjoy books with a paranormal theme. If the answer is yes, I highly recommend New Slain Knight.

Rating:   Excellent.

    The “Haunted Ballad” mystery series —

1. The Weaver and the Factory Maid (2003)
2. The Famous Flower of Serving Men (2004)
3. Matty Groves (2005)
4. Cruel Sister (2006)    [Reviewed here.]
5. New Slain Knight (2007)

   Dawn at Socorro (1954), a thinly-veiled Earp/Clanton drama, covers much of the same ground as OK Corral and Hour of the Gun, with a fraction of the time and pretension. Rory Calhoun is the Doc Holliday figure, Alec Nicol is Johnny Ringo, and Lee Van Cleef is the last surviving Clanton.

   There’s a nice bit where Van Cleef arrives at a Swing Station to ambush the stage carrying Calhoun. As the stage draws near, he turns to the Station Man, jacks a round into his Winchester and says something like “My name’s Billy Clanton. Be sure and tell everyone you saw me kill Doc Holliday.”

   Footage of Calhoun offing the baddies in this film (Gee, hope I didn’t spoil the suspense!) was later used as flashbacks in Red Sundown (1956), directed by Jack Arnold with his customary flair for violence.

   Domino Kid (1957) features Calhoun as the guy out to get the men who killed his parents and looted their ranch while he was off to War. It starts out very fast and interesting, with fine cameos of two of the baddies, played by Roy Barcroft, fatalistically toasting his opponent before the gunfight, and James Griffith, psychotically snarling and justifying his actions as Frontier Law.

   This lasts about the first 20 minutes, and then the action just sort of stops. Dead in its tracks. Disappointing, but the first part is still quite nice.

   Four Guns to the Border (1954) is a Western Caper film, with Calhoun the head of a gang that includes Jay Silverheels, George Nader, and John McIntire. Their plan is to visit the town that Calhoun was run out of years ago by his erstwhile gunbuddy, the gutless Charles Drake, and rob the bank while everybody’s gathered at the stables watching Calhoun and Drake duke it out.

   There’s lots of moody, tenseful waiting around at a Swing Station outside of town, and what looks like a very grim climax indeed — at first.

   Calhoun wrote the script for an interesting Western, Shotgun (1955) featuring Sterling Hayden, Zachary Scott and Yvonne De Carlo, but his last good oater was The Gun Hawk, where he’s a wounded, burned-out gunfighter pursued by Sheriff Rod Cameron. In this one he gets the chance to reprise the ending of Four Guns to the Border and bring it to its logical conclusion.

● DAWN AT SOCORRO. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Piper Laurie, David Brian, Kathleen Hughes, Alex Nicol, Edgar Buchanan, Mara Corday, James Millican, Lee Van Cleef. Director: George Sherman.

● DOMINO KID. Columbia Pictures (1957). Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, Andrew Duggan, Yvette Duguay, Peter Whitney, Roy Barcroft, James Griffith (the latter two uncredited). Director: Ray Nazarro.

● FOUR GUNS TO THE BORDER. Universal International, 1954. Rory Calhoun, Colleen Miller, George Nader, Walter Brennan, Nina Foch, John McIntire, Charles Drake, Jay Silverheels, Nestor Paiva. Based on a story by Louis L’Amour. Director: Richard Carlson.

● THE GUN HAWK. Allied Artists, 1963. Rory Calhoun, Rod Cameron, Ruta Lee, Rod Lauren, Morgan Woodward, Robert J. Wilke, John Litel. Director: Edward Ludwig.

NOTE:   Dan reviewed The Gun Hawk at much greater length here earlier on this blog. Another Rory Calhoun western recently reviewed by Dan was The Silver Whip. This post is a continuation of that one. You may go back and find it here.

BARBARA WORSLEY-GOUGH – Alibi Innings. Michael Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1954. Penguin 1321, UK, paperback, 1958. No US edition.

   There have been other mysteries taking place a cricket background, I’m sure, but I’ve never read any of them. I’m also sure that the game is described well in Alibi Innings, but I don’t know how to play cricket, and after reading this book, I still don’t. Readers in the UK would fare the same, I imagine, reading books in which the game of baseball is played.

   But judge for yourself. Here’s an excerpt, from page 63:

   It’s an idyllic day on a hot summer afternoon, an annual affair, withe Squire Easton’s team taking on the local villagers. It’s too bad that murder has to spoil it, but although it’s not said, it’s clear that Dr. Randall Curtis found the body of Mrs. Easton before the match began, and he said nothing, not to spoill the Squire’s day.

   Mrs. Easton is one of those people about whom no one can say any good, an ill-tempered old woman who delighted in flaunting her power over others. And yet, as the author of Alibi Innings, Barbara Worsley-Gough makes us feel the sadness in her passing as no other mystery writer has done in my recent memory. Strangely enough, no one really minds that she is dead, but — if this makes sense — everyone is disturbed that she is no longer there.

   There are only a finite number of suspects, though the inevitable cry goes up that it must have been a tramp or a gypsy. While this is a detective story, as must happen more often than not in real life, all of the mysterious clues and other misleading evidence seem to unravel themselves, rather the need of having a mastermind detective to stand up and take charge. More time is spent repairing some unfortunate marriages that are about to take place, and by the end of the story, everyone seems to be relieved that they are not.

   According to Hubin, one of Worsley-Gough’s other novels (and there are eight listed inside the front cover of the Penguin editon) is a mystery (Lantern Hill, 1957), and one of the characters (the Squire’s closest friend, Aloysius Kelly) appears in that one as well. He’s not the detective of record in this one, however, making his flamboyant presence widely known in the first half, but fading away in the second.

   This is an old-fashioned mystery, one with characters the reader will identify with, even though they no longer exist, and if they did, perhaps only for the shortest period of time and locale.

[UPDATE] 04-27-12.   Marv Lachman has written a long article in which he discusses many works of detective fiction in which the game of cricket plays a substantial role. You can find it here on the main Mystery*File website. As for me, even though I wrote this review over 20 years ago, I still have no idea how cricket is played. (It’s nothing I’m proud of. It just is.)