TIP-OFF GIRLS. Paramount, 1938. Mary Carlisle, Lloyd Nolan, Roscoe Karns, Buster Crabbe, J. Carrol Naish, Evelyn Brent, Anthony Quinn. Director: Louis King

KING OF ALCATRAZ. Paramount, 1938. Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, Harry Carey, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Preston, Anthony Quinn, Dennis Morgan (as Richard Stanley), Richard Denning. Director: Robert Florey.

   In the late ’30s Paramount initiated a series of “B” crime features with a stock company of character players including Lloyd Nolan, Akim Tamiroff Buster Crabbe, Anthony Quinn, J. Carrol Naish and anyone else free that week.

   The films are, almost without exception, fast-moving, tightly-knit and a genuine pleasure to watch. Tip-Off Girls offers Nolan as an Undercover G-Man trying to penetrate a truck-hijacking ring run by Naish (playing in an embarrassing cliche-Italian style that would probably make true Italian lose their lunch) with the sinister aid of Crabbe and Quinn.

   King of Alcatraz, though it sounds like a Prison Movie is actually set aboard a studio-built tramp steamer, captained by Harry Carey and staffed by brawling-over-a-girl-in-every-port tars Nolan (again) and Robert Preston. When escaped super-gangster Naish (a little more restrained this time) sneaks on board with a gang including B-movie icons Tom Tyler, Gustave Von Seyfertitz and Anthony Quinn (again) the Paramount back-lot positively bristles with action.

   You won’t see either of these movies listed in any Year’s Ten Best lists, but they’re both brought off with a style and pace I found quite enjoyable.

   Of all the subcategories of crime fiction, I suppose that hard-boiled private detective stories are my favorites, and I’m sure I read more of them than of any other. [As of the present day, June 1992] who’s the absolute best at writing them now? Gawd, I dunno. I do know that there are a lot of people writing them now, as the lists below will attest.

   Just for the fun of it (all listmakers will understand) and my own edification, I thought I’d list those who currently write primarily in that area that I read regularly, and who almost always furnish me with a book at I enjoy, and often one that I like a great deal. What I ended up with were three groups of 10 each, ranked as groups, but listed alphabetically and unranked within each group. And the winners were:

       Group 1:

Lawrence Block
Michael Collins
Loren Estleman
Stephen Greenleaf
Jeremiah Healy
Arthur Lyons
Marcia Muller
Bill Pronzini
Les Roberts
Jonathan Valin

       Group 2:

Linda Barnes
Earl Emerson
Linda Grant
Sue Grafton
Rob Kantner
Michael Z. Lewin
John Lutz
Robert J. Randisi
William J. Reynolds
William G. Tapply

       Group 3:

Marvin Albert
Peter Corris
Wayne Dundee
Timothy Hallinan
Paul Kemprecos
Jerry Kennealy
Edward Mathis
James E. Martin
Sara Paretsky
David M. Pierce

   That my list is so large implies one of two things (I’m sure you’ll be able to guess which interpretation I prefer): either there are a hell of a lot of decent PI writers around today or I’m sadly deficient in discrimination. Also interesting is that 5 of the 30 are female, which I’d venture to say is higher than the distaff percentage of all PI writers. Does anyone have an idea of the actual breakdown?

   Notable by his absence is Robert B. Parker, whom I like very much at his best, but who has been too uneven in output, and is just too, too bad when he’s bad. There must be at least a dozen others that I read fairly regularly, and heaven knows how many more that I’ve tried and discarded, or haven’t read yet. I hadn’t realized how many there were. Amazing.

   I’d really be interested in hearing your opinions — who you‘d move up or down, who you’d put on or leave off, and/or any other thought that strikes you forcefully but non-lethally.

   As long as I’m boiling ’em hard, a few more opinions:

      The 5 most influential:

Dashiell Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Ross Macdonald
Mickey Spillane
Robert B. Parker

   The above, to me, were no-brainers. Note that no comment on quality is intended, merely influence. It is impossible to read a book in the genre today without hearing distinct echoes of at least one of them, and often of several in the same book. I see very little of Hammett, really, but without him there wouldn’t have been Chandler, so–

      The 5 best no longer writing :

Dashiell Hammett
Raymond Chandler
Ross Macdonald
Thomas B. Dewey
William Campbell Gault

   I‘m reasonably comfortable with the first four, but there were several contenders for #5. I gave it to Gault because I felt he was more consistent over a large body of work. Browne, Brown, and Spicer were others I considered.

      The 5 best newcomers (last 5 or 6 years):

Timothy Hallinan
Linda Grant
Wayne Dundee
Paul Kemprecos
James E. Martin

      5 I’d like to see write some more:

Jack Lynch (Bragg)
Max Byrd (Mike Haller)
Joe Gores (DKA)
Timothy Harris (Thomas Kyd)
Doug Hornig (Loren Swift)

   I know some of them have gone on to bigger and better things, but I particularly miss Gores, and thought Harris had real potential as a PI writer. I liked Lynch’s books more than most people did, and though Byrd and Hornig better than average.

   It should be noted that I don’t consider John D. MacDonald, James Lee Burke, or A. E. Maxwell to be private eye writers, though I have seen all categorized as such in one place or another. All would be somewhere on some list if they were, particularly the first two.

   Noted also among the missing is James Crumley, whom I unrepentantly continue to regard as a muddy plotter writing about unappetizing heroes (?), redeemed only by his erratically powerful prose. Another one whose writing I admire but who is nevertheless absent from all lists is Robert Crais. He’s a talented writer, and I’m hopeful he’ll outgrow his macho excesses as exemplified in Stalking the the Angel.

THE GORGON. Hammer Films, UK, 1964; Columbia Pictures, US, 1964. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Michael Goodliffe, Patrick Troughton. Director: Terence Fisher.

   It seems only fitting to close out my four-part tribute to Christopher Lee with a Hammer film. Even more fitting is a Hammer production in which he co-starred with long time colleague and personal friend, Peter Cushing.

   The Gorgon, a quixotic, not fully realized, attempt to transplant the terrifying Greek mythological female creature into a fictional 19-century century German fantasia, fits the bill.

   Directed by Terence Fisher (The Mummy, Dracula), the movie features Peter Cushing as Dr. Namaroff, an urbane man of science (naturally!) reluctantly investigating a series of bizarre murders in his a small German town. Reluctantly, because he suspects that his lovely female assistant, with whom he is in love, might be behind the murders. Even worse, he believes that she may be possessed with the spirit of the ancient Greek mythological creature known as the Gorgon. Its power: to turn whomever looks at her into stone!

   But the task at stopping the gorgon’s moonlight murder spree can’t be accomplished by the good Dr. Namaroff alone. Enter: the mustachioed Professor Karl Meister of Leipzig (Christopher Lee). He’s brash, forceful, tough as nails, and not willing to take any crap from the local police who’d rather have him abscond back to his university.

   And at the end of the day — or rather, night — it’s up to Professor Meister, silver sword in hand to slay the monster. SPOILER ALERT: When the film ends, it’s Lee’s character, the bold tall man with academic knowledge and physical prowess, that’s left standing. It’s a fitting way to end my tribute to some of Lee’s lesser-known films, don’t you think?

LARAMIE. NBC-TV, 4 seasons (1959-63), 124 episodes. Regular cast: Seasons 1 through 4: John Smith (Slim Sherman) and Robert Fuller (Jess Harper); Seasons 1 and 2 only: Hoagy Carmichael (Jonesy) and Robert Crawford, Jr. (Andy Sherman); Seasons 3 and 4 only: Spring Byington (Daisy Cooper) and Dennis Holmes (Mike Williams).

   Laramie is a relatively undistinguished but nevertheless very enjoyable series. Most of the plots are predictable, nothing any regular Western movie and TV fan hasn’t already seen a hundred times before.

   Despite that, one of the things that makes Laramie so watchable is the characterizations supplied by the two leads, straight arrow Slim (Smith) and edgy Jess (Fuller, a man with a checkered past) as they improbably try to run a ranch and a stagecoach station while gallivanting all over the West tracking down bad guys and gals (which could well explain why they’re always strapped for cash to keep the ranch going).

   As for the stories, most of them are standard fare (somebody killed somebody’s brother, etc.), with only a few really pushing the envelope of credibility. It must have been in the leads’ contracts that they would either get badly beaten or shot at least once every episode. Jess in particular usually takes a bullet through the left shoulder but hardly slows down — a real wildcat, that Harper, even with a hole the size of the Channel Tunnel in his torso. And on top of that, no one suffers any infections from their wounds — these guys are TOUGH.

   Best of all, Laramie features some of the all-time great Western villain actors: Lyle Bettger, Rod Cameron, Jan Merlin, Gregory Walcott, James Anderson, Harry Lauter, Roy Barcroft, Dennis Patrick, L. Q. Jones, and Robert J. Wilke being just a few. Even the future Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) each takes a turn as a bad guy.

   And then there’s Charles Drake, not your usual idea of a villain. In a Laramie episode titled “The Accusers” (episode 72) he plays a smooth murderer who, like Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt, almost gets away with it; if only the finale hadn’t been so badly done.

   It must be an axiom in Hollywood: If you can’t come up with something original, steal. Two outright “lifts” from classic non-Western sources for Laramie plots would have to be:

    ~ “Strange Company” (episode 63) — While some of the locals are desperately trying to rebuild a stage line road, somebody in the crew is systematically killing the workers and Slim doesn’t have a clue as to who or why. If Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (or whatever title you might know it by) comes to mind, you’re not alone.

    ~ “The Lost Dutchman” (episode 49) — Slim gets into a scrape when he’s accused of murder and Jess, turning detective, gets involved in the search for a black bird … no, not really, it’s actually a spur which is believed to have an authentic map (aren’t they all?) to the Lost Dutchman’s mine stuffed in the shank. In this variant of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Robert Emhardt assumes the Kasper Gutman part, Karen Steele takes the Brigid O’Shaughnessy role, and Robert Fuller comes across as a creditable Sam Spade.

   So, is Laramie worth your time? It’s a Western, isn’t it? “People love Westerns worldwide. There’s something fantasy-like about an individual fighting the elements. Or even bad guys and the elements. It’s a simpler time.” — Clint Eastwood

THE SPIDER. Fox, 1945. Richard Conte, Faye Marlowe, Kurt Kreuger, Martin Kosleck, Mantan Moreland, Ann Savage. Written by Lowell Brentano, Anthony Coldeway, Irving Cumings Jr., Scott Darling, Jo Eisinger, Fulton Oursler and Ben Simkhovich. Directed by Robert D. Webb.

   No, I never heard of it either, but when I saw it on a cheap DVD at Cinevent and glommed that cast, I had to go for it.

   The Spider isn’t all that memorable, but it does offer a fine bunch of thespians trouping cheerfully through the banality. Conte is a sharp, wise-cracking PI, Faye Marlowe the mysterious female client who (as usual) is not what she seems, Mantan Moreland (in a bigger-than-usual part at a major studio) plays the comic-relief assistant, as only he can, and Ann Savage, that bitch-queen of the B-movies, is ideally cast as a vicious and venal double-crosser.

   There’s also a bit of effective New Orleans atmosphere (everyone seems to be sweating) and a neat red-herring turn by Martin Kosleck, but I’m afraid that’s where the film runs out of redeeming qualities.

   Spider is strictly a noir-by-rote, with perfunctory shadows, routine femmes fatales, a suave obvious killer, standard-issue PI and the thick cops typical of B-movies.

   There’s also a shadowy figure who seems to have nothing to do all day but follow Richard Conte around and kill whoever he talks to. Director Webb tries hard to make it look sinister, but the more we see of this dark presence, the more it looks like The Phantom Blot.

   Story? Well, Faye Marlowe has information that her missing sister may have been murdered, but the mysterious woman who holds the evidence wants her to have Richard Conte pick it up for her — don’t bother asking why, because the writers apparently never thought much about it. In time-honored tradition, the person with the vital clue dies before our hero can get it, leading to a chase around New Orleans (and the Fox backlot) with Marlowe, Conte and the shadowy killer constantly jockeying for position.

   Okay, The Spider isn’t a terrible film, and if you’re in the mood it can even be mildly entertaining. But the chief mystery for me was how it took eight (count’em) eight writers to stamp out such a boiler-plate story.
   

LAWRENCE G. BLOCHMAN – Midnight Sailing. Harcourt Brace & Co., hardcover, 1938. Dell #43, paperback, mapback edition, 1944. First published as a ten-part serial in Collier’s, 26 February through 30 April 1938 as “Sunset Voyage.”

   If a detective novel doesn’t take place on a transcontinental train the next best thing is on a slow freighter going across the Atlantic or Pacific. It is the latter that’s the setting of Midnight Sailing, on the Japanese ship Kumo-maru with plenty of pre-war jitters in the background.

   The detective of note, although this is the only murder mystery he seems to have been involved in, is foreign correspondent Glen Larkin, whose assignment is to follow Dorothy Bonner, the heretofore missing daughter of a rich silk merchant who committed suicide after being confronted by a Congressional hearing in which he was accused of stealing secret blueprints from the Navy Department.

   Also involved but seemingly not connected are some negotiations for valadium mines in Peru, and the ship is filled with many interesting characters, or ones who act suspiciously enough that any one of hem could be the killer of a stowaway (although he could have died accidentally) and the ship’s doctor (out and out murder).

   Larkin’s actions are somewhat less than professional on this assignment, since he finds Miss Bonner very attractive, and she seems to respond. But among the various other passengers are her brother (the previously mentioned stowaway) and her fiancé. The reader soon begins to wonder if his suspicions about the latter are warranted or if something else has come into play.

   The detective puzzle is good enough, however, that by the end, all of the pieces have fallen neatly into place. But I have to confess I gave up early on who had the plans when or if they were copies and if so, who made them and why. As for the valadium, that seemed to be a red herring, but I will not tell you whether I was correct about that or not.

   The sights and sounds (and smells) on a freighter heading to Honolulu from California are well described and are the primary reasons I enjoyed this one. The puzzle, which got rather muddled along the way, at least for a while, is a bonus. The romantic aspects are there only to keep the story moving.

  CAPTAIN AMERICA II: DEATH TOO SOON. Made for TV movie. CBS/Universal Television, 23-24 November 1979. Reb Brown, Connie Sellecca, Len Birman, Christopher Lee, Katherine Justice, Christopher Cary,William Lucking, Stanley Kamel, Ken Swofford, Lana Wood. Based on characters created by Jack Kirby & Joe Simon (uncredited). Director: Ivan Nagy.

   If you want to know why CBS never was able to get a Captain America live-action television show off the ground, look no further than Captain America II: Death Too Soon. This 1979 made-for-TV movie was originally shown in two parts and stars Reb Brown as Steve Rogers/Captain America.

   It’s unevenly paced, clunky, and generally poorly acted. But once you get beyond all that, it’s actually an amusingly cheesy, mindless superhero movie that, whatever its faults, doesn’t rely on CGI for action sequences.

   In perhaps the most unintentional act of subversion ever on the part of a major studio, the character you end up liking the most isn’t Captain America. Patriotism flies out the window, much like Captain America’s motorcycle in the air, for it’s the diabolical criminal mastermind/international terrorist/general badass “Miguel” portrayed by Christopher Lee who’s the star here. (After his portrayal of Scaramanga in 1974’s The Man With the Golden Gun, casting Lee in this role was quite a coup.)

   Miguel, loosely based on Carlos the Jackal, has a plot that defies both credulity and nature. He’s acquired a biological agent that rapidly advances the aging process and he’s going to use it on American cities unless he gets some cold hard cash.

   I can’t honestly tell you Captain America II: Death Too Soon is a good movie or that it’s even worth seeking out. Consider it a curiosity, a quirky obscurity, something that really shouldn’t have been made, a “what in the world were they thinking” in the studio moment. Even so, my seeing criminal mastermind Miguel (Lee) driving a station wagon while fleeing Captain America was enough to put a smile on my face and overlook the whole absurdity of this pleasantly idiotic attempt at bringing Captain America to American living rooms.

RICHARD HOYT – Whoo? John Denson #5. Tor, hardcover, 1991; reprint paperback, 2000.

   This fifth (after a several-year hiatus) of the Denson books is set against the backdrop of the spotted owl-lumber industry conflict in the Northwest. Denson assists a stranded motorist who turns out to be a federal owl-counter, beds her that night, and goes on to the case that’s brought him to the area.

   She is murdered, he vows vengeance, and (surprise) Denson’s original case turns out to be connected. His sometime partner, native American Willy Prettybird, becomes involved and things move right along to a more or less satisfying finish.

   The owls or trees issue gets a lot of space; more, perhaps, than some readers would wish, even though the issue itself is integral to the plot The explanations are not one-sided, which is refreshing though the author and Denson make it clear where their ultimate sympathies lie.

   I enjoyed the book. Hoyt is an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story, and create sharply defined and interesting characters. Denson is, as always, irreverent and witty. The plot, however, doesn’t bear thinking about very deeply while reading — there are simply too many elements that upon reflection are unlikely, improbable, or just plain silly.

   It isn’t one of Hoyt’s major efforts, but nevertheless recommended.

       The John Denson series —

Decoys (1980)

30 for a Harry (1981)
The Siskiyou Two-Step (1983). Published in slightly expanded paperback form as Siskiyou.
Fish Story (1985)

Whoo? (1991)
Bigfoot (1993)
Snake Eyes (1995)

The Weatherman’s Daughters (2003)
Pony Girls (2004)

  CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE. E.I. Associates Producers, Italy, 1964. Original title: La cripta e l’incubo. Christopher Lee, Audry Amber, Ursula Davis, José Campos, Vera Valmont, Angel Midlin. Based on the novel Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (uncredited). Director: Camillo Mastrocinque (as Thomas Miller).

   Fans of horror B-films from the early sixties, rejoice! This one’s got it all: a superbly Gothic atmosphere, witchcraft and Satanism, a family crypt, mysterious murders in the night, and lesbian vampirism.

   Inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire story, Carmilla, and directed by Thomas Miller (Camillo Mastrocinque), Crypt of the Vampire features Christopher Lee (billed with the Italian spelling of his name as Cristopher Lee) as a European nobleman living under the shadow of a family curse.

   Count Ludwig von Karnstein (Lee) is concerned that his lovely daughter is somehow cursed. These things happen when you’ve got a witch as an ancestor, I suppose. But the good Count’s problems seem to multiply. He’s having a dalliance with his chambermaid, further straining his relationship with his daughter. And after a mysterious young woman shows up at the castle, things get even stranger.

   Lee, who did many horror movies in his long and illustrious career, is great in this. His portrayal of the frightened nobleman is spot on, suggesting a man who wants to be in control, but is plunging out of his depth. The camera work, which gives the film an aura of deliberate disorientation, heightens the film’s otherworldly atmosphere.

   I watched a copy on DVD, a version from RetroMedia. Although the film is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1:85:1 (and enhanced for 16 x 9), it isn’t always the clearest picture. This is a shame, for Crypt of the Vampire really is a supremely atmospheric Italian thriller, one worth viewing in the best possible format that could be rendered.

WELCOME DANGER. Paramount, 1929, Harold Lloyd, Charles Middleton, Barbara Kent, Noah Young. Directors: Malcolm St. Clair & Clyde Bruckman. Shown at Cinefest 18, Liverpool NY, March 1998.

   This Harold Lloyd starrer was originally filmed as a silent, but converted to sound. St. Clair directed the silent version, Bruckman did the sound inserts. (We were told that the silent version is being restored.)

   Harold plays Harold Bledsoe, son of a notable San Francisco police chief, who is called in by the new chief to deal with an outbreak of crime. Harold is a shy botanist who is not what anyone expected and quickly reduces the department to chaos. He does, however, with his sidekick, silent film comic actor Noah Young, stumble onto the Tong’s headquarters and eventually expose do-gooder Middleton as the tong criminal mastermind.

   The film is too long [at 113 minutes], and it is extremely repetitive, but it was Lloyd’s highest grossing film. Not top-flight Lloyd by any means, but the best things in it make me want to see the silent version, which should be shorter and better paced.