HENRY KANE “The Case of the Murdered Madame.” PI Peter Chambers, Lead story in the collection of the same name: Avon #646, paperback original, 1955. Reprint edition: Signet D2646, paperback, May 1965.

   Both Henry Kane, the author, and Peter Chambers, his most well-known private eye detective character, came onto the scene at the same time, in 1947, first with a handful of stories for Esquire magazine, then a hardcover novel, A Halo for Nobody, from Simon & Schuster. I haven’t followed Kane’s career well enough to state this as more than a working hypothesis, but based only on the scanty evidence I have so far, Peter Chambers’ early adventures seem to combine as well as anyone hard-boiled PI mystery fiction with the older-fashioned traditional detective novel, complete with clues, alibis, and the like.

   Take “The Case of the Murdered Madame,” for example. While not a locked room mystery or an impossible crime in any sense, it is a case in which a murder takes place in a house where there are only a limited number of suspects, each with a common motive – that is to say, the theft of $100,000 in cash the dead woman has made abundantly known to the other tenants of the rooming house catering to theatrical folk living there.

   Peter Chambers’ job: find out who did it.

   The fact that it was a dark rainy night comes into play in twofold fashion, first in terms of limiting the number of suspects, then secondly in providing Chambers with the clue he needs to name the killer.

   The story is too short to provide much in the way of characterization, but the sheer rhythm of Kane’s prose, almost unique in the annals of detective fiction, is a pure plus that adds considerably to the enjoyment of this short but snappy tale.

PostScript: The Avon paperback of the same title appears to have been the first appearance of this story. What caught me by surprise in reading the Signet reprint was that there is no contents page, and therefore no suggestion ahead of time that the book is a collection of three stories, the other two, also cases cracked by Peter Chambers, those two both first appearing in the pages of Manhunt magazine.

   In any case, though, while reading the story, I was thinking it was a novel, and here Peter Chambers was, summing the case up against the killer, and I’m only a third of he way into the book. What’s going on, I thought. What kind of twist is this?

THOMAS B. DEWEY – Only on Tuesdays. Pete Schofield #8. Dell 6680, paperback original, 1964.

   In addition to the “Mac” series, Dewey also created another private eye, Los Angeles-based Pete Schofield, for a series of paperback originals in the Fifties and early Sixties. The Schofield novels are much lighter in tone, much sexier (as sexy as paperback mysteries could get in that era, anyhow), and lacking the depth and quality of the Mac novels.

   Schofield, who is married to a sultry lady named Jeannie (married private eyes never seem to work out well in fiction), is something of a bumbler and spends as much time trying to crawl into the sack with Jeannie as he does solving crimes. But things keep happening to prevent his connubial bliss — telephone calls, people showing up at highly inopportune moments, squabbles, battle wounds, and various other interventions.

   Dewey’s technical skill and sense of humor make this sort of thing work: The Schofield books are exactly what they were intended to be-pleasant light reading — and no more.

   Only on Tuesdays, perhaps the best of the series, begins when Pete comes home after a hard day and finds an unemployed actor holding a gun on Jeannie; he also finds. not irrelevantly, a new addition to the family (a dachshund, Hildy) hidden away in the bedroom closet.

   It ends with a frantic sailboat race to Catalina Island and another confrontation in the Schofield domicile, this time with a murderer. In between he encounters a missing wife, a wealthy yachtsman named Conway, some highly compromising photographs, and of course plenty of murder and mayhem. The sailing scenes are genuinely exciting and suspenseful, and the byplay between Pete and Jeannie, which in some of the other books becomes a bit tedious, is restrained and amusing.

   All the Schoficlds are worth reading; along with Only on Tuesdays, the best of them are Go to Sleep, Jeannie (1959), Too Hot for Hawaii (1960), and The Girl with the Sweet Plump Knees (1963).

         ———
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.
   

      The Pete Schofield series —

1. And Where She Stops (1957)
2. Go to Sleep, Jeanie (1959)
3. Too Hot for Hawaii (1960)
4. The Golden Hooligan (1961)
5. Go, Honey Lou (1962)
6. The Girl with the Sweet Plump Knees (1963)
7. The Girl in the Punchbowl (1964)
8. Only On Tuesdays (1964)
9. Nude in Nevada (1965)

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Universal Pictures, 1940. Virginia Bruce,John Barrymore, John Howard, Charlie Ruggles, Oscar Homolka. Directed by A. Edward Sutherland.

   More a low-key screwball comedy than a horror feature, The Invisible Woman is a genial, albeit rather forgettable affair. Released in 1940, seven years after James Whale’s The Invisible Man, the film has a light tone that makes it breezy fun, but not much more than that. Based on a story co-written by Kurt Siodmak (The Wolf Man) and directed by A. Edward Sutherland, the movie does what it is supposed to; namely, provide an hour plus of escapist entertainment.

   When oddball Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore) puts an advertisement in the paper for someone wanting to become invisible, he gets more than he bargained for when working girl Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce) shows up. Sassy and strong-willed, she’s determined to use her newfound ability to torment her sexist and demanding boss. While the invisible Carroll gets caught up in a love-hate relationship with playboy millionaire Richard Russell (John Howard), the zany professor is targeted by a gangster (Oscar Homolka) who wants the invisibility machine so he can safely return from his Mexican exile and visit the home country.

   The special effects, by today’s standards, are really nothing special. Truth be told, even for a 1940 feature, there’s nothing particularly impressive doing on in this realm. Director James Whale certainly did it all better years before in the original entry into the Invisible Man series.

   Still, there are some laughs to be had in this comedy. Did I mention Charles Ruggles plays a bumbling butler, devoted – at least financially – to Russell? I guess I would see this one again with a crowd, should the opportunity arise. But to watch it again on VHS? Probably not.

PHILIP CARLTON WILLIAMS – Mission Bay Murder. Michael Thompson #1. PaperJacks, Canada, paperback original; 1st printing, July 1988.

   A lawyer for a California defense attorney intercepts a confidential memo that makes him suspicions. He takes it to a lady PI he finds in the phone book. She investigates.When her car is run off a bridge, somehow the police seem to suspect him of her murder.

   This may be the worst mystery I have ever read. It is either written for dull teenagers or for illiterates who have never read a mystery before. The hero is supposed to be a lawyer, but I think he has to have someone help him on with his shoes every morning.

      The Michael Thompson series —

Mission Bay Murder (PaperJacks, 1988)
The Tartan Murders (PaperJacks, 1989)

Note: The two books were reprinted later on in a combined 2-for-1 edition (1990). See image above.

   This trailer for Critters (1986) doesn’t do the film justice. It’s a lot funnier, livelier, and creative than what you see in this video clip. Rather than just a straightforward sci-fi/horror film, Critters is a cult favorite.

   And understandably so. You’ve got some great characters, a good rural Kansas setting, and a sense of humor and fun that ramps up the laughter. I recently had a chance to see a sold-out screening at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema and the crowd loved it. I did too.

SHORT CUT TO HELL. Paramount Pictures, 1957. Robert Ivers, Georgann Johnson (debut of both), William Bishop, Jacques Aubuchon, Murvyn Vye. Screenplay by Ted Berkman and Rafael Blau, based on the screenplay by W. R. Burnett for This Gun For Hire (1942) and the novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene. Directed by James Cagney.

   With apologies to film critic Bosley Crowther, Short Cut to Hell certainly is.

   James Cagney’s debut as a director, and his only film as one, is a mess by any measure, not the least the absolute failure of this two stars making their less than stellar debut in two of the least charismatic screen performances imaginable.

   Watching this it is hard to believe the legendary Cagney who worked with some of the finest directors in Hollywood like Wellman, Walsh, and Curtiz, could have picked up so little or produced so pedestrian a film, pedestrian being a compliment because this often looks like a bad half hour episodic television cop show of the era.

   Whatever Graham Greene thought of the original 1942 version of his novel A Gun for Sale, filmed under its American title This Gun For Hire, there was no denying the extraordinary appeal of its cast: Alan Ladd as the emotionally and physically scarred gun man Raven, Veronica Lake as Ellen, a sexy smart young singer/magician caught up in Raven’s mission, Laird Cregar as the effete double crossing club owner who hires Raven and then betrays him, and Robert Preston as Ellen’s policeman boy friend.

   In that version, the plot moved from London to LA, and Raven changed from a man scarred by a cleft lip to one with a twisted wrist, Raven kills to cover up a crime for Cregar’s character who then betrays him to the police. Raven escapes swearing revenge on Cregar and whoever employs him, runs into nightclub performer Ellen on the way to LA for a job and ends up taking her hostage as she awakens his long buried humanity and sense of decency. Meanwhile Ellen’s boyfriend Robert Preston is the policeman hunting Raven, especially once he discovers Ellen is his hostage.

   That film made iconic stars of Ladd and Lake, who went on to be teamed in multiple films and was a major success for the studio.

   Not so much Short Cut to Hell.

   Here we meet Kyle (Robert Iver, changed from Raven and chosen because Chad seemed too tough sounding, I assume) who lives in a rundown hotel with his cat who he obsesses over while violently spurning the advances of the daughter of the manager (Yvette Vickers) who is attracted to and repelled by the slender slight killer.

   Kyle cold bloodedly assassinates a young engineer and his secretary who threaten to reveal a crime by his employers and meets effete Jacques Aubuchon at a small restaurant to be paid, not knowing Aubuchon plans to claim the sequential bills he has paid Kyle were stolen from him, and knowing Kyle let him shoot it out with the cops and die.

   Enter policeman William Bishop assigned to the case, whose performer girlfriend Glory (Georgann Johnson) is leaving for LA to work in a club rather than marry him.

   Kyle escapes and Kyle, Aubuchon, and Glory all end up on the train to LA where Kyle takes Glory hostage.

   From there the film pretty much follows the Greene novel and the 1942 film in terms of plot, but only in terms of plot.

   Otherwise it bears the same relationship to the classic film that Abbot and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde bears to the Oscar winning Frederic March version directed by Rudolph Mate.

   Let’s start with Ivers, a wanna be James Dean type with the charisma and screen presence of unbuttered toast. Perhaps he did better in later performances, but I see no evidence of that here. What is supposed to be a smoldering killer with budding humanity beneath the ice cold mask instead looks slightly petulant and somewhat constipated as if his chewing gum lost its flavor.

   I have seldom seen a worst performance in a film from a major studio, or a less compelling one. Compared to Ivers, Alan Ladd was Olivier.

   Our other debut Georgann Johnson as Glory isn’t much better though somewhat more animated and certainly better to look at. Without the teasing peek a boo mix of playful sensuality and smoky sexuality that Lake exuded, the character of Glory just doesn’t make much sense. There is no reason for her to feel anything but fear of Iver’s Kyle, so her protection of him and aid seem perverse and a bit stupid. Minus the visible sparks that flowed on screen between Ladd and Lake, the plot doesn’t make much sense without Greene’s novelist voice to carry us through.

   No one else fares much better. William Bishop was always better cast as charming bad guys, and Jacques Aubuchon has the unenviable task of following Laird Cregar in the role of the cowardly immoral and effete bad guy , and frankly rather than a sense of menace and vague depravity, he only communicates dyspepsia and the snobbery of a punctilious head waiter at a second rate French restaurant.

   Murvyn Vye appears as Aubuchon’s sadistic chauffeur in a noirish touch, but it is so blatant and so flat that it comes across as unintended humor rather than noir. Unintended humor is pretty much the definition of this film that is often laughably off key, thanks to the performers and script.

   One dramatic scene where Kyle kills a cat to keep it from revealing his hiding place is supposed to be played for his horror and anguish at what he has done, but plays more like a Monty Python sketch gone horribly wrong.

   Painful as it is to write, James Cagney comes in for his full blame for this as well. His direction is unimaginative and pedestrian. He disdains any use of light and shadow beyond the simplest of shots, his camera is objective and cold, mostly in two shots and long shots even when extreme closeups would seem unavoidable, and he shows no sense of pace or suspense much less cinematic flair unfolding his story as static as episodic television at its most unimaginative.

   It is not surprising a man of his taste didn’t venture into the director’s chair again after this. I applaud his recognition of his limits.

   Short Cut to Hell was remade in 1979 as made for TV movie with Robert Wagner and Lou Antonio. I only hope it was better than this.

   There is a language of film, and it is always disappointing when someone you expect to know it intimately proves deaf to its rhythms and lyric style. This film is actively bad, perhaps not a bomb, but empty and devoid of any sense of style. It isn’t Ed Wood, and I am not suggesting that, but the combination of James Cagney, Graham Greene, W. R. Burnett, and a classic film should have been more than this.

   It is currently on YouTube, and I can only say if your curiosity overcomes you, watch at your own peril.

   From this website:

   A pairing one might not imagine is Nils Lofgren and the late author Clive Cussler on Whatever Happened To Muscatel. Nils remembers “My dear, departed friend Clive Cussler, one of the all-time great adventure writers, asked me to write this country song with him. It was a joy to research the lyrics with him of old, rotgut liquors gone by the wayside, in his historic writing room in AZ. A great honor and creative adventure to team up with Clive. Rest in Peace dear, brilliant friend.”
   

BARNABY JONES “To Catch a Dead Man.” CBS. 04 February 1973. (Season One, Episode Two.) Buddy Ebsen , Lee Meriwether. Guest cast: Janice Rule, Darleen Carr, Victoria Shaw, William Shatner. A Quinn Martin Production. Directed by William Hale. Currently streaming on Amazon and (for free), on YouTube. [See below.]

   It’s almost a given that everyone of a certain age reading this will know the basic premise of this vintage almost geriatric PI series from the mid-1970s. (Buddy Ebsen was 65 when the show started, and it lasted for most of eight years.) In the first episode (this is the second) Barnaby Jones care out of retirement as a PI to find the man who murdered his son Hal. Teaming up with him is another private eye, a man by the name of Frank Cannon, also of some TV fame, who was a friend of his son.

   By the end of the episode Barnaby has decided to go back into the PI business again, assisted by his son’s widow, Betty (Lee Meriwether), as his devoted secretary.

   In “To Catch a Dead Man” Barnaby is hired by a young girl whose boy friend has disappeared. I don’t consider it giving away anything to tell you that the boy friend is dead, killed in a boat explosion caused by a millionaire (William Shatner) who would like the world to believe the man in the boat was him. In the meantime, he has hunkered down in a fishing resort area with his current girl friend.

   What follows is, well, we the viewers following along with Barnaby as he painstakingly puts the clues together to solve the case, with a continual twinkle in his eye and a knowing grin. I only watched the show on and off over the years when it was on, but until someone can tell me otherwise, I assume that this was the pattern for all of Barnaby’s investigations from this point on.

   As enjoyable as this episode is, and in all honesty, based only on this episode, it seems unlikely that Buddy Ebsen’s folksy charm as an actor would be able to carry the series for as long as it did, but on the other hand, it certainly seems to have done.

THOMAS B. DEWEY – Deadline. Mac #13. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1966. Pocket 55002, paperback, 1968. Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1984. Probably condensed and reprinted as the story “Deadline” appearing in Sir!, August 1968 [see Comment #6].

   Thomas B. Dewey is one of detective fiction’s severely underrated writers — a craftsman of no small talent whose work is among the most human and compassionate of any in the genre. Although Dewey was clearly influenced by Hammell and Chandler, his Chicago-based private eye, “Mac,” is not one of the wisecracking, vigilante breed of fictional ops; he is intelligent, quiet, gentle, ironic, tough when he has to be, a light drinker, and a man not incapable of being hurt either physically or emotionally. All in all, a far more likable creation than the bulk of his brethren.

   In Deadline. Mae is hired by a group of do-gooders in a last-ditch effort to save the life of a small-town youth, Peter Davidian, who has been convicted of the mutilation murder of an eighteen-year-old girl and is awaiting execution in the state prison. When Mac arrives in the rural Illinois town, Wesley, he meets considerable hostility: The crime was a particularly vicious one, and the girl’s father, Jack Parrish, is an influential citizen who is convinced of Davidian’s guilt.

   Racing against time-he has only four days before the scheduled execution, the “deadline” of the title- Mac utilizes the aid of a retarded handyman, a friend of the dead girl’s named Mary Carpenter, and a schoolteacher named Caroline Adams to find out who really murdered Esther Parrish. In the process he has to overcome a conspiracy of silence, threats, and a harrowing brush with death.

   This is a simple, straightforward story, told with irony, fine attention to detail, and mounting suspense. Satisfying and memorable.

         ———
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.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS. NBC, made for TV movie, 22 May 1988. Bill Bixby (David Banner), Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), Jack Colvin, Lee Purcell, Charles Napier, Tim Thomerson, Eric Kramer (Thor). Written & directed by Nicholas Corea, based on the character created by Stan Lee (for Marvel Comics).

   A 1988 made-for-television movie that originally aired on NBC, The Incredible Hulk Returns also found a home on VHS. Released two years later by R&G Video and distributed by Starmaker, the final entry into the “Hulk” TV series found a more permanent home on video store shelves. The cover art work suggests perhaps a more dramatic Hulk story than what the feature actually is; namely, an ultimately non-successful backdoor pilot for a “Thor” spinoff.

   Before we get to that, however, here’s the basic plot. It’s been a few years since scientist Bruce Banner (Bill Bixby) was visited by his Hyde-like friend, the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno). He’s now working as a scientist again under an assumed name and has a lady friend in fellow scientist Dr. Margaret Shaw (Lee Purcell). His main project is a transponder that he hopes can reverse his “curse.” But all doesn’t go according to plan. First, Banner finds an uninvited guest in a former student of his who just happens to be supernaturally connected with Thor (Eric Kramer).

   Then there are the Cajun heavies, Jack LeBeau (Tim Thomerson) and Mike Fouche (Charles Napier) who want the transponder for their own purposes. Finally, there’s intrepid reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) who is determined to out Banner as the Hulk.

   In a way, it’s all fun and nostalgic. Apparently it was a success for NBC. And it’s hard not to see why. Fans got a chance to reunite with their favorite characters and you can tell there’s some real love and dedication in the film. Bixby could have phoned it in, but he obviously did not. Thomerson — who I loved in Trancers (1984) – and Napier make great villains.

   What makes The Incredible Hulk Returns ultimately a lesser superhero television production was the writers and producers’ decision to use this reunion as a way of introducing Thor to viewers. Kramer is surely a physical presence to behold, but his Thor was way too – how should I put this? – goofy for anything sustainable. Not only does he talk like a simpleton; he also has a craving for beer that is funny one time, but grating the next. And the scenes with him dancing with girls at a motorcycle bar were amusing, but they don’t do much to establish a character that viewers will want to return to week after week. Simply put, Thor is no Hulk.

PS. Of course, when The Hulk and Thor first meet, they misunderstand each others’ intentions and fight. See it here!