One of the songs on Connecticut-born jazz singer Dana Lauren’s first album, It’s You Or No One, from 2010:

SKYSCRAPER SOULS. MGM, 1932. Warren William, Maureen O’Sullivan, Gregory Ratoff, Anita Page, Verree Teasdale, Norman Foster, George Barbier, Jean Hersholt, Wallace Ford, Hedda Hopper. Based on a novel by Faith Baldwin. Director: Edgar Selwyn.

   Although it doesn’t do a particularly good job at introducing its myriad array of characters at the very beginning, Skyscraper Souls ends up being a devilishly enjoyable romantic comedy/drama. What sets this film apart is that nearly the entire story takes place within the confines of a supersized midtown Manhattan Art Deco skyscraper, one that symbolizes its owner’s oversized ego.

   Based on Faith Baldwin’s novel Skyscraper (1931), this pre-code movie features Warren William in a starring role. He portrays Dave Dwight, a selfish and lecherous owner of the aforementioned skyscraper, one that towers over the Empire State Building. Motivated primarily by greed and lust, Dwight has engaged in a long-term extramarital affair with his secretary, Sarah Dennis (Verree Teasdale). Soon enough, however, he has his eye on Sarah’s new and younger assistant, the exceedingly innocent Lynn Harding (a beautiful Maureen O’Sullivan). But Lynn has a suitor of her own, a bumbling, if not handsomely charming bank teller named Tom Shepherd (Norman Foster).

   Not surprisingly, given that the movie was adapted for the big screen from a novel, there’s also a couple of further subplots involving a stock market scam, a lonely jewelry store proprietor who has fallen in love with a girl who seems to bed every man except him, and a down-on-their-luck couple willing to steal in order to get back up on their feet. Plus, there’s a gun, a murder by mistake, and a suicide.

   A combination of romantic comedy, sleaze, and sentimentalism, Skyscraper Souls can feel sluggish at times, which necessitates a degree of patience from the viewer. But it ends up being a rather insightful look into the romantic and working lives of both sexes in the early 1930s and a subtle, but hardly over the top, indictment of hyper-capitalism. All told, it’s not what I would consider a great film, but it’s certainly worth a look.

CYRIL HARE – The Wind Blows Death. Perennial Library, paperback, 1982. Originally published as When the Wind Blows, Faber & Faber, UK, hardcover, 1949. First published in the US under the paperback title by Little, Brown, hardcover, 1950. Published in the US under the British title by Garland, hardcover, 1976.

   In A Catalogue of Crime, Barzun and Taylor hail this as a masterpiece, certainly the best of Hare’s mystery novels. Realizing that their basis for judgment is, was, and always will be how a book measures up as a detective story, it’s easy to see how they came to such a conclusion.

   It’s a good book, no doubt about it, but I have some small cavils to make about it. Most of them may be completely personal, but then again, what do you think?

   For the moment, though, let’s start this review over, from the beginning. According to what I deduce from page 84 [and now confirmed], this is the third case of murder that amateur detective Francis Pettigrew found himself involved in. In this book his primary role is as the honorary treasurer to the Markshire Orchestral Society. Murdered is the featured soloist for one of their performances.

   A good many curious circumstances surround the murder, many of them having a good deal to do with alibis, hampered by an abundance of semi-secret sexual dalliances of varying degrees of ardor. Helping Pettigrew sort it all through (although nominally it is the other way around) are an aggressive new inspector named Trimble and his rather more laid-back superior, Chief Constable MacWilliam.

   The characterizations are fine — although in essence perhaps more reflective of stereotypes than actual personages — and the plotting is ingenious. As I stated above, I’d like to raise a few objections, but if you haven’t read the book, please use your own judgment before plowing onward:

   Other than that, I liked the book fine.

Rating:   B minus.

Morrissey was the lead vocalist for The Smiths, an English rock band formed in 1982. “The Queen Is Dead” was the title track of their third CD, released in 1986. Morrissey’s appearance at the Hollywood Bowl was in June 2007.

THE GOLDEN ARROW. MGM, 1962. Originally released in Italy as L’arciere delle mille e una notte. Tab Hunter, Rosanna Podesta. Directed by Antonio Margerhiti. There are a lot more names in the credits, but they won’t mean much to you unless you speak Italian.

   Director Antonio Margerhiti had a few films released here under the nom-du-fake “Anthony Dawson” (not to be confused with the actor so memorable in Dial M for Murder), including War of the Planets and Web of the Spider, and he earned a mild reputation as a visual stylist whose films are sometimes fun to look at, if not to watch.

   The visual flair serves this film well, because The Golden Arrow is simply stunning: vast palaces, exotic cities and golden deserts done up in storybook Technicolor, set off with colorful costumes and lovely ladies… or the chiseled features and manly chest of Tab Hunter if your tastes run to that sort of thing.

   Tab Hunter was never as bad an actor as his reputation would suggest — he’s quite good in Gunman’s Walk — but he’s dubbed here, so it’s hard to evaluate his thespic accomplishments. In fact, the whole cast is dubbed, with some voice-actors clearly taking several roles, lending a comfortable feel for those of us who grew familiar with Italian movies in the 1960s, from Hercules to the Man With No Name.

   The story is a bit far-fetched perhaps, but once you accept Tab Hunter as an Arabian Bandit Chief, you can swallow the rest fairly easily. Princess Rosanna Podesta is being pressured by the evil Grand Vizier (you know the type) to marry one of three rather miserly Princes when she’s abducted by Tab and the Arabs. Not to worry though; it seems he’s really the son of the murdered sultan and rightful heir to some throne or other, and before we know it, Princess Rosanna has been returned to the palace (and the three Scrooges) while Tab goes off in search of the Golden Arrow that will restore him to his throne.

   Fairly standard so far, but here’s where things get whacked-out. Rosanna prays to Allah to help Tab, and Allah sends down three goofy angels to help him out with sundry miracles and magic tricks. No kidding, Allah sends three angels. At this point I began to wonder how this would have played in a Biblical epic if Jesus had gone around reuniting happy young lovers, and it gave me pause.

   But only for a minute. Next thing I knew, Tab had wandered into the Underworld, doing battle with fire monsters and resisting the advances of a kinky queen. Then the three pesky Princes got sent off on some kind of quest, each to find the rarest gift in the world to win Rosanna’s hand. Then Tab entered a city of ruins lorded over by an evil wizard. Then the evil Vizier poisoned Rosanna. Then Tab beat up the Wizard, returned a bunch of dead folks to life and resisted the advances of a grateful queen. Then… well you get the idea: just one damn thing after another here, with magic, treachery, pitched battles and the obligatory flying carpets thrown around like insults at a Friars Roast.

   In all, a film you can switch off your brain and enjoy without feeling guilty the morning after. Or not very guilty, anyway.

Jon and I watched this movie last night, the original, the one with with Martin Balsam, Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau, not either of the two remakes. The movie probably doesn’t need one more review, but here’s the music that plays over the opening credits:

NOTE: The book review that follows was first posted on this blog on 20 August 2015. The movie review that follows after that was written today. Also note that the first eight comments were left last year and refer to the book only.

  PHILIP MacDONALD – The Mystery of the Dead Police. Doubleday/Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1933. Pocket #70, paperback, 1940. Dell D-247, Great Mystery Library #19, paperback, 1958. Macfadden Books 60-205, paperback, 1965. Vintage, paperback, 1984. First published in the UK as X v. Rex by Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1933, as by Martin Porlock. Films: MGM, 1934, as The Mystery of Mr. X; MGM, 1952, as The Hour of Thirteen.

   I don’t know where this book falls chronologically in terms of serial killer fiction, but it must have been one the first. (Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders was published in 1936, for example, but serial killers themselves (e.g. Jack the Ripper) had been around for a long time when this book was written.)

   The victims in this one, though, are all policemen. We know that the killer is a madman, for every so often we are given glimpses into his diary after each death, often in very inventive ways. There is an attempt by the author to throw suspicion on a gentleman adventurer named Nicholas Revel. He is, apparently, well-to-do, but no one, including Scotland Yard, knows how he has gained his fortune.

   The madman’s diary, I suspect, is of little interest to readers today — too many serial killers have come down the pike in the meantime, I’m afraid — but the mysterious activities of Mr Revel? This is what makes this tale go down a lot more easily than a lot of other detective fiction does that was written in 1933.

   Revel clears the former fiancé of Jane Frensham of being the killer, for example, but then he also seems to be romancing her a little as well. But since Miss Frensham’s father is the chief commissioner of the police, he finds himself helping to investigate the crimes, whether he wishes to or not.

   MacDonald is equally inventive in the way he tells the story, often in very short snippets from a multitude of viewpoints. The flaws in the telling, as I saw them, is that (as pointed out above) the madman is just that, mad, and that Revel’s place in the story is, alas, telegraphed long before I would have liked it to have been.

   But until the ending, I enjoyed the book very much. There is much about it that I will remember for some time. It has been considered a classic in many quarters over the years, but in today’s world of mystery fiction, I’m afraid it would be considered an old-fashioned and dated relic of its time, all for the reasons previously suggested or pointed out, nothing more, but nothing less, either.

THE HOUR OF 13. MGM, 1952. Peter Lawford (Nicholas Revel), Dawn Addams (Jane Frensham), Roland Culver, Derek Bond, Leslie Dwyer, Michael Hordern. Based on the novel The Mystery of the Dead Police, by Philip MacDonald. Director: Harold French.

   I have been told, but I do not know how true it may be, that this later film follows the earlier quite closely. If so, then even without seeing it, I can tell you that I’d be disappointed with the earlier one, too.

   Some of it has to do with Production Code. In the book [SPOILER WARNING] Revel gets away with his plan. In the movie, he is not so lucky. The final scene was the final straw, as far as I was concerned.

   Other changes: It is clear from the beginning of the movie what Revel’s plan is. It was revealed sooner in the book what he is up to than I would have liked, but for quite a while it causes quite a mystery if not a challenge to reader to figure it out on his or her own.

   The semi-romance between Revel and the police commissioner’s daughter (Dawn Addams) is nipped in the bud far from the end of the movie. Revel and the fiancé shake hands, and neither the latter nor the girl are mentioned again. In the movie, the killer is given a motive; in the book as I recall he was imply a madman. The time frame has been changed also, from the 1930s to Victorian England.

   But the biggest change, I think, was bigger than any of the above. In the book, a great amount of emphasis was placed on the serial killer, and the inability of Scotland Yard to capture him was such a sensational story that it threatened to bring the government down. In the movie, very little attention was placed on this. The byplay between Revel and the gentlemen at Scotland Yard is the complete story, somewhat amusing but much more trivial than what the larger impact the book intended to provide.

   Your opinions may vary on this. In terms of your enjoyment of the movie, it might be helpful if you have not read the book. It also might help if your opinion of Peter Lawford’s acting ability is greater than mine. He has a great speaking voice, but I have never found any depth in any of the characters I have ever seen him portray.

SIROCCO. Columbia Pictures, 1951. Humphrey Bogart, Marta Toren, Lee J. Cobb, Everett Sloane, Gerald Mohr, Zero Mostel. Screenplay: A.I. Bezzerides & Hans Jacoby, based on the novel Le coup de grâce by Joseph Kessel. Director: Curtis Bernhardt.

   Sirocco was hardly Humphrey Bogart’s finest hour. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt, this espionage thriller features Bogie in a role eerily similar to that of Rick Blaine in Casablanca. But Casablanca this is not. Rather, Sirocco is a rather tepid, occasionally soporific affair, about a Harry Smith (Bogart), a cynical high living arms dealer, based in Damascus in 1925 at a time when Syrian Arab nationalists were battling the French military stationed there.

   There is, of course, a girl and a romantic rivalry that has political overtones. In this case, the girl is Violette, a Frenchwoman portrayed by Swedish actress Märta Torén. A fine actress, to be sure; alas, she simply doesn’t have the screen presence of Ingrid Bergman. But then again who does?

   Lee J. Cobb, a fine character actor in some roles, portrays a French Army officer in love with Violette. Did I mention he’s also tasked with rooting out who is selling arms to Arab leader Emir Hassan? Hint: it’s Bogie’s character. That’s basically the whole plot.

   Then again, Sirocco isn’t a total wash. The cinematography is occasionally quite stellar, and Zero Mostel’s scenery chewing performance as a local merchant is quite memorable and downright enjoyable to behold. It’s just that one cannot help but compare this mediocre film with that of Bogart’s best films. Even if they named it Damascus – a far more fitting and preferable title – Sirocco would pale in comparison not only to Casablanca but also to one of my personal favorites, To Have and To Have Not. So, take it from me. It’s okay to forget Sirocco. After all, we’ll always have Paris.

This is the only jazz song I know about the game of Scrabble. From Lorraine Feather’s 2010 album Ages:

MAX COLLINS – Hard Cash. Nolan #5. Pinnacle, paperback original, 1982. Reprinted as by Max Allan Collins, Perfect Crime Books, softcover, 2012.

   Professional criminal Nolan is going straight now as co-owner and manager of a seafood restaurant “on the banks of the Iowa River,” but his criminal past confronts him in the person of George Rigby, president of a local bank that Nolan had held up a couple of years earlier.

   Rigby is being eased out of his executive position and, knowing that his unfortunate habit of using bank funds for his own purpose will be disclosed in the next audit, wants Nolan to bring off a hit that will enable Rigby to restore the missing funds and support him and his ambitious mistress in his new life. His lever with the unwilling Nolan is a series of compromising photographs, so Nolan and Jon, Nolan’s young comic collector and artist side-kick, agree to co-operate and begin to set up the operation for Christmas Eve.

   Collins’ second plot line also concerns an incident in Nolan’s past, with murderous Sam Comfort and his surviving son, Terry, out to avenge their treatment by Nolan and his friends in an earlier drama of betrayal and revenge.

   The two plots — the bank job and the Comforts’ vengeance — coincide at the bloody climax of a sordid, improbable, and entertaining web of deceit and coincidence.

   Collins returns here to the competent form of the first two Nolan novels, and my only complaint concerns the padded exposition (for the convenience of readers unfamiliar with the earlier novels) and the coincidental deliverance of Nolan and Breen in the climax and denouement.

   Everyone’s plans go awry in this novel, and Nolan is as much a victim as the other characters, although he is luckier than any of his antagonists. The fates do conspire to do in the “truly” wicked, but they also do in one of Nolan’s confederates and spare Nolan himself a couple of turns of the wheel that seem intended only to leave the way open for the next book in the series. Sidekick Jon is still an appealing character, made all the more so by his reluctance to continue his life of crime.

   Nolan has been compared to Richard Stark’s Parker, but the Collins’ series lacks the bitter edge and power of the Stark novels, although this is a good suspense melodrama in a minor key.