Tue 21 Dec 2021
An Archived Mystery Review by Maryell Cleary: MARCO PAGE – Fast Company.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[12] Comments
MARCO PAGE – Fast Company. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1938. Pocket Books #222, paperback, 1943. Film: MGM, 1938, with Melvyn Douglas & Florence Rice as Joel & Garda Sloane.
Dealers in rare books and manuscripts can be as crooked as anyone else; that’s the lesson Marco Page teaches. Joel Glass, book dealer himself, turns detective to find the murderer of a dealer who is as nasty a piece of work as anyone I’ve known killed off lately in books.
A young man who recently got out of prison after serving a term for stealing some outstanding rarities from the dead man is the obvious suspect. He knows that he was framed. And Mr. Glass is sure that he was.
The books have disappeared. Glass thinks the dead dealer had them stashed away some place. Since there are other possible murderers with a variety of motives, there is plenty of action. The solution is satisfying, but I’d hate to think that any of the book dealers I know are at all like the ones in this book.
December 21st, 2021 at 8:35 pm
I have always been crazy about Florence Rice.
December 21st, 2021 at 8:51 pm
I thoroughly enjoyed this one and Page’s other books. Hell of a screenwriter and playwright too as Harry Kurnitz.
December 21st, 2021 at 9:39 pm
As I understand it, and it’s confirmed by Wikipedia, they took the book dealer in the book and morphed him into a married couple who are both book dealers — trying to take advantage of popularity of the Thin Man movies.
It did so well that Kurnitz/Page wrote the screenplays for two more, but each with another couple playing the two leads.
If I have any of this wrong, let me know.
December 21st, 2021 at 11:19 pm
Steve, Joel’s wife Garda *is* in the book, and she *does* work with him. The movie gives their last name as Sloane but in the novel it’s Glass.
You should know better than to believe everything you read in Wikipedia. 😉
December 22nd, 2021 at 9:42 am
I stand corrected. And so does Wikipedia. Thanks!
December 22nd, 2021 at 4:03 am
The English bookdealer and thriller and horror author John Blackburn featured villainous (and good) bookdealers in many of his books. Blue Octavo revolves around a rare second-hand book with a bookdealer as hero.
December 22nd, 2021 at 10:23 am
Ed,
Add IMDB to Wikipedia in the flawed reference category.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:41 am
What’s worse is that corrections to Wikipedia take days of argument before they’re accepted, and those to IMDb are ignored.
December 22nd, 2021 at 11:58 am
Steve,
Re IMDB corrections. The entry on Louis Hayward is wrong in many instances and totally fallacious in others. An example. In 1935 Hayward appeared on Broadway with Lunt and Fontanne, Osgood Perkins, and Broderick Crawford in Point Valaine. The imbecile who wrote the piece refers to it as Point Verlaine and ignores that Hayward won the Donaldson Award, a precursor to the Toni’s. Later on he suggests strongly that Louis played twins in The Son of Dr. Jekyll, but He Did Not.
I sent in a page-load of corrections, with my bonafide, articles about Hayward and I, inter-office correspondence that I happened to have from The William Morris Agency, sent it registered, and damnned response. These people have little interest in anything other than getting off on their own version of masturbation.
December 22nd, 2021 at 5:00 pm
Interesting, that so far nobody’s mentioned Harry Kurnitz’s contribution to the screenplay of 1957’s Witness For The Prosecution.
Specifically, it was Kurnitz (and Billy Wilder) who added Elsa Lanchester’s character of Miss Plimsoll – who doesn’t appear in Agatha Christie’s original story or play.
The story goes that Lanchester was added to the cast as a way of keeping Charles Laughton on his best behavior during filming – and what the heck, it worked …
December 23rd, 2021 at 8:50 pm
Let me see Melvyn Douglas and Constance Bennett, Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell, and Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern in that order I think. That last one leans in on screwball.
February 3rd, 2022 at 5:55 pm
Mr. Vineyard, It was Florence Rice (Grantland’s daughter) who was in Fast Company with Melvyn Douglas.