Sun 10 Mar 2024
Reviewed by Tony Baer: FREDERICK NEBEL – Fifty Roads to Town.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
FREDERICK NEBEL – Fifty Roads to Town. Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1936. Mercury Book # 33, digest paperback, date? Film: 20th Century Fox, 1937 (starring Don Ameche & Ann Sothern; director: Norman Taurog).
Bunch of strangers get stranded in an Northwoods hotel in a blizzard. Focus is on a nebbish fire extinguisher salesman who’s gone missing. Very 30’s. The interest comes from the interplay between the various types: flapper, repressed aristocrat bent on murdering his rival, his rival, a rugged independent sort, a drunken Nordic dog sled champion, an overbearing housewife, Gilligan and Skipper running the hotel.
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Just when you think it’s screwball, it turns melodramatic on you. It’s a fairly light invention, with tight dialogue and well drawn characters drawn from central casting. All dressed and ready to be made into a film. With a bow.
I liked it fine, but it’s not why I went looking for Nebel. It’s not hardboiled crime and only vaguely hints at his Black Mask roots. Action and dialogue is economically worded and the thing moves at a brisk pace.
March 10th, 2024 at 10:33 pm
The film is an entertaining screwball comedy, but as Tony says, the book is not really what anyone would expect of Nebel after SLEEPERS EAST or most of his pulp work (though his adventure stories were a bit lighter in tone). This does resemble the structure of SE with the Grand Hotel cast and confined location, if nothing else.
In the Forties Nebel would move toward the slicks and this might have reflected the start of that change in market strategy. I didn’t see any mention of serialization for this, but it does sound like the kind of thing the slicks might have picked up.
March 11th, 2024 at 5:25 am
Another one to go onto my Want List, eventually to end up in my To-Be-Read bookcase–formerly my TBR shelf.
Steve, if you’d quit running these great reviews, I could maybe make some progress here!
March 11th, 2024 at 3:17 pm
It is a privilege and an honor!