Fri 29 Apr 2011
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: GEORGE DYER – Five Fragments (Book & Film: FOG OVER FRISCO, 1934).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[8] Comments
GEORGE DYER – Five Fragments. Houghton Mifflin, hardcover, 1932. Hardcover reprint: Grosset & Dunlap, 1932 [?].
Film: FOG OVER FRISCO. First National Pictures, 1934. Bette Davis, Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot, Hugh Herbert, Arthur Byron, Robert Barrat, Henry O’Neill, Irving Pichel, Douglass Dumbrille. Director: William Dieterle.
Following Dolores Hitchens’ Fools Gold [reviewed here ] and still on the book-to-movie bent, I visited a novel called The Five Fragments by George Dyer.
Dyer authored a series of mysteries in the 1930 centered around the Catalyst Club, but this ain’t one of ’em; it’s a Keeler-esque series of long narrative flashbacks framed by a mysterious host who has assembled a group of disparate guests, each of whom knows something about a recent and notorious murder/kidnapping scandal in San Francisco.
The five narrators — a pretty standard set of stock characters including a dumb cop, brash young reporter, doughty coast-guardsman, colorful gangster and cool customs agent — proceed to sketch out a tale of dope smuggling, bootleggers, a wild heiress named Arlene and her half-sister, who has fallen in love with the reporter and then got herself kidnapped.
The resultant surprise conclusion is a bit creaky but entertaining nonetheless, and though none of the characters is ever more than two-dimensional, they are at least painted up real pretty, and they go through their allotted paces at a brisk clip.
When Warners filmed this in 1934 as Fog Over Frisco they chewed through the book typical abandon: jettisoned the framing device, added a bumbling photographer (Hugh Herbert) to follow the brash young reporter and provide dubious comedy relief, switched stolen bonds for smuggled drugs (a bit of a no-no in ’34) and threw in a sinister butler for good measure.
But I especially like what they did with the Arlene character, who never actually appears in the book: they built the non-existent part up into a neatly bitchy role for top-billed Bette Davis, who clearly relishes the part and leaves the movie all too soon.
Directed by William Deiterle at the usual break-a-leg pace Warners’ pace, Fog offers nothing too special, but serves it up well.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
I’m sure this movie has been shown on TCM many many times, and I’m equally sure that I’ve taped it. I have, however, never watched it, and I don’t know why. I often do (or don’t do) unexplainable things.
For a lengthy, in-depth analysis of the film, check out Mike Grost’s William Dieterle page on his website here:
http://mikegrost.com/dieterle.htm#Fog
April 29th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
I have this on DVD. No classic, but great deco sets and a feisty performance by a striking Bette Davis.
April 30th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Steve,
Thank you for the link!
Until this review, I’d never heard of George Dyer, or known anything about his books. This sounds very interesting. Will try to track some of this down.
Bette can be really, really rotten.
December 6th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Thanks for this post. This is what little I’ve found on the web about Dyer. Early in his career, Dyer (born in 1903) was a journalist and put in a brief stint reporting for the San Francisco Examiner. It was during the 1930s when he wrote six mysteries, listed below. His novel The Five Fragments was made into films, albeit with significant changes: Fog Over Frisco (1934), starring Bette Davis, and a war movie, Spy Ship in 1942. During WWII, he served as Lt. Col. in U. S. Army Intelligence. After the war, he founded the Dyer Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, which was located on his Bucks County, PA farm. He taught subjects in military history and intelligence with his wife Dr. Charlotte Leavitt Dyer, also an expert on U. S. and foreign intelligence. When he passed away due to a heart attack in 1978, he was prominent enough for the New York Times to run his obituary (gotta pay to read so I passed).
The Three-Cornered Wound (1931)
The Five Fragments (1932)
A Storm Is Rising (1934)
The Catalyst Club (1936)
The Long Death (1937)
Adriana (1939) aka The Mystery of Martha’s Vineyard
The People Ask Death (1940)
November 18th, 2013 at 11:26 am
My family was close friends of the Dyers. With one of my two sons, we joined him and a sort of “club” called the “Pemanent Group” which met every year for a 3-4 day canoe trip in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Geo Dyer organized these trips that included around 20 people of all ages: infants to 70 year olds. I visit him several times in Bucks Country and have all of his books, including one in paperback.
November 18th, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Thanks for sharing your memories of the Dyers with us, Matt!
February 14th, 2017 at 8:48 pm
I’ve learned that Dyer’s novel The Long Death is available online at archive.org His Catalyst Club investigates the death of an atomic physicist.
I came across this book because I’m interested in the history of particle accelerators. Prior to 1937, there cannot have been many novels about cyclotron researchers! I enjoyed the story, and Dyer’s technical detail about cycltrons is surprisingly good.
February 17th, 2021 at 11:39 am
I am looking for good copy with DJ of Dyer’s book The Three Cornered Wound