THE MALTESE FALCON. Warner Bros Vitaphone Talking Picture, 1931. Bebe Daniels (Ruth Wonderly), Ricardo Cortez (Sam Spade), Dudley Digges (Casper Gutman), Una Merkel (Effie Perine), Robert Elliott (Detective Lt. Dundy), Thelma Todd (Iva Archer), Otto Matieson (Dr. Joel Cairo), Walter Long (Miles Archer), Dwight Frye (Wilmer Cook). Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. Director: Roy Del Ruth.

   It’s taken me a long time to get around to seeing this one, but I’m glad I did. I’m going to assume everyone reading this knows the story, either by reading the book or watching the 1941 version, the one directed by John Huston and with Humphrey Bogart in his never to be forgotten role of private eye Sam Spade. Or both, of course.

   This first adaptation, as I’ve just discovered, follows the story line of the book just about as closely as the Bogart one. In my opinion, though, while very good, if not excellent, it isn’t nearly as good as the later one, in spite of the semi-risque bits it gets away with, having been made before the Movie Code went into effect. (I suspect that I’m not saying anything new here.)

   To some great extent, I imagine, how well you like this version depends quite a bit on how well you like Ricardo Cortez in the role. I didn’t, but on the other hand, who could compare with Humphrey Bogart’s performance, in a part made just for him?

   I don’t know what the critical or audience reception to this movie was at the time, but it didn’t seem to have any lasting effect on how detective stories in novel form were adapted to the screen. It took another ten years before film versions of other mysteries didn’t have to have goofy cops or funny detective sidekicks tagging along for comedy relief. There’s none of that in this 1931 movie, but except for a few exceptions, such Warner Brothers’ output of gritty crime and racketeer dramas, that’s a simple idea that didn’t catch on.

MARLOWE. ABC / Touchstone, TV Movie/pilot, 2007. Jason O’Mara (Philip Marlowe), Adam Goldberg, Clayton Rohner, Jamie Ray Newman, Amanda Righetti, Lisa LoCicero, Marcus A. Ferraz. Teleplay by Greg Pruss & Carol Wolper, based on the character created by Raymond Chandler. Directed by Rob Bowman.

   Slick pilot for a series that never developed, Marlowe features Jason O’Mara (Agents of SHIELD) as Raymond Chandler’s metaphor-and-simile-laden private eye, a good man in the mean streets of 21rst Century Los Angeles, and O’Mara’s tough, human, wounded Marlowe is easily the best thing about this well-intentioned updating of the classic character.

   Marlowe is following a playboy his client suspects is having an affair with his wife when he hears a scream and Traci Faye (Jamie Ray Newman) comes running from the man’s home. Inside Marlowe finds the man he is following dead.

   When the police arrive, in the person of Marlowe’s cop pal Frank Olmer (Adam Goldberg), they arrest Tracy for the murder, and when they have to let her go, she comes to Marlowe for help, thus the little dialogue above between Marlowe and his sexy mothering secretary Jessica (Amanda Righetti).

   Before long Marlowe has stumbled on a crooked real estate development deal, taken a dive into that famous “black pool” thanks to psychotic Zack Battas (Marcus A. Ferraz), and ended up locked in his car with no way out in the middle of oncoming freeway traffic. He also resists seduction by his client’s wife (Lisa LoCicero) and does not resist Tracy before he uncovers the lies and deceptions leading to the real killer.

   There are some good lines that show the people involved at least know their Chandler:

   I’m divided on this one. On the one hand O’Mara makes for an attractive and human Marlowe — there is one very good scene between he and the actress playing his client where he loses his temper and in doing so sees the frightened little girl under the seductive exterior — and the plot is actually much more complex than usual for television in keeping with Chandler.

   On the other Marlowe is very much a fish out of water in 21st Century LA, and no one but O’Mara seems to be doing much more than going through the motions, though Newman has that one good scene, and Adam Goldberg is good as his world weary cop buddy. At times everything seems too bright and fresh and new to be classic Marlowe (his office is more 77 Sunset Strip than the Bradbury Building and his secretary more Velda from Mike Hammer than anything in Chandler).

   Over all I recommend it with reservations, if only for O’Mara’s humane Marlowe, it is one of those what might have been situations, where you can see it being very good or going very wrong fast.

   That’s not half bad, which is pretty much what you can say for this pilot, and considering, that is more of a recommendation than it may sound.

JAMES RONALD. This Way Out. Lippincott, US, hardcover, 1939. Popular Library #389, US, paperback, 1951. First published in the UK by Rich & Cowan, hardcover, July 1938. Film: Universal, 1944, as The Suspect.

THE SUSPECT. Universal, 1944. Charles Laughton, Ella Raines, Henry Daniell, Rosalind Ivan, Stanley Ridges. Screenplay by Bertram Millhauser, based on the novel This Way Out, by James Ronald. Directed by Robert Siodmak.

   Yet another tale of murder for love and freedom, memorably done as book and movie.

   The novel opens with Philip Marshall, middle-aged and unhappily mired in a marriage that has degenerated into constant nagging. Leaving work one evening, he meets a troubled young woman, shows her a bit of kindness, and they begin a relationship that slowly turns into love.

   When Philip asks his wife for a divorce, she sees it as just another chance to hurt him, but before she can turn the screws… well I’m not giving anything away to say that she ends up quite dead, opening Philip’s way for marriage and happiness, marred only by a persistent Scotland Yard detective who finds the death just a bit too convenient, and a nasty acquaintance who sees a chance for blackmail.

   This is ground well-trod by other writers, but author James Ronald is writing about something else. This Way Out is spiced with some poignant and pleasing observations about love, loneliness and responsibility. In fact, responsibility becomes a recurring motif in the tale, as Marshall weighs his obligations to his wife, his lover, his son, and ultimately to humanity as a whole, and the result is a book of surprising emotional resonance.

   Universal did well by this, assigning the screenplay to Bertram Millhauser of the Sherlock Holmes series, probably to give it that authentic Hollywood London feel, and putting at the helm Robert Siodmak, who two years later would define film noir with The Killers.

   Nor did they scrimp with the actors, starting with Charles Laughton playing the meek and decent Marshall with his customary self-effacing brilliance. Ella Raines projects a spirited innocence, and Rosalind Ivans offers yet another of her bitchy wife portrayals, this time with a nastier edge than usual, even for her.

   Stanley Ridges never really convinced me as the man from Scotland Yard; he doesn’t quite capture the polite cunning of John Williams in Dial M for Murder, and he makes no attempt at an English accent. But Henry Daniell casts off his usual puritanical demeanor and plays the blackmailing drunkard with surprising relish.

   Daniell was usually cast as the bad guy in films like Jane Eyre, Camille and The Great Dictator, and he specialized in the puritanical type; even in neutral parts, he was generally a party-pooper, like the judge in Les Girls, and the doctor who gives the bad news to Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises.

   Here though, he’s the self-indulgent rotter who sees a steady meal ticket in his neighbor Charles Laughton, and he plays the part with obvious glee, as if glad for a chance to kick up his heels for a change.

   One important difference between film and book intrigues me: In the book we see Philip kill his wife. In the film, however, we simply learn that she’s dead—allegedly after striking her head in a fall down the stairs — and the heavy cane Philip usually carries around is missing. Scotland Yard suspects foul play and so do we, but in a visual medium like the movies, the omission is telling.

   I will only add that both book and movie leave us with a very satisfying twist ending, and I recommend them highly.

HIGH TIDE. Syndicated, 1994-1997. ACI -Franklin/Waterman 2. Cast: Rick Springfield as Mick Barrett and Yannick Bisson as Joey Barrett. Supporting Cast: Season One: George Segal as Gordon, and Diana Frank or Cay Helmich as Fritz. Season Two: Julie Cialini as Annie. Season Three: Deborah Shelton as Grace Warner and David Graf as Jay Cassidy. Created by Jeff Franklin and Steve Waterman.

   With the increasing popularity of cable in the 1990s, there was a growing number of syndicated programs to fill the content needs of the new cable stations. The cheesy action comedy was one of the more common genres. This type of series often featured beautiful locations and gorgeous half-naked men and women, action but limited violence, and scripts filled with endless TV tropes.

   High Tide was such a series. It survived three seasons with a slightly different premise and location each season.

   Season One was filmed in New Zealand. Mick is an ex-cop who blames himself for his partner’s death. He and his not too bright, impulsive younger brother Joey live the life of surf bums.

   Interrupting the brothers’ life of bikini watching and surfing was Gordon, an ex-CIA agent now L.A. restaurateur who constantly gets the boys involved in helping one of his many gorgeous young goddaughters. Conveniently the young ladies usually get in trouble where there is surfing nearby. As to be expected with a TV series devoted to using as many TV tropes as possible, Gordon’s assistant is the young beautiful Fritz (played by Diana Frank or Cay Helmich).

   A note about the cast. Both Rick Springfield and George Segal are well enough known stars of TV and films without listing their credits. However it should be mentioned that Yannick Bisson played Joey the younger brother. Today Bisson can be seen as the star of the long running Canadian hit series Murdoch Mysteries.

   Some may notice the name of Tim Minear in the behind the line credits such as writer, story editor, or co-producer. Minear has become one of Hollywood’s top critically acclaimed TV producers today with series such as Terriers (2010), American Horror Show (2012-17) and Feud (2017-18).

REVENGE IS SWEET. November 26, 1994. Written by Martin Cutler and Tim Minear. Directed by Catherine Millar. Guest Cast: Kenneth McGregor and John Dybuig. *** Someone from Mick’s past wants him dead.

   A break from Mick and Joey’s weekly rescue of a beautiful woman in trouble, this episode focuses on Mick’s backstory. Rarely rising above clichés, it lacks suspense and fails to make us care. As a typical syndicated series of the time, it is a mindless, but not the worst, way to kill an hour of your life.

   Mick’s beloved Mustang is impounded for failure to pay parking tickets. A cop with a grudge against Mick since Mick’s police academy days arrests Mick. Revealed to be a computer glitch, Mick is let go only to be unable to find his car.

   Mysteriously his car is returned, but it has a warning from someone who threatens to kill Mick. Mick is then framed for murder. Mick finds himself on the run from the cops while trying to find out who wants him dead.

   Season Two had the production company leave New Zealand for San Diego. Story-wise the brothers leave Los Angeles and Gordon and Fritz behind to open a surf shop in San Diego called High Tide. There, Mick and Joey spend more time rescuing old friends and strangers than actually running the shop.

   Annie the High Tide employee was played by Playboy Playmate of 1995 Julie Cialini. During the second season the series hired Playboy models for minor roles and background.

   The second season aired in 80% of the country or 90 markets including all Top 25 markets. The ratings in United States were low but better overseas (Broadcasting, July 17, 1995).

CODE NAME: SCORPION. March 4, 1996. Written by Chris Baena. Directed by John Grant Weil. Guest Cast: Chip Mayer, Josie Davis, and Donna D’Errico. *** Mick reunites with his goddaughter whose ex-CIA agent father died years ago. She is a champion Pro beach volleyball player on tour. She is staying with the brothers when she is kidnapped.

   The second season increases the close-ups of female butts and boobs. Predictable with clumsy writing and weak acting, the series continues to rely on visual scenery and the brothers’ relationship to keep the viewers from changing channels.

   In Season Three the production moves again, this time to Ventura CA. Mick and Joey have sold their failed surf shop High Tide. Mick wishes to live the life of the surf bum, but Joey wants to find a paying job of adventure.

   Continuing its theme of teen male wish fulfillment, the third and final season has Grace, a gorgeous rich woman offering the brothers her luxurious guest beach house in Santa Barbara as a place to stay rent free.

   Mick and Joey decide to become full time PIs. Jay, an ex-cop friend of Mick’s who sells real estate and is a bails bondsman, offers the brothers assignments to track down bail jumpers.

STARTING OVER. September 22, 1996: Written by Chris Baena. Directed by Chris O’Neil. Guest Cast: Rob Farrior and Lyman Ward. *** A rich powerful man’s spoiled son beats a man to death. When he skips bail the brothers are hired to find him and bring him back.

   High Tide was an average harmless syndicated action series meant to appeal to teen boys and those viewers seeking to abandon their brains for sixty minutes. Nice to look at and at times fun to watch, the series never rose above cotton candy for the eyes.

BLACKMAIL. MGM, 1939. Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Hussey, Gene Lockhart, Bobs Watson, Guinn Williams. Director: H. C. Potter.

   In a typically strong but not entirely successful performance from him, Edward G. Robinson plays John Ingram, a successful oil-field firefighter — the best there is for miles around, as a matter of fact — but even with a wife and young son now, he has a secret from his past that he does not want known, and that is where the title comes in. Someone from his previous life (a perniciously loathsome Gene Lockhart) knows that secret, that several years before he had been unjustly convicted of robbery but had managed to escape from the chain gang he was on.

   And as Lockhart manages to work it, not only does Robinson end up back on the chain gang, but he (Lockhart) gets control of the oil well his victim has been hoping would come in. The only thing on Robinson’s mind — well, two — are escape and revenge.

   This was, of course, MGM’s belated answer to I Was A Fugitive from A Chain Gang, which was released by Warner Brothers in 1932. It tries to be as gritty as he earlier film, but it just doesn’t make it. As good as Edward G. Robinson was in almost everything he did, watching his not so lean wiry body sloshing through the swamp surrounding the prison farm he escapes from a second time is a cinematic image that will stay with me for a long time, and not for the right reason.

PATRICIA WENTWORTH – The Clock Strikes Twelve. Miss Silver #7. J. B. Lippincott, US, hardcover, 1944. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1945. Reprinted several times, including Popular Library #131, US, paperback, 1947; Warner, US, paperback, 1984.

   There are situations in which fictional murder victims simply set themselves up for disaster, and such is the case in The Clock Strikes Twelve. When businessman James Paradine discovers some crucial wartime blueprints have gone missing, he knows that the only one who could have taken them is among those attending a New Year’s Even dinner party at his home that evening.

   At the end of the meal he makes an announcement to that effect, that a family member has betrayed him, but without saying what the crime is. But if the guilty party comes to his room before midnight to confess, he will be there waiting for him or her.

   Is it any wonder that his body is found dead the next morning below the balcony of his study? Someone in his family has done more than betray him, but as the police begin their investigation, it is not at all clear what secret failing that each of the ten possible suspects seems to have was the motive for the crime.

   Miss Silver, who looks like everyone’s idea of the perfect nanny, is not called in as a private investigator until about halfway through, and that’s when the detective work begins in earnest. Behind the her outer facade of a children’s governess and her iniquitous knitting needles, she has a sharp mind, indeed.

   Besides the stolen plans, there are a couple of romances that have been thwarted until now, and a small fortune in diamonds may also be involved. This is a mystery that is strong in well-drawn characters as well as actual down-to-earth deductive reasoning. My only wish is that in the end the actions of one of the suspects had been more clearly described than it was.

   And with as many possible suspect as there are in this book, there is also a lot to explain in the finale, much of it extraneous and including at least loose end that is not completely tied up. Otherwise I’d give this at least a two thumbs-up recommendation for those of you who love Golden Age puzzle mysteries. Small quibbles aside, this is still one of the better ones.

   
RICHARD WHITTINGHAM – Their Kind of Town. Joe Morrison #2. Donald J. Fine, hardcover, 1994. Avon, paperback, 1996.

   Whittingham’s first book, in which Joe Morrison also played a part and which I missed, was State Street (1991). He’s also written non-fiction books about the NFL draft and the life of a street cop.

   What we have here is Chicago. Though there’s much more to be said about the real city, for our purposes Chicago means cops and gangs of both the street and organized crime variety, and violence. Very soon after the book opens, a semi-independent criminal is executed for showing poor judgment in who he robbed. One witness to the killing, a young black gang member, was also killed — but one wasn’t. The story deals with how both the police and the gang bosses attempt to deal with the potentially disastrous situation.

   Their Kind of Town was a pleasant surprise. Prose, plot, and people all well above average. The story is told from multiple viewpoints, and Morrison is really no more the focus than several others on both sides of the law.

   I thought the dialogue for the various and sharply differing characters was excellent, and that each of the major players came to life very nicely. Though there was a fair amount of bloodshed, this isn’t an action-packed book in its feel; the pace is steady rather than frenetic. It’s one of the best gritty city cop novels I’ve read in a long while, and I’ll definitely find and read the first in the series.

Bibliographic Note:   The two Joe Morrison books are the only two listed for Richard Whittingham in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.

ANTHONY GILBERT – Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries. Edited and with an introduction by John Cooper. Crippen & Landru, hardcover/trade paperback, September 2017. Collection: 18 stories.

   Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Beatrice Malleson, 1899-1973) was a woman who shared with other successful female crime writers a combination of writing talent and clever plotting skills necessary to make it in detective fiction’s Golden Age. Even after the GA’s decline, however, she retained a high profile on the mystery scene for several decades; novels, short stories, original radio plays, and TV adaptations made her a multimedia presence well into the hippie era, and in fact, the tales in this collection date from as early as 1927 and as late as 1972.

   In his informative Introduction, editor John Cooper fills us in on her writing career, including why she chose “Anthony” instead of “Tony” and “Gilbert” for her nom de plume, and her series characters. Arthur Crook wasn’t the only one, although most readers think of the devious barrister when discussing Gilbert’s work:

    “The author’s most famous detective was the suitably named Arthur Crook,” writes Cooper, describing him as “big, red-haired, slow speaking, beer swilling, pot-bellied, middle-aged,” distinguishable by his “great, circular red face and a crafty eye” and who, if necessary, was willing to go “to unprofessional lengths to clear his clients.” Gilbert reserved Crook primarily for her novels (fifty-one of ’em!), but she did write five short works with him; they’re all in this collection, amounting to roughly half of the page count:

(1) “You Can’t Hang Twice” (1946): If you’ve committed a murder and there’s a witness still running around, what better place to dispose of the problem than a thick, nearly impenetrable London fog? Crookism: “Murderers get caught because they’re yellow. The minute they’ve socked their man they start feverishly buildin’ a little tent to hide in, and presently some chap comes along, who might never have noticed them, but gets curious about the little tent.”

(2) “Once Is Once Too Many” (1955): Climbing a mountain is hazardous enough without somebody waiting nearby to give that little shove that unmistakably says I hate you. Crookism: “They get careless and forget murder’s a game two can play.”

(3) “A Nice Little Mare Called Murder” (1964): The gallows loom large for a man whose only alibi just lost a race at the track—and he doesn’t even play the ponies. Crookism: “When a chap’s paying me to act for him he’s always innocent.”

(4) “Give Me a Ring” (1955): A wrong turn in the fog, a mix-up about a Christmas gift, a needle in the arm—Alice never had it like this in Wonderland. Crookism: “Don’t know what they teach ’em at these posh schools.”

(5) “The Black Hat” (1942): A blackmailer gets his in a blackout; there’s universal agreement that he deserved it, but the man they’ve arrested doesn’t. Crookism: “If I thought you were going to have another chance of killing a chap I’d warn you—never re-visit the scene of the crime.”

   The rest of the stories fall into the miscellaneous category, most of them involving blackmail (evidently her favorite theme): Surprising developments at “The Reading of the Will” … A lawyer’s dilemma in “Curtains for Me” … Spinsters in jeopardy in “Point of No Return” … Double murders in a “Cul-De-Sac” … Inspector Field’s eerie tale of the “Following Feet” … “Three Living … and One Dead”—and one’s a murderer … Knifed in a taxi cab by “The Man with the Chestnut Beard” … There’ll be wedding bells “Over My Dead Body” … The king of the beasts attends “The Funeral of Dendy Watt” … To Inspector Field, there’s no such thing as “Horseshoes for Luck” … Life was looking grand until “He Found Out Too Late How Good an Artist Mabel Was” … Spouse killers in love in “A Day of Encounters” … and a newspaper dated the day of a murder becomes a “Sequel to Murder” (which, says our editor, Gilbert considered “as her best short story”).

   Anthony Gilbert’s short fiction is as durable as her novel work, and the stories in Sequel to Murder are well worth spending time with; the author knew how to write and, an important consideration in mysteries, how to plot. Along with Agatha Christie, she had a talent to deceive.

EDGAR WALLACE – The Tomb of Ts’in. Ward Lock, UK, hardcover, 1916. Hutchinson Library Service, UK, abridged/revised, 1972. CreateSpace, US, softcover, 2015. Available online here.

   Nice of Edgar Wallace to summarize the plot so neatly for me in the Introduction don’t you think? Saves a critic oh so much effort.

   And we are off into the land of Yellow Peril, but in the sure hands of Edgar Wallace, who does nothing by half, and here out-Sax’s Sax Rohmer in this tale which features a brilliant Italian sleuth, Tillzinni, and the stalwart Captain Talham, a beautiful and strong minded young girl, and at least one well trained and murderous python among other ’orrors of the East.

   Yes, racist no doubt, though Wallace is too good simply to indulge in evil Asians, and he grants his villain a certain amount of the gravitas that allows some Asian literary scholars today to try and reclaim Dr. Fu Manchu as they have Charlie Chan, as stereotypes beyond the mere stereotypical.

   It is hardly a great book, or even great Edgar Wallace. It is written with that energy that marks his best work, but also some of that carelessness. It is far from fresh territory, but it does the genre right, with a minimum of racial nonsense, and a certain respect between the brilliant Chinese villain and the brilliant Italian detective.

   In fact, Tillzinni is what saves this one for me. He is attractive, eccentric, clever, amusing, a man of mind and action, only a bit overly Italian (as compared to the overly Belgian Poirot the overly Austrian Van Helsing or the overly French Hanaud), and altogether he is one of Wallace’s more believable great detective types.

   It all boils down to a last second conclusion, with justice prevailing, at least for the Anglo-Saxon characters, and unlike most of its sort there is far less that is objectionable and unnecessary than usual.

    At least, unlike Rohmer, the Anglo-Saxon characters aren’t all embarrassingly stupid and rampantly racist, and Wallace manages to do the Asian menace genre with a minimum of drugs unknown to science, giant non-existent spiders, and creeping Dacoits and still hit the mysterious highlights.

   If you feel it will offend you, by all means don’t read it, but if you can bring some historical perspective to bear, it is an entertaining rip-roaring thriller worth an hour of your time. My personal opinion is it is better to be open and honest about the genre and its past, and to accept the bad with the good for what they are, rather than try to bury everything out of step with our times. I know that doesn’t work for everyone, nor do I see anything wrong if it doesn’t work for you.

J. HARVEY BOND – Kill Me with Kindness. Mike Lanson #3. Ace Double D-349, paperback original, 1959. Published back-to-back with The Guilty Bystander, by Mike Brett (reviewed here ).

   J. Harvey Bond was the pen name of Russ Winterbotham (1904-1971), who was probably better known as a writer of science fiction, both novels and short stories, starting as far back as 1935 and “The Star That Would Not Behave” as R. R. Winterbotham in the August issue of Astounding SF for that year.

   All of Winterbotham’s detective novels were written as by J. Harvey Bond, and all four were mysteries tackled by a newspaper reporter by the name of Mike Lanson. Kill Me with Kindness is the third of the four.

   Written up in ths one is a tale that’s a reliable old standard, that of corruption in a small town, with only the town newspaper interested enough to nose around and find out who’s behind it. The police are handicapped by either a lack of will or a lack of evidence, and probably both. Dead is a anti-vice crusader who the owner of Lanson’s newspaper believes is not beyond doing a little bit of shakedown on the side himself.

   There is also a good-looking girl involved, a strip-tease dancer named Luzy McGuire — that is probably her shown on the front cover above — and not only is she involved, but as Lanson also soon begins to learn, she is the key to his entire investigation.

   I needn’t tell you more. It all plays out from here just as you might suspect. This is the literary equivalent of any number of black-and-white movies being made at the same time, this one with John Payne, say, as Mike Lanson, and Marie Windsor, Terry Moore or Audrey Totter as Luzy. It might even be better as a movie. I know that that’s one I’d watch!

      The Mike Lanson series —

Bye Bye, Baby! Ace Double D-279, 1958.

Murder Isn’t Funny. Ace Double D-301, 1958.

Kill Me with Kindness. Ace Double D-349, 1959.
If Wishes Were Hearses. Ace Double D-483, 1961.