KISS ME DEADLY. United Artists, 1955. Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer, Albert Dekker as Dr. G.E. Soberin, Paul Stewart as Carl Evello, Juano Hernandez as Eddie Yeager, Wesley Addy as Lt. Pat Murphy, Marian Carr as Friday, Maxine Cooper as Velda, Cloris Leachman as Christina Bailey. Screenwriter: A. I. Bezzerides, based on the novel by Mickey Spillane. Director: Robert Aldrich.

   Robert Aldrich’s classic 1955 film noir Kiss Me Deadly came out on video recently with the original ending — truncated for Television ever since it fell off the Big Screen and landed in Tube-Land — restored for the first time in 40 years, and it set a lot of B-movie critics to re-writing their ideas about just what the film`s creators — director Aldrich and writer A. I. Bezzerides — had in mind.

   Kiss Me Deadly always was a subversive little film, full of stylish violence and sexual innuendo, unfolding a plot more hinted-at than explained, where “thieves and murderers fashion the tools of their own destruction,” with a hero (like Hammer, played with brilliant egotism by Ralph Meeker) callous and self-centered rather than heroic.

   And for years critics watched this film on television and saw an ambiguous ending (WARNING!!) where Mike and Velda run for the door to escape just as the house explodes. Did they make it? (END OF WARNING!) The uncertain resolution seemed to fit perfectly with the moral anarchy of the film, several critics who saw the movie only on television praised Aldrich`s underhand genius; Just imagine, they said, Sneaking an ending like that onto a mainstream film like this.

   Turns out, though, that as originally released, Kiss Me Deadly ended (WARNING!) with Mike and Velda clearly escaping — wading through the surf and looking back to see the villains of iniquity get vaporized. (END OF WARNING!) The few seconds extra footage that showed this (along with some shots of a torch singer in a nightclub handling her microphone a bit -ah- suggestively) were scrapped to make room for extra commercials when the film was sold to television, not restored till now.

   So for years, critics, general audiences, and mystery fans have been evaluating this movie and its creator — both of them — plenty subversive enough anyway — based on how they thought Kiss Me Deadly was filmed. And a movie that ends (WARNING!) with its thuggish hero battling through to survival is substantially different from one that seems to end with him possibly destroyed by his own lack of brains. (END OF WARNING)

   Which is what we mean, I guess, when we say “Trust the Tale, not the Teller.” Or something like that. Myself, I kind of like the truncated ending a little better, even if it was accidental. It seems to fit more with the overall mood of the piece. Trust the tale…

  ERIC AMBLER – Passage of Arms. Bantam F2246, reprint paperback; 1st printing, July 1961. Original hardcover edition: Alfred A. Knopf; March 1960. Reprinted several times since, in both hardcover and soft.

   I am on record elsewhere on this blog in expressing my admiration for the first five pre-war novels Eric Ambler wrote, excluding his first, The Dark Frontier (UK, 1936, and reviewed here ) which wasn’t published in the US until 1990. Even the titles were terrific: Background to Danger, Cause for Alarm, Epitaph for a Spy, A Coffin for Dimitrios, and Journey into Fear (as they were called here in this country). Each of them calls up memories of desperate times and ordinary men who fall into desperate situations.

   But Journey into Fear was published in 1940, followed by a gap of 11 years when Judgment on Delchev appeared. The latter is OK, but I think the hiatus cost Ambler something, or perhaps it was simply that the times were changing. Post-war Europe was not as interesting, spy or adventure-wise, as it was in 1940 and before.

   Credit Ambler for changing with the times. Passage of Arms takes place in the Far East, for one thing, Malaya, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and so on, long before anyone here in the US had heard of any of those places. The focus is a weapons cache discovered by a bookkeeping clerk in Malaya, set up several years earlier by Chinese militants and terrorists, and one worth many thousands of dollars today, if it could be gotten into the right hands.

   Enter a tourist named Greg Nilsen, owner of a precision die-casting business in Wilmington, Delaware. He and his wife Dorothy are taking a self-guided trip through that part of the world, and somehow before he realizes exactly how, he finds himself far in over his head as a not-entirely-innocent go-between.

   All to the good, but the story is static and barely moves, and it is clear from nearly the get-go that Nilsen and wife are one of those pairs of non-worldly innocents that nothing serious will happen to. Ambler knows the ins and outs of the underground gun business, and the lack of trust that exists between all of the participating parties, which is gone into in great detail, but if action or suspense is what you’re looking for in a spy novel, this one isn’t it.

ALAN BRADLEY – Speaking from Among the Bones. Delacorte Press, hardcover, January 2013.

Genre:  Amateur sleuth. Leading character:   Flavia de Luce, 5th in series. Setting:  England, 1950s.

First Sentence:   Blood dripped from the neck of the severed head and fell in a drizzle of red raindrops, clotting into a ruby pool upon the black and white tiles.

   Pre-teen Flavia de Luce is excited about the opening of the 500-year-old tomb of Saint Tancred and is determined to witness the event. However, the first body uncovered, is that of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist — dead, wearing a gas mask. With her skill at chemistry, detection and a little help, Flavia has yet another murder to solve.

   From the beginning, it is clear that Flavia is a delightful, unusual protagonist. She is 14 and wonderfully irreverent. When discussing how to get a bat out of one of the church organ’s pipes, her suggestion is for her sister to “…play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Full throttle. That out to fix the little sod.”

   One cannot help but love her. She is an outsider in her own family. She is brilliant, yet has her insecurities. Her sisters have told her she’s adopted so she collects samples of everyone’s blood to test for matching. Her best friends are Gladys, her bicycle which she anthropomorphizes; and Dogger, the shell-shocked soldier who was with her father during WWII and now works for the family. There is such a wonderful bond between Dogger and Flavia. She is daring, but not fearless.

   It cannot be overlooked that an older man has created such a vibrant, and realistic, young character. In an interview, he talks about how children of that age are undervalued and too much overlooked, yet it’s a wonderful age as they are just on the cusp of adulthood.

   The story is told in first person and Bradley has such a wonderful voice… “Whenever I’m a little blue I think about cyanide, whose color so perfectly reflects my mood.”

   The story is very much character-driven. The series started when Flavia was 11 years old; she is now 14 and we are starting to see her mature. However, those who come
into the series late needn’t worry. Bradley provides sufficient back story for each of the
characters for new readers to know who they are and the relationships between. He also introduces a fascinating new character in the shape of a flora archeologist with a Rolls Royce named Nancy.

   Bradley has a wonderful eye for detail and period. He provides us with a real sense of post-war England, still in the stages of uncertainty about the future. He is also able to make chemistry fascinating.

   Although character drives the story, the plot doesn’t at all suffer for it. We are taken down curious and shadowy paths. We, mistakenly, think we know where we are going, and we’re wrong. We’re given a delightful dessert filled with fascinating tidbits of information, suspense, resolution and a whopping cliffhanger — but not in a bad way — iced with humor and emotion.

   Speaking from Among the Bones lags just a touch in the middle, but finishes with a roar. It is a wonderful book and now ranks among my favorites of the series.

Rating: VG Plus.

      The Flavia de Luce series —

1. The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie (2009)

2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (2010)
3. A Red Herring Without Mustard (2011)
4. I Am Half Sick of Shadows (2011)
5. Speaking From Among the Bones (2013)
6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (2014)

JONATHAN VALIN – The Lime Pit. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1980. Avon, paperback, 1981. Dell, paperback, 1994.

   Somehow Sherlock Holmes is seldom if ever thought of as a private detective. He seems instead to be intellectually above all that, while of course in reality he was never averse to receiving a fee for his services. And so the fact remains that investigators-for-hire have been around for nearly as long as there’s been mystery fiction. It wasn’t until Dashiell Hammett came along, however, with his Sam Spade, the Continental Op and other detectives, that the private eye story was brought down to street level where it belongs, so to speak.

   In degrees of depravity and perversity, here is a book tougher and rougher than any of Hammett’s, by far, but of course you do have to realize that this is several generations of consciousness-raising later. Some of the scenes that occur in the course of Harry Stoner’s search for a missing girl would undoubtedly make a Marquis de Sade at least momentarily queasy.

   Nor is Valin the new Raymond Chandler — the first chapter in particular seems desperately overwritten — but as a more than capable wordsmith he learns quickly. Once begun it’s easy to find yourself vicariously trapped in the grimier depths of Cincinnati’s dingier sections, uncovering with private eye Stoner a hidden underground world of predatory sex and bloodseeking violence.

   Stoner is hired by a dirty old man whose 16-year-old living companion has run away. He has pictures of her, of the kind not sold under counters, but in back rooms only. Harry fears the worst.

   As a rescuer, Stoner is deliberately not cast in the Travis McGee philosophy/fantasy mold. The job is hopeless, and he knows it, yet he’s idealist enough to continue hunting for those responsible for whatever’s happened to Cindy Ann. His romantic liaison with a waitress named Jo is enjoyable, but it is not likely to continue with the success that Robert Parker’s Spenser has found with Susan Silverman.

   The key intended here instead is realism. The activities taking place in The Lime Pit may not always be wholly appetizing, but they are morbidly fascinating. And while Harry Stoner may be the consummate iconoclast in many regards, he’s still a superb example of the closest thing we have today to a knight in shining armor.

Rating:  A minus.

Editorial Comment:   My review of Final Notice, which you can find here on this blog, includes more discussion of the author and a complete list of the Harry Stoner books, of which The Lime Pit was the first.

MISS FANE’S BABY IS STOLEN. Paramount, 1934. Dorothea Wieck, Alice Brady, Baby Leroy, Burton Churchill, William Frawley, Alan Hale, Spanky McFarland, Dorothy Burgess. Based on the story “Kidnapt” by Rupert Hughes, Cosmopolitan, 10 November 1933. Director: Alexander Hall. Shown at Cinefest 19, Syracuse NY, March 1999.

   German actress Wieck plays a film star whose infant son stolen by surly Hale, nervous LaRue and bored Burgess. Brady plays the spunky farm wife who retrieves the child and escapes the band of inept crooks in as improbable a car chase as you will ever see this side of the Keystone Kops. A minor diversion that was the initial screening of the convention.

ELLIS PETERS – One Corpse Too Many. Morrow, US, hardcover, 1980. First published by Macmillan, UK, hardcover, 1979. Fawcett Crest, US, paperback, 1981; several other reprint editions, in both hardcover and soft.

   For a fine literate change of pace from your standard big city police procedural or private eye yarn, you could do worse than to try this, the latest mystery adventure to be tackled and solved by the 12th century’s answer to Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael of Shrewsbury Abbey.

   Stop and think about it. One of the prime requirements of the detective story is that of bringing the murderer to justice, before both God and man. In the year 1138 who else would there be but a devoutly dedicated monk to carry out such a task?

   Assigned to burial detail after King Stephen’s successful siege of the rebellious Castle Foregate, Cadfael discovers that he cannot account for an extra body among those of ninety-four other condemned prisoners. Without a little urging on his part, it couldn’t be made clearer that the distinction between a murder and an execution would have otherwise escaped the minds of those in power completely.

   The plot is thicker than it seems, romance is determined to bloom even under the worst of conditions, and Cadfael is a solid man of the earth who realizes that God’s will may not always be done as honest men would see fit. He makes an ideal detective.

PostScript.   One Corpse Too Many was the second of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, the first being A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977/78). In an interview conducted by Ellen Nehr in 1991, Ellis Peters revealed that the first book was intended to be a one off, not the beginning of a series that turned out to be 13 books long.

THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING. Columbia, 1935. Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Arthur Hohl, James Donlan, Arthur Byron, Wallace Ford, Donald Meek, Etienne Girardot. Director: John Ford.

   I waited a long time for The Whole Town’s Talking to come out on Video, and then it reminded me of my experiences with Spillane and James Hadley Chase: I wanted to like it a lot, but found myself disappointed,

   The Whole Town’s Talking (not to be confused with People Will Talk or The Talk of the Town) has some impressive credentials indeed: A Gangster/Comedy film with Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur, based on a story by W. R. Burnett and directed by none other than John Ford, not shown on television in years, so you can imagine how I looked forward to it.

   Turns out, though, to be an unimaginative little comedy, revolving around a meek clerk, played by Robinson, who resembles a Dillinger-like desperado, also played by Robinson, and the supposedly comic complications this has on his life. There’s a lot of Capra-esque business about poor little Edward G, abused by uncaring bosses and local politicos, and the presence of Jean Arthur pushes it even further into Capra territory.

   The film also features on performances by two supreme milquetoasts of the cinema, Etienne Girardot and Donald Meek, who actually share an all-too-short scene together. Unfortunately, the whole thing revolves around a character who never seems to do very much; the story just sort of moves — slowly — along without him… and without engendering too much interest.

LESLEY ANDRESS – Caper. Putnam, hardcover, 1980. Pocket, paperback, December 1980. Also published as by Lawrence Sanders: Berkley, paperback, 1987.

   Her publisher unhappy about her recent lack-lustre production of mystery thrillers, Jannie Shean, also known as Chuck Thorndyke, Mike Cantrell, and yes, God help us, Brick Wall, among others, faces a crisis in her career. Her books need more reality, she is told. Others tell her they need what you usually don’t find happening in real life. Tidy endings, she is advised. No loose ends.

   In the pursuit and name of reality, she plans her own crime. A jewel heist, complete with a new blonde identity and a crew of several more-than-willing recruits. Events take a sudden expected twist, however, and she’s trapped into pulling it off. The mob gets involved, a dullish sort of book finally becomes exciting, and the chase is on.

   Some moralizing about the freedom of amorality and the forced awareness of a life on the run does not cloud the fact that crime is a serious business, and one not entirely suited nor meant for amateurs. No tidy endings here. By book’s end, the story has gone downhill badly. Running out of gas (figuratively) may be the ultimate realism, perhaps, but I’ve somehow never found it particularly satisfying.

[UPDATE] 06-02-13.   It was not known at the time I wrote this review that Andress was a pen name of Lawrence Sanders. (Note the anagram of his last name!) It was the only book he wrote under this nom-de-plume. Sanders was an extremely popular author in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, but every library sale I’ve gone to in recent years seems to have had tons of his books on the tables and still unsold at sale’s end.

MURRAY THOMAS – Buzzards Pick the Bones. Longmans Green, UK, hardcover, 1932.

   Five years earlier Tom Carr, on holiday in Wales and walking the Cader Idris range, had come upon a man apparently deranged. One year after that he had been told that a skeleton had been discovered at the point he had encountered the man. Now he has read that another skeleton has been found at the same spot. Neither of the skeletons has been identified.

   With the hope of getting more information about the skeletons, Carr and his friend Stephen go to Wales. In so doing they are probably responsible for yet another corpse, this one freshly made.

   A fairly interesting beginning, with some fine writing about the Welsh mountains, but the murderer, though not his motive, is evident early on and Carr’s falling in love slows down what was never a fast pace. The main saving grace to be found is Rumbold, Carr’s valet, who is not the detective in the novel but definitely could have been. As Rumbold puts it:

   Stephen, who is a poet, theorizes that when historians seek England’s mentality in the early 20th century they will turn to Edgar Wallace and the “fourpenny bloods — the Sexton Blakes and the like.” While I would dispute that, there is something to another of his contentions: “Death is the preoccupation of great minds, a death its relaxation — when served up in stories of detection and mystery.”

      The Inspector Wilkins series —

Buzzards Pick the Bones. Longmans, UK, 1932.
Inspector Wilkins Sees Red. Jenkins, UK, 1934.
Inspector Wilkins Reads the Proofs. Jenkins, UK, 1935.

Below are this summer’s original scripted mystery series with a link to its home page or press release. Any additions are welcomed. Times subject to change.

        JUNE

Sunday 2nd:

THE KILLING – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-killing

VENTURE BROTHERS –CARTOON NETWORK (Adult Swim) 12 Midnight

http://video.adultswim.com/the-venture-bros

Tuesday, June 4th:

MAIGRET – MHz Worldview International

http://www.mhznetworks.org/series/maigret

Thursday 6th:

BURN NOTICE – USA – 9PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice

GRACELAND – USA – 10PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/graceland

Friday 7th:

CONTINUUM – SYFY – 10PM

http://www.syfy.com/continuum

Saturday 8th:

SINBAD – SYFY – 9PM

http://www.syfy.com/sinbad

Sunday, June 9th:

IRENE HUSS – MHz Worldview International

http://www.mhznetwork.org/series/irene-huss

Monday 10th:

MAJOR CRIMES – TNT – 9PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/majorcrimes

KING AND MAXWELL – TNT – 10PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/king-and-maxwell

Tuesday 11th:

TWISTED – ABC FAMILY – 9PM

http://beta.abcfamily.go.com/shows/twisted

Friday 14th:

MAGIC CITY – STARZ

http://www.starz.com/originals/magic-city

NTSF: SD: SUV – CARTOON NETWORK (Adult Swim) 12 Midnight

http://video.adultswim.com/ntsfsdsuv/

Saturday 15th:

ZERO HOUR – ABC – 8PM

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/zero-hour

Sunday 16th:

INSPECTOR LEWIS – PBS – 9PM

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/inspector-lewis

Saturday 22nd:

666 PARK AVENUE – ABC – 9PM

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/666-park-avenue

Sunday 23rd:

WHODUNNIT – ABC – 9PM – (GAME)

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/whodunnit

CROSSING LINES – NBC – 9PM

http://www.nbc.com/crossing-lines

COPPER – BBC AMERICA – 10PM

http://www.bbcamerica.com/copper

Tuesday 25th:

RIZZOLI & ISLES – TNT – 9PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/rizzoli-and-isles

PERCEPTION – TNT – 10PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/perception

Friday 28th:

CULT – CW – 8PM (two episodes a night)

http://www.cwtv.com/shows/cult

Saturday 29th:

DO NO HARM – NBC – 10PM

http://www.nbc.com/do-no-harm

Sunday 30th:

DEXTER – SHOWTIME – 9PM

http://www.sho.com/sho/dexter/home

RAY DONOVAN – SHOWTIME – 10PM

http://www.sho.com/sho/ray-donovan/home

       JULY

Monday 1st:

SIBERIA – NBC – 10PM

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/siberia

(Press release on right side)

NOTE: this is currently not on NBC.com list of shows. It may have been pulled.

Sunday 7th:

ENDEAVOUR – PBS – 9PM

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/endeavour

Wednesday 10th:

THE BRIDGE – FX – 10PM

http://www.fxnetworks.com/thebridge

Thursday 11th:

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK – NETFLIX

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/orange-is-the-new-black

(Press release on right side)

Tuesday 16th:

COVERT AFFAIRS – USA – 9PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/covertaffairs

SUITS – USA – 10PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/suits

Friday 19th:

BRAQUE – HULU

http://www.hulu.com/braquo

Saturday 20th:

CEDAR COVE – HALLMARK – 8PM

http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/cedarcove

Sunday 28th:

UNFORGETTABLE – CBS – 9PM

http://www.cbs.com/shows/unforgettable

       AUGUST

Saturday 3rd:

HELL ON WHEELS – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/hell-on-wheels

Wednesday 7th:

BROADCHURCH – BBC AMERICA – 10PM

http://www.bbcamerica.com/broadchurch

Sunday 11th:

BREAKING BAD – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad

LOW WINTER SUN – AMC – 10PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/low-winter-sun

Monday 12th:

QUICK DRAW – HULU

http://www.hulu.com/quick-draw

Sunday 25:

SILK – PBS – 9PM

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/silk

(Press release on right side)

       SUMMER (DATE TBA)

STRIKE BACK – CINEMAX

http://www.cinemax.com/strike-back