ERIC AMBLER – The Dark Frontier. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1936. Mysterious Press, US, hardcover, 1990; reprint paperback, 1991.

   Eric Ambler’s first novel, The Dark Frontier from 1936, has taken until now to find a publisher in this country: Mysterious Press. Ambler argues fervently in his contemporary introduction that this is parody, and in truth it was hard for me for much of the narrative to regard it as anything else, till at last the story drew me in.

   But I wonder if a youthful Ambler thought at the time it was parody he was writing. In any event, a tiny Balkan kingdom, Ixania, is full of starving peasants and little else — except a brilliant scientist who has invented something that might be used for great good or evil, something that sounds a good bit like atomic energy.

   An earnest academic, Professor Barstow, is somehow transformed into the intrepid agent Conway Carruthers, who is determined to save an unready mankind by obliterating all record of the invention. Others, of course, have rather different things in mind for it.

   This story is not persuasive for the first half and not particularly memorable of character or plot throughout, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion and good to have to complete the Ambler oeuvre in the U.S.

   I really wanted to like THE POETICS OF MURDER (1983), edited by Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe, an Edgar-nominated collection of essays from Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich in hardcover and trade paperback. Good writing about mystery is always in short supply. Unfortunately, this is an anthology of pretentious essays, written from an academic viewpoint, and boring as hell.

   One essay argues that the “…intense curiosity aroused by the detective story derives from its association with the primal scene, a psychoanalytic term reference to a child’s first observation, either real or imagined, of sexual intercourse between his or her parents.” Other essays deal wih “The Detective Novel and Its Social Mission;” “Delay and the Hermenautic Sentence;” “From Semiotics to Heremneutics: Modes of Detection in Doyle and Chandler;” “Metaphysical Detective Stories in Postwar Fiction.”

   An East German writer, Ernst Kaemmel, claims that the detective story is the child of capitalism, its crimes involve attacks on private property. He celebrates the absence of detective stories in Socialist countries but has missed the main reason. It is that the idea of finding truth, so essential to the detedcteive story as we know it, was not accepted in Nazi Germany, nor currently in East Germany or the USSR.

   Professor David Grossvogel, reasoning along similar lines, finds the detective story bad because, by providing fictional mysteries to solve, it distracts readers from the real mysteries (and problems) of life. I wonder what, if anything, Professor Grossvogel does for escape.

   In POETICS OF MURDER mysteries are repeatedly compared to “literature.” Opinions are tossed off, as if sacred, with no explanation, e,g., “Certain works are easily rejected, however. I have trouble reading Edgar Wallace and Ellery Queen, though I have tried several times.” Almost every article has a publish or perish quality to it, with never a feel for the fun in reading the mystery.

   Now, if you want a really good book of essays about mystery fiction, pick Howard Haycraft’s classic THE ART OF THE MYSTERY STORY (1946), just reprinted in trade paperback by Carroll & Graf. The editor and his contributors are just as erudite and insightful, but they have written for people who read and love mysteries, and the differences show both in quality and variety.

   We have serious but non-pedantic, pieces by Chesterton, Chandler, Knox, Gardner, Sandoe, Carr, and many others. There’s also humor, including Rex Stout poking his tongue in his cheek to prove that Watson was a woman. We have Edmund Wilson deriding the form, “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd” and its proponents, writers like Nicholas Blake, Anthony Boucher, and Joseph Wood Krutch, giving a different viewpoint.

   There are lists of great books, classic introductions by Sayers and Van Dine, reviews by Dashiell Hammett, etc. If ever an anthology deserved to be called “great,” THE ART OF THE MYSTERY STORY does.

   However, one need not go back to 1946 to find a good book about the mystery. A fine recent book is THE CRAFT OF CRIME (1983) by John C. Carr from Houghton, Mifflin in hardcover. Carr provides interviews with twelve of the most popular mystery writers around and by adroit questioning and selection of articulae subjects, he has given us an interesting book which also increases our knowledge of the field.

   The writers selected are Kendell, Lovesey, McBain, Francis,Langton, Gregory Mcdonald, Mark Smith, Robert B. Parker, Van de Watering, June Thomson, McClure, and Lathen. Mr. Carr is a good questioner with only occasional lapses when he is in too obvious awe of his subject. Otherwise, the Q and A technique works quite well, with the exception of a bias against William Faulkner which Carr betrays in several questions.

   Most of the time we get probing questions which permit these writers to demonstrate how interesting and witty they are. There are differences in quality as is inevitable in a collection of this type, but not a bad interview in the lot. My favorites are those with Parker and the two women who write as as Emma Lathen.

   Parker has some trenchant things to say about academic life which he was able to leave in 1979 for full-time writing. His description of his priorities in life make us feel as if we really know him, though I’m not sure about liking him. Parker provides a neat summary of the difference between old-style mysteries and the kind he writes, claiming that the world is “no longer amenable to logical deduction.”

   He’s probably right in that regard, but he misses the point that it is exactly for that reason that many of us look for escape reading in which intellect does triumph. As long as writers write (and the public buys) mysteries like Parker’s which are often resolved by fist fights or gun battles, rather than by brains, we shall have a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

   Meet Boston Blackie (Columbia, 1941) was a zippy 60 minutes, with the crisp direction of Robert Florey making the difference here. Rochelle Hudson was a luscious treat as the female lead, and Chester Morris and Richard Lane sparred amiably as Blackie and his sympathetic nemesis, Inspector Faraday.

   Even better was Raffles (Hyclass Producing Co., 1917; George Irving, director). John Barrymore was a charming and stylish Amateur Cracksman, his performance fully justifying the curtain line delivered by the detective: “I’m delighted he’s escaped! He’s really splendid!” (Frank Morgan plays Raffles’ friend, Bunny Manders, an early appearance for the future MGM contract player.)

   As Meet Boston Blackie demonstrated, B-films can be the most enjoyable and dependable of film viewings. I was. therefore, depressed by the lackluster Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (2Oth Century Fox, 1938) and by the dreadful The Lone Wolf Strikes (Columbla, 1940).

   Peter Lorre couldn’t salvage the back-lot jungle melodrama of the Moto film, and Warren William, Eric Blore and Montagu Love brought only momentary life to the Lone Wolf’s dead-at-the-starting-gate caper. The pacing of the Lone Wolf film was funereal, and I am convinced that the director (Sidney Salkow) told his actors to count to three before delivering a line.

SIMON TROY [THURMAN WARRINER] – Cease Upon the Midnight. Macmillan, US, hardcover, 1965. Previously published in the UK: Gollancz, hardcover, 1964.

   The coroner’s jury, sitting on the death of Dr. Bewlay from an overdose of sleeping tablets, leaves open whether it was accidental or intentional. Inspector Smith, too, has not made a decision. Did Bewlay’s fiancee, or his ne’er-do-well actor brother Raymond, or both give him an overdose, and how could it have been done? Certainly Bewlay was not a man likely to kill himself.

   Acting on the invitation of Robert Neil, who runs an advanced girls’ school on the island of Grenezy, where both the fiancee and Raymond have gone, though separately, Smith travels to the island, discovers much about the participants, and nearly doesn’t make it back.

   While the murderer is known early and may be surmised even earlier, the interest here is in Smith — whose superintendent can’t decide whether he is Machiavellian, naive, or dim — and his investigation, which is first class. The bright but still dumb heroine — “There was no risk,” she contends, “you came just in time” — has a tendency to fall in and out of love with considerable dispatch, and the villain is just a bit too villainous.

   These flaws, if flaws they are, weren’t noticed during the reading, only in the reflection afterwards.

PETER RABE – The Out Is Death. Gold Medal #657, paperback original, 1957. Black Lizard, softcover, 1988.

   On a positive note, I recently finished The Out Is Death by Peter Rabe, and am once more impressed by the talent of one of the less-remembered two-bit novelists of the 50s.

   Those who sing the praise of Thompson, Goodis et al., should take a look at this tough, sentimental tale of a broken-down safe-cracker and the friend who tries to save him from a sadistic hood coercing him out of retirement.

   The action is fast, the plot tight, but it’s Rabe’s feel for the characters, even the minor ones, that lifts this out of the ordinary. Try it.

RICHARD MARR – The Smith Slayer. Big Ben #4, UK, paperback, August 1940. First published: Gardner, UK, 1939, under the pseudonym “Burmar.”

   Occasionally I read a book which is utterly preposterous but great fun. The Smith Slayer is such a book. This is a multiple-murder detective novel, which begins with a newspaper advertisement: “God help all whom it may concern: The Smith Slayer commences his campaign.”

   Soon people with the surname “Smith” begin to he murdered in the face of the rather incompetent efforts of Scotland Yard to protect them. Still, it’s hard to blame the police force when even a doctor blithely attributes a death to “probably one.of those little known Eastern drugs.”

   The book is filled with marvelous assumptions: “Now, if you wanted to hire an assassin where would you go?” “Chicago, I suppose.”

   After a series of thriller-like episodes, the book concludes as the Smith Slayer reveals himself and his ridiculous motivation. You won’t believe much of the story, but I’m not sure that you’re supposed to.

Bibliographic Note:   Richard Marr has one other entry in Hubin’s Revised Crime Fiction IV, that being Death at Salterton Court (Everybody’s, UK, paperback, 1945).

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. Sarlui / Diamant, 1988. Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon, Michael Siegel, Peter Licassi, Royal Dano. Screenplay: Charles Chiodo, Edward Chiodo (uncredited), Stephen Chiodo. Director: Stephen Chiodo.

   Killer Klowns from Outer Space is not a classic — yet. It may well be in a few years, though, since it’s certainly done in the Classic Vein.

   A bunch of aliens land in their spaceship and proceed to pillage a small town, taking the locals unaware until a few brave young people get the Authorities on their side and put the blighters to rout. There’s even a nod to the 70s in the person of a redneck Cop who hates College Kids.

   The gimmick here is that the aliens look and act like big, ugly clowns; they shoot people with Popcorn Guns, track them down with balloon-sculpture dogs, mummify them in cotton candy and get around in a spaceship that looks like a circus tent. The concept plays much more effectively than I would have thought, thanks to some really imaginative special effects and nice timing.

   There’s one really suspenseful scene where a clown is trying to lure a cute little girl outside, smiling and crooking a finger at her, and holding an oversize wooden mallet behind his back. Sounds dumber than dogs, I know, but trust me, it works.

LAURIE R. KING – The Moor. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1998; Bantam, paperback, 1999.

   In her fourth Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel, King brings the couple to the scene of one of Holmes’ most celebrated cases, Baskerville Hall. An American adventurer has bought the Baskerville property but, surprisingly, is on the verge of selling it and moving on.

   Russell and Holmes, who are visiting Sabine Baring-Gould, an old friend of Holmes, find the situation at Baskerville Hall somewhat troubling, but their principal concern is to find the killer responsible for two murders and track down the source of reported sightings of a ghostly carriage accompanied by the legendary Hound.

   Much of the novel deals with Russell’s growing affection for the Moor, and the portrayal of the region and its inhabitants is the principal strength of the novel. The resolution of the various plot lines is accomplished in a few action-packed pages, which I suspect I will not long remember. The wanderings of Russell about the often desolate but still beautiful Moor really have more drama than the Baskerville goings-on and make me want to revisit Conan Doyle’s novel to see if his descriptions of the Moor are as evocative and powerful as King’s.

   I found this to be the most engrossing Russell adventure since The Beekeeper’s Assistant, with the portrayal of the noted author and antiquarian Baring-Gould more telling than the rather bland characterization of Holmes.

DANTE. NBC, Monday 9:30-10pm, October 13, 1960 through April 10, 1961; 26 episodes. Four Star Productions. Created by Blake Edwards. Produced by Michael Meshekoff. Associate Producer: Harold Jack Bloom. Cast: Howard Duff as Willie Dante, Alan Mowbray as Stewart Styles, Tom D’Andrea as Biff. Recurring Cast: James Nolan as Inspector Loper.

   The character Willie Dante began as a recurring character on the anthology TV series FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE (CBS). Dick Powell played the gambler Dante who owned the restaurant Dante’s Inferno with a hidden backroom for illegal gambling. With the help of his friend, ex-safe cracker and bartender Monte (Herb Vigran), and (in some episodes) a former British millionaire with a gambling habit and now waiter Jackson (Alan Mowbray), Dante would help someone and be rewarded with the cops, usually lead by Lt. Waldo (Regis Toomey), closing down the gambling backroom at the end of the episode.

   I found Powell’s version disappointing, the writing stale, and the acting not strong enough for me to like any of the bad boy characters. Most if not all can be seen on youtube or available on cheap DVDs. Here is an episode with an unexpected cameo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbhKM6Kydhc

   Four years after Powell’s last Dante, Four Star and NBC decided to air a weekly series featuring Howard Duff as William Dante. Currently various episodes are available from the collector’s market and youtube. While this is the second episode to air, it appears to be the pilot:

(Part One)

(Part Two)

   Things were different. Willie Dante moved to San Francisco with hopes of a new start running a new Dante’s Inferno. This time there would be no backroom for gambling. Dante lived in the office that overlooked the inside of the popular nightclub. He had decided to go straight and was dragging two of his best friends with him.

   Dante’s sidekicks, former thief and now reluctant bartender Biff, and Dante’s Inferno’s Maitre d’ and ex-conman Stewart Styles helped run the club while Dante was out dealing with that week’s threat to the club or him, and they were there for backup whenever Willie needed help.

   Every week Willie would find himself caught in the middle of two or more opposing forces, usually the cops and bad guys. No one believed Willie was going straight, both the good guys and bad guys suspected him to be up to something.

   When a fortuneteller tells a woman her husband will be killed by Willie Dante, Dante finds himself caught in the middle of a mess he didn’t create. For the cops it is a simple case, if anything happens to the husband or Dante they will arrest the survivor.

   Women played an important role in Willie Dante’s life. It was the un-PC time of 1960 and women usually played one of two basic roles, the rich beautiful woman eager to be seduced by willing but business first Willie or ex-girlfriends turned femme fatale. There was an occasional variation such as a mobster’s girlfriend willing to do anything for Dante except reveal the name of her boyfriend who was after Willie. There was even one episode when a suspected bad girl turned into an undercover cop.

   In the episode below, the role of the girlfriend of the week lacked the patience and forgiveness of most, and the female author of a best selling book about a gangster the public believes is Willie Dante gives Willie more problems than any femme fatale ever could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGq1SGa35QY

   The series mysteries surprisingly remain above average. One story featured an old friend from Dante’s past gunned down outside Dante’s Inferno by person and reason unknown, and the cops refuse to let anyone, even his fiancée, see the body. The episode may have been done over fifty years ago but it still entertains and surprises with its twists and solution.

   Created by Blake Edwards, it is no surprise DANTE had a similar look and style of PETER GUNN and MR LUCKY. The dialog was clever and the banter quick and witty. The stories plots were creative and hold up well. In one episode, bank robbers frame Dante by breaking into the Dante’s Inferno safe and switching the stolen money for Dante’s legally gained cash. Plot devices often had a surprise twist such as a blackmailer using homing pigeons.

   In the episode below, an enemy from the past wants Dante dead. Before he retires to the Orient he leaves Willie a $50,000 trust to begin the upcoming Monday. But should Willie not be alive on Monday the beneficiary of the trust would be a hitman desperate for money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbA0BUffifc

   The main writer was Harold Jack Bloom (HEC RAMSEY). He and the other writers succeed where the writers (including Blake Edwards) of Powell’s version failed. The writing was fresh, clever, and the humor rose above the old vaudeville jokes about coffee that burdened the FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE episodes.

   But it was Howard Duff who made Willie Dante the lovable rogue. Duff was perfect as Dante. Much as he did in radio’s ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE, Duff was believable in all aspects of the character, his humor, the romance, and the hardboiled style.

   The guest cast featured such talent as Joanna Barnes, Dick Foran, Ruta Lee, Joan Marshall, Charles McGraw, Pat Medina, Edward Platt, Marion Ross, William Schallert, Joan Tabor, Nita Talbot, and (to the left) Lori Nelson.

   The series never had a chance as NBC placed it opposite of CBS’s ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and ABC’s ADVENTURES IN PARADISE. The first episode got a 13.5 rating versus ANDY GRIFFITH 26.6 and ADVENTURES IN PARADISE 21.3. The NBC program before DANTE was BOB HOPE that for that first week had a 31.9 rating. Losing over half the audience of the show before it and finishing last in its time period made it obvious the odds were against DANTE from the beginning.

   DANTE with Howard Duff was a superior half hour mystery that remains entertaining today. It is a shame more people didn’t watch it when it first aired and there is not an official DVD available for viewers to discover it today.

   In 1962, Doyle Trent walked into the Tucson Police Department, a newly-hired reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, the town’s morning paper.

   Then in his late 30’s, he was older than the typical “cub” reporter, as some old newspapermen labeled such creatures. He stood about 6-feet, of medium build, with sandy, close-cropped (but thinning) hair. His face was smooth and permanently tanned. From mid-forehead to his hairline was a band of white skin, the permanent trademark of a face long in the sun, partially shielded by a hat.

   In contrast to reporters’ “newsroom-grunge” collection of barely-ironed shirts, rumpled slacks and scuffed shoes, Doyle’s taste ran to tailored Western pants, leather belt with a simple silver buckle, a complementing colored shirt (tie-less) with snap-type pocket flaps and shined cowboy boots. But no cowboy hat. And he ambled, rather than walked.

   Initially working the “day cops beat”, Doyle was a quiet presence in that noisy, smelly environment. He shared the large, wooden “press desk” with the afternoon paper’s cops reporter, consigned to the corner of a large, windowless room which housed police dispatchers. From that vantage point, they observed the endless parade of cops and prisoners.

   Soft-spoken and polite, even with the ever-prickly cops of all ranks, Doyle was a good writer who favored two-fingered typing on one of two battered Underwood typewriters at the press desk. He was thorough, always asking the reporter’s basic “Five-W’s” but always managing to get just a bit more. In one highway accident, an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer had overturned, killing the driver. The truck carried several tons of steel; it was in Doyle’s lead sentence. His rival missed that little detail and had to deal with an unhappy city editor who explained the relevance of a law of physics involving mass and momentum.

   Doyle didn’t talk a lot; personal details were sparse. He never said where he was from, offering only that he had been a cowboy and had served in the Army. Knowing a cowboy’s career was limited, he said he used the G.I. Bill to earn a college journalism degree. He spoke with a slow, soft drawl and, at times, with difficulty. A lifetime of little or no dental care caused him pain, not that he ever really complained. It just added to his taciturn demeanor.

    — These recollections came from another reporter who worked “cops” with Doyle a half-century ago. Decades later, that former reporter stumbled by chance on Doyle’s literary career and he observed that, “Given the list of book titles to his credit, it was obvious that his background as a working cowboy, his journalism experience and a vivid imagination combined to make him a successful Western novelist. In a world of cowboy-writer wannabes, Doyle Trent is the real McCoy.”