ROBERT SHECKLEY – The Game of X: A Novel of Upsmanship Espionage. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1965. Dell #2788, paperback, 1966; Ace, paperback, 1980 (?). Film: Condorman, 1981.

CONDORMAN. Walt Disney/Buena Vista, 1981. Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Barbara Carrera. Loosely based on the novel The Game of X, by Robert Sheckley. Directed by Charles Jarrett.

   William Nye (yes, Bill Nye) is a likable, if not overly bright sort hanging on in Europe by the skin of his teeth, and reluctant to go home, so when a friend who works for an obscure agency that lends the CIA a hand once in a while offers Nye a simple job, to entrap a spy so they can turn him, a modest and nonthreatening spy, Nye accepts the job, and finds shutting the spy in question up is far harder than entrapping him.

   But things soon get out of hand when Nye’s new boss, Colonel Baker, takes note of a certain phenomena once the debriefs the spy Nye helped entrap.

   Yes, there was work for Agent X — as Baker had already begun to think of him. Agent X utilized that law of human nature which makes con men the easiest victims of a con game. The law of autopredation, Baker decided to call it; the iron rule by which an inevitably merciful Nature turns the specialized strength of the predator into a fatal weakness, and thus betrays a vested interest in long-range averages.

   Nye assumes he is done and goes back to trying to make a living doing things like illegally bartending, when he suddenly finds himself drawn back in. Karinovsky, the spy he unwittingly turned, wants to come in from the cold, and naturally he wants the brilliant Agent X to do the job. All Nye has to do is what he is told, pretend again to be the ruthless Agent X, and all will be well.

   Of course the Russians aren’t going to just let Karinovsky go, but for the most part they are a fairly useless group, for the most part …

   And anyone who has ever read a thriller can imagine how that is going to go. Nye has hardly set foot in Venice where the game is set to be played before he has been picked up by Foster, who is impressed to be face to face with the famous Agent X.

   Not long after Nye finds himself kidnapped (again) by one Dr. Jansen (… a dwarf, about two and a half feet high, with a large, finely shaped head and blue pop eyes behind heavy glasses. He wore a dark business suit with a rubber apron over it. He also wore a beard. He looked like a tiny Paul Muni playing a miniature Pasteur.) who plans to torture him for details of Karinovsky’s defection, but Nye blunders his way to safety — or was it a brilliant move by Agent X? No matter what Nye does he seems to be feeding the legend of Agent X.

   The Game of X, subtitled “A Novel of Upsmanship Espioinage” is from the pen of satirical science fiction writer Robert Sheckley, whose work graced many of the best magazines and collections in the fifties and sixties, and who tried a more serious hand at thrillers with his Stephen Dain novels and his mix of science fiction and thriller the “Victim” series that began with his short story “The Seventh Victim” (Galaxy SF, 1953) that came to the screen as The Tenth Victim, about a society where in order to deal with over population and boredom people take art in a game of hunter and hunted elaborately assassinating each other for profit and televised entertainment.

   As you might expect with that pedigree the book is a very funny send up of spies and spying and the whole James Bond milieu, with Nye blundering from one success to another until at the end Colonel Baker is no longer sure whether he made Agent X up or if Nye was X all along, and as Nye asks himself, “Why, after all, did I have to live with reality? Wasn’t illusion a perfectly suitable condition?”

   Game of X came to the screen as a rather handsome and fairly faithful Disney film called Condorman with future Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford as a comic book artist who finds himself recruited to play his creation, Condorman. Oliver Reed was well cast as the redoubtable Foster. Some of the fun of the book is lost in silliness and camp, but then there is a fair amount of silliness in the book to begin with. A sharper, more Sheckley-like edge would have helped no end.

   The Game of X fits nicely on the shelf with some of the better spy spoofs of the era, John Gardner’s The Liquidator, Martin Waddell’s Otley, and books such as Eric Ambler’s The Light of Day and Victor Canning’s The Great Affair. William Nye may not be the brightest bulb, but he proves an affable companion for a jaunty adventure in the sometimes blackly humorous world of unlikely spies.

C. S. MONTAYNE “The Perfect Crime.” Short story. Rider Lott #1. First appeared in Black Mask, July 1920 (Vol.1, No.4). Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007).

   Unless I’m very much mistaken, not only was this Rider Lott’s first appearance, it was also his last. Which is as it should be, since doesn’t the old saying go, “Crime Does Not Pay”? The story is included in “The Villains” section of Otto Penzler’s book, but to tell you the truth, Rider Lott is one very minor villain indeed.

   His modus operandi in “The Perfect Crime” is to recruit two others, one male and one female, to commit the crime of burglary for him, while he takes a third of the loot for being the mastermind behind the plot. But even though he warns his two underlings to be extra cautious in leaving no clues behind them, it goes without saying that if you want to commit the perfect crime, you’d be better off doing it yourself.

   As I suggested earlier, this is not a major piece of work. To me it’s historically significant because I’m fairly sure this is the earliest story in the long run of Black Mask I’ve ever read. Otherwise I think I’d rather have read one of Montayne’s stories about one of his other villains, namely a certain jewel thief by the name of Captain Valentine, a gentleman who appeared in a total of ten Black Mask stories, as Otto tells us in his introduction to this tale, plus one novel, Moons in Gold (1936).

ERNEST HAYCOX – Canyon Passage. Little Brown, hardcover, 1945. Pocket, #640, paperback, 1949. Many other reprint editions exist.

CANYON PASSAGE. Universal, 1946. Dana Andrews, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, Patricia Roc, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Lloyd Bridges and Andy Devine. Screenplay by Ernest Pascal, based on the novel by Ernest Haycox. Directed by Jacques Tourneur.

   Ernest Haycox writes best about working men — miners, ranchers, or as here a freighter — made heroes by force of circumstance, set in communities that are not always right or just, but keep striving to get that way. Canyon Passage is the best example of this I’ve seen so far, not so much a carefully-plotted story as a series of interactions between fallible people bouncing off each other in an evolving milieu.

   A book like this gets life from its characters, and Haycox gives us a colorful cast. Logan Stuart, the central character, is the solid, dependable sort to hang a story on; he has a hankerin’ for smart, tough Lucy Overmire, and she for him, but… well, Haycox puts it best, as Logan ponders to himself:

   I credit Haycox with making these ill-turned relationships at least as interesting as the fights, murders and Indian raids that propel the story. He draws an interesting parallel between George Camrose — Logan’s friend betrothed to Lucy, and also a polished thief preying on his friends — and Honey Bragg, a murderous brute and near-outcast, also preying on the locals. Both are eventually punished by the mining camp they live in (and off) but in very different ways, and it’s this sense of Community as Character that gives Canyon Passage real depth.

   Bragg gets his comeuppance at the hands of Logan Stuart, after the good people of the town have goaded them into a fight for no better reason than they wanted to see a battle royal. And Haycox writes us a dandy. Faced with the meaner, stronger, Bragg, Stuart starts the fight by cracking a bottle across his face, then smashing a chair over his head, then picking up the pieces of the chair and smashing them over his head, then picking up another chair…. You get the idea. It’s brutal and very real.

   Camrose, on the other hand, gets tried by a Miner’s Court for the murder of a man whose poke he’s pilfered, found guilty on the basis of circumstantial evidence (He is in fact guilty as hell.) and locked up till the town can get around to lynching him—which puts Logan in the position of having to rescue his guilty buddy for the sake of the misguided Lucy.

   Me, I woulda just sat back, seen him hanged, and moved in on Lucy myself, but that’s probably why I was never the hero of a Western. And I have to say Haycox rings in the Indian Raid that brings everything to a head and resolves the various conflicts without seeming a bit contrived.

   Producer Walter Wanger made a fine job of filming this, hiring Jacques Tourneur, known for his horror flicks with Val Lewton, to direct, and dependable hack Ernest Pascal to stick close to the book. He also signed up sturdy leads Andrews, Donlevy and Hayward, and a host of dependable character actors, including Ward Bond as Bragg, Andy Devine as a homesteader, and best of all Hoagy Carmichael as an amiable minstrel.

   The result is a film of considerable charm and surprising brutality. Like I say, writer Pascal stays close to the book, and director Tourneur gives us the beatings & killings with unflinching nastiness, done up in fairy-tale Technicolor by photographer Edward (Heaven Can Wait) Cronjager.

   There is one point where the movie departs from the book though, and I think it’s an improvement. And since it’s at the ending, I’ll throw in a SPOILER ALERT!!

   In the book, Logan Stewart helps his friend Camrose escape, but it does no good as he’s shot down shortly thereafter by one of his victims. Logan, having led the miners against raiding Indians, is forgiven by the town, mainly because they got their man anyway and no real harm done.

   In the movie, however, Logan returns from injun-fightin’ to find that the good people of the town have burned down his store as retribution for his crime. Having chastened him, they are now willing to accept him back as a member of society in good standing. And Logan accepts it as a just punishment, ready to move on with his life.

   It’s not a major story element, but somehow this moment, as directed by Tourneur, gets to the meat of what Haycox was saying in the book. I’m not sure I can put it into words, but it has something to do with a civilization not built on laws, religion, or even tradition, but on people. And therefore as good or bad as the best and worst of us.

   As Walt Kelly used to say, “it’s enough to make a man think.”

NO PLACE TO LAND. Republic Pictures, 1958. John Ireland, Mari Blanchard, Gail Russell, Jackie Coogan, Robert Middleton. Produced & directed by Albert C. Gannaway.

   The cast of this little known noir film is ultra fine, the story is OK, but the problem is — although it does have its moments — the filming leaves a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. Produced late in Republic Films’ existence, the budget was tight, and it shows.

   It begins by focusing in on the swiveling gyrations of Mari Blancherd’s hips as she dances to the sound of a jukebox in a low-rent dive in the heart of produce country. Spurned by ace cropduster John Ireland, her character impulsively marries landowner Robert Middleton, which she regents immediately. Overweight, ugly and insanely jealous, Middleton is a petty villain without many equals.

   It is Ireland she continues to lust for, in spite of the marriage license now in her name. Fleeing her amorous advances (and wishing to avoid a confrontation with Middleton), Ireland finds a job on another farm quickly, and almost as quickly takes up with Gail Russell, the wife of its owner, who spends most of his time working off a drunk — or building up to one.

   You may thing this is enough of a plot, but there is more. Ireland’s assistant, Jackie Coogan, is injured saving their plane while in the air, and the diagnosis is not good. He will be blind in two months, the doctor says.

   It’s quite a mixture of story lines, the most prominent portion of which is Mari Blanchard’s role as one of the most fatal of femme fatales you will ever see this early in film history — bedding and romancing everyone in this film with pants on — or off, as the case may be — except for Ireland, who refuses her, and Middleton, whom she refuses, even though she married him. Before the story ends, more than one person will have died as a result.

   It’s quite a tale, and only its low budget production values keeps me from recommending it completely and totally. Of especial note is Gail Russell’s low key but still very effective appearance in this film. She was to make but one more movie before her untimely death. What a beautiful and talented actress she was!

KELLEY ROOS – Ghost of a Chance. Haila & Jeff Troy #6. A. A. Wyn, hardcover, 1947. Detective Book Club, hardcover, 3-in-1 edition. Dell #266, paperback, mapback edition, 1948. Armed Forces Edition #1292, paperback, no date stated. Film: As Scent of Mystery, 1960, without the Troys. Novelization of film: As Scent of Mystery (Dell, paperback, 1959), reset in Spain.

   After a telephone message from a stranger warns Jeff Troy that a woman is about to be murdered, he and his wife Haila head out in a snowstorm to meet him, but (of course) they arrive too late. The man is dead. Who is the woman he warned Jeff about, and can they find her in time?

   A suspenseful book, but it’s of the artificially produced variety that leaves you hungry an hour later. Jeff and Haila are a fun couple, however, modeled, no doubt, on Nick and Nora Charles. A cheerfully lighthearted story, just an inch this side of silly.     (**)

       —

(**)   Just what it is that Jeff Troy does for a living is never made quite clear. Apparently he dabbles a bit in photography, but why the former coachman decided to call on him with his warning was something that puzzled me all through the book. Since this wasn’t the first of the Troys’ adventures, though, I finally decided they had made the newspapers after one of their earlier cases. (Why Haila was allowed to tag along was something else that was never explained very well either.)

   Jazz trumpeter Christian Scott’s latest CD, Ancestral Recall, got a very favorable review earlier this week in the New York Times. Of several videos currently on YouTube, I liked this one best, but only by the narrowest of margins. Fans of Miles Davis’s music should enjoy Scott’s performance here as much as I do.

SUDDENLY. United Artists, 1954. Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, James Gleason, Nancy Gates, Kim Charney, Willis Bouchey, Paul Frees. Screenwriter: Richard Sale. Director: Lewis Allen.

   This, I am sure, was quite the thriller in its day, and anyone can see why. A gang of three killers commandeers a house overlooking the railroad station in the small town of Suddenly. Why? The President of the United Stated is scheduled to transfer trains there that afternoon, and the three men, led by Army vet John Baron (Frank Sinatra), know this and have been hired to kill him.

   In the Benson household are a grandfather, his daughter-in-law, whose husband died in the war, and his young grandson Pidge. Joining them during the siege is the local sheriff (Sterling Hayden), who has had his romantic overtures to Pidge’s mother rejected. Since the death of her husband she has turned pacifist. Pidge is not even allowed to play with guns.

   All the ingredients of the story that are needed are in the paragraph above, save one. We never learn who hired the assassins, nor why. In terms of the story, it’s not really necessary. The point is, rather, that the Bensons’ house is no longer the safe haven it used to be. Can they improvise and use their brains to find a way to survive?

   I may be among a small minority on this, but I don’t believe the movie stands up very well. To me, the suspense is all but nil, with no real sense of urgency, the dialogue is often didactic and forced, and no, I don’t believe that Frank Sinatra was a very good actor. Lots of personality, yes, but unless he was playing an obvious clone of himself, his performances on the big screen have always seemed affected and overdone to me, and Suddenly is no exception.

   The 19th annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention is now just over a month away! The convention will take place on April 12-14, 2019 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois. As usual, we will have auctions on both Friday (April 12) and Saturday (April 13) nights, and this year’s auctions promise to be our best ever.

   The Friday night auction consists of 230 lots of material from the estate of famed collector Robert Weinberg, while the Saturday night auction begins with 100 lots from the estate of Glenn Lord, literary executor for the Robert E. Howard estate, followed by 56 lots from a few other consignors. And more lots will be added to the Saturday night auction at the convention, to include material consigned there by convention attendees.

   Among the highlights in this year’s auctions are:

● The first issue of the legendary pulp, Weird Tales
● A fine copy of the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales, featuring the first appearance of Robert E. Howard’s immortal barbarian, Conan
● Numerous other issues of Weird Tales, including several of the rare bedsheet issues, many in gorgeous condition

● “Not At Night” edited by Herbert Asbury; the 1928 American edition of this British horror anthology series, signed by contributors H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth as well as by editor Asbury
● Several very scarce issues of the pulp, The All-Story, with serial installments of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ first two John Carter of Mars novels, “Under the Moons of Mars” (in book form as “A Princess of Mars”) and “The Gods of Mars”
● A complete run of the rare pulp, Excitement
● The first edition of Frank Herbert’s landmark SF novel, “Dune”
● Nearly a complete bound run of the pulp Double Detective, including all of the Green Lama issues
● “The Case Against the Comics” by Gabriel Lynn, an extremely scarce 32 page pamphlet published in 1944 by The Catechetical Guild, advocating the censorship of comics, predating Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent” (note that an 8 page version was also published, but this is the full version)
● H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shunned House”, printed in 1928 by The Recluse Press but never bound by them, which Glenn Lord later had professionally bound
● Two of famed SF editor Ray Palmer’s bound copies of the legendary fanzines, Science Fiction Digest and Fantasy Magazine, later signed and inscribed by Julius Schwartz to Bob Weinberg
● 30 copies of the pulp Dime Detective Magazine, many in beautiful condition

● An original Kane manuscript by noted fantasy and horror author Karl Edward Wagner
● 20 of the 21 issues of the scarce Canadian fantasy pulp, Uncanny Tales
● Other rare Canadian pulps and books, including many issues of the Canadian edition of Weird Tales and the only issue of Eerie Tales
● Numerous Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft items
● Correspondence from SF author Philip K. Dick, signed by him, with great content regarding his “The Man in the High Castle”
● The 1935 Dragon-Fly Press edition of “The Goblin Tower” by Frank Belknap Long, printed in an edition of 100
● Rare U.K. and Australian books and magazines, including the only issue of The Weird Story Magazine, and many publications from Gerald G. Swan and Utopian Publications
● Rare items by Clark Ashton Smith, including “Odes and Sonnets,” “Sandalwood and Other Poems” and “The Hill of Dionysus: A Selection”
● The complete run of the bedsheet pulp Scientific Detective Monthly/Amazing Detective Tales, including the extremely scarce ashcan issue
● “The Dream Weaver: An Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapbook”
● Other rare pulps, including issues of Mind Magic, Flash Gordon Strange Adventure Magazine and People’s Favorite Magazine

● Many early Arkham House books, including Robert E. Howard’s “Always Comes Evening”, Clark Ashton Smith’s “Out of Space and Time” and “Spells and Philtres”, Donald Wandrei’s “The Web of Easter Island” and “August Derleth: Twenty Years of Writing, 1926-1946”
● Signed items by H.P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Edmond Hamilton, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Greye La Spina, Daisy Bacon and others
● A complete bound set of the legendary fanzine, The Fantasy Fan, edited by Charles D. Hornig
● Numerous issues of the pulps Action Stories, Fight Stories, Fantastic Novels, The Magic Carpet Magazine, The All-Story and Private Detective Stories
● The complete run of the pulp, Oriental Stories, attractively bound, in slipcase
● The 1938 edition of “The Sign of the Burning Hart: A Tale of Arcadia” by David H. Keller, published in France in an edition of 100 copies; it’s been noted that few of these survived WWII

   The complete auction catalog is now available on our website, and can be downloaded at this link:

       http://tinyurl.com/yxezoqgf

   Images will shortly be posted on our website (www.windycitypulpandpaper.com) and are now also available in the Photos section on our Facebook page — search FB for Windy City Pulp and Paper or go to:

       https://www.facebook.com/windycitypulp/

   The website will also soon have details on absentee bidding, for those who can’t make it to the convention.

   But the auctions aren’t our only highlight! Friday through Sunday, our expanded dealer room will be buzzing, bursting with 180 six foot long tables, with roughly 100 dealers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. displaying pulps, vintage paperbacks, science fiction, fantasy & mystery hardcovers, golden and silver age comics, original illustration art, movie memorabilia and more!

   Our art show will feature a great display of the Burroughs’ art of Mark Wheatley, as well as art from the pulp Planet Stories, pulp and paperback art with a Chicago connection, and a unique display of original photographs featuring pulp authors, artists and publishers. As usual, our film programming, curated by Ed Hulse, will run Friday and Saturday, showing movies and serials based on pulp stories. Our evening programming will include a presentation on John Campbell and Astounding Stories by Alec Nevala-Lee (author of the recent “Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction”), as well as a panel of pulp experts discussing Fiction House’s beloved SF pulp, Planet Stories.

   And Sunday morning will see the new Director of Publishing for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Christopher Paul Carey, leading a panel on the exciting things planned from ERB, Inc., followed by New Pulp Sunday, programming devoted to the vibrant and colorful world of New Pulp organized by Ron Fortier of Airship 27 Productions. And all attendees will get a copy of our fabulous convention book, put out by Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books.

   We hope you’ll join us for the fun and excitement at this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention! For more info, contact me, Doug Ellis, at pulpvault@msn.com.

RICHARD SALE “The House of Kaa.” The Cobra #2. Short story. First published in Ten Detective Aces, February 1934. Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007). Collected in The Cobra: The King of Detectives (Altus Press, 2009).

   The pulp magazines were filled with all kinds of detective heroes, from cops to PIs and pure amateurs, but in their midst were numerous self-appointed vigilantes, long before Don Pendleton and Mack Bolan came along. Such a one is Dean Bradley, a common enough name, but in his guise as “The Cobra,” his penchant for killing the villains he meets is enough to instill the fear of sudden death into the minds of countless others.

   His favorite method of disposing of the various criminals he tracks down? Cobra venom, administered by poisoned darts propelled from a blowgun disguised as a cigarette holder. The miscreants in “The House of Kaa,” busily smuggling priceless jewels from India to England in the stomachs of royal pythons, are no different, and they are hardly a match for The Cobra.

   As for Richard Sale, the author, he later became well known as both a novelist (Lazarus #7) and screenwriter (Suddenly). Everyone has to start somewhere!

        The Dean Bradley aka “The Cobra” series —

Terror Towers (ss) Ten Detective Aces Jan 1934
The House of Kaa (ss) Ten Detective Aces Feb 1934
The Grinning Ghoul (ss) Ten Detective Aces Mar 1934

ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Baited Hook. Perry Mason #16. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1940. Reprint editions include Pocket #414, paperback, 1947; Ballantine, paperback, February 1986.

   The hook that reels Perry Mason into this case is a two thousand dollar retainer fee, free and clear and one third of a one-thousand dollar bill, the remaining portion to be handed over if and when his client needs his services on behalf of a masked woman who accompanies the man into Mason’s office.

   Not only does Mason accept the ploy, but it also serves extremely well in grabbing the reader’s interest as well — as intended. I’m always a bit amazed at how complicated Gardner’s book were, delving as deeply into esoteric legal and financial matters as they did, such as (this time around) trust funds — always extremely susceptible to embezzlers and imposters alike — and sales of stock that depend on whether the buyer was actually alive or not at the time transfer.

   Once over the expository hump needed to get all of the ground rules squared away, Baited Hook settles comfortably into a standard Perry Mason tale, filled with legal chicanery and juggling evidence around on the ground, including some Mason creates on his own, much to the chagrin of his nemesis in this book, the stalwart Sgt. Holcomb of the Homicide Squad.

   There is also some banter between Mason and Paul Drake about Della Street’s legs but, alas, no big courtroom scene — unless you count a short hearing in which D.A. Hamilton Burger asks Mason to show cause why he shouldn’t be served a warrant for his arrest.

   Good stuff, in other words!