My brother asked me this question, and while I remembered the scene, I couldn’t tell him in what movie or TV show it appears in. (I may even have reviewed it, which would be embarrassing, but what can you do.)

   At least one of the murders in the movie, which is my recollection of where I saw it, is that a giant mirror is placed crosswise across a narrow, isolated stretch of road, so that the driver of an oncoming car would see his own headlights reflected back at him. Trying to avoid an accident, the driver of said car would swerve the only way he could, and straight down into a ravine, the bottom of which is hundreds of feet down.

   Remember that one?

TALES OF WELLS FARGO. “Vignette of a Sinner.” NBC, 02 June 1962, 60 min, color. (Season 6, episode 34.) Dale Robertson (Jim Hardie), William Demarest. Guest cast: Jeff Morrow, Joyce Taylor, James Craig, Edward Platt. Series creator: Frank Gruber. Screenwriter: Al C. Ward. Director: William Whitney. Currently steaming on Starz.

   Tales of Wells Fargo was on NBC for five seasons in black and white, with each episode running 30 minutes. For its sixth and final season, however, they expanded the episodes to 60 minutes and showed them in color. As opposed to my usual custom of reviewing the pilot episodes, “Vignette of a Sinner” is the last one of the program’s last season.

   And quite fittingly so. While riding on a stagecoach to meet Jim, his semi-comical sidekick Jeb Gaine (William Demarest, as a character also added for this final season) regales his traveling companion with tales about his good buddy Jim. And for good reason. His companion is a lady, and Jeb has hopes of being a matchmaker. They would be perfect together, he thinks.

   The good news is that the attraction is mutual. The bad news is that she has come west to marry her fiancé (Jeff Morrow). The even worse news, for her, is that her intended is also a crook, having just robbed a stage of a considerable amount of money.

   The rest of the story I leave to your imagination, but with director William Witney at the helm, there is plenty of shooting and fighting before the smoke clears. Dale Robertson was an excellent choice to play Well Fargo agent Jim Hardie. Not only was he good with his fists and guns, he was good-looking, unassuming, and a fine man on a horse.

   And suffice it to say that while the closing scene shows her riding a stage back to Kentucky, no viewer is left unaware that she fully intends to return. Good show that.

DONALD E. WESTLAKE – Put a Lid on It. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 2002. Warner, paperback, March 2003.

   I don’t know about any of you reading this, but this semi-comic heist novel by the author of the Parker and Dortmunder books simply slipped by me when it first came out. Its protagonist, one Francis Meehan, is in a federal prison with no hope of getting out any time soon when all of a sudden he’s given an offer he can’t refuse: do a small job of thievery for the President’s current campaign committee, and it’s a Get of Jail Free card that in his wildest dreams he never expected.

   Obviously after the flop that was the Watergate burglary, they want a professional, not a crew of amateurs.

   Nowhere near as violent as the Parker books, and not as out-and-out funny as the Dortmunder series, Put a Lid on It is somewhere in between, but closer to Dortmunder than Parker. The focus is on Meehan all the way through, so I never got a clear picture of what he looks like, but if I were to make a movie of this, I might go for George Clooney, except for the fact that maybe he’s tired of making movie like this.

   As for Meehan’s public defender lawyer, Elaine Goldfarb, she looks exactly like you would expect a Jewish public defender named Elaine Goldfarb would look like. I wish she had more of a role in this book than she does, but that’s intentional on her part. She wants no part of what Meehan has agreed to do, and that goes doubly for a little side project he has in mind.

   As far as heists go, I will tell you that getting a gang together on Meehan’s part takes up a lot more time and effort than it should have taken – way more than the middle third of the book – but what I won’t tell you if the heist goes off as planned or not. What Meehan is good at, though, is improvising, and it’s a skill he needs, in spades.

   This one was fun. It’s too bad Westlake never got around to coming up with a sequel.

SHEILA RADLEY – Death and the Maiden. H. Hamilton, UK, hardcover, 1978. US title: Death in the Morning, Scribner, hardcover, 1979; Dell (Murder Ink #1), paperback, 1980.

   Excellent debut novel set in East Anglia and featuring “up through the ranks” Chief Inspector Quantrill and newcomer “blue blood” Detective Sergeant Tait. The problem: death by drowning of a pretty teenage girl.

   The writing is top class, the atmosphere keenly evoked and the personal involvement of the two detectives, with their opposing views and methods, realistic and relevant.

   An author to watch out for.

      The Inspector Quantrill series —

1. Death in the Morning (1978)
aka Death and the Maiden
2. The Chief Inspector’s Daughter (1980)
3. A Talent for Destruction (1982)
4. The Quiet Road to Death (1983)
aka Blood on the Happy Highway
5. Fate Worse Than Death (1985)
6. Who Saw Him Die (1987)
7. This Way Out (1989)
8. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (1992)
9. Fair Game (1994)

   There are some songs you know will be hits as soon as you hear them for the very first time. This one’s from 1979:

   From Wikipedia:

“Jones and her lover/fellow songwriter Tom Waits spent a lot of time hanging out with their friend Chuck E. Weiss at the seedy Tropicana Motel in Los Angeles. Eventually Weiss, affectionately referred to as “Chuck E.”, disappeared. Later Weiss called the apartment where Jones and Waits lived. When Waits took the call, Weiss explained that he was in Denver, and that he had moved there because he had fallen in love with a cousin there. When Waits hung up he announced to Jones, “Chuck E.’s in love”. Jones liked the sound of the sentence and wrote a song around it. Although toward the end of “Chuck E.’s in Love” the lyrics state, “Chuck E.’s in love with the little girl singing this song,” the twist ending is fictional; Jones was never the girl with whom Chuck E. was in love.”

RAY BRADBURY Something Wicked This Way Comes. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1962. Bantam H2630, paperback, September 1963.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. Walt Disney Productions, 1983. Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd, Royal Dano, Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson. Screenplay by Ray Bradbury and John Mortimer (uncredited.) Directed by Jack Clayton and Lee Dyer (uncredited.)

   I first read Something Wicked This Way Comes back in High School. Then again in College. Since then, I’ve come back to it every ten years or so, and each time found the story enchanting, the imagery compelling and Bradbury’s prose irresistible.

   Reading it this year, fifty-five years on and gray-bearded, puffing on a pipe I carved out of deer antler, reflecting that this is likely the last time I shall visit these pages, I was taken out of myself and transformed once again into the boy of wonder whose story this is.

   Or rather boys, not boy. Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. A dark circus come to their small town to trap the townsfolk’s souls and the boys fall into that childhood dream of forbidden knowledge, the evil only they comprehend, and only they can battle.

   As created by Bradbury, Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival is a thing of splendid nightmare, promises of wonder paid with misery amid gaudy colors and laughing crowds. And once they learn its secret, the boys become the prey of brutal Mister Cooger and sinister Mister Dar k — along with a panoply of grotesques passing themselves off as freaks and entertainers.

   Bradbury conveys all of this in poetic prose that never slows down the action or becomes self-important. This is, in short, not so much a novel as a treasure to be taken out and enjoyed .

   A lot of folks in Hollywood took a lot of interest in Something Wicked, including Gene Kelly, Kirk Douglas and Sam Peckinpah, but it ended up with the folks at Disney, where it was filmed, then re-edited, re-shot, re-scored and partly rewritten, all at great expense. The result was a great white elephant of a movie that cost almost twenty million to make (back when that was a lot of money) and grossed less than half that. And along the way to failure, they insulted Bradbury and antagonized his fans, feeding Ill feelings all the way around — almost like the Pandemonium Carnival itself!

   Too bad, that, because the film actually borders on greatness at times. It stays mostly faithful to the novel, casts the boys (Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson as Halloway and Nightshade respectively) effectively, and embodies Mister Dark chillingly in Jonathan Pryce.

   The makers also get a thoughtful and well-judged performance from Jason Robards as Will’s father Charles — here promoted from janitor to librarian in the opulent small-town library. If Will and Jim are the motivators of the story, Charles is its firm anchor, and Robards rises to the occasion wonderfully. The confrontation between him and Jonathan Pryce is masterfully written, fluidly directed, and played to the hilt by two actors who seem to know they’re on to a good thing — pure movie magic!

   If none of the rest of the film quite lives up to this moment, well it supports it quite nicely indeed, and Something Wicked This Way Comes – book and movie – are literary/cinematic friends I’m glad I’ve known.

   
   I had a great time with my brother, sister and spouses in Michigan this past weekend, but my advice is, if you ever make an airplane reservation at any time in the future, make sure I’m not going to be on the same flight. I won’t name the airline (not SW), but I ran into all kinds of trouble.

   Going to Michigan, I had a 35 minute layover in Detroit, which is a lot tighter than I’d prefer, but I’ve done it before with no difficulty. Problem was, there was no wheelchair waiting for me, as I’d requested. Well, there were wheelchairs, but no one to push them. Another fellow and I were abandoned at the first gate for ten minutes before I decided I’d better hoof it. And hoof it I did. Down a two story escalator, through a 100 yard underground tunnel (with moving walkway), then up an escalator the same height as the first. My next gate was three down from there, and I made it with five minutes to spare, huffing and puffing the whole way.

   Coming home Sunday night, I had a three hour layover time. No problem, I thought. Came the first gate, after a 2½ wait for a radio to be fixed, the flight was cancelled. Called my sister, she came to get me. They gave me a new flight for Tuesday. A 30 minute layover time, but the gates were in the same concourse, so that wasn’t a problem. We boarded and waited for takeoff, but not so fast. The A/C wasn’t working and they couldn’t fix it. We all trooped off and went over to wait while they got the airplane next door ready to fly. Made it home 2½ hours later than scheduled.

   The good news was that in both of these last two instances, both those of mechanical problems, all of the passengers took them relatively calmly and lined up when asked, with no pushing and shoving and with no fistfights breaking out. Everyone was orderly, and the staff was continually apologetic.

   But I’m obviously a jinx, so as I said up above, don’t book yourself on the same flight if you know I’m going be on it. Luckily for you, I don’t plan on flying anywhere again this year. There’s something to be said about having too much fun.

Leaving tomorrow for a short stay in Michigan visiting my brother, sister, and respective spouses. We haven’t gotten together like this in three years. I’ll have access to a computer, so it’s not it’s the end of the world, but I am leaving my laptop at home. Back late Sunday night, then here again at the blog on Monday. See you then.

UPDATE: Tuesday AM. My flight home Sunday night was cancelled. Will be home later today.

WHIPSAW. MGM, 1935. Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy. Director: Sam Wood.

   There are other members of the cast, but the only other name I recognized was John Qualen, and he was so far down in the list, I decided to mention only the two leading stars. They’re all that’s needed, though, to make this the best movie I’ve seen in quite some time. If it ever comes on in your area, don’t miss this one.

   She’s a lady crook, working for a gang of jewel thieves, He’s a cop, pretending to be a tough hoodlum to gain her confidence. He doesn’t know she’s onto him, but she needs him to help shake the members of a rival gang who are on her trail.

   It’s a pleasure to watch a movie written with some intelligence behind it. The people in it are thinking, and none of the usual ploys in your usual run-of-the-mill crime caper seem to work as well here as they do in every other film you sit down to see. What’s more, it may be corny, but it’s also a pleasure to watch a picture in which even the crooks (well, some of them) have moral standards.

   And it’s not enough that Myrna Loy can act cool and disinterested and obviously be falling deeply in love at the same time; she’s also beautiful and charming, and she simply fills the screen with her presence every minute she’s on it, Spencer Tracy tries hard, with an intensely casual portrayal of a policeman caught between his job and a woman he begins to care for more and more, but I think this is the lady’s picture, all the way.

ANTHONY BOUCHER – The Case of the Seven of Calvary. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1937. Collier, paperback, 1961.

   Although Anthony Boucher has several differing series characters in his brief but illustrious mystery writing career, TCOT Seven of Calvary has none. Even so, the gentleman who solves the case does so with both precision and aplomb, and if he’d had the opportunity to have been involved in another, I’m sure he would have done equally well.

   He’s Dr. John Ashwin, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkley, and what you might call an “armchair detective,” as all of the details of the case are related to him by one of his students, a chap by the name of Martin Lamb. (And as far as I know, the latter never appears again in any of Boucher’s works of mystery fiction, either.)

   While probably not unique, the structure of the tale is unusual. It has a prelude, a postlude, and (I think) three interludes. In these various “ludes” Tony Boucher discusses the case with Mr. Lamb, who is telling the story to the former, who then is tasked with transcribing it into third person book form.

   These discussions include, for example, what it feels like to be the “Watson” for a primary detective, not to mention a “Challenge to the Reader” that in the last Interlude Martin dares Tony to determine the solution to the case based on the facts in the case as told to him so far.

   Tony fails, and so did I.

   I love it when that happens.

   I also love it when the setting is as tweedy an academic setting as this one is. The first death is that of an unofficial peace ambassador from Switzerland, as gentle and unassuming man as there could possibly be, without an enemy in the world and with not a single person who could gain anything from his death. Found next to his body is a strange drawing, one which is also prominently displayed on the front of the jacket of the hardcover edition. (See above.)

   Could an obscure cult of Christian heretics be responsible? It is apparently the only possibility, but Dr. Ashwin is not convinced. Nor of course was I, having read as many detective novels as I have in my lifetime – not, as I suggested above, did it help me in deducing who the real killer was.

   I enjoyed this one. As the author, Anthony Boucher is witty, clever and above all, erudite in telling this particular tale. I also enjoyed being so intimately involved in academia life one time more. It was like being back in grad school again.