BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. “Saga of a Star World.” ABC, 17 September 1978. Pilot episode; three hours. Richard Hatch (Captain Apollo), Dirk Benedict (Lieutenant Starbuck), Lorne Greene (Commander Adama), Herbert Jefferson Jr. (Lieutenant Boomer), Tony Swartz (Flight Sergeant Jolly), Maren Jensen (Lieutenant Athena). Others: John Colicos, Ray Milland, Lew Ayres. Writer: Glen A. Larson. Director: Richard A. Colla.

   If you asked a random person about Battlestar Galactica, they likely would either think of the late 1970s television series or the highly successful reboot from the early 2000s. That is, of course, if they had ever heard of the show at all. But few probably remember that Battlestar Galactica started neither as a tv show, nor as a franchise. Rather, the saga began as a lengthy made for television movie meant to capitalize on the Star Wars craze.

   Aired on ABC on September 17, 1978, the production was interrupted mid-broadcast with news of the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords. Later released both as a theatrical film and as a three-part TV series entitled “Saga of a Star World,” the movie piggybacked on the success of George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) and likewise combined mystical fantasy with hard science fiction.

   For those unfamiliar with the basic plot, it suffices to say that it’s a story about a group of humans living in distant space who must outrun a hostile robotic enemy (the Cylons) on their way to Earth. Commanded by the stern but fair Adama (Lorne Greene), the Battlestar Galactica is itself a ship (a battle starship). Among its best fighter pilots are Adama’s son Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch) and the maverick Starbuck (Dirk Benedict). Their chief enemies, at least in the pilot, are two human traitors. The scheming and sleazy Count Baltar (John Colicos) and the decadent Sire Uri (Ray Milland). Lew Ayres also appears as the president.

   I am not sure if I ever watched the three-part pilot before. Some of it seemed deeply familiar to me. Other parts less so. As much as I enjoyed the nostalgia value of the show, I couldn’t help but notice how slow-moving a lot of the pilot was. While there was certainly some excitement at the beginning, the movie bogs down into a rather talky meandering affair. That said, it certainly perks up again in the last forty minutes or so with a fun and exciting tale of wicked aliens seducing humanity into a gambling den slumber. The special effects, for the time, were quite good. And the music, conducted by Stu Phillips of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is iconic. I’m just fairly sure no one who watched it in 1978 would have thought it would be rebooted two decades later for a new generation.
   

ELLIS PETERS – Black Is the Color of My True-Love’s Heart. Felse family # 7. Collins, UK, hardcover, 1967. Morrow, US, hardcover, 1967. Mysterious Press, US, paperback, 1992.

   Dominic Felse, son of Detective Inspector George Felse, and his girl fiend Tossa Barbar, are attending a folk music seminar at a neo-Gothic mansion called Follymead. Its director is Edward Arundale, who lives there with his wife. Arundale, however, plans to be away the weekend of the folkmusic seminar.

   Among the music stars attending is the popular Lucian Galt, but an unexpected guest is female folk singer Uri Palmer, who recently split up with Lucien. On the first night she sings a variation on the old folk song that is the novel’s title. The next afternoon, Uri and Lucien (as well as Dominic and Tossa) elect to remain at Follymead rather then go on one of the guided tours of the area.

   Walking around the grounds, Dominic and Tossa come to the area near the river where Felicity, Arundale’s niece who had a crush on Lucien, had left him. They discover signs of a struggle and decide to contact Dominic’s father, who comes down to do a quiet investigation. The next day a body is pulled from the water but it isn’t Lucien’s; it’s Arundale’s.

   I’ve never had the urge to read any of the Medieval mysteries that raised Ms. Peters to the top rung of mystery writers. However, I’ve read a couple of the early Felse novels, and enjoyed them. This one was fun, even though I figured out the solution well before the end.

HOLD THAT WOMAN! PRC, 1940. James Dunn (skiptracer Jimmy Parker), Frances Gifford, George Douglas, Rita La Roy. Director: Sam Newfield. Currently available on YouTube.

   Yes, I know that skiptracers (guys who track down people who have not kept up payments on their purchases) are not exactly private investigators, but it does take a certain amount of detective work on their part combined with enough finesse to get the unpaid for goods out of the non-payers’ hands without causing a major incident.

   This is exactly where Jimmy Parker slips up. Trying to repossess a radio set from a woman’s apartment, she defies him and calls in the cops, who (straining credulity) take her side of it. It turns out, though, that she has a very good reason for wanting to hold onto the radio, and it has to do with a small cache of jewels stolen from a famous movie star.

   Or in other words, the two cases are connected. The movie is only just over an hour long, and not a minute of it is wasted. It’s non-stop action mixed with a strong swallop of comedy from beginning to end, as you’d probably guess from the presence of James Dunn, his usual jovial unruffled self, as the aforementioned skiptracer. He was married at the time to Frances Gifford, who is both beautiful and exceptionally efficient as his fiancee and (eventually) his wife, that latter event totally against the wishes of her father, a crusty old cop who sees Jimmy as a good-for-nothing lightweight.

   If you’ve read this review all the way down to here, lots of fun awaits you with this one.
   

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE “Wheels.” CBS, 29 October 1966 (Season 1, Episode 7 (of 171)). Cast: Mark Lenard (Mora), Percy Rodriguez (police captain), Martin Landau (Rollin Hand/Miguel Cordova), Peter Lupus (Willy Armitage), Greg Morris (Barney Collier), Barbara Bain (Cinnamon Carter), Steven Hill (Dan Briggs), Perry Lopez (the priest, uncredited), Bob Johnson (voice on tape, uncredited), and Jonathan Kidd (registrar). Producers: Barry Crane, Joseph Gantman, and Bruce Geller, executive producer and series creator. Writer: Laurence Heath. Director: Tom Gries. Series available on DVD and is currently streaming on CBS All Access.

   Things are really rotten in Valeria, a small Latin American country on the verge of becoming, as the voice on the tape informs Dan Briggs, “a terrorist dictatorship” thanks to the jefe’s rigged voting machines. Briggs and his dauntless Impossible Missions Force are tasked by “the Secretary” (of State? Defense? Who knows?) with unfixing the election in a way that “will honestly reflect the vote of the people.” As always, cautions the voice, “should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, he will disavow any knowledge of your actions.” Piece of cake.

   The plan Briggs comes up with is going along smoothly until their electronics expert, Barney Collier, is badly wounded in a jailbreak, creating grave doubt as to whether or not the mission can be completed. Leave it to the plucky Barney, however, to come through in the end . . . .

   The first season of any show is usually a bumpy ride and this one was no exception (e.g., Cinnamon breaking into unwarranted tears), but this episode of Mission: Impossible pretty much follows the format the series adhered to in all seven of its seasons. (The thing about “format” is that it can and often does degenerate into “formula.”)

   In this particular series the easiest way to create suspense is to have some problem arise that threatens to blow the team’s cover; here it’s Barney’s wound and the unwanted interest by the secret police that force the team members to “improvise.”

   Overcoming unexpected setbacks poses a real challenge to screenwriters and not all of them are up to it. Two writers who were very good at it were William Read Woodfield teamed with Allan Balter, the Levinson and Link of the series; together they were responsible for the most engaging stories in Mission: Impossible, but not this one.

   “Wheels” was writer Laurence Heath’s first script for Mission: Impossible; he would be responsible for twenty-three altogether.

   You’ve probably seen director Tom Gries’s name on TV or movie productions; he did good work on Breakheart Pass (1975), the film adaptation of Alistair Maclean’s novel and screenplay. This was his only Mission: Impossible story.

   Several years ago Jonathan Lewis contributed a Mystery*File article about producer/creator Bruce Geller’s directorial involvement with Harry in Your Pocket (1973), an offbeat crime film, and you can read that here.

THE BROKER’S MAN. BBC One, 17 June 1997 (Series 1, Episodes 1 and 2). Kevin Whately as James ‘Jimmy’ Griffin, ex-detective now a PI working cases of fraud for insurance companies; Annette Ekblom as Sally Griffin, his ex-wife, Danny Worters as Dominic Griffin, his son, Holly Davidson as Jodie Griffin, his daughter, Al Hunter Ashton as Vinnie Stanley, his assistant; Sarah-Jane Potts/Charlotte Bellamy as Harriet Potter, his secretary; Michelle Fairley as Gabby Rodwell, his one-time lover (and maybe still). Written by Al Hunter Ashton & Tim O’Mara. Director: Bob Blagden. Available on DVD and streaming on Amazon Prime.

   Nearly as much time is spent in these first two episodes with PI Jimmy Griffin’s domestic problems as it is in solving the case he’s hired to solve, that of a huge batch of digital tapes that have been stolen straight from the shipping company’s warehouse. Ordinarily that would be a huge problem, but not in this case, nearly coming in as an afterthought in terms of what Griffin is up against.

   He’s separated now from his wife, who is hounding him for months’ worth of back child support, and he’s able to see his two children only on specified days and times. The problem with this, of course, is that his investigative work takes him to both France and the Netherlands, and if he doesn’t crack the case, he won’t earn the money for what his wife is on his back for. The continual business-oriented presence of the woman that caused the breakup between Jimmy and his wife in the first place does not help either.

   Getting back to the case itself, I did not find it particularly interesting. The financial dealing and wheeling I found largely over my head (you may or may not have this same problem), and the identity of the gang and their inside enablers are not at all hidden from the viewer, nor does Griffin have much difficulty sussing them out himself.

   No, it’s the character of Jimmy Griffin and his rough and tumble ways that will have you coming back for more, or not. There were only two seasons, the first consisting of three double-part stories, and the second of six individual episodes. I’m planning on watching the next two-part story of season one, and then see where I might go from there.
   

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION. May 1952. (Volume 1, Number 1.) Overall rating: 3 stars.

LESTER del REY “Pursuit.” Feature novel. A man with unknown assailants pursued for unknown reasons for the major part of the story finally discovers that it is his own unconscious mind plus an uncontrolled psi factor which has been creating his monsters. The plot, meant to sweep the reader along with the hero’s plight, jumps badly at times, simply because of vague details or incongruous background. Also, forty-two pages is a long time for confusion to run rampant. (1)

Comment: Collected in Gods and Golems (Ballantine, paperback original, 1973). Also of note, perhaps, is that Lester del Rey was also the editor of this magazine.

JERRY SOHL “The Ultroom Error.” A readable but pointless story of a life-germ transplanting process gone wrong. (2)

Comment: Collected in Filet of Sohl: The Classic Scripts and Stories of Jerry Sohl (Bear Manor Media, softcover, 2003). Besides a dozen or so SF novels published later on, Sohl also wrote scripts for Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, Star Trek and several other TV shows.

ISAAC ASIMOV “Youth.” Novelette. The illustrations give away the ending, obviously meant to be hidden. Two alien cultures meet and initiate friendly relations, but the identity of each cannot be determined from the context. (4)

Comment: Collected in The Martian Way and Other Stories (Doubleday, hardcover, 1955). This is clearly a small gem whose first appearance is hidden away in what is today an sadly obscure magazine.

HENRY KUTTNER “The Ego Machine.” Novelette. A badly confused robot carries on an ecological experiment in adjusting a Hollywood screenwriter’s character to his environment. The wild type of science-fictional comedy that made Kuttner famous. Incidentally, this novelette has only three pages fewer than the feature novel. (5)

Comment: ISFDb suggests that this story was co-written with C. L. Moore. Reprinted in Science-Fiction Carnival, edited by Fredric Brown & Mack Reynolds (Shasta, hardcover, 1953). Collected in Return to Otherness (Ballantine, paperback original, 1962).

BRYCE WALTON “To Each His Own Star.” A predictable story of four men lost in space, each wanting to go his own way. (2)

Comment: Reprinted in Space Odysseys: A New Look at Yesterday’s Futures, edited by Brian W. Aldiss (Doubleday, hardcover, 1976). Collected in “Dark of the Moon” and Other Stories (Armchair Fiction Masters of SF #1, softcover, 2011). Walton was the author of several dozen short stories between 1945 and 1969, but only one novel, one of the Winston series of YA books, which I’m sure explains why he’s a Little Known Author today.

ED LACY – The Woman Aroused. Avon #324, paperback original, 1951. Black Curtain Press, hardcover/paperback, 2013.

   This one left me with a creepy feeling.

   Ed Lacy remains one of the lesser-sung masters of two-bit prose, but he’s ripe for more attention, and this paperback original shows him at the top of his form.

   George Jackson starts the book as a comfortable executive in an on-again-off-again relationship with his ex-wife, and before the tale is finished, he’s lost most of his friends and living in cheap rooming houses. That’s not how he ends up, but I don’t give away endings.

   Lacy builds the story masterfully, using his familiarity with New York City and especially Harlem to good effect. After a bit of first-person exposition, detailing his life and establishing his character without getting bogged down in it, the story proper kicks off: George is visited by an old friend, just out of the Army, who asks him to hold seven thousand in cash money for him. It seems his old friend is planning to split from his wife, Lee — evil incarnate and then some, he says — and needs to keep this where she can’t get her hands on it. After hemming, hawing and insisting on giving him an IOU for it, George agrees. And a few pages later his buddy is dead under suspicious circumstances.

   A fine hook for a story, that, and Lacy works it well. Of course George lets his curiosity get he better of him, and looks up the newly-widowed lady in question, and I have to say the character of the predatory Lee is completely unlike any femme fatale I’ve ever read before — another surprise I won’t spoil for you. But it won’t ruin the story if I tell you George quickly and predictably gets ensnared, and the IOU he insisted on starts looking like his ticket to Death Row.

   But this is much more than a thriller; it’s a chiller, mainly because Lacy takes the time to develop his supporting players. Lee gets a moving back story, George’s ex-wife moves into the thing very effectively, his quiet upstairs neighbor, paranoid brother-in-law, loud-mouth buddy, and even his cat, all come alive and play very real parts in a story that packs a real surprise ending.

   Maybe it was Lacy’s deft handling of all this that made The Woman Aroused so creepy for me. I just know that when I read THE END I felt as if he had dragged me through Hell right along with him.

DAY KEENE – Dead Man’s Tide. Stark House Crime Classic, softcover, January 2021. Three-in-one volume with The Dangling Carrot and The Big Kiss-Off. First published as by Williams Richards (Graphic #60, paperback original, 1953). Expanded and revised from “Wait for the Dead Man’s Tide,” by Day Keene, published in the August 1949 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine. Also published as It’s a Sin to Kill, as by Day Keene (Avon T-814, paperback, 1958).

   After a short prologue consisting of following a woman’s nude body as it floats along with the tide in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, Dead Man’s Tide starts with a bang and never lets up until 120 pages later (in the soon-to-be-released Stark House edition). It opens for real with Charlie Ames, a fishing excursion boat captain waking up alone in a strange bed, on another boat with a woman’s clothing scattered about, a liquor bottle rolling back and forth on the floor, and $5000 in his pants pocket.

   Whose boat, whose clothes, and most importantly, whose $5000? And where is she? No one knows, including the police, who most definitely do not believe Charlie’s story of having a cup of coffee with a prospective client on his own boat, but everything going black and he not knowing what happened until he woke up the following morning.

   What’s worse is that he doesn’t think that his wife Mary Lou, a singer and hostess at a local night club, believes his story, either. That’s what pains him the worst. But when the woman’s nude body is finally found (see above), it’s the local police force who he finally realizes really is his greater concern.

   Fellow blogger Cullen Gallagher, who wrote the introduction to the Stark House Press edition, calls this a “man on the run” novel, a trademark theme of author Day Keene, and it’s a good one. There are lots of twists and turns in store for Charlie Ames in this one. Every time he thinks he’s reached a point of safety, fate extends him another finger. Eventually, in a final move of sheer desperation, he decides to take his destiny into his own hands, until at last comes the biggest twist of them all.

   Highly recommended.

THE CARIBBEAN MYSTERY. 20th Century Fox, 1945. James Dunn, Sheila Ryan, Linda Lane, Reed Hadley, Roy Roberts, Edward Ryan. Screenplay by Jack Andrews, Leonard Praskin, W. Scott Darling & Nicholas Ray (dialogue; not credited), based on Murder in Trinidad by John W. Vandercook. Directed by Robert Webb. Currently available on YouTube here.

   This was the third film adaptation (*) of famed newscaster John W. Vandercook’s first novel featuring his Cockney sleuth Bertram Lynch who previously appeared in Murder in Trinidad with Nigel Bruce in the role, as a Mr. Moto entry, Mr. Moto on Danger Island, and finally here with James Dunn (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) as Brooklyn born ex-cop turned private eye Mr. Smith.

   Vandercook, who penned four adventures of Lynch between 1934 and 1959, had a solid formula mixing classic detection, adventure, exotic locales, and his unprepossessing Cockney detective Lynch, who seemed neither too bright or particularly tough, but who was in fact all of those things and more. It didn’t hurt Vandrcook had a lively writing style and a way with a plot.

   The plot is simple enough. Two scientists have disappeared in the jungle on a Caribbean island and the police are no where near finding them or why they disappeared. Enter Smith, a private detective who seems like nothing more than a Flatbush Flatfoot, but who is smart, tough, and hard to kill.

   The local police are not impressed, and indeed suspect, especially the head of the police whose daughter, Linda Lane, is enamored of young Edward Ryan.

   When Sheila Ryan’s character is murdered at the hotel where Smith is staying after suggesting she has something to tell him, it becomes obvious that whatever happened to the missing men is tied to someone in the city too, so Smith has to play his cards close to his vest, only taking Edward Ryan into his confidence when Lane and her father disappear into the jungle as well.

   Moving into the swamp’s inland, Smith uncovers a slave camp run by Roy Roberts where the girl and her father are held hostage and the two dead scientists are buried. After Roberts plans the same fate for Smith and his helper Smith manages to escape, turn the tables on Roberts, and take him prisoner.

   But Roberts is shot before he can reveal who the man back in the city is behind the whole business — did the girl’s father really have to shoot him or was he silencing him? — and Smith’s only chance is to lay a trap for the killer.

   As low budget mysteries go, the stronger than usual story-line and a decent cast help this one, though it has nothing on the first version (rightfully praised in William K. Everson’s The Detective in Film) or the Peter Lorre Mr. Moto outing.

   Dunn’s mugging is less annoying than in some films (at his best he was a fine character actor, but he did rely on the Irishness a bit heavily in some parts), and his Smith is a decent take on Lynch. Given a decent cast, better than average script and story, and decent mystery this one deserves a look.

   It’s worth a look, but if you have to make the call, stick with the Nigel Bruce or Peter Lorre version.

(*) I wouldn’t be the least surprised to discover there had been another adaptation of this on television or elsewhere, IMDb doesn’t seem to recognize there were two previous versions of the same book though, so there is not easy way to tell.

THE SUSPICIONS OF MR. WHICHER: THE MURDER AT ROAD HILL HOUSE. 90+ minutes. ITV, UK, 25 April 2011. Paddy Considine (Detective Jack Whicher), Tom Georgeson (Superintendent Foley), Peter Capaldi (Samuel Kent), Alexandra Roach (Constance Kent) and many others. Based on the real-life Constance Kent murder case of 1860, as interpreted by Kate Summerscale in her 2008 book The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House. Director: James Hawes. Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

   This historical based crime film takes place in 1860, and Inspector Jack Whicher is sent from Scotland Yard to give assistance to the local police in finding the killer of a young boy whose body is found in the privy of a large manor house. His presence is resented by the superintendent previously in charge of the case, claiming as an outsider does not know the people in the area as well as he does.

   Whicher is supremely confident, however, and is sure that a proper investigation is bound to bring out the truth. His hubris takes a severe beating, though, when after a long series of questioning and logical deductions comes to a complete halt when he cannot produce the evidence he needs to convict the person he is convinced is the killer.

   Need be he returns to London in disgrace, his career in shambles. (I am giving very little away. This is shown in the prologue to the story in the first five minutes.) I don’t know how closely the teleplay sticks to the actual story, but whether or not, it’s a fascinating one. I did not know any of the players, but between the direction, photography and the actors, the 90 minutes plus running time went by very quickly.

   The remaining three episodes in the series are purely fictional as they follow Mr. Whicher’s career as a private enquiry agent:

      The Mr. Whicher series –

1. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: The Murder at Road Hill House
2. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Murder In Angel Lane
3. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: Beyond the Pale
4. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: The Ties That Bind