SHOOTING STARS. British Instructional, UK, 1927. Brian Aherne, Annette Benson, Chili Bouchier, David Brookes, Donald Calthrop. Director: A. V. Bramble, assisted by Anthony Asquith. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   A stylish silent film, with Annette Benson as the wife of actor Brian Aherne and his co-star, who has a fling with film baggy-pants comedian Donald Calthrop.

   She wants to leave Aherne for her lover, but fears it will destroy her career. She substitutes real bullets for blanks in the gun that will be fired at Aherne in their thriller, but even though she decides not to go through with it, a series of misadventures results in the shooting of Calthrop and Benson’s withdrawal from films and her marriage.

   There’s a final sequence in which, several years later, she has a walk-on in a film directed by Aherne, unrecognized by him or anyone else in the crew, with a poignant fade-out as she appears to walk away walks away forever from her former husband and the movies.

   The behind-the-scenes look at the filming of silents, made this absorbing, ironic drama of unusual interest.

THE PLOT THICKENS. 1936. James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis Jr., Richard Tucker. Based on a story and characters created by Stuart Palmer. Director: Ben Holmes.

   The role of Hildegarde Withers in this next-to-the-last movie based on her adventures with Inspector Piper was taken over from Edna May Oliver then Helen Broderick by ZaSu Pitts, whose fluttery hands and ways are best taken in small doses. She seems to fit the part, however, given Hollywood’s perspective on the stories.

   This has come up before, and in the meantime I’ve given this some small amount of thought to it — the business of detective stories being made into comedies when converted to the silver screen, especially during the 30s and 40s.

   Maybe it’s because the idea behind the traditional, cozy detective murder mystery is inherently ridiculous to begin with — the established routine of a victim, suspects, clues, questioning, locked rooms, alibis and so on.

   Could it be, when transferred into cinematic terms, the whole entire unlikelihood of the proceedings is amplified into the utterly absurd?

   That’s the question as I’ve reformulated it so far, and I haven’t answered it yet, but why else did so many favorite mystery characters turn into bumbling idiots when portrayed on the screen?

   Or why did their adventures need to “enlivened” by the presence of goofy chauffeurs, clown-like cops or (simply) funny friends? Hard-boiled operatives fared much better. I don’t think Hollywood had a very great opinion of the Ellery Queen’s or Hildegarde Withers(es) of the literary world.

   Which is not to say that I’m bitter — but wouldn’t it have been better to have had Jean Arthur play Pam North than Gracie Allen? Wouldn’t Sara Haden (Andy Hardy’s Aunt Millie) have made a better Hildegarde Withers? (It could have been worse — they might have used Marjorie Main.)

   This not being an ideal world, however, simply the best of all possible ones, we accept what we’re given. As the title indicates, there’s a lot of plot in this one: first of all a murder, with lots of suspects, including a butler and a jealous boy friend. There also turns out to be a stolen emerald in the dead man’s possession, and the whole affair ends up in a museum where the famous Cellini cup is the target of a gigantic gang of thieves.

   Simply terrific stuff!

   James Gleason, as Inspector Oscar Piper, is a pint-sized bantam with an irascible temper and even fouler-smelling cigars. As a detective, well, it’s no wonder he had Miss Withers along to do his thinking for him.

[UPDATE] 12-08-10.   When I wrote this review, I was unaware of a made-for-TV movie in which Miss Withers (Eve Arden) and Inspector Piper (James Gregory) were also the leading characters. It was A Very Missing Person, based on the novel Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene by Stuart Palmer and Fletcher Flora. Shown on ABC, 4 March 1972, rumor has it that it was not as good as it might have been.

   And a fact that was totally unknown to me until just now, according to Wikipedia, there was a 1950s TV sitcom pilot entitled “Amazing Miss Withers” that starred Agnes Moorehead and Paul Kelly. It is apparently considered lost, probably forever.

DICK FRANCIS and FELIX FRANCIS – Crossfire. Putnam, hardcover, August 2010. Paperback reprint: August 2011.

Genre:   Amateur sleuth. Leading character:  Tom Forsythe; Dick Francis’s 45th book. Setting:   England.

First Sentence:   Medic! Medic!

    Captain Thomas Forsythe has returned from fighting and being injured in Afghanistan, to a place called home in name only. He and his mother have never been close. She is a well-known, well-respected, successful trainer of racehorses and at risk of losing everything to a blackmailer and/or the Inland Revenue. For the first time ever, Tom can help his mother; if she would only let him.

    One thing on which you can always count with a Francis novel is a captivating opening and this book does not disappoint. It begins with a bang, literally, and is both current to our time and effective.

    After that, I must admit, the old charm wasn’t quite there. Tom is an effective character and classically Francis; he’s independent, a loner, self-reliant and determined. He was certainly the best of the characters in the story, and the most well developed.

    It may sound silly, but I enjoy that the author’s voice, particularly with both the author and the characters being British, sounds British without an attempt to Americanize it. There was a strong sense of place, I feel I’m coming to know the Lambourn region.

    Details make a difference. The inclusion of information on Tom’s life in the military, including what the infantry wears and carries with them, but also information on the tax system; these things add dimension to the story.

    Taking into account that I was reading an uncorrected proof, there was a good deal of redundancy. I hope that won’t be true with the finished edition. The plot was good, but lacked the suspense to which I’m accustomed and a number of the situations were strikingly, and rather uncomfortably, familiar from previous books.

    Remembering specifically which books definitely took me out of being involved in reading this one. One of the classic Francis elements was missing; the protagonist was never involved in a fight. Considering the occupation of the protagonist, this was one book in which he could really have held his own. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t included, but I certainly noticed the lack of it being there.

    What did work, however, was the climax. It was unexpected, somewhat shocking and one of the best from Francis in awhile. The epilogue was well done and it is always important to me to know justice is served.

    For all its faults, I don’t regret having read Crossfire. It will be interesting to see how the Francis name and style progresses from here.

Rating:   Good.

MAX LONG – The Lava Flow Murders. Series detective: Komako Koa #2. J. B. Lippincott, hardcover, 1940.

   After an expository overload in which the characters are introduced in quick succession, the first third of the book is spent on detailed descriptions of a volcanic eruption and the attempts of plantation policeman, Komako Koa, and the plantation owner, Tucker, in evacuating the visitors who have recently arrived from a yacht in the harbor.

   They are also told to avoid a heiau (sacred Hawaiian shrine) to Pele. But two members of the party mock nearly everything to do with traditional Hawaiian beliefs and culture. One of those mockers, a brash woman, enters the heiau and is seen arguing with someone who the visitors believe is the embodiment of Hawaiian goddess Pele.

   The woman is almost immediately discovered dead — her head crushed by a coconut. For some reason the mainlanders actually believe that Pele is responsible and there is a lot of silly melodrama with people running around crying out to beware of Pele.

   None of this makes any sense. Koa takes advantage of this and rather than telling everyone that he knows the woman was murdered he lets them indulge themselves in superstitious gullibility. Irresponsible of a policeman and a bit contrived on the part of the author. But without that the rest of the story would not follow.

   Meanwhile, the volcano continues to erupt and encroaching lava flows continue to threaten the characters as well as the ranch house where they are staying. Then another person is hit on the head with a coconut and yet another person disappears.

   Soon it appears that a homicidal maniac is at work and the book takes on the atmosphere of And Then There Were None set in Hawaii with an active volcano as an added menace.

   Koa’s friend and the series narrator, Hastings Hardy, believes that a local Hawaiian has gone mad and is acting as a murderous nemesis for the offended Pele. There is a character called “the firewalker” who fits this bill. But Koa says no Hawaiian would enter a heiau and commit murder let alone do any of the other horrid things that the killer does (for example, a woman is thrown into the steaming, fomenting ocean where the lava flow ends and is basically boiled to death!).

   The book is not very well constructed and — believe it or not — is often dull. It’s a hodgepodge of a disaster adventure comprised of lots of scientific detail about volcanoes, lava flow, the different types of lava and how they behave, the types of rock and ash that accompany violent eruptions, etc. etc.

   The murder mystery is thrown in almost as an afterthought. The book could easily have been much shorter and the narrative handled less clumsily had the author focused on the story rather than focusing on the volcano and the lava.

   The only thing that holds one’s interest is the interspersing of Hawaiian lore and legends. The culprit, once one accepts Koa’s dismissal of anyone Hawaiian, is a bit obvious. The killer’s motive, set up also rather obviously way back in the first chapter when land rights and inheritances are discussed, and the denouement overall are less than satisfying.

LONG, MAX (Freedom). 1890-1971. SC: Komako Koa, in all.
      Murder Between Dark and Dark. Lippincott, 1939.
      The Lava Flow Murders. Lippincott, 1940.
      Death Goes Native. Lippincott, 1941.

J. B. O’SULLIVAN – Someone Walked Over My Grave. T. Werner Laurie Ltd., UK, hardcover, 1954. No US edition.

   As I often do, I’ll append a list of all of J. B. O’Sullivan’s Steve Silk mysteries at the end of these comments. There are a few of them, as you’ll see, but only two have even been published in the US.

   Silk himself is described on the Thrilling Detective website as “a former boxer turned un-licensed PI. Quick with a wisecrack and quicker with his fists, he dresses well and chases women with vigor,” but there are no signs of fisticuffs in the book at hand, and no woman chasing either.

   Silk is usually based in New York, so maybe the difference is that when he visits Ireland, as he does in Someone Walked Over My Grave, he’s on his best behavior. In fact the murder that’s solved in this book is a country manor affair, one much more suited for the likes of Supt. George Tubridy than a smooth as silk operator like Steve.

   There is a point in time, however, at which the reader (this one, anyway) will suddenly realize that what is going on is a competition between the two. Who (and which approach) will solve the case first? Amusingly, though, the two end up asking the same questions of the same people and each in their own fashion, coming up with very much the same answers.

   Dead is the father of a would-be bridegroom, and the number one suspect is the wayward brother (on the other side of the Irish political divide) of the would-be bride when it appears the wedding is off (therefore all of the would-be’s). Telling the story is Jimmy (no last name noted), a local reporter who spent some time in the US chronicling some of Silk’s earlier adventures.

   In the grand Golden Age of Detection fashion, there are lots of suspects, some with alibis, some not, and some of the alibis are suspicious if not outright flimsy. There are several decent twists before a suspect admits to having done the crime, then an even better one before (PLOT ALERT, and maybe I shouldn’t even be telling you this) the last three paragraphs turn everything around again.

   An amazing feat. I was on cruise control at the time, and it made me stop on a dime, sit up and take notice, I’ll tell you that.

The Steve Silk novels —     [Adapted from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

       Casket of Death (n.) Grafton 1945
       Death Came Late (n.) Pillar 1945
       The Death Card (n.) Pillar 1945

       Death on Ice (n.) Pillar 1946
       Death Stalks the Stadium (n.) Pillar 1946
       I Die Possessed (n.) Laurie 1953. US: Mill, 1953

       Nerve Beat (n.) Laurie 1953
       Don’t Hang Me Too High (n.) Laurie 1954. US: Mill, 1954

       Someone Walked Over My Grave (n.) Laurie 1954
       The Stuffed Man (n.) Laurie 1955
       The Long Spoon (n.) Ward 1956

       Choke Chain (n.) Ward 1958
       Raid (n.) Ward 1958
       Gate Fever (n.) Ward 1959
       Backlash (n.) Ward 1960

       Make My Coffin Big (n.) Ward 1964
       Murder Proof (n.) Ward 1968

The Supt. George Tubridy novels —

       Someone Walked Over My Grave (n.) Laurie 1954
      Pick Up (n.) Ward 1964

       Lunge Wire (n.) Ward 1965

   Therapists do not like to hear us use the term “crazy,” but for the most part mental health professionals do often see such collecting activities as being a mental disorder. Maybe I should have titled the subject “Is Collecting a Mental Disorder?”

   But if I and some of the other collectors I know are insane, then we probably would use the term “crazy.” In fact I just came across an online article titled “11 Craziest Mental Disorders,” and “Bibliomania: The Collecting of Too Many Books”, was one of the 11 disorders.

   What brings all this up is that a long time collecting friend of mine recently called me and said that his wife and a therapist had just blindsided him with an intervention type meeting after dinner. He was still stunned at their treachery and quite upset.

   Their attitude was that his book and pulp collection was all junk, clutter, and a waste of money. In fact the therapist said that my friend should be under the care of a professional and under heavy medication due to depression. He evidently saw the collection as a sign of depression and even complained about the collector reading too much.

   Now this is funny because I don’t think my friend reads much at all. He’s in his sixties, still working and certainly does not spend his leisure time reading like I do. I read at least a couple hours or more each day and often my friend does not read at all during the day.

   I think this “reading too much” theme is the typical non-collecting spouse complaint. For the most part, and there are exceptions, I have found that many women resent it when their husbands or boyfriends read a book.

   Reading is a solitary activity and they feel left out or perhaps they feel that the husband is ignoring them or not paying attention to them. I have heard this complaint many times over the years from other readers, and even my wife gripes about me always “with my nose in a book.”

   But my friend certainly came to the right guy for a sympathetic ear. Those of you have been reading these memoirs so far might imagine the advice I gave him. I told him in my opinion, as a veteran reader and collector, his wife and the therapist are the ones with a mental disorder.

   Too many people just concentrate on their jobs and family. Hell, we all have jobs and family, but what makes life even more interesting is reading and collecting. Many of our friends and relatives go through life really not interested in much at all. At least reading and collecting shows that you have some interest and passion in some subject, other than the routine of working and family matters.

   The above is a true story and actually happened. By the way, I am not talking about myself, but such scenes have happened to me over the years. A serious reader/collector will not get sympathy from the non-reader/collector. And these people make up the majority of our friends and relatives.

   If you talk to me during Windy City or PulpFest, I’ll be glad to discuss this in more detail including the name of the collector. In fact, he will probably be in attendance.

   So as Shakespeare once said, if you are a collector, “get thee to a nuthouse.” Or come to think of it maybe he was talking about a nunnery.

Previously on Mystery*File:   Part Five — Remembering Mike Avallone.

  JAMES HELVICK – Beat the Devil. J. B. Lippincott, hardcover, 1951. Penguin, UK paperback, 1971, under the author’s real name, Claud Cockburn. Film: United Artists, 1953. Screenplay: Truman Capote & John Huston; director: John Huston.

   I reviewed the film version of Beat the Devil earlier on this blog, but in a notable I’m-glad-I-read-it vein, there’s also the print version, an inexpensive copy of which I found thanks to the nice folks who hang out here. The Bogart film is a legendary mess, and I had fun seeing how the two of them compare.

   Truman Capote’s script for the movie stays remarkably faithful to the book, with the notable exception that the book offers a couple of action scenes, which are carefully leeched out of the movie, to be replaced with something they thought was funny.

   Thus an ambush on a lonely beach becomes a runaway jalopy, a tragedy at sea turns into a mere mishap, and one of the best bits in the book — a lengthy prison stay where the characters reveal some surprising facets of themselves — is replaced by a quick joke about Rita Hayworth.

   Helvick/Cockburn’s book offers some engaging, often surprising characters (replaced in the movie by competent character actors given nothing to do) and off-hand moments of casual chivalry when they find themselves rising to occasions of their own making — again, replaced in the film with limp humor.

   More important, as the book ended I saw what must have drawn director John Huston to film it: a moment when fate seems to smile at the characters and their little dreams, only to break out laughing at them the next moment. It’s a well-done resolution that recalls bitter wrap-ups in The Maltese Falcon and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which I find even more surprising since Huston and Capote replaced it in the film with a cheap joke. Oh well.

   At least the film offers one interesting variation, when the two female leads (played by Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida in the film) find themselves in competition for each other’s husbands. In the book, they go skinny-dipping to check out each other’s bodies. In the film, Jones simply finds an excuse to wave her butt repeatedly in Gina’s face, a moment of cheerful vulgarity so engaging one wishes the rest of the film offered more of it.

THE FINAL EXTRA. Gotham Productions / Lumas Film Corp., 1927. Marguerite De La Motte, Grant Withers, John Miljan, Frank Beal, Joseph W. Girard, Billy “Red” Jones, Leon Holmes. Story and scenario by Herbert C. Clark; cinematography by Ray June. Director: James P. Hogan. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   Pat Riley (Grant Withers) greatly admires his senior colleague, reporter Tom Collins (Frank Beal) who is murdered when he’s about to reveal the name of the leader of a gang of bootleggers in an expose he’s writing for his newspaper.

   Riley, who’s sweet on Collins’ daughter Ruth (Marguerite de la Motte), vows to finish the story, a promise that leads to Ruth being trapped in a house with the murderer as Riley races to her rescue.

   Hogan would later direct entries in Paramount’s Bulldog Drummond and Columbia’s Ellery Queen series, while Grant Withers would have a career in sound films that included programmers, serials and, later in his career, several of John Ford’s features.

   The Final Extra was a fast-paced, exciting film that was expertly produced in all departments, and was a splendid conclusion to my 34th Cinevent.

  LINDA BARNES – Snapshot. Carlotta Carlyle #5. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1993. Dell, paperback, 1994. Reprinted several times since, in both hardcover and paperback.

   I don’t think there’s any doubt that Linda Barnes is in the top five female PI writers, and I may enjoy her more than any but Marcia Muller. Her ex-cop, part-time cabby PI, Carlotta Carlyle, is one of my favorites.

   Her latest case begins when a psychiatrist brings a woman to her office who is obsessed with the recent death of her child from a form of leukemia. The woman is not convinced that something didn’t go awry at the highly regarded hospital where the child died, and the psychiatrist thinks that having Carlyle lay her doubts to rest is good therapy.

   He has no idea that her fears are well-founded; the child’s doctor was one of the country’s best. Carlotta takes the case, and begins her investigation.

   At the same time, she has other problems. Someone steals her trash cans in the middle of the night, trash and all, and her 11-year-old Hispanic Little Sister has run away from home, and has been seen regularly in the company of a grown man.

   Barnes continues to impress me. Carlyle is a believable human being, possessed of her fair share of problems but refreshingly free from the anger and/or angst of so many of today’s characters.

   The supporting cast is nicely drawn, and Barnes tells her story well in straightforward prose. The plot didn’t have me tearing my hair out, which considering my luck with the rest of the PI novels I’ve read lately was a major triumph. Good book.

       The Carlotta Carlyle series —

1. A Trouble Of Fools (1987)

2. The Snake Tattoo (1989)

3. Coyote (1990)
4. Steel Guitar (1991)
5. Snapshot (1993)
6. Hardware (1995)
7. Cold Case (1997)

8. Flashpoint (1999)
9. The Big Dig (2000)
10. Deep Pockets (2004)
11. Heart of the World (2006)
12. Lie Down with the Devil (2008)

  LAST TRAIN FROM BOMBAY. Columbia Pictures, 1952. Jon Hall, Christine Larsen, Lisa Ferraday, Douglas Kennedy, Michael Fox, Donna Martell, Matthew Boulton, James Fairfax. Director: Fred F. Sears.

   With civil war about to break out in India, the first assignment of American diplomat Martin Viking there is a doozey.

   Viking, as played by Jon Hall just before he became Ramar of the Jungle, is a naive fellow, you’re led to believe at first, who nonetheless turns out to be top notch when it comes to killers and thuggees of all sorts (but mostly inept), as he proves over and over again in hand-to-hand combat.

   Blamed for the murder of his wartime friend who gets him into trouble from the very beginning all the way through to the end of this 72-minute adventure, Viking encounters an unfriendly Captain Tamil of the Bombay police (Michael Fox) and two women who prove to be both friendly and unfriendly (or vice versa):

   Christine Larsen plays the daughter of a retired British officer as they take a trip by auto together to see the Taj Mahal in the moonlight, while Lisa Ferraday is a French woman once married to an American who now lays in wait for unsuspecting travelers in a tavern where Viking seeks refuge.

   And believe it or not, I almost forgot to mention the train.

   Viking is on it for no more than five minutes during the entire movie, but nonetheless it’s the entire crux of the plot, which consists of his being able to stop an unknown band of conspirators from blowing it up as it makes its way across the subcontinent of India, among the passengers being a very important Indian ruler and his entire entourage.

   Filmed like an action-packed Columbia Pictures afternoon serial, there is little time to spend on subtleties. And like action-packed Columbia Pictures afternoon serials, there is a continual feeling of being cheated, what with death-defying escapes coming all too easily at the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next – especially the last one, wherein Viking and his fellow female captive at the time simply walk out of the dungeon where they’re being held captive.

   No self-respecting villain would ever be this inept – ever!