KEEPING MUM. Isle of Man Film – Azure Films – Tusk Productions / Entertainment Film Distributors, UK, 2005. Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Patrick Swayze, Tamsin Egerton, Toby Parkes, Liz Smith. Screenplay: Richard Russo & Niall Johnson, based on a story by the former. Director: Niall Johnson.

   A couple of months ago I saw a French film from 2000, With a Friend Like Harry, about a psycho who insinuates himself into a family. then “helps them” by killing anyone he perceives as their enemies. Imagine my surprise to find the same plot played for laughs — and played quite well — in Keeping Mum, which I recommend if you ever think back to those old Ealing comedies like Lady Killers and Kind Hearts and Coronets where murder was done with such quiet panache as to seen amusing and even tasteful.

   Mum centers around Kristine Scott-Thomas as the beleaguered wife of bemused country ,minister Rowen Atkinson, mother of a libidinous teenage daughter and a bullied son, and sex-object of sleazy lothario Patrick Swayze. Into her chaotic life housekeeper Maggie Smith descends like a lethal Mary Poppins with a perfectly simple philosophy for happiness: kill anyone who gets on your nerves.

   Writer-director Niall Johnson handles this thing with the necessary light touch — he recycles the cell-phone gag from With a Friend Like Harry to highly amusing effect — and the players are competent and sometimes inspired. Scott-Thomas as the wide-eyed adulteress reminded me touchingly at times of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter. Give this one a look if you enjoy the gentle irony of British Humour at its best.

ROADBLOCK. Pilot episode, 1958. MCA-TV/Revue. Later shown on (Heinz) Studio 57 as “Getaway Car,” 29 March 1958 (Season 4, Episode 19, in first-run syndication). Michael Connors, John McIntyre, Wallace Ford, Olan Soule, Irene James. Teleplay: Fredric Brady, based on the story “The Homesick Buick” by John D. MacDonald (EQMM, September 1950). Director: Earl Bellamy.

   The only clue the California cops have to catch a gang of bank robbers who made their getaway in separate automobiles is by cross-referencing the locations of the stations the radio of one of the cars was preset to. The driver himself is dead, with no ID on him, having been shot while driving away.

   I don’t get it. VIN’s have been around since 1954, and the car didn’t look older than that, but maybe it was. No matter. The rest of the case is based on faulty deductions, luck and pure guesswork. No wonder this pilot episode of a proposed new series, sort of a early precursor to CHiPs, went nowhere fast.

   A young Michael Connors plays a special motorcycle-riding state investigator in this one, young and very earnest. Most of the other roles are played by old-timers who could do short plays like this in their sleep.

      —

Note: Michael Shonk also reviewed this busted pilot a while ago on this blog. You can read his comments here.

JOHN LAWRENCE “Broadway Malady.” Short story. Lt. Martin Marquis #1. First publisheded in Dime Detective Magazine, February 1937. Collected in The Complete Cases of the Marquis of Broadway, Volume 1. (Altus Press, 2014); introduction by Ed Hulse.

   This is the first in a series of 26 tales written by veteran pulp writer John Lawrence about the redoubtable Lt. Martin Marquis, the so-called “Marquis of Broadway,” and the gang of men he used to keep law and order in Manhattan’s famed strip of brightly lit theatres and night clubs in the 1930s and (mostly) pre-war 40s. All of them appeared in Dime Detective. The last would have been appeared in 1942, butr one last one was finally published in 1948.

   Always flashily dressed, the dapper Marquis was actually little more than a criminal himself, if not an out-and-out gangster, nor were the policemen in his squad any better, and maybe even worse. . Their methods were crude but effective. In “Broadway Malady,” however, one particular overly ambitious night club owner makes the mistake of crossing him, to his lasting regret only a few pages later.

   It seems as though the latter has taken a liking to a beautiful young singer who is in love instead with a bandleader whom the Marquis has taken under his wing. When the former is found beaten up rather considerably, the Marquis takes it personally.

   What’s most striking about this story, even more than its setting — what major thoroughfare of its era was more famous than Broadway? — the rather standard plot, is the terse, understated way in which it’s told. I think “Broadway Malad” comes as close to matching the subtext of Dasheill Hammett’s tales than almost any of the latter’s would-be imitators. Other writers may steal Hammett’s plots, but very few of them seem ever to master the essence of how he told his terse, hard-bitten tales.

   Or in other words, there is almost as much to be read between the lines in “Broadway Malady” as there is story itself. Lawrence makes no concession to the reader. I can’t imagine many getting to the end of this tale without having to go back to see what they missed. When the pieces finally fit together, and they will, the light goes on.

   Chandler is easy to imitate. Hammett less so. It’s a pleasure to read a story that’s so solidly told in the latter’s manner. There are now only 25 more stories of the Marquis left for me to read. Luckily two thick volumes of his “Complete Cases” have recently been published by Altus Press, making up just over half the run. More, I hope, are on the way.

JERRY KENNEALY – Polo in the Rough. Nick Polo #4. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1989. Speaking Volumes LLC, paperback, 2013.

   Nick Polo is yet another San Francisco PI. This, his fourth recorded case, takes him to Carmel as a bodyguard for a writer who specializes in uncovering dirt those in political power would rather stay buried. What he’s working on now involves the Shah of Iran.

   And all the millions of dollars that left the country with him. Kennealy is said to be a working PI himself, which may explain why the writing is occasionally straight from the cliché closet, while the detecting is strictly high-tech state-of-the-art: Computer databases, mail-order supply houses, and all.

   Unfortunately Polo is not much help to his client, and the ending is as flat as yesterday’s two-day-old beer.

      The Nick Polo series —

1. Polo Solo (1987)
2. Polo Anyone? (1988)
3. Polo’s Ponies (1988)
4. Polo in the Rough (1989)
5. Polo’s Wild Card (1990)
6. Green With Envy (1991)
7. Special Delivery (1992)
8. Vintage Polo (1993)
9. Beggar’s Choice (1994)
10. All That Glitters (1997)
11. Polo’s Long Shot (2017)

All all-time favorite. This is the first time I’ve seen them play it live.

G. M. FORD – Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca? Leo Waterman #1. Walker, hardcover, 1995. Avon, paperback, 1996. Thomas & Mercer, trade paperback, 2012.

   Is that a great title, or what? Okay, so it won’t mean anything to someone not familiar with the Northwest. I still think it’s great. And if “G. M. Ford” isn’t a pseudonym, it ought to be.

   Leo Waterman is a Seattle private eye who father was a long-term City Councilman. Leo’s had a problem with the bottle in the past, but seems to have it under control. He fee;s a thirst coming on, though, when the patriarch of Seattle organized crime, an old union associate of his father’s, asks him to help him.

   The old man’s granddaughter has left the family manse and is associating with a group of environmentalists who have a penchant for violence and ill-considered acts, and he wants Leo to find out what they’re up to. It’s one of those deals you can hardly refuse, so Leo marshals his helpers and starts to work. Oh, I ought to mention that the “helpers” are a group of alcoholics and some homeless who Leo met in his down-and-dirty days.

   If this sounds like a farce, it isn’t. At least mostly it isn’t. I think Ford had a few problems in drawing the line, bur for the most part it’s a straightforward if not overly grim and sometimes humorous PI story. The characters are entertaining and sympathetic, and Ford writes with an assurance and skill beyond most first-timers. (Was that a small homage to Chandler I caught at the beginning?)

   He obviously knows Seattle, and manages to bring the city to life without loading the narrative with the tiresome minutiae that often pass for a “sense of place” these days. If he can learn some sense of restraint with is characterizations — the villains were egregious over the top unless he wanted farce — and quit pulling rabbits out of the hat at the end (or if his editor will do it for him) I think he has the markings of a very good series.

         The Leo Waterman series —

   NOVELS

Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca? (1995)
Cast in Stone (1996)
The Bum’s Rush (1997)
Slow Burn (1998)
Last Ditch (1999)
The Deader the Better (2000)
Thicker Than Water (2012)
Chump Change (2014)
Salvation Lake (2016)
Soul Survivor (2018)
Heavy on the Dead (2019)

   SHORT STORIES

“Clothes Make the Man” (February 1999, EQMM)

FRED M. WHITE “The Scrip of Death.” Short story. Dr. Victor Colonna #1. First published in Pearson’s Magazine, London, July 1898. Collected in The Last of the Borgias: Being the Strange History of Victor Colonna, Professor of Science,and his Experiments in the Lost Art of Poisoning., hardcover, 1898? Reprinted by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, softcover, date? [Announced; may have never been published.] Available online here.

   The lady making the request is the beautiful Ellen Longwater, who claims her wealthy and famous family is in danger of ruin, and the man she has made the request of is none other than Dr. Victor Colonna, who has just given a lecture on his discovery of the rarest of all tomes, the poison book of none other than Lucretia Borgia (before history revealed she was more victim than monster), meaning, according to his own lecture, that he is master of poisons unknown to mankind, capable of bringing nations to their knees if he chose, and a veritable judge, jury, and executioner no court could hope to prove anything on thanks to his undetectable poisons.

   Of course Dr. Colonna was only speculating. Ellen Longwater is serious.

   Fred M. White was one of the most popular and prolific writers of the period, his name as well known on magazine covers as Conan Doyle, and his stories encompassed multiple series including adventure, mystery, secret service, and early science fiction. He particularly did well in the then popular disaster genre of which Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger story “The Poison Cloud” is one of the better known examples today.

   But Victor Colonna is surely the oddest detective hero anyone ever came up with, sleuth and avenger but far from the clean cut way of most British heroes, and the six long stories comprising the “Last of the Borgias” series are among the oddest of their kind, with Colonna one of those late Victorian supermen who are above mere law, a long haired aesthete with a no compunction about making God like interventions in the lives of mere mortals.

   To be fair to White and the genre, it wasn’t until Ellery Queen in The Door Between that anyone seemed to bring up the question of what all this God like behavior might lead to in classic detective fiction. Before then other than an occasional insight the brilliant sleuth’s mere existence seemed to justify his actions, even if Peter Wimsey wept over the execution of the man he sent to the gallows, he didn’t question his right or duty to do so.

   And to ruffle feathers further these stories violate the heck out of Detection Club Rules about “poisons unknown to science.” Dr. Fu Manchu could take a hint or two from Dr. Colonna.

   This being the Victorian age Dr. Colonna doesn’t hesitate to come to the aid of a lady in distress:

   So in his first case, Colonna is already up against a veritable Moriarity, though I have to say Felspar is a particularly thud ear name for a super villain. I suppose he could have named him Yardarm instead..

   Colonna assures us Felspar is a “bad un,” a brilliant chemist, but a blackmailer and worse, and his plot to marry the Princess Esme of Valdamir (names of people and places in this one aren’t White’s strong suit) not only threatens the happiness of Ellen Longwater’s son who also hopes to marry her, but also the fortune and fate of a great family because Felspar can prove Ellen’s son is not the heir to a great family he claims and destroy his hopes with Esme.

   You can almost imagine Victorian era audiences booing Felspar as they read. How dare a dirty foreigner interfere with a handsome young Englishman defrauding a foreign Princess.

   How Colonna confronts Felspar, and ultimately removes the Count as a threat frankly isn’t worth the build up. White writes well enough, but basically once Colonna accepts the commission to rid the family of Count Felspar the story grinds to a halt.

   There is some artificial suspense at a public gathering while the Count reads his prepared revelation and Colonna softly counts down to the moment Felspar falls victim to the poison, then a frankly anti-climactic reveal of how he administered the poison (not only unknown to science, but so mysterious we don’t even get a hint of what was in it — at least Fu Manchu used spider and snake venom) and used simple misdirection to steal the revealing papers in the dead man’s pocket.

   To be frank, by that point I was imagining Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Thorndyke, or Father Brown feeling quite content to have sent our hero to the gallows. Somehow this sort of thing was much more satisfying when the Saint disposed of a total rotter with a bit of cleaning fluid on his tie, or Bulldog Drummond snapped his neck. Nor does the not so subtle jingoism and xenophobia of Colonna using nasty Italian poisons, appearing quite foreign, and having an Italian name escape the modern reader.

   It’s no wonder there was only one series of adventures for Dr. Colonna, just reading the first one leaves the reader in need of a shower.

      Complete contents of The Last of the Borgias. All are Victor Colonna stories:

The Scrip Of Death
The Crimson Streak
The Holy Rose
The Saving of Serena
The Varteg Necklace
The Three Carnations

RACE STREET . RKO Radio Pictures, 1948. George Raft, William Bendix, Marilyn Maxwell, Frank Faylen, Harry Morgan, Gale Robbins. Director: Edwin L. Marin.

   Although available on DVD from Warner Archives, Race Street is largely a rather obscure one. even if considered film noir, a popular category now, if ever there was one. It has a decent cast, but I think the reason hardly anyone remembers or talks about it today, is that as a film, it’s mostly a mediocre one. It has its moments, including a few flashes of hard-boiled action, but it’s far too talky to stand out in a field filled with so many other crime films that came out around the same time and had a lot more to offer.

   George Raft plays the kind of bookie whom other bookies lay off their larger bets on, but a new gang is in town (San Francisco), and they’re beginning to push their way in,. What they offer is “protection” and they show no remorse in demonstrating what happens to guys who don’t take them up on it. William Bendix plays a childhood friend who’s also a cop, and who tries to persuade Raft to let the police take care of the problem.

   Raft will have nothing to do with it, of course, not even when one of his friends dies after being pushed around a little too hard. It doesn’t stop Bendix from talking and nudging and trying to persuade him otherwise. A couple of lengthy musical numbers featuring Gale Robbins as the lead vocalist are well done, but move the story along, they don’t.

   Marilyn Maxwell as a sultry brunette this time around plays Raft’s girl friend, a very eye-pleasing girl friend, to be sure, but her role in the story is, well, shall we say not particularly well filled out. If I’d been in charge of production, say, I’d have cut the musical numbers and given her story line the amount of running time it really needed.

   Since it’s far too late for the real director to have taken my advice, alas, he didn’t. While the end result is watchable, especially if you’re a George Raft fan — and to tell you the truth, I think his performance here is one of his better ones — you probably won’t remember it for more than ten minutes or so afterward.

CAVE OF THE LIVING DEAD. Schneider-Filmverleih, West Germany, 1964. Also released as Night of the Vampires. Original title: Der Fluch der grünen Augen. Adrian Hoven, Erika Remberg, Carl Möhner, Wolfgang Preiss, Karin Field. Director: Ákos Ráthonyi.

    Cave of the Living Dead , a West German-Yugoslav production, is a pretty standard vampire movie that checks all the boxes and uses all the tropes. Let’s see. You’ve got an urbane police inspector skeptical of the supernatural, superstitious peasants, an array of beautiful women (some undead, some not), and an eccentric professor living high up in a castle. And of course, some unexplained mysterious deaths.

   But for all its schlock, this movie is actually a lot of fun. Part of it comes from its mashup of genres. What starts off as a pulpy detective yarn in which a big city inspector is sent to the backwoods of Yugoslavia to investigate a series of murders slowly reveals itself to be a supernatural yarn about sultry female vampires.

   Although not a particularly graphic film in terms of violence or gore, Cave is drenched in atmosphere. Filmed in black and white with a lot of natural light courtesy of candles or torches, this somewhat obscure horror film exudes a neo-Universal Horror classics aesthetic. It transports the viewer into its own claustrophobic village world.

   True, the dialogue is hardly sophisticated. And the plot often runs around in circles. But if you are looking for a unique Halloween month viewing, this one, which I personally watched on DVD, is worth a look.