BORDERLINE. Universal Pictures, 1950. Claire Trevor, Fred MacMurray, Raymond Burr, Jose Torvay, Roy Roberts, Charles Lane. Directed by William A. Seiter.

   I was sold a bill of goods by Oldies.com when I bought this DVD. The last line of the promotional copy on the back cover says, and I quote: “MacMurray’s icy cool performance and Trevor’s jittery energy create a chemistry that ignites this classic film noir.”

   Film noir? It is to laugh, and believe it or not, even with another bravura performance by Raymond Burr as a thuggish dealer of dope in Mexico, you (the audience) were supposed to.

   What a strange combination. Is this a noir film disguised as a comedy romance, or a comedy romance disguised as a noir film? My vote’s on the latter.

   The only problem is – well, I’ll get back to that. Here’s the basic story line. Claire Trevor plays Madeleine Haley, aka Gladys LaRue, a Los Angeles policewoman in Mexico to see if she, as a woman under cover as a dancer and/or gang moll, can get some evidence on a slick crook named Pete Ritchie (that’s Raymond Burr, in fine form, as always). Fred MacMurray enters the film as Johnny Macklin, aka Johnny McEvoy, a henchman of an opposing gangster intent on taking over Ritchie’s trade.

   And the two of them, Trevor and MacMurray, take a trip up north together with a bird cage, complete with parrot, a music box, both filled in hidden compartments with packages of unspecified contraband. Both think the other is crooked, but somehow seeing beyond that, both begin to fall in love with each other. (Even so, Clare Trevor modestly sleeps with a gun in her hand in the room they stay in overnight together.)

   Which is the way the movie goes, as well as the prevailing wind, until they reach the border, which is where the question becomes, does duty take over? I’ll not answer that, as I may have revealed too much already, but what I will say is that whatever type of movie this, it falls apart completely from this moment on. (And maybe I have a larger tolerance for misguided ventures like this than you do.)

   The problem is, for a romantic comedy, there are too many shootings and dead bodies to be completely funny, and for a film noir, there is simply too much silly nonsense going on. Pete Ritchie gives a good chase, but even that end of things fizzles out without so much as a bang.

   Most of these entries are from Part 27 of the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. All but one of the books came from the lot I bought at the Windy City show, so the images of the covers you see were easy to come by.

   The one exception referred to in the first line above is the newly expanded entry for Alfred Mazure, which is as it appears now in Part 26.

COULTER, STEPHEN. 1914- . Pseudonym: James Mayo, q.v. British journalist and author; served in World War II as one of American General Eisenhower’s staff officers. Under his own name, the author of eight espionage/adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, four of them published in the UK only.

LANCASTER, DONALD. Pseudonym of William (Leonard) Marshall, 1944- , q.v. The book below was commissioned to be written after the disappearance of the series creator, Ian Mackintosh, 1940-1979, q.v. The book is extremely scarce.
      The Sandbaggers: Think of a Number. Corgi, UK, pb, 1980. Novel based on the characters in the TV series. Add SC: Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) & Willie Caine (Ray Lonnen).

MACKINTOSH, IAN. 1940-1979. Correct both dates and spelling of last name (from MacKINTOSH). Born in Inverness; commissioned in the Royal Navy. Author of eight crime and thriller novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV; among these, three were novelizations of TV series the author created (Warship) or wrote and produced: Wilde Alliance, and the book below, about an elite British Intelligence covert operations unit. Mackintosh himself died in mysterious fashion. According to a Wikipedia entry, during the third season of The Sandbaggers in July 1979, he and a girlfriend were declared lost at sea after their single-engine aircraft strangely disappeared near Alaska after a radioed call for help.
      The Sandbaggers. Corgi, UK, pb, 1978. Novelizes two episodes of the TV series: “Always Glad to Help” and “A Feasible Solution.” Add setting: London, Cyprus. Also add SC: Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) & Willie Caine (Ray Lonnen). [Shown also in the cover image below is Diana Keen as Laura Dickens.] See the author’s entry for Donald Lancaster for a second book in the series.

MARSHALL, WILLIAM (LEONARD). 1944- . Pseudonym: Donald Lancaster, q.v. Under his own name, the author of many mystery novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV. His best known series is the one that chronicles the adventures of the policemen who work out of the Hong Kong’s Yellowthread Station, beginning with Yellowthread Street (Hamish Hamilton, UK, 1975).

MAYO, JAMES. Pseudonym of Stephen Coulter, 1914- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of eight spy/adventure novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, six of them with sexed-up British super spy Charles Hood, billed as “the toughest of tough agents.” Four of the Hood books were also published in the US.
      The Man Above Suspicion. Heinemann, UK, hc, 1969. SC: Charles Hood. Add setting: Windward Islands, France, Austria, London. [Shown is the cover of the 1970 Pan paperback edition.]

MAZURE, ALFRED (LEONARDUS). 1914-1974. Pseudonym: Maz, q.v. Under his own name, add the following titles. SC: Sherazad, a “sexy top agent of an ultra-secret organization,” in all titles.
      Sherazad on a Trip. Mayflower, 1972
      Sherazad Uptight. Mayflower, 1974
      Welcome Sherazad. Tallis, UK, hc, 1969. Setting: London, England. “The Mystery of the Vanishing Film Starlets.” [Also shown is the cover of the Panther paperback reprint edition.]

WHITE, ALAN. 1924- . Pseudonyms: James Fraser, Alec Haig, Bill Reade & Alec Whitney. Born in Yorkshire, England. Under his own name, the author of 18 spy and mystery novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, three of them marginally. Series characters include Detective Inspector Armstrong; and Captain Colson of the British Special Services, a veteran of numerous commando raids during World War II.
      The Long Midnight. Barrie, UK, hc, 1972. Harcourt, US, hc, 1974. Setting: Norway, World War II. Delete SC: Captain Colson. [Two men are sent to Norway, 1943, to uncover a traitor to the Nazi resistance. Shown is the cover of the 1973 Pan paperback edition.]

THE SAINT. 1997. Val Kilmer, Elizabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valery Nikolaev, Alun Armstrong (as Inspector Teal), Roger Moore (voice only). Based on the character created by Leslie Charteris. Directed by Philip Noyce. [Novelization by Burl Barer; Pocket, 1997.]

   My first reaction? Beware of movies about fictional characters whose creators are not included in the on-screen credits. That’s what the common wisdom says, or if it doesn’t, it should.

   Be also wary – this is my own advice – of movies that begin by telling the childhood origins of the character. Especially when said character’s exploits extended for well over a fifty year period (1928-1983) – under the control of said creator if not always written – without the creator ever finding the need to chronicle the characters origins, which are always (perhaps) best left to the reader’s imagination.

   The reviews of this movie were almost universally bad, although in some cases as if reluctantly so, but – and this is a big but – the reaction of ordinary civilian reviewers (on IMDB, for example) have been almost universally positive. Some call it their favorite movie of all time, others while not going that far, admit to having watched it over and over again many times.

   Why the great disconnect? I’ve thought it over for a couple of days now, and I’ve listened to the director’s voice-over commentary, which (as usual) pointed out any number of items I missed the first time through, and I think the division of opinion comes down to this.

   Those who liked the movie did not know anything about Charteris’s character – a devil-may-care adventurer with an ever-present twinkle in his eye as he swindled the bad guys’ loot right from under their eyes – nor did they know anything of Roger Moore’s TV version of the character (much less George Sanders in the movie versions).

   Roger Moore, I personally liked in the role, although (as I remember) he was a little stiff and not quite as rakishly (more impishly, perhaps) devil-may-care as I would have liked.

   But Moore stopped playing the Saint in 1969, which (I’m guessing) is well before most of the viewing audience for this new version was born, and Val Kilmer is all they know (and all they got). Which may sound snarky, and if so, I mean only 30 to 40 percent of it.

   For in fact, if you take the character he plays – he is not even Simon Templar yet, as this revisionist story would have it – without an idea of who he is to become – I think you might even enjoy watching this tormented loner, unsure of his true identity, a thief with undated Internet gimmicks and capabilities – not to mention his many disguises which are as varied and clever as they are numerous – and seeing him grow into someone whom the director refers to as “worthy of Sainthood.”

   Thanks, of course, to the love of a beautiful woman, Dr. Emma Russell, played by Elizabeth Shue, an expert on cold fusion, the formulas for which some scummy post-Communist Russians would love to get their hands on.

   That Emma Russell acts like she is sixteen years old and has never been within two feet of a man before is very nearly beside the point. She is innocent and vulnerable, and she is what Val Kilmer’s character needs to shake up his life and start him over again. (He certainly needs it.)

   It also does not seem to matter that cold fusion does not seem to work, then or now, even though when a miracle is desperately needed in the movie – and in the middle of Red Square yet! – a miracle is certainly what indeed does happen.

   Emma Russell’s heart condition also seems improve greatly as the movie goes on. Perhaps it is all the running she does, or edging her way with Simon along the icy flank of the Moscow River, or escaping with him through the city’s underground tunnels. Exercise like this is just what the doctor ordered. Or needed.

   An earlier version in which she dies in the end was wisely, wisely reconsidered. The ending is a bit of a muddle anyway, but if her cheery optimism had been squashed in the end like a bug, the audience would have roundly booed. I would have, at least, and loudly.

   My second reaction, then, ignoring the fact that movie is about a character I think I should know — but as the film goes on, I realize in frustration (if not something akin to anger) that I do not — with my expectations suitably altered, I enjoyed the movie considerably more the second time through than I did the first.

   But will I ever watch it again? The future is hazy on that, but the possibility is higher than the chance that I will ever watch a version with George Sanders in it more than once. One with Roger Moore in it, from TV? Yes.

   Uploaded this morning, about 10 minutes ago, with no links or cover images added yet, is Part 27 of the ongoing online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

   I haven’t had a chance to look through this new set of addenda carefully myself, but I recognize quite a few of the pieces of information that I’ve sent Al in the last few weeks, including data he didn’t have about some of the British espionage paperbacks I bought at the Windy City show. Lots of newly discovered settings from other sources too, along with new authors, titles and series characters, not to mention newly discovered new editions with title changes, plus a few deletions and other corrections too.

   I’ve fallen behind in the annotations which I do for the Addenda, adding images and links and so on, but as I get to them, I’ll be posting them here, as I always do. More later, in other words!

[UPDATE.]   Later the same day. The comments that follow were produced by Al’s statement in this installment of the Addenda that:

BROWN, CARTER. Note: Some books published around 1960 may have been written by authors other than [Alan Geoffrey] Yates.

   This doesn’t entirely agree with the rumors I’ve heard, which have suggested that it was the later ones that Yates may not have written. (His books began to appear in the US in 1957 or 1958, then continued until 1984 or so. Yates died in 1985.)

   See the comments for more.

TONY DUNBAR – The Crime Czar.

Dell, paperback original; first printing, November 1998.

   My first reaction, when starting to read this fifth recorded New Orleans adventure of only slightly sleazy attorney Tubby Dubonnet, is that it takes place before hurricane Katrina came along. What a sorrowful scab on this country’s face that city is now. There’s a lot of atmosphere in this book, more or less a continuation of the preceding one, and I’ll get back to that aspect of it in a minute.

   The background of eccentric native inhabitants and local cuisine is combined with a hand-brewed melange of hoodlums, crooked politicians and judges, and the laissez faire approach to life of Tubby himself to produce a potpourri of wackiness and Southern charm. (Well, I concede that crooked politicians are not charming, nor is the occasional violence that rips its way into the tale that Tony Dunbar has to tell in The Crime Czar, but there you are.)

   The Tony Dunbar novels so far, as expanded upon from the listing in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. All take place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

         # Crooked Man. Putnam, hc, 1994. Berkley, pb, 1996

         # City of Beads. Putnam, hc, 1995. Berkley, pb, 1996.

         # Trick Question. Putnam, hc, 1996. Berkley, pb, 1997.
         # Shelter from the Storm. Putnam, hc, 1997. Berkley, pb,1998.
         # The Crime Czar. Dell, pb, 1998.
         # Lucky Man. Dell, pb, 1999.
         # Tubby Meets Katrina. NewSouth, hc, 2006.

   And of course I have a couple of comments. The story in The Crime Czar seems to pick up right after Shelter from the Storm ends, leaving some open, unanswered questions as it does so. It is strange, then, to see the series switch not only from hardcover to paperback in the transition, but from one publisher to another as well.

   The other obvious comment is that I did not know about this most recent book in the series until about five minutes ago, and I want to read it. Mr. Dunbar is obviously in love with the town where he lives – even with my having read only the one book in the series so far, I know this – and I need to know what he has felt and presumably still feels about the destruction (if not the rebuilding) of the city that was New Orleans.

   I’ve ordered it online today.

   As for The Crime Czar, as mentioned up above, the story reads like a Chapter Two, and I’m sure it would have helped to have read Shelter from The Storm before it. The ongoing crime-tinged saga that is Tubby Dubonnet’s life does not seem to come in pre-packaged segments. It is, instead, continuous.

   Tubby’s target in the book at hand: the man who seems to be behind all of the crooked wheelings and dealings in New Orleans, and for one instance in particular, the death of his friend Dan, left severely wounded in the earlier book.

   Add to the tale a hooker named Daisy, boiling mad at the death of her new boy friend; a gang of Vietnamese gunmen, aiming to avenge the shooting of three of their countrymen; and Marguerite, upon whom Tubby is sweet, and another leftover from the previous book, having managed to flee with a fortune in jewelry. Don’t ask. I didn’t, and the story still went down swell.

   It — the story — isn’t a major one, mind you. A minor caper, that is all. When one judge with his hand out goes down, another one pops up immediately. When one crooked cop is caught with his pants down, another one comes along with no delay. The fun is in the reading, though — a joyous, fun-loving affair for the most part, Big Easy style.

    NOTE:  No crawfish were harmed in the writing of this review.

MR. MOTO’S LAST WARNING. 20th Century-Fox, 1939. Peter Lorre, Ricardo Cortez, Virginia Field, John Carradine, George Sanders. Based on the character created by John P. Marquand. Screenwriters; Philip MacDonald and Norman Foster. Director: Norman Foster.

   I’m told that Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, the sixth of eight Mr. Moto films – see below – is the only one that’s in the public domain. This explains two things. First, why I was able to buy a copy on DVD at this evening’s local library sale for only $2.00, and secondly why I paid too much, as I discovered later: You can watch the entire movie for free online. Click here.

   Disclaimer: I have not watched the free version all the way through, but it appears that it’s the entire film that’s available.

   Here’s a complete list of the Mr. Moto films:

         * Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)
         * Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937)
         * Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1937)
         * Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938)
         * Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)
         * Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1939)
         * Danger Island (1939)
         * Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

   As you see Peter Lorre and 20th Century-Fox stopped making them well before the US became involved in World War II, a wisely-taken cautionary move, as by nationality, Mr. Moto was very definitely Japanese. By profession, he was a secret agent for the “International Police,” and since he was very proficient in either judo or ju jistsu (I imagine there’s a difference) his movies were a lot more action-oriented than either Mr. Chan’s or Mr. Wong’s.

   Exemplified quite well, thank you, by Mr. Moto’s Last Warning, in which any number of people are killed or very nearly so, including (surprisingly enough) some of the good guys, one in rather gruesome fashion. Because of a partially muffled sound track at the beginning, it took me a while to figure out what the story was about, but eventually all became clear, except for one question: what country were the bad guys (Cortez and Sanders, primarily) working for? Forthrightly, it is never stated.

   Scene: Port Said, Egypt. Plot: To create an incident involving the incoming French fleet that will break the bonds of friendship between France and England. Mr. Moto, working undercover as an antiques dealer, gets wind of the plans and sends out the warning that’s stated in the title.

   The movie is surprisingly well done. The actors are all pros at this sort of game, the script makes sense (not surprisingly, considering the hand of Philip MacDonald at the helm), and the comedic interludes are only a trifle overdone.

   For the most part, the story takes itself seriously. I especially liked the bad girl to good girl transformation of Virginia Field as Connie, lover of Fabian (Ricardo Cortez), the ventriloquist (yes) behind the entire scheme.

   That’s her in the lower right corner of the lobby card, the best I’ve been able to come up with. I’m also not sure how well the Peter Lorre image will come out. It looks not quite in focus to me, but it’s the best I can offer so far. Coming directly from the film, I think it should give you a better idea of how he appears in the movie, as compared to the DVD box or even the lobby card.

JOHN GARDNER – Understrike.

Corgi; UK paperback reprint, 1966. Hardcover editions: Muller, UK, 1965; Viking, US, 1965. US paperback reprint: Fawcett Crest d1126, 1968

   I didn’t purchase too many paperbacks at last weekend’s Windy City show, and only four pulp magazines. Most of the paperbacks I bought came from one dealer very early on, the lot consisting of British espionage thrillers from the 1960s and 70s and written by authors such as James Leasor, James Mayo, Colin Forbes, Alan Williams and so on, all of them pretty much hard to find in this country.

   The author most highly represented in this assortment was perhaps also the one most known in the US, John Gardner, his reputation here most likely based on the James Bond books he wrote in 1980s and early 90s. For a complete checklist of his novels and story collections, see Jim Doherty’s obituary for him here when he died in August 2007.

      Gardner’s earlier series character was a fellow by the name of Boysie Oakes, a most reluctant spy extraordinaire, and I’ll get back to him in a moment. First, however, here’s a chronological list of the novel length fiction that he appeared in:

BOYSIE OAKES – The Novels.

      o The Liquidator. Muller, 1964; Viking, 1964. US pb: Fawcett Crest d856, 1965.

      o Understrike. Muller, 1965; Viking, 1965. US pb: Crest, 1968.
      o Amber Nine. Muller. 1966; Viking, 1966. US pb: Crest R1173, 1968.
      o Madrigal. Muller, 1967; Viking, 1968. US pb: Berkley, 1969.
      o Founder Member. Muller, 1969. No US edition.
      o Traitor’s Exit. Muller, 1970. No US edition.
      o The Airline Pirates. Hodder, 1970; U.S. title: Air Apparent, Putnam, 1971. US pb: Berkley, 1973.
      o A Killer for a Song. Hodder, 1975. No US edition.

   The first of these was made into a film starring Rod Taylor as Boysie, and Jill St. John as his leading lady. The comments on IMDB are fairly positive, and in fact Variety says “Peter Yeldham’s screenplay and Jack Cardiff’s direction combine plenty of action and some crisp wisecracking,” but it doesn’t appear to be available on DVD. I’ll have to see if I can’t track down a copy, maybe on VHS.

   The gimmick in the Boysie Oakes books, as I alluded to earlier, is that as a spy, he’s supposedly inept, a coward who’s wracked with fear and stomach cramps at the thought of confronting the enemy, and a consummate womanizer. Or in other words, the direct opposite of Bond, save maybe the last category, although Bond usually stuck to one girl per book (didn’t he?). In Understrike, Oakes strikes up dalliances with two, neither being Elizabeth, his girl friend back home.

   It must be a British thing, the sense of humor that enjoys spoofs like this, as there never was a second movie, and many of the books never had US editions. I read The Liquidator, the first in the series, long ago, so I’m relying only on the book at hand, Understrike, and no, the book didn’t quite jell with me, either.

   Oakes is a pitiful creature on one page, then (sometimes accidentally) fully capable and in charge on the next. Not having read the first one in so long, it was also never clear to me how he became a secret agent in the first place. It doesn’t seem as though it would to be a position that he’d actively seek out. There’s a story there, obviously, but without it being told in this second tale, there’s something actively missing.

   Plot line: The Russian spy apparatus has created an exact double of Boysie, down to the fear and cowardice, as it turns out, with a switch planned to be made shortly before a demonstration of a new US submarine missile off the coast of San Diego, a show of rocket power that Boysie is traveling (under some duress) across country to attend and bear witness to.

   Much hilarity is intended to follow, which sounds more sarcastic than I mean to be, but it’s a dry hilarity, British-style, and I do not mean Benny Hill, even though one hugely fortuitous bedroom switch has a large role in the proceeding. Let’s put it this way. I smiled a lot, but I did not burst out loud in guffaws.

   One of the people I wanted to see at the Windy City pulp and paperback show this past weekend was Martin Grams, Jr., who with Mike Nevins, is the co-author of The Sound of Detection: Ellery Queen’s Adventures in Radio, which is in turn a revision of an earlier book from 1981 by Nevins and Ray Stanich.

   Martin’s just over 30 years old, but as a radio historian, he’s probably the best there’s ever been, already having 15 books on Old Time Radio (and TV) to his credit, including ones on Sam Spade, Inner Sanctum, Suspense, Gang Busters, and (upcoming) The Green Hornet.

   Besides the fact that he always has several tables filled with DVDs of old TV show at these affairs, to the dismay of my credit card balance, a major reason I wanted to see him was to ask him about this photo I used in Mike Nevins’ most recent column. It’s a photo of two of the stars of the Ellery Queen radio program. Mike didn’t know I was going to use it – I found it on the Internet somewhere – and neither he nor I could identify who either of them were.

   The CBS logo on the microphone helped narrow it down, but not enough to be sure. Martin would know, Mike said, and so he did, at least in part. Right there on the floor of the dealers’ room, Martin whipped out his laptop, fired up his Internet access, took a look at the image on my blog, and said, “That’s Hugh Marlowe, but I’m not sure who the woman is.” She’s the one who (presumably) played Nikki Porter, Ellery’s assistant on the radio shows. (She also appeared in some of the EQ novels and short stories, but not on the regular basis that she was in the radio shows.)

    “I think that it’s Marian Shockley, but I’m not positive,” said Martin, and he sent off some emails to some friends of his who might want to chip in on the question. In reply Jim Widner confirmed Hugh Marlowe, but again, he wasn’t positive about Marian Shockley. Which is where the question lies, at the moment, almost but not quite solved.

   But as long as we’re talking Ellery Queen here, I’ve found a copy of the Ellery Queen book that Mike was talking about in his column that brought about this question in the first place.

   It’s Chillers and Thrillers: A Book of Mystery Sketches. No editor is stated, but as you see, it was published in oblong softcover format by Street & Smith Publications. Prepared and distributed by the Special Services Division, A.S.F. [Army Service Forces], this is Volume XVIII in a series of “At Ease” paperbacks.

   The date as stated on the title page: 1945; it is a short 128 pages long.

   You can go back and re-read Mike’s column for his discussion of the contents, but since they don’t seem to be documented elsewhere, here’s a complete index. All of the plays are copyright 1945.

* 5 * Part One: “Quick As a Flash” series * introduction & instructions

* 7 * The Mysterious Mr. Harris * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Big Town D.A. Steve Wilson]

* 13 * The Rise and Fall of Rome * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Pamela North]

* 21 * The Man No One Believed * * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Charlie Chan]

* 29 * Murder in the Afternoon * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Dr. Ordway, the “Crime Doctor.”]

* 36 * Murder on the Houseboat * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Mr. and Mrs. North]

* 41 * The Mystery of the Horse Pistol * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Dr. Ordway, the “Crime Doctor.”]

* 47 * Part Two: “Solve a Mystery” series * introduction & instructions

* 51 * The Adventure of the Blue Chip * Ellery Queen * radio play [Ellery Queen]

* 72 * The Adventure of the Foul Tip * Ellery Queen * radio play [Ellery Queen]

* 90 * The Adventure of the Glass Ball * Ellery Queen * radio play [Ellery Queen]

* 108 * The Orderly Room Murder * Anonymous * radio play

* 121 * The Shadow That Walked * Eugene Wang & Harry Kleiner * radio play [Lamont Cranston / The Shadow]

Notes: (1) Quick As a Flash was a radio quiz program on Mutual running on Sundays and later Saturdays from July 16, 1944 to December 17, 1949. As a portion of contest between various contestants, “a fully dramatized short mystery play provided the clues. These plays featured stars of popular detective series, performing as their well known characters.” (The link leads to a webpage listing all of the radio quiz programs hosted by Bill Cullen. Quick As a Flash was one of them.)

(2) On the Big Town radio program, Steve Wilson was not the D.A., but rather the crime-fighting editor of The Illustrated Press.

(3) Jerry North does not appear in the first of the two Mr. & Mrs. North plays.

[UPDATE.] 05-02-08. I received an email from Mark Murphy last night that seems to settle the Marian Shockley question:

   This Web page from eBay has what is apparently a picture of Ms. Shockley from Abie’s Irish Rose. See what you think.

   Some additional digging reveals that she was married to To Tell the Truth host Bud Collyer.

   Hope this helps.

            Mark Murphy

   >>>   And indeed it does. Thanks, Mark. Martin and I are in agreement that the women in the two photos are one and the same. The image is copyright protected, so I won’t show it here. And since it’s an eBay auction, it won’t appear on the Web forever. But it’s there now; take a look while you can.

PHANTOM LADY. Universal; 1944. Ella Raines, Franchot Tone, Alan Curtis, Elisha Cook Jr., Thomas Gomez, Fay Helm. Based on the novel by William Irish, aka Cornell Woolrich. Director: Robert Sidomak.

   You don’t go to pulp or paperback conventions to see movies, or at least I don’t, but I did this time. The recent Windy City show was great fun – well put on, with lots of people to talk to and hang around with for a few days – and one of the late night attractions was a showing of Phantom Lady, the pulp connection being rather obvious, since Woolrich’s writing career began in the pulp magazines.

   First published by Lippincott in 1942, it’s the second novel that Woolrich wrote that I remember reading, the first being Deadline at Dawn (Lippincott, 1944) also as by William Irish, and also made into a movie (RKO, 1946), one that I consider as being my favorite of all time.

   What’s strange, and I haven’t been able to explain it yet, is that I thought I remembered Phantom Lady as a movie, but if I saw it, and I’m sure I did, I didn’t remember it all that well.

   It was shown at the Windy City show in a two reel format, and while all was well during the first reel – everything came back to me, pretty much as I expected – but when the second reel began, I discovered that I didn’t remember any of it at all. A severe case of déjà vue in reverse, you might say. The second reel began, if I recall correctly, as Carol Richman (Ella Raines), trying to break the testimony of the witnesses who claim they never saw the woman who is her boss’s alibi, begins the long sequence in which she tries to vamp jazz drummer Cliff Milburn (Elisha Cook Jr.) into telling the truth.

   I’ve found some photos to go with this, as these are the scenes that everyone talks about when the movie comes up for discussion, and I’ll include some of them here. Not only that, but I’ve found the entire sequence on YouTube. Here’s the link. (I’ve never been able to insert videos into this blog, but maybe it’s time to try again.)

   I’m of two minds about this portion of the movie, and the larger part of me wants to tell you that I think it’s silly and overdone. (I assume that you’ve gone to see for yourself and have made up your own mind.) And that may be the reason I don’t remember ever seeing it before last Friday night. Or maybe I never saw the movie before at all, and I just thought I had. It is an eerie feeling, and I can’t explain it.

   You probably know the story, and let me sort of start over and get back to that. A man, Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), who (as it turns out) has had an argument with his wife, shows up at a bar and offers to take a sad-looking lady her meets there to a Broadway musical. He has two tickets, but no one to go with. She accepts, but only on a “no names” basis.

   He drops her off after the show, goes home, and finds three cops waiting for him, with his wife dead in the bedroom. His alibi? The phantom lady, the one with the hat, the lady that no one remembers ever seeing. One of the only ones who believes him is his secretary-assistant, Carol “Kansas” Richmond.

   Pure nightmare, and pure noir. If I remember correctly, the first reel ended with Carol stalking the bartender through the darkened Manhattan streets, beginning with her first giving him the long silent treatment at the far end of the bar, then up to a elevated train station, and down again to a street farther downtown where she finally confronts him. It is, of course, the skilled black-and-white photography that makes this work, portraying a world of dark shadows and the feeling of helplessness in fine fashion.

   What doesn’t work in this movie, to my mind, are the gaping holes in the plot – there are so many I couldn’t begin to list them all, and I probably shouldn’t anyway – and the fact that the true killer is revealed too soon. I’m not sure if this is true in the book or not, as once again I have not read it in well over 50 years, but a lot of the puzzle is immediately swept away in the movie version. The only question left is how is he to be caught, and of course, he is. (I don’t believe I am giving anything away here.)

   In the credits, Franchot Tone’s name is listed first, but since he doesn’t show up until the movie’s well over half over, I’ve switched his name above with Ella Raines, a dark brooding brunette (in this movie, at least). This was only her third film, and she’s the star attraction, all the way. For whatever reason, roles in future flicks seemed to come few and far between, a waste of good talent, as far as I can see.

   Alan Curtis is fine enough as the accused killer, an engineer with designs of helping mankind, but in all truthfulness, he seems far too resigned to his fate, nor does he realize how much his secretary is secretly in love with him. A true cipher, but the scenes in the jail between the two of them are beautifully done.

   Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times seems to sum up all of the negative things I also might tell you about myself. He deserves credit for pointing the atmospheric effects, but how was he to know that later on this would be considered by many to be one of the gems of early film noir?

   It is, but I have to warn you, I think he’s still largely right. This movie is a diamond in the rough, one designed for a small (or even large) sense of suspended disbelief. I still think Deadline at Dawn is the better film, but after the showing in Windy City, I seemed to be alone in that belief. I’ll have to watch it again, but do you know what? I’m almost afraid to.

FOOTNOTE: The phantom lady’s name is Miss Terry. How appropriate is that?

   I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve jammed the last five posts into a span of two days. Ordinarily they’d have been spread out over a week or more, but by the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Chicago and the Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention.

   And I won’t be back until Sunday, with my satchels full of books and magazines and my checkbook empty. Heck, if I plan it right, my checkbook will be empty several hours before the doors to the dealers’ room is open on Friday. It isn’t hard to do at all, especially when you’re traveling in economy mode, as I will.

   Some of you I will see there, I am sure. If not, so long until next week.