PHILIP WYLIE – The Savage Gentleman. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1932. Dell #85, paperback, 1945. Avon #390, paperback, 1952. University of Nebraska Press, softcover, 2011.

   Betrayed by his wife, newspaper magnate Stephen Stone takes his small son Henry and with his trusted companion Jack, a giant black man, and with the Scotsman McCobb travels to a savage paradise where he runs his yacht the Falcon aground. “Suddenly I remembered this island … I knew then that my son was going to be brought up without the influence of women. Without the knowledge of women they imbue in men.”

   So the small group of men carve a world on the island and young Henry grows into manhood, a copper haired bronzed giant, perfect in mind and body, but a savage as far as the outer world goes. Eventually Stephen repents of his anger and madness and tries to make it up to Jack (respectfully written for the era, but unfortunately a sacrificial figure, a trope still too common), McCobb, and especially Henry, but dies before he can guide Henry’s entry into civilization. While he will be fabulously rich in the real world, is Henry ready for the modern world and is the modern world ready for Henry Stone, the savage gentleman?

   Henry is none the less a superman in body and mind save for his one weakness, he is completely guileless when it comes to women, which is why when Henry meets Marian Whitney the daughter of his father’s attorney and oldest friend Elihu Whitney Henry is knocked for a loop.

   Henry isn’t just love struck, he practically has a stroke. It doesn’t help that the first thing Marian does is to enter the room laughing at the newspaper story about the recently rescued Henry Stone, a savage who probably will have to be locked up in the zoo.

   If that all sounds vaguely familiar it must be pointed out that even Lester Dent admitted he had read Wylie’s Savage Gentleman. Henry may not trill when he’s thinking or be a polymath in all subjects, and he doesn’t have an Arctic fortress or five of the most brilliant men in the country as an entourage, but he is that favorite figure of the Twenties, the superman, and somewhere between Tarzan and John Galt, he hits New York by storm.

   Of course Philip Wylie was an old hand at this. Science fiction pioneer, pulpster, sophisticated writer of stories for the slicks, literary maven, humorist, early environmentalist, philosopher, and gadfly, his career encompassed classics in all those genres.

   Even the most shallow of overviews of his career include Gladiator which inspired Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to create Superman, When Worlds Collide, which inspired Alex Raymond to create Flash Gordon (and its own strip Speed Spaudling), The Murderer Invisible (as much the inspiration of the Invisible Man films as H. G. Wells novel).  the Crunch and Des stories that helped influence John D. MacDonald to create Travis McGee, and works such as Finlay Wren, As They Reveled, Generation of Vipers, They Both Were Naked, Triumph,Tomorrow, and The Disappearance. He was a respected science fiction author, mystery writer, and literary figure all the while letting his mind and imagination range free where ever it lead him (often as not into controversy).

   Meanwhile Henry has returned to find his father’s newspaper has, under the guidance of corrupt newsman Voorhies, been commandeered by the forces of crime and corruption and of course Henry isn’t going to bother with the courts to take that on ending with a wild melee as Henry reclaims his legacy with fists flying amid a hail of gunfire.

   As a wounded Henry lies in his hospital bed at the end, Marian comes to tell him she loves him, and in scene that will be copied in a million variations in countless Hollywood newspaper movies to come…

   Just how this one avoided Hollywood I don’t know. You can practically see it as you read it as a Frank Capra film with Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur or Carole Lombard. The Savage Gentleman is a relatively short book, very much a pulp adventure tale, and more of interest as a yarn than philosophy, but that is all to the good, and there is no such think as superficial Wylie, his active mind at work in even the simplest of tales his eye every bit as savage as his hero.

STUART PALMER & CRAIG RICE “Once Upon a Train.” Hildegarde Withers & John J. Malone. First appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, October 1950. Original title or published later as “Loco Motive.” Collected in People vs. Withers & Malone (Simon & Schuster, 1953; Award paperback, 1965). Filmed as  Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone (MGM, 1950, with Marjorie Main as Harriet “Hattie” O’Malley and James Whitmore as John J. Malone).

   In Ellery Queen’s introduction to the collection of Withers-Malone stories, of which there were six, they say that this was the first known collaboration between two mystery writers on a tale in which their respective primary characters showed up to solve a case together. This could  very easily be true.

   When Malone, a somewhat disreputable Chicago lawyer finds that his most recent client, a city official accused of embezzling $30,000 from municipal funds, and a man he has just gotten off from  those charges, is on a train headed for New York City — and  without paying him — what is there to do rush to the station and board the very same train.

   Along with several other people crying for his scalp, as it is clear that the man’s innocence is still very much in doubt.  It is no wonder that his body is found at length very much dead. And in whose train compartment? None other than the horse-faced schoolteacher Miss Withers, whose accommodation adjoins Mr. Malone’s.. As they furiously move the body back and forth between their separate compartments as needed, which  is often,  they still manage to find time to solve the case together.

   Which case is one the screwballiest detective stories you can imagine, with a laugh or a chuckle every other paragraph, if not oftener.

   When they made a movie out of this, they had to change Miss Withers name to Mrs. O’Malley for copyright reasons, and no, Marjorie Main is not my idea of Miss Withers, either, but James Whitmore did passably well as Mr. Malone, if not better.

H. A. DeROSSO – .44 .  Lion #129, paperback original, 1953; Lion # 145, paperback, 1956. Leisure Books, paperback, 1998.

   Harland is a reluctant gunfighter. He got sucked into it without wanting to. He beat a famous gunslinger in a drunken pique, and his reputation grew and followed him. He only wanted to be a hired hand. But anytime he got hired these days it was because the rancher wanted him to shoot somebody. They’d say he was just another hand. But they’d lie.

   Finally he figured he might as well accept his fate. If he’s gonna have to gunfight, he might as well get paid for it.

   His first hired kill is a man named Lancaster. He tracks down the man, out beyond the range in the middle of no man’s land. Betwixt some craggy straggly chasm. Lancaster stops and waits.

   What are you following me for, asks Lancaster. I mean to kill you, Harland responds. You mean you were hired to kill me. Well go ahead and draw.

   And they draw. And Lancaster has him beat. Handily. No doubt. But he sadly smirks and doesn’t fire. And Harland does, his finger jerks, the bullet flies, and Lancaster dies. Smiling.

   Now Harland is wracked with regret. Why didn’t Lancaster fire? What was that sad smile about. What the hell is going on? So Harland he can’t let it go. He has to find out what was behind Lancaster’s desire to die.

   Harland turns detective trying to figure out why he was hired to kill Lancaster. Turns out Lancaster and a couple of other men made off with $100,000 in a train robbery. Then Lancaster screwed his partners and made off with the plunder.

   But the partners don’t want Lancaster dead — at least not until they get their grubby hands on the loot. So who was it then? Who is it that wants Lancaster dead, that already has their hands on the money, that made a gunfighter give up the ghost?

   Harland can’t stop til he finds out, meanwhile falling in love with Lancaster’s widow. A woman who all the men fall for and long to protect.

   Til death do they part.

         ——-

   If this were a straight urban crime novel, it’d be riddled with clichés. But as it is, it takes a typical noir and marries it seamlessly with the typical western. Perfectly, paradigmatically. It shows the way. Typical noir + typical western = atypical masterpiece. Like a bulgogi burrito.

   If anyone ever wondered if western noir was a thing, this is it.

   If it sounds like your bag, it surely is. And if it don’t, it ain’t.

HEC RAMSEY “The Century Turns.” NBC, 08 October 1972 (Season One, Episode One). Richard Boone, Rick Lenz, Sharon Acker, Harry Morgan. Guest star: R. G. Armstrong. Screenwriter: Harold Jack Bloom. Directors: Daniel Petrie, Charles Ziarko (uncredited). Most of the series is available on YouTube.

   First broadcast in 1972, Hec Ramsey was part of the NBC Mystery Movie, a “wheel” series format, starring Richard Boone in the title role for ten episodes over two seasons, in a part that might have had viewers thinking that Ramsey was the lawman Paladin might have become when he got older. (I have read that this was denied by people involved in producing the series, but I’m sure they didn’t mind the publicity it generated.)

   The premise behind itwas that the stories took place just after the turn of the century, with Ramsey showing up to be the new deputy for the police chief of a small town in Oklahoma after a long career of fighting outlaws with a badge and a gun. What takes the townsfolk by surprise, however, is that the aging Ramsey has learned new tricks: fingerprinting, ballistics and taking plaster casts of horseshoe prints at the scene of the crime.

   In this, the pilot episode, he uses all three to catch a gang of outlaws who held up the stage he was riding in on his way into town, and to solve a pair of murders first thought to be a murder-suicide. It’s all told in a light-hearted way, beginning with the instant antagonism between Ramsey and his new boss, later giving way to mutual respect.

   Western action fans need not have been worried. There’s a very good shootout at the en of the show as well. There is even a hint of romance between Ramsey and Sharon Acker’s character, but if so, it was decided early on not to have the show go in that direction. (She appeared in only one later episode.)

   Richard Boone was in his late 50s at the time, but he was in fine form as always in playing the gruff, rumpled, non-compromising Hec Ramsey, never one to take fools seriously.

   I somehow missed seeing any of the series at the time. What was I thinking? I enjoyed this one. Highly recommended!

THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE. RKO Radio Pictures, 1947. Lawrence Tierney, Ted North, Nan Leslie, Betty Lawford. Based on the novel (McBride, hardcover, 1938) by co-screenwriter Robert C. duSoe. Director: Felix E. Feist.

   A traveling salesman, a happy-go-lucky sort of guy, with a good job and a wife waiting home for him, makes a serious mistake. He picks up a guy thumbing a ride. They then pick up two girls who are hoofing their way to Hollywood, then stop and have a party.

   A deadly one. Lawrence Tierney is perfect in the role of a killer on the run.With his cold and shifty eyes, he was made for the part. Everybody is fine in their roles, even the minor ones. I even recognized the voice of Arthur Q. Bryan as a local cop. (Among others, he played the role of Fibber McGee’s friend Doc Gamble on the radio.)

PATRICK KELLEY – Sleightly Invisible. Harry Calderwood #3. Avon, paperback original, 1986.

   Another mystery with magic involved (*) – Kelley’s detective (this is his third adventure) is a magician named Harry Calderwood. Harry was once a big name, on TV and all, but he is now doing street corners. I don’t know why. Maybe I should read the earlier books.

   But maybe I won’t, since I found this one rather disappointing. It involves a missing coed that Harry is forced into finding. Harry has a glib tongue, but his attempts at humor seem to miss tw7o times out of three.  The mystery he solves also needs some work.

   
      ____

(*) I was referring here to the book The Wealth Seekers, the Shadow paperback by Maxwell Grant reviewed a few days ago on this blog.

      The Harry Calderwood series —

Sleightly Murder. Avon 1985.
Sleightly Lethal. Avon 1986.
Sleightly Invisible. Avon 1986
Sleightly Deceived. Avon 1987.
Sleightly Guilty. Avon 1988.

ANDERS BODELSEN – Think of a Number. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1969. No paperback edition.

THE SILENT PARTNER. Carolco Pictures [Canada] 1978. With Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Céline Lomez, and John Candy. Screenplay and co-directed by Curtis Hanson. Directed by Daryl Duke.

   A disappointing book turned into an intriguing film.

   THINK OF A NUMBER starts out with a neat little hook and develops it with some skill and suspense. Bork, a meek bank teller with a thoughtful streak, perceives hints that someone plans to rob his bank – probably his own station—during the busy Christmas Season, and decides to get in on the act himself.

   Bork makes a practice of hiding away large sums of cash, and when the robber strikes, he gets away with a few thousand Kroener while Bork carries off a few hundred thousand. And so crime pays…

   Until the robber decides to go after Bork’s share.

   What follows is a battle of wits between Bork and the Bad Guy, complicated by the appearance of a Mystery Lady who may be a key piece in the game. But what makes it readable is that the wits involved are genuinely sharp, with Bork somehow keeping one jump ahead of the others, even as they out-think him.

   Unfortunately, author Bodelson seems to have mapped out his ending without considering the characters, because in the last third of NUMBER, everybody gets stupid. And I mean Everybody: Bork, the mystery gal, the robber, even a cop on their tail… all of them, after being sharp-witted for so long, suddenly commit the most obvious and unforgivable mistakes imaginable. And I say “imaginable” because what we have here is clearly a case of a writer shepherding his characters to a tidy ending that reads like the author himself descended from on high to personally arrange it.

   So when our neighbors to the North made this into the movie SILENT PARTNER, they wisely opted for a more convincing resolution, one that is rich in irony, yet seems to rise naturally from the characters. And it may be the casting, but those characters, as played by Elliott Gould, Susannah York and a nasty-nasty Christopher Plummer, seem more rounded and interesting than the predestined losers of Bodelson’s novel.

   I should add that there’s some surprisingly graphic violence here, mostly directed at women, but it helps that PARTNER is directed at a brisk pace, acted with enthusiasm, and written with an air of spontaneity that breathes freshness into every scene. This is a film not to be missed by lovers of tricky caper flicks who want to see a few new wrinkles in the celluloid fabric.
   

WILLIAM L. STUART – The Dead Lie Still. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1945.

   This is the period between May and September 1945. The war’s still going on with Japan. But Germany has surrendered.

   Sam Talbot served his time in the war. In naval intelligence. Now a civilian, Talbot’s a successful commercial artist. And part-time sketch artist for the cops.

   It’s raining. He’s hanging out in a New York city bar. Drinking alone. A scotch and soda.

   A drunken, raven haired poetess in a crimson dress plunks herself across from him. “I am Ariadne … abandoned by her lover. So the gods promised she should marry a god. They picked Bacchus.”

   A handsome, nattily attired man, fedora obscuring his eyes, appears to be staring at him from the bar.

   Are you looking at me?

   Are you Sam Talbot?

   I am.

   I’m from the FBI. I’d like you to meet with me about something.

   How about tomorrow morning?

Writes Talbot’s number in his notebook next to a man named Dema.

   Fine I’ll see you then.

   I thought Dema was dead.

   Let’s hope so.

   A beautiful, ash-blonde comes in from the rain. Stares at the man in the hat. Then walks out.

   The G-man follows.

   More drunken patter with the poetess.

   An explosion outside. A burning gas truck.

   A driver is trapped.

   Talbot takes some sodden newspaper. He tries to wrest the handle open. It scorches his hand. The door is locked. He gets a quick look at the driver. The truck explodes. Talbot’s thrown clear, but hurt.

   He wakes with a doctor. And the poetess.

   And now the mob is after him.

   And the G-man’s gone missing.

   The G-man had been working alone. He didn’t know how high the infiltration infested. He didn’t know who he could trust.

   He’d suspected a Japanese cell working with a local mafioso: Dema. They’ve been targeting war-time American military scientists for assassination. With success.

   Dema had been mostly blown away. But he still has most of his face, and most of his larynx, and all of his whispered orders from the wooden box where his remains remain command a cadre of killers. And a committed wife. Beautiful. With ash-blond hair.

   So there’s the setup. And Talbot may have seen something he shouldn’t have when he saw the driver in the burning truck.

   A small time crook was ID’d as the deceased. But it may have been somebody else.

   The cops have no interest. And the feds say it’s not surprising the G-man can’t be found. He goes away for weeks.

   So Talbot’s on his own. And it’s up to him to track down Dema and the G-man. Before our time runs out.

         ———————————

   It’s a well-told, fast paced, terse and tough novel where international espionage turns private citizen into private detective to save himself and his country in times of war. The tight compelling vernacular is further proof that great mid-century American hardboiled lit wasn’t just the happenstance of a great writer or two coming along with an original aesthetic. The streamlined zeitgeist of the American hardboiled era comprises an art movement of literature, film and technological form that constitutes a high point of American culture.

   Another review of the novel here.

HARRY HARRISON – The Time-Machined Saga. Serialized in Analog SF, March-May, 1967. Published in book form as The Technicolor® Time Machine (Doubleday, hardcover, 1967; Berkley, paperback, 1968).

   A movie company finances the construction of an inventor’s time machine, they choose only to make another filmed epic. This time with authentic background, however, with certain alterations in the Hollywood tradition.

   Going back to the 11th century, they turn their cameras on the historic Viking expedition to North America. But it is their efforts in promoting the recreated voyage that produces the original – a neat circle in time.

   Beginning almost as slapstick, the story gradually settles down to a gentle tongue-in-cheek adventure in time, with nothing else to recommend it. The ending is obvious; something else is hoped for. Actually enjoyable once expectation are lowered.

Rating: ***½

EARL DERR BIGGERS – Behind That Curtain. Charlie Chan #3. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1928. Reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback. Films: Fox, 1929; Fox, 1932, as Charlie Chan’s Chance.

   This one  begins almost immediately after the previous book in the series ended (The Chinese Parrot, 1926). It finds Sergeant Chan of the Honolulu Police still in San Francisco after aiding the police there conclude a case they needed his assistance for. Charlie is anxious to get back home again, as he is about to become a father again – for the eleventh time.

   But as things happen in detective mysteries such as this one, fate conspires against him, and he finds himself caught up in helping solve the murder of a retired Scotland Yard detective at a dinner party at which both he and Charlie were honored guests. Although retired, as it turns out, the dead man was still working on a case he had never solved – that of a young married woman who had completely and mysteriously disappeared  after a picnic party in faraway India many years earlier.

   Was he closing in on a solution? Apparently so, and he had also apparently baited a trap for someone whose secret that person did not want revealed.

   There is no shortage of suspects, including a world famous explorer, any number of female characters,, one of whom may even be the missing woman, and of course, a butler whose past he has managed to keep hidden until now. That all of these people have connections with Sir Frederic’s case is amazing but not (as it turns out) purely coincidental.

   Working against a self-imposed deadline to return home, and confronted by a homicide detective who, quite naturally, resents any kind of assistance or other threat to his authority, Charlie works quietly and efficiently to bring all of the threads of the plot successfully together. Or at least so it appears: the plot is supremely complicated in a most exquisitely excellent fashion.

   Add in a female assistant district attorney, almost unheard  of at the time,  a bit of 1920s romance, and a charming Chinese detective who continually speaks in the way of all the actors who ever played him in the movies did, and what you get is a Grade A novel that’s been the most fun I’ve had all year in reading.

      ___

NOTE: Biggers wrote only six Charlie Chan novels before his relatively early death. Later on, two other authors have added two more to the total:

Charlie Chan Returns, by Dennis Lynds (1974)
   and
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, by Michael Avallone (1981)

   I’ve owned both over the years, but have not read either. Has anyone?