HUGH McLEAVE – Second Time Around. Walker, US, hardcover, 1981; paperback, 1984. First published in the UK by Robert Hale, hardcover, 1981.

   According to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, five of Hugh McLeave’s works of thriller fiction (one as by Richard Copeland) feature as their leading protagonist, free-wheeling psychologist Dr. Gregor Maclean, who, as a leading character in Second Time Around, takes on what is very nearly a secondary role.

   On the other hand, a psychologist is exactly who is needed at the center of this Cold War tale about a reputable London publisher who on occasion checks into various clinics with no memory of who he is or why he is having such terrible dreams.

   Maclean becomes interested when Dr. Armitage, a close acquaintance who was treating the man, gets run down by an automobile after confiding his concerns to Maclean, but in the stark, documentary-like style of writing that McLeave employs, Maclean seems to exhibit no great anguish over Armitage’s death – only the delight of tackling the puzzle it seems to supply.

   Here’s a longish quote from pages 32-33 to illustrate. Deidre is Maclean’s long-suffering live-in assistant:

   The case – and yes, he certainly does decide to get involved – takes Maclean, Deidre, the publisher’s daughter, and a male friend of the daughter, not to mention at least one other – on a hastily arranged trip to Germany, both East and West, on the trail of the man whose memory is either coming back — and if so, from what hidden past? Or he is cracking up completely and probably responsible for the deaths of several prostitutes who reminded him of whom?

   Second Time Around verges very closely into science fictional territory, mixed in with a considerable amount of bitter cold war philosophy. But is the basis of the book based entirely on fiction? Very likely not.

   Nor is this a book which is like anything I have ever read before. It is clear more quickly to the reader what the underlying circumstances are (which I am being so careful not to tell you about) than they are to Maclean. This may be an error, perhaps, on the author’s part, because the tale starts to plod a little, about two-thirds of the way through.

   After reading this book I still prefer the more solid espionage efforts of Ross Thomas and Manning Coles, two writers who otherwise have little in common – or do they? – but I have to admit that, one, McLeave still has a small surprise or two up his sleeve, and, two, this very well may be one of the saddest love stories ever written. Is that enough for a recommendation? Either way, it will have to do.

TALMAGE POWELL – With a Madman Behind Me. Permabook M-4233, paperback original, 1961.

   Whenever I see a nice-looking paperback original mystery under 50 cents I pick it up whether I know anything about the author or not, and Talmage Powell’s With a Madman Behind Me turned out to be a readable blend of the preposterous and the pretentious. No classic, maybe, but I didn’t throw it across the room, either.

   It opens with PI Ed Rivers looking out his window one hot Tampa night to see a woman in an apartment across the way waving for help. He gets to her place just in time to:

    a) See her killed

    b) Learn the identity of her killer

    c) Get a clue that will bust open a devious plot to flood America with (gasp!) pornography

    d) Get knocked out, tied up and dumped in Tampa Bay.

   That’s the Preposterous part. The Pretentious comes right on the heels of this, when everyone starts talking like freshman sociology students: as when a Homicide cop describes a dead hooker:

   And a few pages later Ed Rivers confronts a witness and describes her:

   It turns out even the bad guys talk this way, as a Porn kingpin tells Ed:

   Now I ain’t narrow-thinking, but a man gets tired of that kind of talk all the time. And there’s plenty more of it here. It’s as if author Talmage Powell read a Travis McGee book and never got over it.

   On the plus side, however, Powell handles the action scenes well enough, moves the predictable plot along swiftly, and does not — as some authors do — deplore the art of pornography, then proceed to fill his book with sex. There’s even a sort-of pay-off for all the over-analyzing, as the book wraps up with a thoughtful twist on an old plot.

   It’s not enough to save Madman from utter forgetabilty, but it does provide a readable time-waster for those who miss the old days of paperback crime.

      The Ed Rivers series —

The Killer Is Mine (1959)

The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer (1960)

With a Madman Behind Me (1961)
Start Screaming Murder (1962)
Corpus Delectable (1964)

TREASURE ISLAND. National General Pictures, US, 1972. Filmed in Spain with a Spanish crew. Orson Welles, Kim Burfield, Lionel Stander, Walter Slezak, Ángel del Pozo, Rik Battaglia. Directors: Andrea Bianchi (as Andrew White), John Hough (English language version), Antonio Margheriti.

   I had somewhat high hopes for Treasure Island, but I probably should have known better. It’s probably one of Orson Welles’ least known films and it’s most certainty that way for a reason. Produced by Harry Alan Towers, this somewhat genial, but ultimately unsatisfying adventure yarn based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel features the legendary Welles as Long John Silver.

   Welles, whose pirate voice may or may not have been dubbed by another actor, grunts and slurs his way through this plodding affair. Even Walter Slezak, who ordinarily is a standout actor, falls somewhat flat – pun intended, if you’ve seen the movie – as Squire Trelawney.

   Young actor Kim Burfield, who portrays Jim Hawkins, is somewhat more of a presence, portraying the narrator/protagonist with wide- eyed charm and glee. Jim’s sense of wonder and excitement is, at the end of the day, what propels this somewhat tired affair. But to no avail. Overall, the movie leaves the viewer with the distinct impression that at another time, with another director, Welles really could have thrived and shined as the legendary fictional pirate cook.

From the LP Banned in Boston:

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD “The Camp of the Dog.” Reprinted in The Complete John Silence Stories, edited by S. T. Joshi (Dover, 1997). First published in John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (Nash, UK, 1908). Available online here.

   I’ve never been a big fan of occult detective fiction. It’s always seemed to be a contradiction in terms to me. But from the little in the field I’ve read, this one I think is one of the better ones.

   I know little about John Silence, except by reputation as the “Psychic Doctor,” and his name, which is an absolutely perfect one for someone in his profession. He doesn’t show up until somewhere around the halfway point in “The Camp of the Dog,” a novella nearly 60 pages long, but at the beginning he serves full notice to Hubbard, his personal secretary and often companion in his adventures into the world of the supernatural, that he will be available on a moment’s notice, if needed.

   Hubbard’s destination: a deserted island in the Baltic, together with a married couple, their daughter, and Peter Sangree, a young man who is the other man’s pupil and who is infatuated with the daughter, but only at a distance. At first all is well, but by a clever means and ability with words I do not yet understand, Blackwood gradually makes the reader know that something is amiss in this otherwise idyllic paradise.

   Something sinister is growing and about to happen. There is no animal life on the islands, but then howling in the night is heard, then footprints around their tents at night, then abortive attacks again at night from something that seems to be a large ferocious dog. When Silence is at last called upon, he is able to be there the next day.

   And of course Silence knows what is going on immediately. There is no detective work involved on the part of anyone, but the first half of the story — a long, slow evocative buildup to the eventual revelation to the horror that awaits — is both creepy and chilling. The vacationers are not trapped on the island, but the isolation it does provide adds immensely to the sense of dread that Blackwood is able to produce.

   I think readers today would be impatient with the pace, and would want the events on the island to happen more quickly and be a lot more gruesome. I don’t think the second half of the story is as effective as the first, as Silence immediately puts into action a plan to stop the menace without causing either physical or psychic harm to anyone on the island.

WENZELL BROWN – The Rum and Coca-Cola Murders. Saint Mystery Library #14 [131], paperback original, 1960.

   For reasons unexplained, Prof. Peter Aswell, expert on Maine folkways, is given a grant to study “the history and background” of Calypso. When he arrives in Trinidad with his agent, they find in one of their rooms a dead man who had been masquerading as Aswell. The man had been poisoned by bitter Cassava, part of the Obeah-Trinidadian black magic-death charm.

   In between meeting such Calypso Singers as the Lord Deceiver, the Lord Agitator, and the Duke of Manchester, Aswell investigates the first and later deaths.

   An interesting introduction by Leslie Charteris on Calypso and the information in Brown’s short novel about that type of music are the only reasons for reading this book.

Bibliographic Notes:   Bill failed to mention at the time that the book contains a bonus short story: “Calypsonian,” by Samuel Selvon, a reprint from The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1957. As for Professor Aswell, he was the featured detective in one earlier book, Murder Seeks an Agent, a digest-sized paperback original (Green/Five Star #6, 1945) and reprinted later as Saint Mystery Library #10 [127] (1959).

   Also, if anyone is interested, there is a long article online about The Saint Mystery Library, along with a complete bibliography. This one by Wenzell Brown was the last in the series. You can check it out here.

MIDNIGHT. Universal Pictures, 1934. Re-released as Call It Murder. Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Fox, O. P. Heggie, Henry Hull, Margaret Whycherly, Lynne Overman (as Lynn Overman), Richard Whorf, Helen Flint, Henry O’Neill, Moffatt Johnston (as Moffatt Johnson). Screenplay by Paul and Claire Sifton based on their play. Director: Chester Erskine (as Chester Erskin (also uncredited on the screenplay).

   Copies of this film available today credit Humphrey Bogart as the star, but that seems to have been unlikely in the 1934 release. Had he been top billed in this one, his career would likely have taken more than a mere six more years to take off. This film isn’t kind to anyone. I suspect it is no accident three people spelled their names differently than normal in the credits. I wouldn’t want this dog on my resume either.

   Most annoying of all the many things annoying about this film is the arty way it is shot, with too much use of the subjective camera, long speeches by actors looking directly into the camera, and tricky shots that only serve to emphasize just how silly and overdone the plot really is. The handful that do work even halfway just remind you how bad the rest of the film is.

   O. P. Heggie plays self righteous Edward Wheldon, who, as foreman of the jury in the trial of Ethel Saxton (Helen Flint), persuades the jury to convict her of first degree murder. Come the night of the execution, he is scheduled to listen to a live special broadcast of the event on his home radio and crowds have gathered outside his front door, so the tension is starting to wear on him and his absolute certainty of the law and everything else.

   Meanwhile his children Stella (Sidney Fox) and Arthur (Richard Whorf) feel the pressure and have no desire to stay home and listen as a woman, whose condemnation to death is dubious at best, dies. Nolan (Henry Hull) is a reporter who wants an exclusive inside the home during the broadcast, who uses brother in law Joe Biggers (Lynne Overman) as his ticket inside, and who twists the knife once in.

   Tension or not, when Saxton’s lawyer (Henry O’Neill) shows up hoping to get something out of Wheldon that could lead to a stay, he only gets another self-righteous letter of the law speech.

   Humphrey Bogart is Gar, a young man who Stella met at the trial the day Ethel Saxton was convicted. Gar is a dubious character attracted to Ethel who knows he is no good for her or her for him and is leaving for Chicago the night of the execution to work as a collector for the mob, but he plans to see Stella one more time after making a last local collection. Let’s just say he is exactly the type you would expect to be named Gar.

   As the execution nears. Wheldon breaks under the pressure, and only after a self-serving speech about upholding the letter of the law he makes to the public on his doorstep, does he find out that at the moment of the execution Stella was down the street in Gar’s flashy sports car and shot him.

   Exit Humphrey Bogart a bit over forty six minutes into an 87 minute film without so much as a death scene.

   Nolan finds the body, puts two and two together, and calls in District Attorney Plunkett (Moffatt Johnston). At this point things become murky, because it is never really clear whether the DA actually thinks Stella didn’t shoot Bogart and confessed only because of pressure over the execution or is trying to prevent another miscarriage of justice by letting her off.

   Like almost everything else about this film, the murk is unrelieved by the over-acting and the peculiar way the film is shot. If the DA is letting off the self-righteous Wheldon and his hysterical daughter — who freaked out so much she shot a man who was not harming her in any way — the decision is just bizarre. In either case the explanation he gives for his decision is pure gibberish, even by the lax standards of melodrama, and the cheapest kind of pop psychology.

   I suppose there is some attempt to make this seem more like a stage play with the actors all walking center front to make their speeches, and some may be impressed with the camera work and the attempts to provide some style to the proceedings, but for me it just makes the film ponderous, artificial, and melodramatic in the worst way.

   It doesn’t help that Hull and Overman are the only two actors the bit least comfortable on screen — you get the feeling Bogart knew this wasn’t going to do his career any favors and he seems properly chagrined to be in it — or that Moffatt Johnston — who plays sleuth and gets to dominate most of the final fifteen minutes of the film — has a heavy accent and all the screen charisma of a rock as he delivers the nonsensical explanation of the crime and its solution.

   I will give minimal credit to one shot of a policeman standing guard in front of Wheldon’s house as the camera moves close in on his badge, only to pull back, revealing the policeman standing guard in front of Ethel Saxton’s cell as she breaks down, though it falls into the even a broken clock is right twice a day category. That, and the execution itself are well handled.

   This film wasn’t released into the public domain; more likely no one wanted to claim it. It is more like something unpleasant that won’t die because Humphrey Bogart is in it.

   There is one touch of irony. At film’s end Hull steps outside in the dark, puts on his fedora, and lights a cigarette briefly illuminating his face. It is the kind of scene that will become iconic of Bogart for much of his career, but even silent films can’t be saved by a couple of interesting camera set ups, and this one is not. Not even a film student or an academic trying to make a career in film criticism by finding a gem among the dreck could make anything but a wreck out of this.

TERROR BENEATH THE SEA. Toei Company, Japan, 1966. Original title: Kaitei daisensô. Sonny Chiba, Peggy Neal, Frank Gruber, Steve Queens, Andre Husse. Director: Hajime Satô.

   Terror Beneath the Sea might not be a good movie per se, but it’s sure as heck an enjoyable one to watch. Directed by Hajime Sato, this alternatingly hip and schlocky 1960s movie features Sonny Chiba in an early screen role.

   Chiba portrays a reporter who, along with his female colleague (Peggy Neal) happens upon a mad scientist’s plan to create a master race of aquatic cyborg men! There are not a lot of martial arts on display, but there are some bizarre creatures with spear guns. That’s got to count for something.

   Comparable in visual style to both Edgar Ulmer’s Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) that I reviewed here, and Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), Sato’s movie works better as spectacle than as a story. Indeed, the plot doesn’t have all that much depth. But that’s easily forgotten when one sits back and appreciates the director’s skillful use of colors, lighting, and an electronic, jazzy score to heighten the atmospheric mood of a monster movie that isn’t so much frightening as it is entertaining.

KILLSHOT. Weinstein Co., 2008. Mickey Rourke, Thomas Jane, Diane Lane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson. Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard. Director: John Madden.

   I won’t go into the problems this movie had in being made. If you’re interested, you can read about them on the Internet. I will point out that the movie was “finished” in January 2006, according to IMDb, but not released until 2008, and then it was essentially Direct-to-DVD, with only a tiny theatrical opening as a trial run, which must have flopped.

   I also won’t (or can’t) compare it to Elmore Leonard’s novel, because, well, I haven’t read it. I think he’s a good writer, but his plots — mostly about hinky things going wrong when lowlife criminals think they’re masterminds — generally don’t interest me, and the characters, including innocent bystanders (more or less) who get caught up in the plots, even less. Usually. There are exceptions.

   As far as I’ve been able to tell, this movie follows the book all the way through. Except for maybe the ending. I haven’t read any reviews of the book that describe the ending, which in the movie is rather lame, as happy endings in crime films usually are.

   Mickey Rourke plays the main character, a stoic but quite competent hit man for hire named Armand Degas, nicknamed ‘Blackbird’ because of his Native American background and heritage. What makes him a success at what he does is that he always makes sure there are no witnesses. In Killshot, though, he hooks up with a psychopathic looney named Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is totally off-the-wall and prone to both braggadocio and catastrophic error in close to equal proportion.

   In any case, here they mess up on one of their ventures and are seen by a married couple (Diane Lane and Thomas Jane), who, even though they are on the verge of divorcing, are forced to go into a witness protection as a married couple.

   There is a lot of plot involved in this movie, and even so, it leaves out the part about the federal marshal who stalks Mrs Colson once they’re ensconced in their new town and identities. Maybe this little sidebar could have been worked in. The movie is only 90 minutes long, plus or minus two or three. I think it flows fairly nicely, though, but with a story such as this, you really would think (as I think back about it) that there’d be a lot more suspense in it than there is.

   One surprise comes before the end, however, and I obviously can’t tell you about it, but one does wonder why the particular event I’m talking about took as long to happen as it did.

   I think it’s better than the ending, too, but following the rule that all reviewers must follow, I can’t tell you about that, either. See the little bit about it I said above, however.