ERLE STANLEY GARDNER – The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece. William Morrow, hardcover, March 1936. Pocket 277, paperback, December 1944; 17th printing (shown to the right), July 1953. Reprinted several additional times, both hardcover and soft. TV episode: Perry Mason, 28 September 1957 (Season 1, Episode 2).

   Veteran and long-time readers of detective novels always know what’s going to happen when the lights go out at night in a large house full of guests and two individuals decide to change bedrooms at the last minute. Warning bells go off every time, don’t they? They should. It never fails.

   And when you have an uncle who’s been known to go sleepwalking before, carrying a large carving knife along with him, you also know exactly who’s going to be accused of the murder that occurs, don’t you? You needn’t answer. It’s a rhetorical question.

   This was a very early case for Perry Mason, either the eighth or ninth. (The Case of the Stuttering Bishop was published the same year, but if Niece was published in March, my money would be placed on it being the earlier of the two, making it the eighth.) The Mason persona changed over the years, the harder-boiled version gradually becoming softer over time. The novels being serialized in The Saturday Evening Post may have had much to do with it, with the process accelerating even more when the TV series with Raymond Burr came along.

   In Sleepwalker’s Niece Perry skates inside the boundaries of proper judicial behavior, and just barely. A key point in the murder is a question of timing. When was the murder knife in the locked cabinet when it should be and when it not there? Just to confuse matters a little, Perry buys an identical knife from a hardware dealer who just happens to be the fiancé of the secretary of the defendant, who also happened to be in the house the night of the murder.

   And Perry of course has the knife along with him when the case goes to trial. There is a lot more to the book than the murder, though. Besides nearly a dozen possible suspects, or so it seems, there is also a pending divorce action, a case of business fraud, a neurologist who says the defendant’s nervous affliction is phoney, plus wills, pre-nuptial agreements and more.

   It’s a complicated case, with all these ingredients in it, and it’s no wonder that from the bottom of page 201 to the top few lines of page 203 there is one solid chunk of text — a single paragraph without a break — which is what it takes for Perry to explain all the details to Della Street when the trial is over.

   From me to you as a would-be reader of this novel, the moral of the tale is to keep an eye on Perry every single instant. He has rabbits in a hat he can pull out at any time, and he brings his own hat.

   It might also be noted (so I will) that he and Della also have eyes on each other. It was fun to see Paul Drake pop into Perry’s office just in time to see Perry and his devoted secretary break away from each other after more than a peck on the cheek.

THE MOST DEADLY GAME. ABC / Aaron Spelling Productions. 10 October 1970 through 16 January 1971. Created by Mort Fine and David Friedkin. Executive Producer: Aaron Spelling. Cast: Ralph Bellamy as Mr. Arcane, George Maharis as Jonathan Croft and Yvette Mimieux as Vanessa Smith.

    “Murder is the most deadly game. These three criminologists play it.” The Most Deadly Game featured three criminologists working together to solve only the most unusual crimes.

    Before we get to the series itself, lets deal with its back story. The series original title was Zig Zag, and was listed as a pilot for ABC in Broadcasting (November 17, 1969). It was an Aaron Spelling production with no cast mentioned but the “key creative people” were listed as David Friedkin, Mort Fine, Joan Harrison and Aaron Spelling.

   Over at the Thrilling Detective website, an article by Ted Fitzgerald cites Ric Meyers’ TV Detective (A. S. Barnes & Co., 1987) claim that Eric Ambler (Checkmate) created Most Deadly Game. Producer Joan Harrison was married to Ambler, but I have found no evidence that Ambler and not Mort Fine and David Friedkin created the series.

    In Broadcasting (March 2, 1970), Zig Zag appeared on the announced ABC fall schedule for September 1970. It was to air on Saturdays at 9:30-10:30pm (Eastern) and listed Ralph Bellamy, George Maharis, and Inger Stevens as the cast.

    The three were promoting the series when on April 30, 1970, Inger Stevens was found dead.

    The series executive producer Aaron Spelling had produced a TV movie called Run Simon Run (December 1, 1970, ABC) that starred Burt Reynolds and Inger Stevens. During the picture the two stars became romantically involved.

    Aaron Spelling wrote (with Jefferson Graham) in his book Aaron Spelling: A Prime Time Life (St. Martins, 1996):

    While a fifteen-minute presentation film of Zig Zag (with Stevens) still exists, no completed pilot has been found. Currently, YouTube has an early ABC promo that may be from the presentation reel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXsjEAqIfVA

    In Broadcasting (April 3, 1970), the series was still called Zig Zag. Stevens’ obit in Broadcasting (May 11,1970) called the series The Most Deadly Game.

    Another problem facing the series before it even began was its time slot, opposite the popular NBC Saturday Night at the Movies and CBS’s Mary Tyler Moore Show and the first half hour of Mannix.

    ABC was last in the ratings. Broadcasting (November 16,1970) noted that in the “latest Nielsen report” nine of the bottom twelve series in the ratings were on ABC and one of them was The Most Deadly Game. After just a month on the air, ABC cancelled the series.

    I have seen four of the twelve episodes (thirteen if you count the missing pilot “Zig Zag”):

“Breakdown” (10/31/70) Written by Leonard B. Kaufman. Directed by George McCowan. Produced by Joan Harrison. Guest Cast: Jessica Walters, Tom Bosley, Joe Don Baker, and Terry Carter. *** A corporate psychiatrist is murdered. The company boss hires Arcane to solve the murder so the company can get rid of the nosy cops. Conveniently that weekend there was a psychological retreat scheduled where the five most likely suspects would spend seventy-two hours role-playing and talking about themselves. Jonathan and Vanessa go undercover. It ends with an unbelievable role-playing confession, then a chase and fight.

         Opening of the episode “Breakdown”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1V3VW0yTE4

         Early scene from “Breakdown”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7V8vLv7IYI

“Photo Finish.” (11/14/70) Written by John McGreevey. Directed by Norman Lloyd. Produced by Joan Harrison. Guest Cast: Marlyn Mason, Eileen Brennan, and Stephen Young *** Someone named ‘Scorpio, Mars In The Eighth House’ is sending Arcane pictures of murder victims and begging Arcane to stop him or her.

    The astrology gimmick is used for act break graphics, but the killer never mentions astrology, not even during the cliché nut-job confession scene at the end. Arcane does not tell the police about the photos he is receiving from his murderous Pen-pal despite the fact people keep dying. Three victims and they figure out motive, but a missed guess of identity of the killer puts Vanessa and friend in danger.

“War Games.” (11/28/70) Written by Jack Miller. Directed by Lee Madden. Produced by David Friedkin and Morton Fine. Guest Cast: Barbara Luna, Pat Harrington Jr., Billy Dee Williams, Dan Travanty (later known as Daniel J. Travanti of Hill Street Blues) and Peter Brown. *** The police believe Jonathan killed his former military commander who had been shot while recreating battles with toy soldiers (the cops are looking for a 38 caliber gun, unaware the murder weapon was a toy cannon).

    Four men, who with Jonathan had survived a suicide mission ordered by the Colonel, all confess to killing the old man. This ruins the cop’s day, as now he has to find actual evidence. Add the wife and you have your required five suspects. Heavy-handed clues make the motive obvious and the ending a major letdown.

“Lady from Praha.” (1/9/70) Written and Produced by David Friedkin and Mort Fine. Directed by Gene Nelson. Guest Cast: Bert Convy, May Britt, Brenda Benet, and Hank Brandt *** A foreign spy is killed during a foxhunt. His government hires our three because it believes the American government did it. They are given five suspects to check out.

    The spy angle then is virtually ignored. Actions make little sense as the killer tries to kill Jonathan for no reason other than the writer needed an act break. There is a locked room mystery that lasts only a couple of scenes and has a lame solution. (No one would notice a bellboy leaving a hotel room.)

   The clues are so clumsy and obvious we know who the killer is long before our brilliant criminologists. Then when they finally figure it out, no one tells the police. Instead Jonathan goes macho and runs off alone to get revenge and nearly gets killed. But all ends well, and Arcane happily looks on as Jonathan and Vanessa share a romantic moment.

    Ralph Bellamy gave his usual professional if not exciting performance as Mr. Arcane, wise respected criminologist and father figure to his two young protégé.

    George Maharis played Jonathan Croft as the typical condescending macho hero of the era. Jonathan was a widower with a growing romantic interest in his co-detective Vanessa.

    Vanessa Smith had a growing romantic interest in Jonathan as well. As a young girl her father had been executed for a crime he had not committed. Arcane, who had been too late proving her father innocent, had taken Vanessa in and raised her. Vanessa was no Emma Peel. A girl’s girl but independent, she may let Jonathan handle the fights, but she insisted on doing her part taking on danger.

    Watching Yvette Mimieux as Vanessa Smith walk through a room was the highlight of the series. They never used “that” camera angle on Joe Mannix, and for good reason.

    The Most Deadly Game wanted to be a traditional mystery in a television world that depends more on characters than plot. It was a two-hour mystery shoved into a sixty-minute time slot. There were too many suspects, too many pointless red herrings, and too many series regulars to develop for any quality mystery to survive.

    Clues such as the killer using an exotic astrology name need to mean something. Red herrings are fine but they still have to be explained.

    We needed to believe in our main characters. They needed to be special, they should be brilliant criminologists, not bumbling around clueless or even worse wrong. They don’t have to work with the cops, but no one should die while they are withholding evidence.

    The Most Deadly Game is available only in the collector market. The series is not worthy of recommendation, but worthy of regret that it could have been so much better.

       Additional Sources:

Thrilling Detective

Inger Stevens Memorial Site

THE TATTERED DRESS. Universal International Pictures, 1957. Jeff Chandler, Jeanne Crain, Jack Carson, Gail Russell, Elaine Stewart, George Tobias, Edward Andrews, Phillip Reed, Edward Platt. Director: Jack Arnold.

   Back in the 1950s, Universal Studios had two really fine trashy directors under contract: Douglas Sirk did garish melodramas like Written on the Wind, and Jack Arnold handled the more overtly pulpy stuff, Westerns and monster movies like Tarantula and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

   The Tattered Dress finds Arnold encroaching on Sirk’s territory with a tawdry tale penned (or typed, as the case may be) by George Zuckerman, who churned out Written on the Wind and the engaging scripts for Dawn at Socorro and The Brass Legend. The results in Tattered maybe aren’t purely successful, but they’re at least fun to watch.

   The story starts in a small desert town where wealthy Phillip Reed murders the guy who seduced his wife (said wife played with classy trampiness by Elaine Stewart, one of three actresses here who deserved better). Reed gets arrested by that perennial comic foil Jack Carson, playing a hick-town Bozo-Sheriff, and Jeff Chandler shows up as a high-powered attorney hired to defend him in court.

   Chandler coolly gets Reed acquitted by making a fool of Carson on the witness stand (not a terribly difficult task, given Carson’s persona) and prepares to go back to the Big City — only to find that the sheriff isn’t such a hick ass he seems, and Chandler is on the receiving end of some rather sticky and perhaps deadly revenge.

   Jack Arnold always seemed to like desert locations, and he does well with this one, evoking a lonely isolation where passion and violence seem to simmer below a hot, dusty and deceptively still surface. Zuckerman’s script has its slack moments, but director Arnold gets through them as quickly as possible to highlight the occasional scenes of tension and violence.

   As far as the acting goes, Jeff Chandler delivers his usual clapboard performance, and Jeanne Crain simply marks time in a role so thankless as to make her casting seem positively churlish, but Gail Russell, a sad-eyed actress who died tragically young, does a fine job in an interesting bit, and Jack Carson trades on his buffoonish image impressively as the apparently-dumb cop.

   It’s not a totally riveting ninety minutes, but The Tattered Dress has its moments, and it sure won’t put you to sleep. I might add that this was produced by one Albert Zugsmith, an auteur too colorful to explore here in any depth, but definitely a subject for further research.

Editorial Note: The video you see above consists of only the first four minutes of the movie. For some reason I haven’t been able to embed the entire movie, but you can watch it on YouTube, here.

It took a little longer than expected, but the comments are back. While I probably won’t post anything more tonight, things will be back to normal here by this time tomorrow, if not before.

I don’t know why things happen the way they do, but my daughter Sarah and her husband Mark left for a two week vacation in England on Thursday, and it’s Mark who does the heavy lifting around here: backing up data and doing the repairs. Sure enough, as soon as he got out of the country, bingo! That’s when the blog went down.

It took a few emails back and forth with GoDaddy to solve the problem, but solved it is, and we’re back. Thanks, Mark!

PS. The last comment that was processed correctly was a suggestion made by Paul Herman that The Shadow should be counted as one of the Triple Threat Franchise Players. He is correct:

https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=19550#comments

If you tried to leave a comment anytime after Paul’s, it disappeared into Voodooland. If you’d like to try again, please do.

The comments have disappeared from all my posts. It should be temporary but the repairs are beyond my pay level. Let’s put everything on hold until I can get it fixed. Don’t reply to this or any other post until I send an all clear.

GEORGETTE HEYER – Footsteps in the Dark. Longman Green, UK, hardcover, 1932. Berkley, US, paperback, 1986. Reprinted several times, especially in the UK.

    “…the whole story is told with such good nature and humor that it is hard to take it as anything more than a fine evening’s entertainment – which it is. You’ll enjoy the characters – there are a few mysterious strangers running around, after all – and the Priory makes a wonderful setting – and there’s much more going on there than may meet the eye.”

— Les Blatt, “Classic Mysteries”

http://www.classicmysteries.net/2012/09/footsteps-in-the-dark.html

       See also:

    “A light-hearted thriller about a group of young people and their aunt who inherit a haunted house and unmask a gang of forgers. The main influence seems to be Allingham’s early thrillers … The elements are conventional … but it’s steadily entertaining.”

— Nick Fuller, GAD Wiki

http://gadetection.pbworks.com/w/page/7930599/Footsteps%20in%20the%20Dark

    “I had not guessed what was going on until it was all revealed; however I did work out the identity of the monk several chapters before he was unmasked; I also guessed correctly about the occupation of another of the significant characters. Heyer wasn’t as good as Agatha Christie at laying false trails and surprising her readers – her talent was, instead, in making the people three-dimensional. That’s perhaps a disadvantage in crime fiction, since it becomes clear from people’s characters whether they are ‘baddies’ or not!”

— “Sue’s Book Reviews”

http://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2008/02/footsteps-in-dark-by-georgette-heyer.html

    “In a nutshell: Fun, wacky, and a wee bit silly, Footsteps in the Dark was a light, charming read.”

— “Bibliolatry”

http://bookworship.blogspot.com/2010/03/classics-circuit-georgette-heyer.html

    “Heyer’s novels show some signs of Realist school influence… Her first mystery, Footsteps in the Dark (1932), shows villains engaged in the sort of criminal scheme we associate with Crofts’ The Pit-Prop Syndicate (1922) and The Box Office Murders (1929)… Footsteps in the Dark has a small time, not especially hard-boiled British private detective as well, the type that also shows up regularly Crofts’ novels.”

— Mike Grost, “A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection”

http://mikegrost.com/ngmarsh.htm#Heyer

J. H. WALLIS – Murder by Formula. Dutton, hardcover, 1931.

   During a meeting of the elite Aristoi Club, the Hanging Committee — art, let me hasten to say — discusses crime novels. Several members urge Andrew Wingdon, best-selling author who writes, according to one character, “readin’ books,” to write his own detective novel, or “trash” book. The formula proposed to Wingdon, as he iterates it:

   Wingdon begins making notes and the others depart. The next morning Wingdon is found dead in the club, killed more or less in the manner discussed the previous evening.

   At the end of his novel, Wallis claims in verse that he himself followed the formula. For the most part I agree with his contention, particularly since fair play was not a criterion.

   The investigation by Inspector Jacks, in the first of several novels featuring his alleged abilities, is slipshod or negligent. For example, Jacks is unaware that apartments and houses have rear entrances and that a murderer might use them.

   A locked-room murder occurs that is given no thought by Jacks and is explained in one unlikely sentence during a most unlikely denouement. Jacks gives Wingdon’s widow, with whom he is smitten — see the last sentence in the formula — an automatic to protect herself at a meeting she shouldn’t attend but provides no instruction about use of the weapon, though this may be excused, I suppose, because the automatic turns out to be a revolver.

   Maybe in his later novels Wallis either is more careful with his plot or writes more persuasively. Maybe.

        The Inspector Wilton Jacks series —

Murder by Formula. Dutton 1931.
The Capital City Mystery. Dutton 1932.
The Servant of Death. Dutton 1932.
Cries in the Night.Dutton 1933.
The Mystery of Vaucluse. Dutton 1933.
Murder Mansion. Dutton 1934.

   J. H. Wallis has four other works of crime fiction listed in Hubin, including Once Off Guard, which was the basis of the film The Woman in the Window (1944), directed by Fritz Lang. Dan Stumpf reviewed both the book and the film here earlier on this blog.

THE SNOOP SISTERS: “THE FEMALE INSTINCT.” NBC. Pilot for TV series, 18 December 1972. Two hours. Helen Hayes (Ernesta Snoop), Mildred Natwick (Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson), Paulette Godddard, Jill Clayburgh, Lawrence Pressman, Bill Dana, Kurt Kazner, Edward Platt, Craig Stevens, Fritz Weaver, Art Carney. Teleplay: Leonard Stern & Hugh Wheeler, based on a story by Leonard Stern, who also directed.

   The series that followed this pilot episode began a year and day later, but as part of NBC’s Wednesday Mystery Movie, there were only four additional 90-minute episodes that ever aired. Other segments in the monthly rotation were Banacek, Tenafly, and Faraday and Company. Of these, the only one I remember watching on a regular basis was Banacek, which is also, I’m sure – without looking it up – the one that lasted the longest.

   The entire season of The Snoop Sisters has been released on DVD, but this is the only one I’ve watched, so far. As a mystery, it is not very successful, but it was intended to be as much of a comedy as it was a detective series, and even at that, the pilot, at least, was not as funny as I think was intended. Amusing, yes, and enjoyable, but not out-and-out funny.

   One thing I did not know before watching is that the Snoop Sisters were actually named Snoop, although Gwendolyn was widowed. The premise is that they are elderly and less than conventional in their approach to life, but still very sharp and far from dotty. Ernesta, as it happens, is a writer of detective novels, while her sister transcribes them and types them out.

   Their nephew (Lawrence Pressman) is a lieutenant on the police force, which enables them to interfere (the right word, I think) in his cases. To keep them out of trouble (good luck with that) Lt. Ostrowski has assigned an ex-policeman named Barney (Art Carney) to chauffeur them around in an ancient Lincoln touring car.

   You may have noticed Paulette Goddard’s name in the credits. This is the last time she ever appeared in either the movies or on TV. It’s a short role, unfortunately. She plays an old time movie actress who’s in the process of writing her memoirs, and “hot” is the understatement of the year if you had to describe them in only one word. And “dead” is the word that comes next, as there are any number of people who would do anything to keep the book from being published.

   You may have also noticed Jill Clayburgh’s name in the credits. She was very young when she made this movie but also very beautiful, and you can tell from every moment she’s on the screen that she was going to be a star. (Hindsight, of course, is valuable, too, but I will stand on the previous statement as being 100% correct.)

   The problem with so many suspects is that the writers of the screenplay (one of the them being half of the “Patrick Quentin” pen name) had a very easy task of it. Pick one out of a hat, and he’s it. There is a long scene in which explanations are made, but with it taking place with the two Snoop sisters in the back of their car during a long chase after the killer across one of New York City’s many bridges, it is very difficult to make out many of the details.

   One nice touch is the use of some footage from The Ghost Breakers (1940), and one of the props in that film, to help solve the case. Paulette Goddard was a knockout then, but she still had a fine stage presence in this, her last appearance, as well, at the age of 62. It was good to see her again, one last time.

REX STOUT – The Golden Spiders. Viking Press, hardcover, October 1953. Bantam #1387, paperback, November 1955. Reprinted many times in both hardcover and soft. Episode of TV series: Nero Wolfe: 16 January 1981 (Season 1, Episode 1), with William Conrad & Lee Horsley. TV movie: A&E, 5 March 2000, with Maury Chaykin & Timothy Hutton.

    There is a scene in The Golden Spiders involving a shootout in a garage, and I must be getting old. When I came to this passage when I read it earlier this week all I could think of was what on earth is Archie doing, getting involved in a shootout in a garage?

   Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s right hand man, is a man of many talents. Besides following orders, wising off to the guys on the Homicide squad, interviewing suspects and transcribing his notes perfectly, he carries a gun and is as tough as he needs to be when the case calls for it. It still took me by surprise, that’s all. I think of Wolfe himself as a man of intellect, not even needing to leaving his home to solve cases, doing it all upstairs, so to speak.

   The case starts out in striking fashion. Two of Wolfe’s clients are later found murdered, run over by the same car, one of them a lady with a distinctive pair of earrings, shaped in the form of golden spiders. Says Wolfe on page 55: “I resent the assumption that people who come to me for help can be murdered with impunity.”

   So begins a path that many a PI has had to take, but this case, involving an organization devoted to helping Displaced Persons, while suitably complicated, just isn’t very interesting. Even the ending, with all of the people involved gathered together with Inspector Cramer, Nero Wolfe and Archie failed with me this time out. With the hands of everyone dirty of something, who cares who the actual killer is?

   Nor do Wolfe’s well-noted powers of deduction come into play. He decides to investigate one of people involved only because the police were checking on everyone else and why should he duplicate their effort, and of course he’s right. Even more distasteful, in a theoretical purist sort of way, is the fact that much of information that Archie produces is by means of torturing one of the guys in the garage after the shooting. I know I’m in the minority on this, but Pfui.

THE RAINBOW TRAIL. Fox, 1925. Tom Mix, Anne Cornwall, George Bancroft, Lucien Littlefield, Mark Hamilton, Vivian Oakland, Doc Roberts, Carol Halloway, Diana Miller. Screenplay by Lynn Reynolds, based on the novel of the same name by Zane Grey. Cinematography by Dan Clark. Director: Lynn Reynolds. Shown at Cinevent 38, Columbus OH, May 2006.

   A sequel to the film of Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage (Fox, 1925) in which Mix played the role of Jim Lassiter, a Texas Ranger pursued by an outlaw posse who evades his pursuers by sealing himself in a remote valley with a young woman he has rescued from the villain who held her and her mother captive.

   Now, some years later, Lassiter’s nephew John Shefford (played by Tom Mix) tracks his long-missing uncle to the valley into which he had disappeared, with the only road to the refuge leading through a “rough frontier settlement” controlled by surviving enemies of Lassiter.

   This handsomely photographed and exciting film is climaxed by an assault on Lassister’s cabin in Paradise Valley that takes great scenic advantage of the treacherous terrain. This film may lack some of the visual poetry of Riders but it’s an exceptional Western with a splendid performance by Tom Mix in top form.