MARGERY SHARP – The Tigress on the Hearth. Collins, UK, hardcover, 1955. No US edition.

   At 125 smallish pages, with wide margins, big type and illustrations no less, this is not so much a novel or even a novella as a shaggy dog story about Victorian manners and murders.

   Young Hugo Lutterwell, is a member of the landed gentry, hunting in Albania of all places, who gets separated from his party and fires a shot in the air to locate them. However it seems he’s not a terribly proficient marksman because his shot misses the sky and kills a farmer’s dog. Hugo suddenly finds himself mobbed and about to be killed by the farmer when a lovely young woman jumps into the fray, fatally knifes the farmer, and escapes with Hugo.

   In less time than it takes to tell (as they say) the two are happily married and back in England, where Hugo finds it a bit difficult to explain to his bride that although he’s very grateful to her for saving his life, and it was wonderful of her to do it, knifing a man isn’t the sort of thing one admits to in polite society.

   He finally manages to convey to her that there are things a gentleman simply doesn’t do, but a lady is not bound by conventions except that she shouldn’t talk about killing people, a coda that leads to years of wedded bliss — until a local scoundrel starts making trouble for Hugo, who cannot retaliate because (as he explains to his wife) there are some things a gentleman simply doesn’t do….

   But….

   What follows is a short, cheerful and pleasantly amoral bit of foul play, followed by a spot of polite detecting and a sedate wrap-up in the coziest tradition. Tigress on the Hearth is a slight thing, but I think I’ll remember it.

“NO TIME LIKE THE PAST.” An episode of The Twilight Zone, CBS, 7 March 1963 (Season 4, Episode 10). Dana Andrews, Patricia Breslin, Malcolm Atterbury. Radio adaptation: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, syndicated, circa 2002-2003, starring Jason Alexander.

    “No Time Like The Past” is a Twilight Zone original series episode starring Dana Andrews (Laura, Where the Sidewalk Ends) as Paul Driscoll, a time-traveling physicist who comes to realize that, no matter how much you may want to, you simply can’t change the past. It’s one of those Twilight Zone episodes, which, apart from the somewhat clunky-looking scientific equipment one sees in beginning, does not seem remotely dated.

    Indeed, the plot of “No Time Like The Past” and its theme of fatalism seem as timely as ever. That is one reason why Jason Alexander’s (Seinfeld) portrayal of Driscoll in the radio and audio drama version works so well.

    We begin with Paul Driscoll (Andrews) in conversation with his colleague, Harvey (Robert F. Simon). They’re in a laboratory. Driscoll is standing in a crude time machine that he invented. Light and shadow play prominent roles, both literally and figuratively, in this scene. A man of both academic knowledge and unbridled humanism, Driscoll has an incredibly bleak view of the twentieth-century and he’s not remotely reluctant to make his views crystal clear:

    It’s Driscoll’s intention to travel backward in time so as to change the present. He chooses three destinations: Hiroshima, in order to evacuate citizens before the atomic bomb is dropped; Nazi Germany before World War II, so he can assassinate Hitler; and on board the Lusitania, to halt the American entrance into the First World War. (In the radio play, Driscoll visits the same three points in time but in reverse order.) In all three situations, he fails to complete his task. He returns, disappointed, to the present and once again meets up with Harvey in the laboratory.

    Driscoll now has a new plan. Rather than trying to change the past, he opts for living in it. Specifically, he wants to go back to 1881 and live in Homeville, Indiana where he can enjoy band concerts and lemonade. He’s read a book about the Midwest in the nineteenth-century and decides he wants to live in simpler times, before world wars and atom bombs. His naivety is galling.

    When Driscoll gets to Homeville, he soon realizes that the past may not be all that great either. He ends up living in a boarding house with an armchair warrior who advocates for American imperialism in East Asia and, within a couple of days, President James Garfield is shot. Complicating matters is the fact that he begins to have romantic feelings for a schoolteacher, Abigail Sloan (Patricia Breslin) but soon realizes that he can’t do anything about it, lest he change the course of History.

    Things get even worse for Driscoll when he realizes that some of Sloan’s schoolchildren are going to die in a fire. He read about it in the history book he carries with him. A man divided against himself, he can’t decide if he should intervene. In a sadly ironic twist of fate, Driscoll inadvertently ends up causing the very historical event he intended to stop. One of the perils of time travel, no doubt. Driscoll finally accepts that the past, as Harvey told him all along, is indeed inviolate.

    Dana Andrews, best known for his film work in the 1940s, skillfully conveys the conflicted emotions the hopelessly tormented Driscoll. He convincingly portrays a man who is angry and sentimental, fearful and hopeful. In the slightly modified radio show version, Jason Alexander successfully pulls off the quite difficult feat of bringing this episode to life without the benefit of visuals. Alexander’s voice acting never once reminds you of his portrayal of George Costanza on Seinfeld.

    In conclusion, “No Time Like The Past” is a classic Twilight Zone episode that stands up to the test of time. The themes of nostalgia, sentimentalism, and wishing one could change the past so as to change the present remain poignant today.

    While some contemporary listeners might be less familiar with the Lusitania than with the Second World War, the points in time that Driscoll visits remain alive in the American public consciousness. One could imagine a future reworking of the script to include references to the Vietnam War and to 9/11, but that might have to wait another couple of decades. It’s an episode both worth watching and listening to.

NOTE: The TV episode can be watched in its entirety on IMDb here.

THE ADVENTURER: THE CURSE OF THE MIDAS CUP. 2013. Anuerin Barnard, Michael Sheen, Sam Neill, Ioan Gruffudd, Lena Hedley, Catherine Hawes, Mella Carron, Xavier Atkins. Screenplay by Christian Taylor and Matthew Huffman, based on the young adult novel Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, by G. P. Taylor. Directed by Jonathan Newman.

   This is a mildly entertaining steampunk juvenile tale based on a series by G. P. Taylor, about a young lad named Mariah Mundi (Anuerin Barnard) who is at that awkward age between man and teen. The plot takes a note from Clive Cussler and James Rollins rather than Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, with the McGuffin a mysterious gold box that has the power to turn anything into gold, and Mariah a reluctant young hero forced into improvising a bit of Richard Hannaying (or should that be David Balfouring?) to find it and save his little brother who has been kidnaped by a ruthless master criminal.

   Evil Otto Luger (Sam Neill) knows the box can give life or destroy it and he wants the power along with the evil mastermind behind him, the mysterious Gomberg.

   All of which leads to London where Mariah is attending a lecture by his father along with his mother and his brother Felix (Xavier Atkins). In short order Captain Will Charity (Michael Sheen) shows up seriously wounded by Luger to warn the Mundi’s of Luger’s quest, seems he and Mariah’s parents (Ioan Gruffudd and Catherine Hawes) are secret agents for the Bureau of Antiquities, and have dealt with ruthless Otto before.

   Charity takes off (he’s always doing that then popping up at convenient times), the Mundis disappear, and Mariah and Felix are fleeing Luger’s men in their robes and night clothes before the night’s over, but not before their mother gives each of them half of an amulet and a mysterious bit of doggerel to remember.

   Charity pops in to rescue Mariah in time to save him from Luger’s men but Felix is captured, Luger now has half of the amulet, and Mariah finds himself on the way to a remote North Sea island where Luger owns the fabulous Prince Regent resort built right into the mountainous island. Mariah, disguised as a porter, is to seek Felix, and of course Charity takes a hike again. His parents he is told are most likely dead at Luger’s hand, which causes much less angst than you might expect.

   Mariah soon discovers that children on the island have been disappearing and no one ventures out after dark because of a monster. Nor is his job easy what with dodging Luger’s men who know his face, Monica (Lena Hedley) the evil female manager of the hotel, Luger himself, and a flamboyant Russian escape artist who shows up adding to the mystery.

   With Sacha (Mella Caron), a parlor maid who befriends Mariah, he begins to delve into the mystery, and soon learns Luger is looking for the Midas box beneath the hotel in the mountain. The healing waters the hotel is famous for taking their powers from the box.

   Complications pile on: Mariah makes some fair deductions and some narrow escapes with Sacha, a set of magic gypsy cards, and a suit of Midas solid gold armor fit into the plot, two other mysterious men show up also working undercover, and just as Mariah seems about to discover the islands secret Charity appears (two guesses as who) and everything falls apart when he is discovered.

   Mariah finds Felix and solves the mystery of the monster (you should be far ahead of him on most of this), but now Sacha is in danger too, Luger has both pieces of the amulet and the gold box, Felix is trapped in a tomb filling with water. Luger and the manager plan to gas them all and the other children forced to dig for the box in tight quarters, and even though the Bureau of Antiquities shows up they are no match for the mysterious box and the power that once destroyed Midas enemies.

   You know Mariah will defeat Luger seeing to it that he meets an appropriately grisly end with the aid of that bit of doggerel his mother whispered to him, and Sacha’s drunken father will save her, dying with the evil manageress Monica. All is well, Mariah, Felix, and Sacha receive medals, Mariah asks Sacha to live with them, and they are told the Bureau may call on them again.

   For now, Charity informs them, he is hunting Mariah’s living but missing parents and Gomberg, and Mariah has done “very well.”

   Roll the credits — but wait, there is still one revelation left, one so mind-numbingly stupid — I say stupid, but so stupid as to almost be brilliant — as to leave you stunned, but handled quite well, and certainly enough to get you to buy the next book or rent the next movie or at least take a peek in the bookstore.

   It’s all playful and fairly inventive, a bit plot heavy and deliberate for today’s youthful audiences, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence, not until the last scene anyway. Fan’s of the books must have been pleased. It’s another film you will want to Netflix or Redbox rather than buy, but you likely will want to see it.

   Barnard as Mariah is quite good and he fits the books illustrations well; with the right roles he might even develop as a popular actor. Neill has a fine time as Luger in one of his last roles, and Michael Sheen has fun as the extravagant Will Charity though none have more than one dimension or much chance to do more than sketch in their characters. The cast is uniformly good as are the special effects and sets, especially the hotel’s generators. You may wonder why they wasted Ioan Gruffudd (Horatio Hornblower) in such a minor role, but they really didn’t — but that’s for the sequel.

   I may at least check out the books, and the film is entertaining. Though the start was a bit slow I liked it quite a bit, and wouldn’t mind seeing the sequel with the same cast and credits. It’s no match for the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or the Series of Unfortunate Events films, but for what it is it is handled well.

   It’s actually better than this review, but I don’t want to mislead you. It’s an old fashioned adventure story owing more to Stevenson and Buchan than Rowling or Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider, and depending on your taste for that type tale, you will either love it or be entirely indifferent to it. It reminded me of the kind of thing Robert Lewis Taylor (The Travels of Jamie McPheeter and The Treasure of Matacumbe) used to write though not as brilliant or complex, or a juvenile version of some of Macdonald Hastings odder adventure stories. The chief difference being that there is no Alan Breck or Long John Silver character with dubious motives to spice things up. If, like me, you like that future-past genre of steampunk adventure and classic adventure tales, this is right up your alley.

   If not, you may find it formulaic, and old-fashioned. It all depends on your fancy for this genre of adventure films. There is something missing here I can’t quite lay my hands on, but it may be as simple as the film is done by rote, and there is no real passion for the story as in the Harry Potter films.

   It’s not enough to make a good movie of something like this, you have to love the material and the magic of bringing it to the screen. Without that it is basically a minor A or superior B adventure film and nothing more.

   Classics are made when that extra element is present.

OLIVER WELD BAYER – Paper Chase. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1943. No paperback edition. Film: MGM, 1945, as Dangerous Partners.

   According to The Crime Club, this is a “fast-paced mystery by a new writer who offers speed, humor, and one of the cleverest plot twists ever to appear in a mystery story.” One does wonder whether a fast-paced mystery could be achieved by a writer who doesn’t offer speed, but never mind.

   On the subject of humor, of which I understand little, I yield reluctantly to those who think witless people in unusual situations, particularly characters beyond their depth, provoke mirth. Finally, if there is a clever plot twist, it escaped my, by the end of the novel, numb attention. Another point is that this book was serialized in Liberty, [a magazine] not noted as I recall for its departures from the norm.

   After a plane crash, a confidence couple, man and wife, adopt Albert Mercer and his collection of four wills of which he is executor and beneficiary. When Mercer goes to Cleveland, he discovers that one of the will-makers is planning to write another in which Mercer does not figure. A statue topples on the will-maker, creating suspicion in the mind of his attorney, Jeff Piper, who is trying to get into Air Force Intelligence. Which he did, and how we won the war under that handicap is beyond my comprehension.

   Piper teams up with Elizabeth Neff, detective-story novelist, who has a low opinion of her own books. Together they bumble through an investigation of the confidence couple and— But maybe that’s the clever plot twist and I shouldn’t mention it.

Bibliographic Notes: Information taken from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. No recurring characters.

BAYER, OLIVER WELD; pseudonym of Eleanor Rosenfeld Bayer, (1914-1981) & Leo Grossberg Bayer, (1908-2005)

      Paper Chase. Doubleday 1943
      No Little Enemy. Doubleday 1944
      An Eye for an Eye. Doubleday 1945
      Brutal Question. Doubleday 1947

   The film exists. Starring are James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn and Audrey Totter. Has anyone seen it?

THE LINEUP. Columbia Pictures, 1958. Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Richard Jaeckel, Mary LaRoche, William Leslie, Emile Meyer, Marshall Reed, Raymond Bailey, Vaughn Taylor, Warner Anderson. Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant. Director: Don Siegel.

   The Lineup is a visually captivating thriller set in the historic buildings and on the daytime streets and roadways of San Francisco. It stars Eli Wallach (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), in one of his earliest big screen roles, as a Brooklyn-accented sociopathic hired gun for an international heroin smuggling operation.

   Directed by Don Siegel (Dirty Harry), The Lineup is best interpreted as two distinct films wrapped together in one package. Indeed, the film, based on both a CBS radio show (1950-1953) and television show (1954-1960) of the same name, is two movies in one: a formulaic, somewhat forgettable, police procedural and a very good, albeit under-appreciated, film noir. It’s the story of a disturbingly violent, and somewhat pathetic, criminal on the margins of polite society, a man whose own unbridled rage propels him to his inevitable doom.

   The film begins as a standard police procedural, opening with a fast-paced action sequence near the San Francisco docks. A porter throws a suitcase into a cab that promptly, and recklessly, speeds away, ramming into a truck and killing a police officer in the process. Lt. Ben Guthrie (Warner Anderson, reprising his role in the TV show) and his partner, Inspector Al Quine (Emile Meyer) are called on to investigate.

   Neither of the characters come across as particularly devoted to the task at hand, although Anderson’s portrayal of a detective is far more engaging than is Quine’s. But the movie isn’t really about them — more on that in a minute.

   The two San Francisco cops discover that the cab driver was part of a heroin smuggling operation and that an international cartel is utilizing unsuspecting passengers from East Asia to smuggle heroin into the United States. One such passenger is Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey), a prominent member of San Francisco society employed at the architecturally impressive San Francisco Opera House. Dressler is called into the police station to witness a lineup, but he doesn’t recognize the porter who yanked his suitcase from his arms and threw it into the cab. Still, it’s not long until the porter shows up dead.

   The film quickly shifts gears from a police procedural to a film noir about two hit men tasked with finding — and killing — other passengers who inadvertently smuggled heroin into the United States and to deliver the dope to a criminal known only as The Man (Vaughn Taylor), a real piece of work who only appears on the screen for a several minutes.

   We first see the film’s protagonist/anti-hero, the brutal hired gun Dancer (Wallach) sitting on an airplane with his partner and mentor, the incredibly creepy Julian (Robert Keith). Dancer is reading a book of English grammar in an attempt to learn how to properly use the subjunctive tense so as to sound less like a New York gangster. This, of course, was Julian’s idea. Somewhere along the way, Julian made Dancer his pet project and clearly wants to smooth over the killer’s rough edges.

   The men arrive in San Francisco and are quickly greeted by their driver, Sandy McLain (Richard Jaeckel). The three men, all losers each in their own way, successfully track down the first two carriers. It’s when they are tasked with retrieving the heroin from a woman, Dorothy Bradshaw, and her daughter Cindy that things, in classic noir fashion, all fall apart. The turning point in the film occurs when Dancer wants to kill Bradshaw and is stopped from doing so by Julian.

   Wallach is simply excellent in this film. He portrays Dancer, a man born of rage and without a relationship with his father, convincingly. Watch throughout for his Dancer’s eye, and facial, expressions, particularly during his showdown with The Man in Sutro’s Museum.

   Keith is equally convincing in his portrayal of Julian, a bizarre man who enjoys jotting down the last words people say before they die. In a one remarkably unsettling scene that shows characterization, Julian, upon seeing his female hostage weep, bursts out with his own self-serving pseudo-intellectual rhetoric. It’s not so much his misogyny that’s appalling; rather, it’s that he actually seems to believe his own nonsense:

   â€œSee, you cry. That’s why women have no place in society. Women are weak. Crime’s aggressive and so is the law. Ordinary people of your class—you don’t understand the criminal’s need for violence.”

   She replies (how else could she reply?): “You’re sick.”

   But as The Lineup shows us, that type of criminal sickness has real consequences. By the time the movie ends with a dramatic car chase on the unfinished Embarcadero Freeway, both Julian and Dancer, not to mention The Man, are dead, with their own character flaws playing significant roles in their not particularly tragic demises. Although the film takes place during the day rather than at night, it’s noir at its very best.

JOHN MALCOLM – The Wrong Impression. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1990. No US paperback edition. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1990.

   The seventh of John Malcolm’s tales about Tim Simpson is The Wrong Impression, one of the more intense in this good series. Tim corrals works of art for a London bank’s investment fund, and has been instructed to track down (at affordable prices) a couple of impressionist paintings — a Monet, perhaps.

   But there are bad times for Tim: his friend Inspector Nobby Roberts lies at death’s door from a shooting. The police seem at a loss, but determined that Tim will not conduct the independent investigating that he’s equally determined to do. This leads to an explosive rift in Simpson’s relationship with Sue Westerman, his live-in woman.

   This part — Sue’s behavior — is not to me credible; she seems to have taken leave of her senses. But otherwise Wrong Impression is full of good stuff.

         The Tim Simpson series —

1. A Back Room in Somers Town (1984)

2. The Godwin Sideboard (1984)
3. The Gwen John Sculpture (1985)
4. Whistler in the Dark (1986)
5. Gothic Pursuit (1987)

6. Mortal Ruin (1988)
7. The Wrong Impression (1990)
8. Sheep, Goats and Soap (1991)
9. A Deceptive Appearance (1992)
10. The Burning Ground (1993)

11. Hung over (1994)
12. Into the Vortex (1996)
13. Simpson’s Homer (2001)
14. Circles and Squares (2003)
15. Rogues’ Gallery (2005)

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN. Hammer Films, UK, 1957. Released in the United States as The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marlé, Anthony Chinn. Screenplay: Nigel Kneale, based on his 1955 BBC teleplay entitled The Creature. Director: Val Guest.

   Running just over 90 minutes, The Abominable Snowman stars Peter Cushing (Dracula, The Mummy) as an English botanist on an ill-fated Himalayan expedition to find the mythical Yeti.

   The film is, in many ways, more of a psychological thriller than a traditional horror film. Both the claustrophobic isolation of the Himalayas and the tension between members of the expedition party play far more prominent roles in the narrative than do the Yeti, whom we see only briefly toward the end of the film.

   The plot is relatively straightforward. John Rollison (Cushing) and his wife, Helen (Maureen Connell) are living and working in the Tibetan monastery, Rong-ruk. They are guests of the enigmatic Lama (Arnold Marlé) who seems to know a lot more than he lets on. Although Rollison isn’t in the best physical shape in the world, he insists upon joining the expedition of the loud-mouthed American guide and showman, Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker). Helen isn’t happy about the arrangement.

   The party’s goal is find the Yeti. But Friend and his associates have different goals than Rollison. Friend, a conman and a fraud, wants to capture a Yeti alive and sell it to a carnival show. Rollison, more pure of heart, wants to study and learn about the Yeti.

   He posits both that Yeti are intelligent, sentient creatures and that they are merely biding their time on Earth, hidden up in the Himalayan peaks, until man destroys himself. They also have quasi-hypnotic powers.

   The doomed explorers do manage to find and to kill a Yeti, setting into motion a chain of events that leave Rollison the sole surviving member of the expeditionary party. The most important scene in the movie occurs in an ice cave when Rollison finally encounters live Yeti. He makes eye contact with one of them and realizes that his theory about Yeti intelligence was indeed correct.

   The film, a product of the anxieties of the Atomic Age, imparts a fairly obvious message about how man’s hubris may end up being his downfall. The theme of what it means to be civilized also features prominently in the film. This is notable given the fact that the late 1950s were the beginning of the end for British imperialism.

   While I would not go so far as to say that The Abominable Snowman is a particularly notable film, I found the story about how the Yeti will be man’s successors to be thought provoking. Unfortunately, the production quality now seems considerably dated.

   The film’s pacing can feel a bit slow. Indeed, unlike The Mummy (also from Hammer films two years later and reviewed here earlier on this blog), which remains an absolute gem, The Abominable Snowman, while not a bad film, really doesn’t stand up to the test of time. Perhaps that is one reason why, in late 2013, Hammer Films announced that they are planning to remake this oft-neglected British cult classic.

   In conclusion, The Abominable Snowman is certainly worth watching at least once, if only for the ominous Eastern-themed music, bells, and chants that provide the film with a strong fosters a sense of both wonder and of impending doom. The monastery setting, which features considerably in the movie, is also visually stunning. It’s a reminder that the film was meant to transport the viewer into a different realm of existence and human understanding.

   While I probably won’t watch the 1957 version again any time soon, I’m quite looking forward to seeing how the forthcoming remake turns out. I only hope the filmmakers do make it more of a psychological thriller than a creature feature.

WELCOME TO THE PUNCH. IFC Films, 2013. James MacAvoy, Mark Strong , Peter Mullan, Johnny Harris, David Morrissey. Written and directed by Eran Creevy.

   This Brit neo-noir bristles with violence, moral ambiguity, hard driving atmosphere, shadows, and edgy camera work, but like the best of the British crime films it is driven by character. The people are not violent cartoons, but human beings. The heroes are flawed and the villains all too human.

   The film opens with hard-driven London detective Max Lewinsky (James MacAvoy) catching a high end heist. Against orders he pursues the gas-masked villains on motorbikes even though he is unarmed. That ends badly with Max knee-capped by the leader or the team, Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong).

   Years later Lewinsky is in constant pain and addicted to pain killers, but still a cop, working with his partner and lover Sarah (Andrea Risenborough) on a case involving arms smuggled into England, assigned by his friend Metropolitan Police Commander Thomas Geiger (David Morrissey). When a low level street hood, Ruan Sternwood (Elyes Gabel), is killed in relation to the case, Max knows it will bring his long-since-missing father back for revenge, and his chance to bring him down.

   Sternwood shows up wanting revenge, and with the help of his old friend Roy Stewart (Peter Mullan) sets himself up with the men who killed Ruan. Soon he and Max find themselves alone against para-military killers with powerful connections and Max finds he was assigned to the case to fail.

   When Dean Warns (Johnny Harris), one of the para-military killers, murders Sarah because she is onto something, Max and Sternwood find themselves allied with one goal: vengeance.

   Welcome to the Punch moves quickly, and depends on strong performances with MacAvoy and Sternwood sketching in their relationship without a lot of extraneous dialogue. Nothing is spelled out in long-winded speeches, but is shown instead in their faces and actions. MacAvoy in particular brings a great deal of nuance to his wounded, angry, but honest policeman. Neither he, nor Strong are playing supermen for all their skills, and the shootouts have actual suspense because they are very human targets. The “Punch” of the title is a loading dock where the final odds against survival shootout takes place.

   They do survive bullet wounds that in real life would throw them into instant shock and likely kill them, but at least they are more than the famous flesh wound of a million cowboy pictures, and you can just buy that adrenalin might get them through to the end in the real world. If you truly did one of these realistically, the film would be a one-reeler, mostly watching the hero bleed out in ten minutes or less, if shock didn’t kill him first, while he lay on the ground in a semi-conscious stupor.

   These kinds of action films are no more realistic than comic book, fantasy, western, and science fiction films, and it is equally pointless to hold them to the standards of realism (or any film for that matter). This is no more the real world than a Fred Astaire musical is. At best film and literature create an illusion of reality, and you buy it or not.

   The complex plot behind all the violence hardly matters, but is filled in enough to cover the action and provide a suitably large conspiracy for the two loners to confront. There is enough at stake to make the conspiracy seem plausible, yet not so much it is improbable two violent men couldn’t bring it down once they know who the key players for.

   This is no cop-buddy film, not a British 48 Hours, or anything like. Max and Sternwood are drawn together by their loss, rage, and desire for revenge, but though they might respect each other, there aren’t going to be any hugs at the end of the film. There may be a brief moment when they recognize uncomfortably that they are more alike than not, but they are far from bosom buddies.

   I don’t want to oversell this, you are likely better off to catch it on cable, Red Box, or Netflix it than pay through the nose to see it in a theater, but it is a well thought out and acted action film. It’s no Lock Stock and Smoking Barrel, Get Carter (the Michael Caine original), Long Friday Night, Mona Lisa, or even the belly laugh cop buddy send up Hot Fuzz, but it is fast paced, stylishly shot, and it won’t insult your intelligence.

   There are no surprises, it is all predictable, but it is also marked by the good acting, script, direction, and action, all handled with nary a hitch, and you won’t come away from it with your seat numb because it ran on forever.

   There is something to be said for a film that does what it sets out to with success whether it is innovative and new or not, and the cinematography by Harry Escott is sharply done.

   If you watch it and like these kind of movies you will likely enjoy Welcome to the Punch quite a bit. It’s a well done gritty action film that has more brains and heart than many films like it with bigger stars, credits, and budgets.

JOAN COGGIN – Who Killed the Curate? Hurst & Blacken, UK, hardcover, 1944; paperback reprint, no date. Rue Morgue Press, US, softcover, 2001.

   At first sight, and at second and third I would argue, Lady Lupin Lorrimer would seem an unlikely person to become the wife of a clergyman. At twenty-two she is a social butterfly, indeed possesses the brain of that creature, one moreover that was dropped on its head when it was a baby. But marry she does, to the Rev. Andrew Hastings, vicar of Glanville, somewhere on the English coast.

   With no preparation, Lady Lupin is thrust into the parish’s affairs — the Mother’s Union, the Girl Guides, Foreign Missions — of which she knows little, that usually in error, and learns less. She also has to deal with the death of the parish’s curate, who may or may not have died from eating fish at the vicarage. Sort of a dimwitted Pamela North, Lady Lupin, along with her friends, becomes embroiled in the investigation.

   Not a particularly good mystery, but a quite amusing novel.

Editorial Note:   For a long informative essay on the life of Joan Coggin, check out the Rue Morgue Press page for her on their website here. In recent years Rue Morgue has published all four of the titles below, each one for the first time in the US.

         The Lady Lupin Hastings series —

Who Killed the Curate? Hurst 1944.
The Mystery of Orchard House. Hurst 1947.
Why Did She Die? Hurst 1947.
Dancing with Death. Hurst 1949.

BRONCHO BILLY AND THE BABY. Essanay, 1915. G. M. Anderson (Broncho Billy), Berenice Sawyer, Evelyn Selby, Lee Willard. Based on a story by Peter B Kyne. Director: G. M. Anderson. Shown at Cinefest 26, Syracuse NY, March 2006.

   It’s a strong sign of the popularity of the Broncho Billy series (and possibly, also, a symptom of the difficulty in getting new scripts fast enough to accommodate the rapid shooting schedules of the series) that this remake of Broncho Billy and the Sheriff’s Kid was released only two years after the original film.

   Billy, an outlaw on the run, rescues a child and returns her to her mother. When the husband returns and discovers that the saviour of his child is a wanted outlaw, he’s faced with a moral crisis.

   It’s difficult to explain the appeal of these simplistic little two-reelers, but they undoubtedly reside in guilelessness and sympathetic portrayal of Billy by Anderson, and in the emotional tug of the simply defined story lines.

   The screening of an interview with Anderson by William Everson in 1957 showed Anderson to have a phenomenal recall of details of the early days of the film industry, if somewhat less appreciation of current films.

   This was followed by Shootin’ Mad (1918), an abridged version of one of Anderson’s last Broncho Billy films, originally released as a five-reeler. The budget was larger so that the sets didn’t shudder when a door was slammed, but Billy was his dependable self, still, as the program notes put it, “a surefooted cavalier who turns into a bumbling clod when he meets a purty girl.”

Editorial Comment:   The popularity of the Broncho Billy series (1910-1918) should not be underestimated. The list of films in the series on IMDb includes 144 of them, and there are quite likely many others that are missed.