THE CARABOO TRAIL. 20th Century Fox, 1950. Randolph Scott. George ‘Gabby’ Haye, Bill Williams, Karin Booth. Victor Jory. Douglas Kennedy, Jim Davis, Dale Robertson. Screenplay: Frank Gruber. Director: Edwin L. Marin.

   A relatively mediocre oater, The Cariboo Trail is a “northwestern” that is nominally about the founding and settling of British Columbia. Directed by Edwin L. Marin, the movie stars Randolph Scott as Jim Redfern, a Montana rancher who decides to relocate north in order to find a better place for raising cattle. Joining him in this bold endeavor are Mike Evans (Bill Williams), who is far more interested in prospecting for gold than in cattle, and Ling (Lee Tung Foo), a Chinese-American from San Francisco.

   Among the challenges Redfern  faces are hostile Indians and the machinations of Frank Walsh (Victor Jory) and his men, local ruffians hell bent on running the area purely for their own benefit. When Redfern’s former patner Mike  decides to switch sides and work for Walsh, things get even more heated.

   After watching The Cariboo Trail, I realized that I kind of enjoyed it. But while I was watching, I found Frank Gruber’s script somewhat dry and without a core. The last fifteen minutes or so, however, make up for some of the movie’s weaknesses. Altogether, not one of Scott’s best films – not by a long shot. But decent enough for a casual watch. Just don’t expect too much. This is not a Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott collaboration by any means. Final note: this was apparently Gabby Hayes’s last movie.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN “–All You Zombies–” First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1959 (after having been rejected by Playboy). Reprinted a number of times, including The Worlds of Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills (Paperback Library, 1965), and Time Troopers, edited by Hank Davis & Christopher Ruocchio (Baen Books, 2022), among others. Collected in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (Gnome Press, 1969) and 6 x H (Pyramid, 1961), again among many others. Film: As Predestination (Australia, 2014, starring Ethan Hawke). [See Comment #6.]

   The story begins in a bar, for no better reason that is where any story of its kind should begin, with a fellow who calls himself an Unmarried Mother (actually a writer for true confession magazines) telling his life story to the other fellow, the one on the other side of the bar. It’s a lengthy tale, and it includes the fact that the fellow telling the story was born as a girl.

   And this is the point in my telling you the story is exactly where I knew I was going to get stuck, as while I know many of you have read the story, I’m sure there still are several of you who haven’t, and by telling you anything more in any kind of detail, I’m going to end up telling you the entire story.

   There is no way I’m going to do that. Robert Heinlein did it a whole lot better back in 1959, and it’s still the best time travel story that I’ve ever read. It takes the fellow from the bar through a well charted trip across time and space and (in fact) his entire life It’s clean and smooth, and I can’t find a single flaw in it. What more can I tell you?

   I don’t rate many stories 10 stars out of 10, but this one deserves it.

JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” PI Alo Nudger. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1982. Reprinted in Home Sweet Homicide, edited by Cathleen Jordan (Walker, 1991), The Eyes Still Have It, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Dutton, 1995). Also released individually on audio cassette (1997). Winner of the Shamus Award for Best Short Story.

   Alo Nudger’s day begins with two lugs beating him up in his office, followed by a moon-faced female doctor asking him a series of questions after injecting him with truth serum. Problem is, Nudger doesn’t know any of the answers. After the troupe leaves, a client comes in with a wad of money to offer him. After some thought, Nudger turns him down.

   But what, he wonders, is going on?

   Lutz must have had a lot of fun writing his stories about Nudger, because they’re sure a lot of fun to read, with lots of light sarcastic touches. This most certainly includes the St. Louis-based PI’s predilection for antacid tablets whenever the going gets tough – a circumstance that occurs frequently in all of his recorded adventures.

   In one sense the plot of this tale is rather skimpy, but it certainly fulfills its duty of covering the ground as well as it needs to have been done. Stories such as this one are highly addictive.

“Lucky Dip.” First appeared in A Woman’s Eye, edited by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte Press, 1991). Reprinted in Bad Behavior, edited by Mary Higgins Clark (Gulliver Books, 1995). Collected in Lucky Dip and Other Stories (Crippen & Landru, 2003). Winner of an Anthony for Best Short Story of the Year.

   As the leading protagonist of “Lucky Dip,” Crystal, who is merely eighteen, lives as much on the street and using her wits as anywhere else. But when she robs a dead man she finds in a bad section of town called the Trenches, she learns that fortune may actually have turned against her as quickly as her new gains have boosted her spirits.

   But only for the moment. Someone was responsible for the man’s death, and what she has taken from him they want very badly. And of course, on the other side are the police, and she knows better to take any chances with them.

   She is caught in a trap, in other words, one of her own making. But she is only eighteen and while the trap is truly and honestly a desperate one, she — who tells her own story — is not one to despair.

   She comes close, though.

   What struck me the most after finishing this one was not that the ending was not yet paved out for her, but that the story as it was told rang true all the way through. Crystal’s world is not an easy world to live in, but she’s used to it, and she’s a survivor.

DAVID FROME – Mr. Pinkerton Has the Clue.   Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1936. Popular Library #26, paperback, 1944; Popular Library 60-2234,  paperback, date?

   David Frome is a pseudonym of Zenith Brown, who also wrote under the name Leslie Ford. As with her Ford novels, the Frome books deal with polite middle-class people to whom bloodless murder is an unwelcome but speedily dealt-with intrusion. Unlike the Ford novels, which are distinctly American, the Frome stories are distinctly British; many readers have no inkling that the author was not English but an American living in Great Britain who had great ability at adopting the English idiom.

   Mr. Evan Pinkerton would be a pathetic character were it not for his deductive abilities. He is described mainly as “little” and “grey” — “little grey forehead,” “little grey man,” even “grey little spine.” His life has been “mostly drab and often miserable,” and now that he has inherited a substantial sum from his wife, he has trouble believing he really has money and continues to live parsimoniously.

   As this novel opens, Mr. Pinkerton is going on a holiday to Bath, England. Before very long he has violated his parsimony by engaging a room in an expensive hotel, led there by his curiosity about Dame Ellen Crosby, a famed actress.

   Mr. Pinkerton observes quarrels and tensions developing among Dame Crosby’s crippled brother, Major Peyton; the major’s beautiful daughter, Cecily; Cecily’s plain and envious sister, Gillian; Cecily’s fianc6, the arrogant Vardon Crosby; Mrs. Fullaway, landlady at the hotel; and the mysterious Miss Rosa Margolious, a guest who seems always to materialize at the wrong moment.

   When Dame Ellen is found murdered in her bed. it is no surprise — largely due to the author’s unfortunate “had-I-but-known” approach. Pinkerton, who has often assisted Scotland Yard, is called in on the case by Chief Constable Thicknesse (who investigates along with his spaniel, the macabrely named Dr. Crippen). And detect Pinkerton does, in his mild-mannered and affable way, with the usual satisfactory results.

   This novel and the others in the Pinkerton series — The Hammersmith Murders (1930), Mr. Pinkerton Goes to Scotland Yard ( 1934), and Mr. Pinkerton at the Old Angel (1939), among others — will probably not suit the reader who likes his heroes larger than life. It is possible, however, to identify with Evan Pinkerton’s frequent embarrassment and bumbling ways; and the plots and settings are vintage British mystery.

     ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/greenwichtime/name/robert-mcginnis-obituary?id=58019815.

   Thanks to Tony Baer for leaving a message with the link above on Yahoo’s Rara-Avis group.

DINNER RUSH. Access Motion Picture Group, US, 2001. Danny Aiello, John Rothman, Frank Bongiorno, Lexie Sperduto, Zainab Jah, Alex Corrado. Director: Bob Giraldi.

   Dinner Rush isn’t your typical Hollywood fare; in fact, this independent feature is fairly unorthodox in its style and presentation. Set almost exclusively over the course of one night at a trendy downtown Italian restaurant in Manhattan, the movie follows a coterie of employees and customers as they navigate a series of challenges.

   Central to the story is the chef’s father and restaurant owner, bookmaker Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello). Cropa, after years of taking bets, wants out of the illicit trade. But it’s not going to be so easy. Not only does he have to look after Duncan (Kirk Acevedo), restaurant’s sous-chef and a compulsive gambler who’s up to his neck in debt. He also has to face down a squeeze play by two Queens mobsters who have shown up at his restaurant for the evening.

   Bookmarking the film are two killings, one at the very beginning when Cropa’s partner is murdered and a second one at the end, when the entire point of the evening is finally revealed. In between, the viewer is treated to both the petty dramas that unfold in a high-stakes kitchen and to an almost anthropological study of the types of patrons who frequent expensive, well-reviewed eateries. As I said, unorthodox.

   The film benefits tremendously from a very talented cast, including Mark Margolis (Breaking Bad) as an art critic; Walt MacPherson (Homicide: Life on the Street) as a detective; and Summer Phoenix as a waitress whose art adorns the wall of the restaurant.

   Even though there were times when I questioned what exactly it was I was watching, overall I enjoyed this one a lot. It’s different, to be sure and reminded me to some extent of David Mamet’s work.

FRANK GRUBER – Brothers of Silence. E.P.Dutton, hardcover, 1962. Detective Book Club, hardcover, 3-in-1 edition. Bantam F2903, paperback,1965. Belmont, paperback, 1973.

   After a confusing opening, Gruber settles down with a tale about Attila’s hidden treasure, buried somewhere in eastern Europe. Author Charles Tancred, an expert on Caesar and the Roman Empire, knows the approximate location, but there are others who know he knows, and do it goes.

   What makes the beginning confusing is a tendency to fill in background so very gradually, which is not only disconcerting to the reader, but makes the motives of the characters even more unclear. In spite of a strong suspicion that all this mysteriousness was needed only for any mystery at all, once the story finally gets going, it manages to keep a fairly even level.

   The love interest comes on suddenly and strong, however, and it generally manages to foul up the story’s credibility. Every foreigner is quickly characterized with difficulty and English idioms. Carry-overs from Gruber’s pulp days?

Rating: ***

DEATH DRUMS ALONG THE RIVER. 1963. Richard Todd, Marianne Koch, Albert Lieven, Walter Rilla. Screenplay suggested by the story of African adventure Sanders of the River by Edgar Wallace. Directed by Lawrence Huntington.

   This international production is set in 1960s sub-Saharan Africa, in an unnamed British colony on the cusp of independence. The protagonist and hero, Commissioner Harry Sanders (Richard Todd), a fictional creation of the prolific Edgar Wallace, is an upstanding civil servant devoted to his work in keeping the peace. Not an easy task, to be sure.

   The plot is fairly basic. After one of his policemen is stabbed to death by the port, Sanders sets out to not only find the killer, but to undercover an illegal diamond smuggling operation that he believes runs from neighboring Senegal. Sanders’s investigation eventually takes him to an upriver hospital settlement run by Dr. Schneider (Walter Rilla) and staffed by the beautiful Dr. Inge Jung (Marianne Koch) and Dr. Weiss (Albert Lieven).

   Filmed on location in South Africa, Death Drums Along the River features beautiful scenery and provides a great backdrop to the story. Unfortunately, the movie never reaches the level of excitement one would hope for in such a tale. At times, the movie can feel scripted and stale, rather than fresh and alive. That said, I’m a sucker for these types of films – murder mysteries in exotic locales where no one can be trusted. I liked it well enough, but I can’t say that it’s going to be everyone’s cup of tea.
   

JOAN HESS – Strangled Prose. Claire Malloy #1 (of 20). St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1986; Ballantine, paperback, February 1987; St. Martin’s, paperback, 1998.

   A reception for an author of romantic novels at Claire Malloy’s bookstore is disrupted when it is discovered that several characters in the lady’s latest epic have very close counterparts in real life. When she’s later found murdered, Lt. Rosen helps investigate.

   The book is a lot of fun, perhaps too much so. The witty repartee is all but but endless.Everyone is a master of it, and it (eventually) is too much. In spite of the barbs, Claire and Rose are attracted to each other. (No surprise.)