PASSENGERS. Columbia Pictures, 2016. Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia, Vince Foster. Director: Morten Tyldum.

   Is Passengers a romance set in outer space or a science fiction movie with a strong romantic theme throughout? I tend to support the latter interpretation. Directed by Norwegian director Morten Tyldum, this extraordinarily well acted film is predominantly a thinking person’s science fiction film, albeit one with a romance unmistakably at its core.

   Many viewers will likely recognize similar themes from the 1972 film Silent Running (reviewed on this blog here ): the terrifying experience of being completely alone in space, the ingenuity needed to adapt to mechanical challenges plaguing a space ship, and the notion of creating an Earth like ecosystem aboard a vessel in outer space.

   Chris Pratt portrays Jim Preston, a mechanic who is thrust into a situation well beyond his control. He, like some 5,000 other passengers, is in a deep hibernation aboard the starship Avalon as it makes its way to Homestead II. These colonists, as well as the crew, were put into a hibernation pods for the long journey. And I do mean long. 120 years in fact.

   But when an asteroid collides with the Avalon, Jim awakes from his deep sleep. Soon enough he finds out that his revival was an accident and that he’s totally alone on the ship. But he’s not alone really, is he? There are close to 5,000 other passengers aboard, all of whom are continuing their deep sleep until they reach Homestead II. Much like Adam in the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, Jim doesn’t want to be alone. So against his better judgment and his moral understanding of what he is doing is wrong, he decides to use his technical skills to awaken another passenger, the beautiful Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence).

   Soon enough the two of them are romantically involved and settling into their strange new life together on the Avalon. As you might imagine, however, Aurora eventually learns that Jim woke her up. And let’s put it this way: She’s not happy about it. Not in the least. Romance gives way to conflict and unbearable tension as the two people awake on the ship end up completely emotionally isolated from each other. Then things take a turn for the worse. The Avalon begins to break down.

   If the plot sounds simplistic or cliché, trust me when I tell you that it isn’t saccharine or melodramatic in the slightest. The movie raises important themes about technology and about space colonization. Visually stunning, Passengers also benefits from great sound design and a soundtrack that isn’t overbearing in the slightest. For those skeptical of newer science fiction films, it’s worth putting your skepticism aside for this film. It is definitely a film that deserves at least one viewing.

JAMES CORBETT – Murder Minus Motive. Herbert Jenkins, UK, 1943. No US edition.

   Though not up to Mr. Corbett’s usual standards of wonderfully awful, Murder Minus Motive nonetheless demonstrates what he is not capable of even when he tries. In this alleged thriller, a medical doctor murders a total stranger for no apparent reason except the way the stranger carries his umbrella. The doctor, a law-abiding citizen — well, obviously for the most part — turns himself in. He claims that he is not insane and was not afflicted with temporary insanity.

   To test the good doctor’s opinion of his own sanity, the police have him examined by Dr. Julian Buxton, an eminent pathologist. (Yes, I’m quite aware this isn’t the role of a pathologist, but the author probably isn’t.) Dr. Buxton, of course, is aware of the difficulties of such an examination and admits that it might take “an hour, an hour and a half — perhaps two hours or longer, even.”

   Dr. Buxton, however, does do a thorough job. Examining the killer the next day, he does blood-pressure tests, finding that the killer had not recently “undergone any great mental stress.” Thus he concludes that the killer is sane now and was sane then.

   Another murder is committed of the same type, this time by a mild-mannered clergyman. When he is examined by yet another pathologist, he, too, is found to be sane and not to have suffered from temporary insanity when he committed the crime. We can be sure that this examination was also a thorough one because the pathologist uses “a pair of stethoscopes.” Blood pressure, strangely, is not mentioned.

   An expert criminologist sums the situation up: “It’s like this — no motive, no murder. No murder, no death-sentence. On the other side; same again. No insanity, no asylum. Deadlock, and there’s only one answer to that — Acquital. Therefore, our master-murderer gets off scot-free.”

   The novel has to be read not to be believed. To employ one of my favorite quotes from Corbett’s works: “The whole thing is so fantastic as to appear incredulous.”

CLIVE CUSSLER & JUSTIN SCOTT – The Cutthroat. Isaac Bell #10. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover; first edition, March 2017.

   It is 1911, and Isaac Bell, chief detective of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, is back in another high adventure mixing history, past technology, and fast action for his tenth outing.

   Yes, it is still the same mix of pulp. Boys Own Paper, Dime Novel, Nicholas Carter, Tom Swift, and high adventure with an added touch of nostalgia as before, and yes, it works as well as ever in the trusted hands of old pro Justin Scott who was writing this sort of thing before most of us heard of Clive Cussler or Dirk Pitt, with no disrespect to either of the latter gentlemen who still entertain as well.

   This time around we are on Broadway, where runaway hopeful actress Anna Pape has disappeared behind the greasepaint and noise of the Great White Way, and her worried parents, friends of Joseph Van Dorn, Isaac Bell’s boss and mentor, want her found.

   That isn’t to be, though, at least not alive, and worse still her murder seems tied to others which puts fairly recently wed Isaac Bell on the trail of a serial killer called the Cutthroat (sic).

   As you might expect in any book produced under Clive Cussler’s name the plot moves swiftly and from New York’s Broadway to London’s West End. There are productions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and O Henry’s Alias Jimmy Valentine involved, as well as gangsters, producers, bankers, police, actors, and a young film maker named Marion Morgan Bell, wife of our hero.

   More than that, there are great set pieces, early twentieth century cars and transportation, theatrical lore of the period, period history, guns, and even sword play as well as decent detective work though of the thriller and not Detection Club variety. The Bell novels along with Robert Owen Butler’s Christopher Marlowe Cobb series and Graig McDonald’s Hector Lassiter novels are among my favorite contemporary series with their mix of history, adventure, and thrills.

   From the busy lights of the New York theater district to the foggy streets of London, Bell and his allies from the Van Dorn Agency hunt a clever and diabolical killer while not far away within the sound of Bow Bells the shadows of Whitechapel whisper at the edges of the Cutthroat’s crimes.

MR. ROBOT. “hellofriend.mov” USA Network, 24 June 2015. (Episode 1, Number 1.) Rami Malek (Elliot Alderson), Carly Chaikin, Portia Doubleday, Martin Wallström, Christian Slater (Mr. Robot), Michel Gill, Ben Rappaport. Created and written by Sam Esmail. Director: Niels Arden Oplev.

   I’m always far behind the curve. This highly acclaimed cable network series has already been renewed for a third season, starting in October, and I’ve only just now sampled the beginning of the first, which has been out on DVD for a while.

   The leading character is a cybersecurity expert named Elliot Alderson, a nerdish young man who suffers from a severe society anxiety disorder, depression, and by night is an online vigilante, outing online predators, scam artists and worse. He is contacted by an underground group of hackers whose aim is to take down a gigantic worldwide corporation named E Corp (Evil Corp) which controls a high percentage of the world’s net worth.

   The leader of this self-named fsociety group is known only as Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), who in this first episode convinces Elliot in to take down the CEO of E Corp by a bit of totally illegal computer wizardry.

   There is no doubt that the series is well done, perfectly cast and beautifully photographed, and to me all of the code that shows up on Elliot’s computer screen looks authentic. (I’m no expert.) It is not surprised that the series as a whole currently has an 8.6 rating on IMDb.

   I have also watched the second episode, in which we learn more about Elliot’s friends, his not-so-friends, his psychiatrist, his drug-supplier (female, across the hall), but not yet all that much about Mr. Robot. There’s plenty of time for that, I realize, but this is as far as I’m going to go.

   I find all but one of the characters exceedingly unlikable — the exception being Elliot’s boss at Allsafe, and he probably is going to have problems that will be as depressing as all of the others. Even his psychiatrist has her problems, which Elliot in his usual awkward way, tries to set right. We may see the consequences of this in later episodes.

   As for Elliot himself, he has all kinds of conflicts to work out between himself, his friends — the few he has — and, well, the world in general. Elliot as a character is extremely well drawn, but I’m not ready to jump on board yet. For now, I’m going to pass on this one.

   I realize that I’m in a very small minority, but neither will I lie to you.

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN – Dreaming of Babylon. Delacorte, hardcover/softcover, 1977. Dell, paperback, 1980.

   The time is 1942, the place is San Francisco, and a private detective named C. Card is down on his luck. He already has sold everything of value he owns. He owes rent to his landlady, money to all his friends, and various domestic items to all his fellow tenants. Then, amazingly, his luck begins to change with two fortuitous events: (1) His landlady dies, and (2) he gets a client. The trouble is, he has no bullets for his gun and must find some before he meets his client. (What kind of detective goes around with an unloaded gun?)

   The search for bullets takes him to the Hall of Justice and to the city morgue, and many a mysterious stranger he meets along the way — a beautiful, crying blonde; a tough, smiling chauffeur; and a lovely, but dead, prostitute, to name but a few. Of course, the bullet search is not aided any by the fact that he keeps slipping into a daydream about ancient Babylon.

   This is Richard Brautigan’s only criminous novel and, to the average mystery aficionado, the story will seem rambling and plotless, having emerged as it did through the old, capricious byways of the author’s mind. It is a story not so much for fans of detective fiction but for fans of Brautigan fiction, for this is the popular poet/novelist who first came to us out of the hippie generation and is responsible for such works of gentle whimsy as Trout Fishing in America.

   Inexplicably, his later novels took on more violent themes. This would include Dreaming of Babylon, although, by the standards of modern detective fiction, the book is relatively nonviolent and the author’s fanciful comic inventiveness shines through.

         ———
   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.

Bibliographic Note:   Al Hubin includes two earlierr books by Richard Brautigan (1935-1984) in his Crime Fiction IV, those being The Hawkline Monster (1974) and Willard and His Bowling Trophies (1975).

STUDENT OF PRAGUE. German, 1935, as Der Student von Prag. Anton Walbrook (as Adolf Wohlbrück), Theodor Loos, Dorothea Wieck, Erich Fiedler, Edna Greyff. Adapted by Hans Kyser and Arthur Robison from the original story and screenplay by Hanns Heinz Ewers and Henrick Galeen. Directed by Arthur Robison.

   The two earlier versions of this story loom large in the history of German Silent Film — and therefore the history of film itself — but this one has been largely ignored or dismissed, a puzzle to me, since it’s a lovely little film, and perhaps a bit more enjoyable than its predecessors.

   Anton Walbrook stars as the impoverished (and rather superannuated) college boy, popular with the girls and handy with a sword but woefully underfunded when he falls under the spell of a visiting diva. The lady herself seems kindly disposed towards him, but she has a retinue that includes a wealthy baron and a sinister stranger who has some sort of mystical power over her.

   If you’re familiar with the story, you know that the stranger buys Walbrook’s soul, expressed by his reflection in a mirror. But this version executes a twist on the tale I found intriguing, and the result is an emotional impact not to be found in the earlier films. There’s a marvelous moment late in the movie where our student, now rich, with his life in shambles, keeps pulling big handfuls of money from his pockets and flinging it down in disgust, perfectly played by Walbrook and directed by Robison.

   Arthur Robison was American-born, German-raised, and a filmmaker in Germany since those halcyon silent days, best known for the expressionist Warning Shadows (1923). He directs here with a soft-focus splendor, bathing Prague in romantic candlelight and gentle shadows that somehow point up the sinister aspects of the tale more effectively than expressionism ever could. Moreover, for me at least, the overt romanticism lends a melancholy aspect to the spookiness that seems unique and enchanting.

   This Student wouldn’t scare a nervous cat, but it’s not a movie I’ll soon forget.

WARNING: This next clip is of the movie’s finale:

CLIFF FARRELL – Owlhoot Trail. Doubleday, hardcover, 1971. Signet T5207; 1st printing, October 1972. Zebra, paperback, 1990.

   I almost never read westerns for the history that’s behind them, but once in a while I slip up. This story takes place in the days just before the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, and surprisingly to me, this background helps juice up the whole book quite a bit.

   Vince Barrett is a con-man and a gambler, and he has no interest in land. What does attract his attention, though, is $80,000 in stolen Wells Fargo money, hidden somewhere on the other side of the starting line. With three vicious outlaw brothers determined to get their hands back on it, however, not to mention a large contingent of lawmen in the area as well, he decides to leave it lay — that is, until a girl and her father also get involved.

   Thus begins what promises to be a better than average western tale, but there are just too many secrets involved, and worse, the ending is a minor disappointment, at least in comparison to what came before.

Bibliographic Notes:   Cliff Farrell (1899-1977) was the author of hundreds of stories for the pulp magazines, beginning in 1926. His first novel was Follow the New Grass, published in 1954, the first of nearly 30 before his death.

  SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM. Universal Pictures, 1933. Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart, Paul Lukas, Edward Arnold, Onslow Stevens, William Janney, Robert Barrat, Elizabeth Patterson. Producer: Carl Laemmle Jr. Director: Kurt Neumann.

   It was a dark and stormy night. No, really. The clock strikes midnight, and four men wish Irene von Helldorf (Gloria Stuart) a happy birthday. One of the men is her father (Lional Atwill), the others are apparent suitors, one of whom, Tommy Brandt (William Janney), the youngest and brashest proposes.

   Irene puts him off, smilingly, and goes to join the others, where the conversation turns to the castle-like manor’s Blue Room, in which three mysterious deaths have occurred.

   The room has been shut up and locked tight ever since, but Tommy proposes that the three suitors sleep there overnight, on three successive nights. To show his bravery, he volunteers to go first.

   The next day the room is found empty, locked from the inside, but the window is open. Down below is a deep moat. What happened to Tommy? No trace of him can be found.

   This is the kind of movie that lives in its own fantasy world, one in which the police are not called in until they find Tommy’s body, which they don’t. And yet, on its own terms, the rules of what to do in an emergency are consistent and make sense.

   Of course, when one of the other suitors is found shot to death the next night, quite possibly a suicide, the police, in the form of Commissioner Forster (Edward Arnold), do have be called in, albeit reluctantly so.

   Lots of atmosphere in this one, with an excellent cast to go along with the fun, which this one is, in spite of the non-reality of it all.

Note:   This was a remake of a German film Geheimnis des blauen Zimmers, made a year earlier. Universal’s 1938 film The Missing Guest is based on the same source, and so is their film Murder in the Blue Room, from 1944. (Thanks to the AFI website for the info.)

From this jazz organist’s 1992 album That’s Me.

ELIZABETH GEORGE – Just One Evil Act. Lindley & Havers #18. E. P. Dutton, US, hardcover, 2013. Penguin, softcover, 2014.

   American Elizabeth George, who writes the popular series about Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sgt. Barbara Havers, does not write door stoppers. You need to be able to lift door stoppers. Ms. George writes triple-deckers in the 19th Century sense, this one weighing in at a svelte 719 pages.

   That’s the bad news, the good is, for fans of the work of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell (especially the Wexford books), and Martha Grimes, Ms. George more than ably keeps the side up. Thomas Lynley is a devilishly good looking English aristocrat who chose to become a copper, with his most reliable “man” Sgt. Barbara Havers, a lower middle-class sort with a chip on her shoulder about the upper classes, and just about everything else.

   Despite, or because of that, these two make an effective team marshaling the forces of the Yard and their own capable minds to solve quite human mysteries.

   James liked to set her works against institutional backgrounds where George prefers more mundane and human crimes. This one starts off as a bit of a child in danger plot when Havers learns her friend Tamar Azhar’s daughter has been taken by his wife in what seems to be a parental kidnapping by an unfit parent.

   Havers’ heart frequently leads her head, so no surprise that when the child is reported kidnapped in Italy, and she is told by the Yard it is the Italian Police’s business and not hers, she doesn’t listen as soon makes trouble.

   Then, when nothing turns out to be what it seemed to be, Lynley has to save her, his department, and find the child while playing departmental and international politics.

   The Lynley novels are densely populated, they cover a great deal of ground including both series characters tangled and painful relationships off duty and much more fleshed out secondary characters and suspects than in the average mystery.

   They probably are too long, but that seems to be what her fans want. Certainly the good writing helps, but I would not try to force one of these on anyone who doesn’t like long books.

   I’m not sure any mystery novel can really survive 700 plus pages of small print and honestly have the word suspense used about it, but George is a fine writer, and holds up the honor of the form here.

   But if you try it and don’t like it, for God’s sake don’t throw it. You could end up with an injury or the center of a homicide investigation yourself.