CARTER DICKSON – He Wouldn’t Kill Patience. William Morrow, hardcover, 1944. Paperback reprints include: Dell #370, mapback edition, 1950; Berkley X1339, 1966; IPL, 1988.

   The Royal Albert Zoological Gardens is an unlikely place to find Sir Henry Merrivale. He loathes snakes, but he is at the zoo to observe how they are milked for their venom. When an angry magician breaks open two glass cages, unleashing a tropical American lizard, large size, and a Gila monster, not too small, H.M. becomes the creatures’ target.

   That’s not the least of H.M.’s problems. He comes to dine with an old friend only w discover that the friend has died of coal gas inhalation within a locked room. Though he is convinced that it was murder, how can H.M. explain not only the locked room, but the fact that paper strips have been glued to all the openings from inside the room? Furthermore. H.M. isn’t through with the snakes, who play more than one role in the investigation.

   First-class Dickson.

I don’t know the technical term for the glitch going on today, but people from some ISP’s can access this blog, and others can’t. I’m going to hold off posting until whatever the problem is clears up. Meanwhile my spam fighting service can’t access my blog, and I have over 2000 of the little rats piling up on me so far, and counting.

[UPDATE: Sunday evening.] It looks as though we’re back in business, all but the spam messages, which have accumulated over the weekend to over 4300. Why on earth?

THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR. Universal, 1933. Nancy Carroll, Frank Morgan, Paul Lukas, Gloria Stuart, Jean Dixon, Donald Cook, Charles Grapewin, Walter Pidgeon. Director: James Whale. Shown at Cinevent 16, Columbus OH, May 1984.

   The special treat of the weekend was a showing of James Whale’s The Kiss Before the Mirror, with one of those fine performances Frank Morgan gave consistently before he was typecast by MGM, acting with an intelligence and intensity that would undoubtedly surprise the fans of his 40s films.

   Here he is a lawyer defending his best friend on a murder charge, accused of killing his wife at a lovers’ tryst. Morgan has discovered that his own wife has a lover, and his defense of his friend (Paul Lukas) mirrors his own dilemma and the defense that might be mounted for him as he feels himself drawn toward a similar crime. The courtroom sequence is brilliantly directed, and it has the most unsettling movie climax I’ve witnessed since Carrie rose suddenly out of her grave in Brian DePalma’s contemporary shocker.

   And in the first 10 minutes of the film there is one of those stylized Whale landscapes that have haunted me from my first contact with with his Bride of Frankenstein in a movie trailer in the thirties.

CORNELL WOOLRICH – Savage Bride. Gold Medal #138, paperback original; reprinted at least three times.

   So I was watching Black Moon, reviewed here a few years ago, a crackerjack little film taking place in the tropics and the priestess of a local voodoo cult, and it got me to thinking: Had I seen something like this before? No … but I’d read it; I was a Cornell Woolrich fan long before Mike Nevins made it respectable, and back in High School, when I haunted seedy used book stores in crummy neighborhoods, I picked up a copy of Savage Bride which, if I remembered correctly, had the same plot or something very much like it.

   I dug out my copy of the book, intending to skim through it and confirm my suspicions, but the Woolrich prose grabbed me right at the start, and I found myself reading (or re-reading after 40 years) this thing all the way through. And I was right: there are some changes, but this is basically the premise of Black Moon formatted for a two-bit -paperback.

   Larry Jones, naïve young hero, opens the story by eloping with Mitty, a young woman raised in seclusion by two scientists, her upbringing like some soda! experiment. The honeymooning couple miss their boat and get stuck on s Central American island where Mitty seems drawn Irresistibly towards the jungle … and the primitive tribes with their drums, those incessant drums pounding-in-my-head-night-and-day-Oh-why-won’t-they-stop?

   Yes, it’s Black Moon all right, complete with the wife turning into a creature of evil, the good folks on a plantation besieged and taken captive by natives, and the perky young love interest for our hero after his wife proves socially embarrassing.

   But there’s more here. Surprisingly more. Savage Bride is a novel with layers, only the first of which is Woolrich’s prose, colorful as a movie poster and just as effective. Woolrich evokes the feel of a scene by emphasizing its look: he describes conversations in silhouette, cigarette smoke drifting aimlessly as the pointless talk. He conveys the suspense of a car chase with the surrounding night-scape, and there’s a very neat bit late in the book with Larry darting from shadow to shadow in a moonlit night, which Woolrich likens to a chess piece maneuvering from black-square-to-white-to-black to avoid capture. Good stuff, that.

   There’s also some subtle foreshadowing which escaped me back in my teens: early on, Mitty describes her upbringing by the scientists: “He’d hand me something to drink and he’d say ‘Water.’ Then when ! wanted it again rd say ‘water’ and he’d bring it to me . . ..” And this is reprised later in the book to chilling effect. Mitty goes on to describe learning about love by reading Romeo and Juliet, and this is also echoed, very movingly, as the tale concludes. Sharp stuff for a two-bit paper-back.

   More layers? Well, like I said before, Mitty, the ostensible heroine of the book, quickly loses our sympathy and becomes the villain of the piece toward the end (“She doesn’t know what mercy is.”) but Woolrich very casually demonstrates that her cruelty is no worse than that of the heartless men who spirited her away as a child in the name of Science, and maybe not as bad as the slow, deliberate meanness of the corrupt officials of “civilization.”

   And come to that, all of these are just expressions of the malignant universe that was Woolrich’s world.

SABATA. Produzioni Europee Associati, Italy, 1969, as Ehi amico… c’è Saba Hai chiuso! United Artists, US, 1970 (dubbed). Lee Van Cleef, William Berger, Ignazio Spalla, Aldo Canti, Pedro Sanchez, Nick Jordan, Franco Ressel, Anthony Gradwell, Linda Verasta. Director: Gianfranco Parolini.

   Don’t watch Sabata, the first of the Sabata Trilogy, for the plot. Because, truth be told, the plot is neither particularly interesting, nor is it central to the movie. Holding this enjoyably silly movie together are the following three key ingredients: Lee Van Cleef’s role as the title character; the Spaghetti Western visual aesthetic replete with wild zoom-ins; and, of course, distinct music that would be completely out of place anywhere but a late 1960s Italian western.

   Who is Sabata? He’s first and foremost a character portrayed by Lee Van Cleef. He’s also a drifter, gunfighter, friend, schemer, and vigilante who, one day, rides into a small Texas town. Lo and behold, the town just happens to experience a bank robbery soon upon Sabata’s arrival. He’s not responsible for the crime, however. The culprits are a ragtag group of outlaws and acrobats (just go with it). Sabata decides that he’s going to take it upon himself to bring the perpetrators to justice; well, his brand of justice anyway.

   After receiving a reward for retrieving the loot and returning it to its proper owners, Sabata soon discovers that the elite townsfolk are the ones really behind the crime. What’s a man like Sabata to do? Blackmail them, of course. This leads Sabata into an unlikely partnership with a drunken war veteran named Carrincha (Ignazio Spalla) and a mute Indian acrobat named Alley Cat (Aldo Canti). These two misfits become not just his partners, but also his hangout buddies. It also leads him headlong into a confrontation with a former associate, the mysterious banjo player named . . . Banjo (William Berger). He’s a gunfighter just like Sabata and he’s no pushover. So you know it’s going to be a fight to the finish.

   As I mentioned before, the plot is really secondary to the film’s aesthetic. If you don’t care for Spaghetti Westerns, Sabata isn’t going to work for you. If you do like them, you may agree with me that this is actually nifty little film that doesn’t require much from the viewer. What it lacks in coherence it more than makes up for in slightly off kilter visuals and well choreographed gunfights, all set to a remarkably effective soundtrack that really propels this buddy movie forward.

PATRICIA PONDER – Murder for Charity. Manor 15281, paperback original, 1977.

   Contradicting the ultra-macho image projected by the front cover, which shows the Cajun detective Louis Breaux being very protective of the cuddlesome Diana, this is in fact a detective story most reminiscent of the old-fashioned golden age of mystery fiction, complete with a country club overflowing with clues and suspects.

   When Diana Parnell’s aunt is murdered while she’s running an antique show for charity, it’s Diana who’s suspected. The mysterious behavior of a friend caused her to be alone at the very moment for which an alibi is needed, but to her rescue comes Louis Breaux, convinced of her innocence even though they’ve only just met, and together they set off on the killer’s trail.

   It must be remembered that most of the books of the golden age have been forgotten, with good reason. Only the Christie’s and the Queen’s still survive, and they’re the models that other writers of pure detective fiction must strive to equal. Here’s another that doesn’t measure up. When the clues are as falsely represented or slighted over as they are here, it may be playing fair with the reader in a technical sense, but the edges of an otherwise pleasing performance are curdled.

   Nevertheless, flaws and all, it was a nice surprise to find this. Mildly recommended for those who are nostalgic for this sort of thing.

Rating: C.

[Note to bibliographers: Besides the haphazard proofreading system employed by Manor throughout the book, on the title page the author’s name is given as Patricia Maxwell.]

[UPDATE] Additional bibliographic notes: Patrica Ponder was indeed a pen name of Patricia Maxwell (1942- ). Under that name she also wrote Haven of Fear for Manor, 1977, but it is doubtful that Louis Breaux ever made another appearance.

   Under her own name, Patricia Maxwell has seven entries in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, all apparently gothics or novels of romantic suspense. (The line between them is often blurry.) There is also one entry for her there as Elizabeth Trehearne, another gothic. She is best known to readers of romance fiction, however, as Jennifer Blake, with 50 or 60 titles in that genre, and still counting.

GARY MADDEROM – The Jewels That Got Away. Curtis 07311, paperback original, 1973.

   As a mystery or crime fiction writer, Gary Madderom has one other book listed in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, that one being The Four Chambered Villain, which was published in hardcover by Macmillan in 1971 before being reprinted in paperback, also by Curtis. According to an online obituary, he worked for a while for Warren Publishing, well known for putting out such magazines as Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Vampirella.

   The book at hand, which as usual for Curtis, fell apart as I read it, is the story of a jewel heist which, as usual, the plan for which unravels (falls apart) almost as soon as it’s put into motion. Even a second attempt fails, and that one even more so than the first.

   Coerced by financial circumstances (he has no money) and coaxed along by his cousin’s beautifully stacked secretary, would-be actor Rocco Agnello reluctantly lets Frank (reputedly connected with the Mafia) talk him into the plan. It is somewhat amazing that it takes 190 pages to tell the story, but to Madderom’s credit as a writer, it does so, and in a very self-assured fashion.

   One might wish for more depth in the characters as well, but one can’t have everything. Call this one average, no more.

ROB KANTNER – The Quick and the Dead. Ben Perkins #7. Harper, paperback original, 1992.

   Thanks to Leonard, Estleman, Jackson, and Kantner, Detroit has become one of the better-known cities on the hardboiled map. The city, its makeup and its history, are an important part of each author’s approach to his story, though the focus of each of course varies. Kantner’s for the seventh Ben Perkins is the world of Detroit Catholicism.

    Perkins, the sometime private eye, full time maintenance head of a large apartment complex, is currently enjoying the benefits of an interesting life. His boss would like to fire him, a mafia don wants some incriminating material Perkins has, and an ex-lover is about to have their child.

   Now a local judge who is in a position to both help and harm him wants him to take on a job for St. Angela’s parish — for no pay. The ex-priest of the church is being considered for canonization during an upcoming visit by the Pope. The problem is that when his body was dug up to be examined, it wasn’t there; the coffin was filled with bricks. Perkins’ job: find it, and find out why it is missing.

   I’ve generally enjoyed Kantner’s novels. Perkins, and ex-factory worker and ex-union enforcer, is a well-realized bluecollar type of PI, and Kantner tells a good story in very good prose. The books don’t make me want to start babbling about “transcending the genre,” but then again they rarely bring on one of my tirades about foolish people and foolish plots. This one is no exception. It won’t make you forget Chandler, but it’s a solid example of the hardboiled type.

       The Ben Perkins series —

1. The Back-Door Man (1986)

2. The Harder They Hit (1987)
3. Dirty Work (1988)
4. Hell’s Only Half Full (1989)
5. Made in Detroit (1990)
6. The Thousand Yard Stare (1991)

7. The Quick and the Dead (1992)
8. The Red, White and Blues (1993)
9. Concrete Hero (1994)
10. Trouble is What I Do (story collection; 2005)
11. Final Fling (2007)     ADDED LATER (see comments)

THE KILLING. United Artists, 1956. Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted DeCorsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook, Joe Sawyer. Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, with additional dialogue by Jim Thompson; based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White. Director: Stanley Kubrick.

   A revolutionary heist film in many regards, and considered by many viewers as a classic. (It has an 8.0 rating on IMDb.) Not Kubrick’s first film, but while it’s one that while it didn’t make a lot of money at the box office, what it did do was to make film critics sit up and take notice of a new guy in town.

   The story is a old one by now, and maybe it was even then: The theft of $2,000,000 in cash from a race track is meticulously planned, and everything goes as smooth as silk when all of a sudden, it doesn’t. What’s distinctive about this film is that it’s shown in non-linear fashion, and I’m willing to wager that in 1956 audiences were not ready for stories told that way, even with some (studio required) voiceover narration to help them out.

   One problem I personally have with this film is that I do not believe for one second that Marie Windsor’s character would stay married to Elisha Cook for five minutes, much less than five years. I only wish she had had more screen time. What a femme fatale she was in almost every movie she made, and she was never more fatale than she is in this one.

   It is the ending that makes this movie pure noir. When he’s forced to improvise, Sterling Hayden, the mastermind of the plot that he sees disintegrating around him, he starts to make mistakes that he might not otherwise. All that effort — and all that money — [SPOILER ALERT] just blowing away in the wind.

SHE. RKO Radio Pictures, 1935. Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, Helen Mack, Nigel Bruce. Based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard. Directors: Lansing C. Holden & Irving Pichel.

   Herewith my reconsideration of She, bringing, I hope, a close to my rediscovery (thanks to your astute reviewers) of my earlier review.

   I watched first the b&w version of She, then a few sections of the colorized version.

   No, Nigel Bruce’s role is not a “throw-away,” although he’s very clearly a supporting player and is best used in the sections that lead up to the discovery of Kor.

   I’m not generally fond of colorizing films, but the process is rather tastefully used in She, and is especially effective in the Hall of Kings segment. Harryhausen and James V. D’Arc both compare the musical accompaniment to the dances in the Hall of Kings to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” which is certainly stretching it quite a bit.

   I have CDs of both the original score and its restoration and recording with William Stromberg conducting the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. I don’t find it musically as compelling as the score for King Kong, but it’s an impressive record of Steiner’s musical genius. His scores for the two Merian C. Cooper fantasy productions are at the top of my favorites among his film scores, as are Rozsa’s scores for The Jungle Book and The Thief of Baghdad among his numerous film scores.

   Helen Gahagan is not conventionally attractive, but her imperious manner contrasts very effectively with Helen Mack’s performance, two roles that are the strong emotional underpinnings of the film.

   And the production design and special effects are outstanding.

   I must say that I’ve enjoyed returning to the film after three decades and I appreciate the comments about my earlier review that prompted this voyage — dare I say it? — of discovery.