A short clip from the movie Swing Time:

PHILIP MACDONALD – The Polferry Riddle. First published as The Choice (Collins, UK, hardcover, 1931). Reprinted as The Polferry Mystery (Collins, UK, hardcover, 1932). Reprinted under this title by Doubleday, US, hardcover, 1931. Also: Vintage Books, US, paperback, September 1983.

   This one starts out as an ace number one detective puzzler, complete with a dark and stormy night, two visitors to the mansion rescued from the river, then sudden death, with the young wife of the home’s owner found with her throat slashed some time during the night in her bedroom. No weapon can be found.

   The three men give each other solid alibis. Each of four others asleep upstairs could have done it, but none of them have a motive. The house was locked tight. An outsider could not have done it. Even Colonel Anthony Gethryn is stumped. With no leads and no evidence the case is put on hold until two of the four members of the household meet with fatal accidents — or are they?

   A good chunk of the middle of the story basically becomes a thriller, as Gethryn and his friends from Scotland Yard make a frenzied chase halfway across England to avert the murder of a young woman who was also one of the four.

   What each of the “accidents” also does is narrow down the list of possible suspects to the original killing, one at a time, and still the police are stumped. No one could have done it, and with no weapon in the room, it could not have been suicide.

   But with Anthony Gethryn on the case, not all is lost, of course. I think the ending is a cheat, though, and I say this reluctantly, since until then, this was a highly readable example of the Golden Age of detective fiction. When it comes down to it, though, I don’t think Gethryn’s logic holds up, nor was I happy when the vital clue was found at nearly the very last moment. Why the police didn’t find it in their original investigation, when they claimed they scoured the house from top to bottom, I have no idea. Put this one solidly in the “Disappointing” category.

SECOND CHANCE. RKO Radio Pictures, 1953. Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell, Jack Palance, Sandro Giglio, Roy Roberts, Dan Seymour, Mlburn Stone. Director: Rudolph Maté.

   A classic case of a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. The opening scene, as gangster hit man Jack Palance offs Milburn Stone in his hotel room suggests that this is the beginning of a fine film solidly in the noir category. But the bulk of the middle of the film is both a travelogue filmed in at fiesta time in beautiful downtown Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, and a romantic drama that’s as dull as dishwater.

   Linda Darnell is, as it turns out, a mobster’s ex-girl friend on the run from the aforementioned Palance. As fate would have it, she finds a soulmate in all-but-burned-out boxer Robert Mitchum, and the cure for her run-away-from-it all blues. The ending, though, eventually, especially for those with their 3-D glasses on, as they did during the film’s initial release, is a spectacular thriller set on a stranded cable car stranded hundreds of feet above a rockier terrain than you can ever imagine.

   You have to wait a long time before the ending, though, or at least so it seemed that way. Mitchum is Mitchum, as always, and that’s all to the good, but Linda Darnell, who was only 30 when she made this film, looks 10 years older, and believe it or not, utterly matronly. But I also hasten to add that even going up cobbled streets in high heels, she’s a better runner than Jack Palance is, and no, I didn’t believe it either.

BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT. Syndicated, 1939-1940. Associated Recorded Program Service (part of Associated Music Publishing Inc). 15 minutes; 3 x weekly. Cast: Nick Dawson as Steven Moore

   This radio series about defense attorney Steven Moore is so forgotten I have been unable to find any mention of it at any current OTR radio research or any other research site or book dedicated to old time radio. There are a few sites than have two episodes available to hear, but none has much information and those even get the year for the episodes wrong.

   Moore was the typical defense attorney, brilliant, quick witted, the enemy of authorities, and willing to save the guilty for a fee. The announcer informed us the series stories were based on some of the “most dramatic criminal cases of the past decade.”

   The New York lawyer was assisted by his “man-of-all-work” (think Runt in the Boston Blackie films), loyal devoted ex-con sidekick, that Moore had gotten out of Sing Sing prison. Without any written record available the actor who played the character sadly must remain uncredited. My ears can’t be sure what the character was called in the episodes (Cuba?) but feel free to add your guesses in the comments below.

   The series was a murder mystery serial with each episode 15 minutes long minus about a minute or so of organ music in the beginning and end. I believe the following episode “Meet Steven Moore” was the series’ first episode.

MEET STEVEN MOORE. Written and directed by William N. Robson. Star: Nick Dawson. *** After getting another not guilty verdict for yet one more man all thought was guilty, Moore learns the D.A. and others are working to get him disbarred.

   So he is less than thrilled to find a beautiful woman wearing a bloody coat hiding in his apartment. Of course he decides to represent her, even if as he says she is guilty.

   The episode sets up the premise and characters well. It was the fall of 1939, and this must have seemed a fresher idea than it does now. Fans of old time radio are probably surprised to hear William N. Robson wrote and directed this. The script holds up; there are a few minor flaws, but this was 1939 and radio was still young and developing.

   William N. Robson would become one of the top director/producers in radio history. In a career spanning four decades he won six Peabody awards and worked on such series as Escape, Suspense, The Man Behind the Gun and Voice of America (with Edward R. Murrow). By this time he was all ready well known for his work on Columbia Radio Workshop, one of the best radio shows of the 1930s. He had returned from England where he had produced some radio shows for the BBC (“Broadcasting” February 1, 1939). Soon he would be the director and producer of popular radio series Big Town with Edward G. Robinson. I can’t find any mention of how long he stayed with Beyond Reasonable Doubt. I can’t even find the series listed on any of his bios.

   The next episode’s credits mention only star Nick Dawson. The announcer set up the series premise, main character, and story. Then he introduced Nick Dawson who as character Steven Moore talked to the audience, recapping the last episode.

THE WOMAN IN THE BEDROOM. A rich playboy has been murdered in his penthouse apartment and the woman last seen with him has escaped. That woman is now hiding in defense attorney Moore’s bedroom. Homicide detective and the victim’s hotel doorman have trailed the woman from the murder scene to Moore’s apartment.

   Clues for this murder story drop in as Moore constantly outsmarts and out talks the Homicide Detective and witness. After his fun Moore heads to his bedroom to turn the girl over to the frustrated cop. But it is not that easy for Moore and he found himself facing a possible charge of accessory after the fact to murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_UwBzt6d0s

   The acting here was nothing special. Dawson failed to make lawyer Moore likable and seemed to drift in and out of a Clarence Darrow impression.

   Nick Dawson (George Coleman Dawson) was a famous radio writer/producer/actor during the 1930s. He had begun in early radio with CBS as a programmer then began to produce his own shows. He was best known for his work with Elsie Hitz as one of radio’s most popular romantic serial couples starring in series such as Follow the Moon, Magic Voice and Dangerous Paradise.

   In “Broadcasting” (September 25, 1939) there was news of Vicks Chemical Co. (Vick’s VapoRub) plans to sponsor Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a fifteen-minute series that would air three times a week on six California stations. William N Robson would direct. The October 1st issue of “Broadcasting” added more information. Seven NBC-Pacific Blue stations would carry Beyond Reasonable Doubt beginning October 4, 1939. The transcribed serial was scheduled to air on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 6-6:15pm (PST). Duncan Coffee Company supported the series on seven Texas stations beginning October 2, 1939.

   Starting January 2, 1940 Vicks moved Beyond Reasonable Doubt to a new time, 9-9:15 pm (PST) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Vicks carried the series on eleven NBC-Pacific Blue stations (“Broadcasting” December 15, 1939).

   In an ad for the series in “Broadcasting” (January 1, 1940) strong ratings (C.A.B. – Crossley) for Beyond Reasonable Doubt at three California stations was highlighted as with news Vicks had renewed the series for another thirteen weeks.

   â€œBroadcasting” (April 15, 1940) reported series production company AMP Recording Studio had sold the transcribed serial to stations in St. Louis, Dayton, and in Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile, Vicks stopped its sponsorship of Beyond Reasonable Doubt with the March 29, 1940 broadcast at 78 episodes.

   I have been unable to determine whether the series went beyond 78 episodes but I doubt it. While the series is somewhat dated Beyond Reasonable Doubt deserves some attention, if only as a forgotten series in the career of William N. Robson.

From this French-Canadian jazz singer’s 2010 CD, Serendipity Street.

   Shortly before he created the immortal Maigret, and while he earned his vin rouge and calvados cranking out pulp novels at the rate of one every few days, Georges Simenon (1903-1989) wrote three series of short stories, thirteen tales apiece, which first appeared, under the pseudonym Georges Sim, in the weekly magazine Détective, each in two parts, with the problem laid out in one issue and the solution, along with a new problem, two weeks later.

   In 1932, with the hugely successful Maigrets being published by the house of Arthéme Fayard at the rate of one a month, Fayard offered the three series from Détective in book form: LES 13 MYSTÉRES, LES 13 ENIGMES, and LES 13 COUPABLES. Thanks to some meticulously detailed French websites, exact data as to all 39 stories are not far to seek.

         LES 13 MYSTÉRES

L’affaire Lefrançois 21 Mar & 4 Apr 1929
Le coffre-fort de la SSS 28 Mar & 11 Apr
Le dossier no. 16 4 Apr & 11 Apr
Le mort invraisemblable 11 Apr & 25 Apr
Le vol du lycée du B… 18 Apr & 2 May
Le dénommé Popaul 25 Apr & 9 May
Le pavillon de la Croix-Rousse 2 May & 16 May
La cheminée du Lorraine 9 May & 23 May
Les trois Rembrandt 16 May & 30 May
L’ écluse no. 14 23 May & 6 Jun
Les deux ingénieurs 30 May & 13 Jun
La bombe de l’Astoria 6 Jun & 20 Jun
Le tabatiére en or 13 Jun & 27 Jun

   The protagonist of these thirteen was Joseph Leborgne, a relatively colorless character who solves cases solely by reading newspaper clippings. Those of us who aren’t fluent in French can judge the series only by the three tales that were translated by Anthony Boucher and published in early issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine: “The Three Rembrandts” (September 1943), “The Safe of the S.S.S.” (October 1946), and “The Little House at Croix-Rousse” (November 1947).

   After a summer hiatus of about two and a half months, Détective launched a second 13-story series, this one featuring a Paris police official known only as G.7, who apparently has jurisdiction over crime puzzles anywhere in France.

         LES 13 ENIGMES

G.7 12 Sep & 26 Sep 1929
Le naufrage de Catherine 19 Sep & 3 Oct
L’esprit démenageur 26 Sep & 10 Oct
L’homme tatoué 3 Oct & 17 Oct
Le corps disparu 10 Oct & 24 Oct
Hans Peter 17 Oct & 31 Oct
Le chien jaune 24 Oct & 7 Nov
L’incendie du parc Monceau 31 Oct & 14 Nov
Le mas Costefigues 7 Nov & 21 Nov
Le ch teau des disparus 14 Nov & 28 Nov
Le secret de fort Bayard 21 Nov 7 5 Dec
Le drame du Dunkerque 28 Nov & 12 Dec
L’inconnue de l’Étretat 5 Dec & 19 Dec

   This collection too can be judged by Frenchless readers only on the basis of the three stories from it that Boucher translated and Fred Dannay published in EQMM: “The Secret of Fort Bayard” (November 1943), “The Tracy Enigma” (May 1947), and “The Chateau of Missing Men” (August 1948).

   The original French titles of two of these three are easy to figure out but “The Tracy Enigma” is impossible — unless you read Boucher’s version, as I did recently, and discover that it’s about the body of a drowned girl that disappears from the shed where it was being kept; in French, a corps disparu.

   The third and final series began running in Détective after a break of almost three months.

         LES 13 COUPABLES

Ziliouk 13 Mar & 27 Mar 1930
Monsieur Rodrigues 20 Mar & 3 Apr
Madame Smitt 27 Mar & 10 Apr
Les “Flamands” 3 Apr & 17 Apr
Nouchi 10 Apr & 24 Apr
Arnold Schuttringer 17 Apr & 1 May
Waldemar Strvecki 24 Apr & 8 May
Philippe 1 May & 15 May
Nicolas 8 May & 22 May
Les Timmermans 15 May & 29 May
Le Pacha 22 May & 5 Jun
Otto Müller 29 May & 12 Jun
Bus 5 Jun & 19 Jun

   This one introduces M. Froget, a Paris juge d’instruction, or examining magistrate, who questions a prisoner before him in each tale. Boucher translated and Fred published four of the stories: “The Case of Arnold Schuttringer” (November 1942), “Affaire Ziliouk” (May 1944), “The Case of the Three Bicyclists” (July 1946), and “Nouchi” (December 1948). In French the third tale is “Les Timmermans”; the original titles of the others are obvious.

   With COUPABLES we are not dependent on ancient issues of EQMM. In 2002 the entire collection was published by Crippen & Landru, in a translation by Peter Schulman, as THE 13 CULPRITS. Schulman describes Boucher’s translations as “very creative, but sometimes [they] took liberties with Simenon’s writing. I have stuck quite loyally to the text, and tried to preserve Simenon’s elegant, sometimes labyrinthine, formal sentence structures….”

   After reading this comment I was struck with the urge to compare Schulman’s translations with Boucher’s. The first thing I found could certainly be classified as taking a liberty with Simenon’s prose. Boucher’s version of the Arnold Schuttringer story begins with a description of Froget supposedly penned by Simenon himself. “I have been a guest in his home on the Champ du Mars, and I should like to attempt a personal impression. No man has ever more thoroughly crushed me, more completely undermined my opinion of myself, than M. Froget.”

   Turning to the Crippen & Landru book, we find that there is no such passage in “Arnold Schuttringer.” Did Boucher have the chutzpah to write it himself? No, he simply borrowed it from the first story in the book, “Ziliouk,” which he translated for EQMM a little later. Since “Schuttringer” was the first Simenon short story to appear anywhere in English, Boucher obviously felt that its protagonist should be introduced by this passage from the first story to appear in French.

   In most respects the translations differ only slightly. Boucher: “Arnold Schuttringer never took his large bulging eyes off the magistrate. They inspired dislike, those eyes, even a strange revulsion.” Schulman: “Arnold Schuttringer did not take his big goggle eyes off him. His eyes inspired a certain amount of ill will, even a strange kind of revulsion.”

   One could spend many hours and pages comparing translations this way if the game were worth the candle. But at the very end of the story there’s one difference too intriguing to pass over. Simenon or whoever the narrator is supposed to be tells us, in Boucher’s translation: “Across these lines [in Froget’s case file] I have read a note written later in red ink: ‘Died at Salpetri re Hospital of general paresis, a year after acquittal for lack of criminal responsibility.’”

   In Schulman’s: “I have read a little note that was later inserted between the lines in red ink: ‘Death at the Salpetri re old age home, of a general paralysis a year after having been acquitted for lack of criminal responsibility.’” This makes no sense. Schuttringer is not an old man; in fact we’re told early in the story that he’s thirty. Even worse, Schulman inserts a footnote that the Salpetri re “housed aged women, and also served as a mental institution for women.” Certainly Arnold Schuttringer was not a woman! Could the subject of Froget’s jotting have been Schuttringer’s female accomplice? But why would monsieur le juge put a sentence about her in a file concerning Schuttringer?

   This dilemma forced me to turn for help to mon vieux ami Jean-Pierre Google. The Salpêtriére hospital — named for saltpeter, an ingredient of gunpowder—was founded in 1656 by King Louis XIV on the site of an old gunpowder factory. It served mainly as a prison for prostitutes and a holding place for the mentally disabled, the criminally insane, and epileptics.

   By the time of the French Revolution it had become the world’s largest hospital. Its original inmates were exclusively women, but during the 20th century Prince Rainier of Monaco was treated there and philosopher Michel Foucault died there. Among the women who died there are singer Josephine Baker, who was one of Simenon’s legion of lovers, and Princess Diana. Exactly when the hospital opened its doors to men I haven’t been able to determine.

   The first of the 13 coupables to appear before M. Froget is Ziliouk, who in Schulman’s translation is described as “a Hungarian (or Polish, or Lithuanian, or Latvian, nobody knew exactly) Jew who…had already been expelled from five or six countries in Europe.”

   No doubt this is a close translation of what Simenon had written. But if we look at Boucher’s rendition from the May 1944 EQMM, we find that a single word has been omitted. “He was a Hungarian…or Polish, or Lithuanian, or Latvian. No one knew precisely;…he had already been deported from five or six countries.”

   Another liberty with Simenon’s text? Yes indeed. But, knowing that Boucher detested and despised anti-Semitism, and that he was translating the story at a time when Jews were being slaughtered by the millions in the Holocaust, wasn’t the liberty justified? In his shoes, what would you have done?

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF. American International Pictures, 1958. Bill Cord, Don Durant, Lisa Montell, Jeanne Gerson, Carol Lindsay. Director: Roger Corman.

   I’m someone who finds a great deal of value in some of Roger Corman’s earliest films, movies released prior to his Poe cycle that are otherwise disregarded for being too simply low budget and too amateurish. For instance, Teenage Caveman (1958) reviewed here and Ski Troop Attack (1960) reviewed here are much better films than their detractors would suggest. Both are fun little adventure films that deliver escapism, some thrills, and a liberal humanist message.

   The same can’t be said for She Gods of Shark Reef. As I understand it, Corman had a great time filming this one – and why not? Filmed on location in Hawaii, She Gods of Shark Reef has some beautiful natural scenery. But that’s kind of all that it has. Amateurish supporting actors and an annoying film score make this early Corman entry a rather forgettable affair.

   As far as the plot goes, there isn’t much there either. Two brothers, one a criminal on the lam and the other, a man who feels that its his moral duty to protect his rapscallion sibling, end up crashing their boat on a reef off the coast of a Polynesian island. Turns out the island is inhabited only by women and that they adhere to some rather unique religious beliefs involving the need to appease some primitive underwater god.

   Most of the movie follows the two brothers as one of them attempts to woo a native girl and the other looks for a means of escaping the island. That’s kind of it. Truth be told, it seems like She Gods of Shark Reef would have been an extremely fun project to work on. But to watch – that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

JANET DAWSON – Kindred Crimes. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1990. Fawcett Crest, paperback, May 1992.

   This is the first of fifteen recorded cases tackled and solved by Oakland-based PI Jeri Howard, including four novellas, and it’s a good one. I’m not alone in holding that opinion. Kindred Crimes won the St. Martin’s Press/PWA contest for best first private eye novel. It was also nominated in the best first novel category for the Shamus, the Macavity and the Anthony.

   In this novel Jeri is hired by a forlorn husband whose wife left their baby son with his grandparents, cleaned out their joint checking account and completely disappeared. Using nothing more than feet and wheels on the ground, Jeri discovers that the missing woman had married him under a phony name, and that her brother had been convicted of killing their parents when they were still children.

   This is a tough-minded detective story. Hints of child abuse immediately come to Jeri’s mind. If you don’t care for detective stories in which the detective gets too emotionally involved with the case she is working on, this may not be the book for you.

   Dawson is a smooth but not overly slick writer, and the puzzle aspect is as well done as the characters. If you decide that this is the kind of book you’d like to read, I think you’ll see why Jeri Howard has managed to hang around for quite a while now.

       The Jeri Howard series —

1. Kindred Crimes (1990)
2. Till the Old Men Die (1993)

3. Take a Number (1993)
4. Don’t Turn Your Back On the Ocean (1994)
5. Nobody’s Child (1995)

6. A Credible Threat (1996)
7. Witness to Evil (1997)
8. Where the Bodies Are Buried (1998)
9. A Killing at the Track (2000)

10. Bit Player (2011)
11. Jeri Howard Casebook: 4 Stories (2011)
12. Cold Trail (2015)

THE BROTHERHOOD. Paramount Pictures, 1968. Kirk Douglas, Alex Cord, Irene Papas, Luther Adler, Susan Strasberg, Murray Hamilton, Eduardo Ciannelli. Music: Lalo Schifrin. Producer: Kirk Douglas. Director: Martin Ritt.

   I don’t know where this movie fits precisely into the chronology of Mafia-based crime films, but while there were certainly gangster movies before The Brotherhood was filmed, in terms of realism, none were quite like this one. It was also four years before The Godfather showed up and finally convinced everyone how they were supposed to be done.

   The story has it that when this one bombed so badly at the box office, it took quite a while to convince the people at Paramount to do another one, which of course was The Godfather.

   The reason I bring this up is that, well, first of all, the movie is actually quite good, but if you can’t place it properly in the evolution of Mafia movies, it can be viewed as a whole series of clichés. Kirk Douglas plays Frank Ginetta, an old-fashioned Mafia don based in New York City; Alex Cord is his (much) younger Vince, who’s gone to college, is home from Viet Nam, has just gotten married, and wants to join the “firm.” Big brother Frank is elated.

   But Vince and the other members of the council want to abandon the old ways and start finding new ways to invest their money and talents. This causes all kinds of problems, as you can imagine. Frank also finds out who provided the tip-off that happened many years ago that resulted in the massacre of over 40 members of the Mafia at the time, including Frank’s father.

   Frank does not take this very well, and his actions leave Vince squarely in the middle. Kirk Douglas takes this role and makes it entirely his own. He is an ebullient lover of his family, good food and happy times, and yet he casually and reminiscently tells someone about the first hit he ever made — when he was eighteen years old.

   Alex Cord, in contrast, and perhaps deliberately so, downplays his role so low that you barely know he’s in the film. He’s grim and dour while his brother’s innate nature is cheerful and charming. The ending is perhaps inevitable, but the getting there is not only absorbing, but a lot of fun to watch.

   If the movie didn’t do well financially, perhaps the movie audiences of the day were simply not ready for it. Another possibility, of course, is that I’m the only one in the world who has ever enjoyed it, but I’m fairly sure that that’s not so.

From this jazz singer’s debut LP released in 1961. Backed up by the Buck Clayton Jazz Stars Band.