SURFSIDE 6. “Country Gentleman.” ABC / Warner Brothers. 03 October 1960 (Season One, Episode One). Lee Patterson (Dave Thorne), Troy Donahue (Sandy Winfield II), Van Williams (Ken Madison), Diane McBain, Margarita Sierra. Guest Cast: Ray Danton, Frank DeKova, Robert Burton, Janet Lake. Director: Irving J. Moore. Many shows available for streaming on the Internet Archive.

   As far as least a secondary function of the first show of the season is o introduce the characters, this particular one is (was) a gigantic flop. It might be me, but I felt as though I could have been watching an episode in the middle of the season rather than the first one.

   Not that that was much of a problem. The picture filled itself in easily enough, if all you want is to watch is a show with three good-looking guys running a PI agency in Florida (Miami) with the usual light-hearted effort to put on an otherwise ordinary PI TV show.

   But to put in the effort that a blogger who likes to watch old PI TV shows should be doing, let me crib from IMDb:

   â€œKen, Dave, and Sandy are three hip private detectives living on, and working out of, a houseboat in Miami, Florida. A yacht, belonging to socialite Daphne [Diane McBain], is anchored next to their houseboat. While not pursuing criminals, they spend time at the Fontainebleau Hotel chasing Cha Cha [Margarita Sierra], who works as an entertainer in the Boom Boom Room.”

   It is interesting to note that Van Williams’ character (Ken) was a fellow who previously was one the lead players on Bourbon Street Beat, another Warner Brothers/ABC production which had just closed down for good the previous spring.

   In this one, a cool suave but still somewhat crude gangster (played by totally cool suave but still somewhat crude Ray Danton) is trying to use his money and charisma to join whatever high society that Miami has to offer, and hitting a brick wall in doing so. When one of the gents who blackballed him is found dead, guess who is the obvious suspect? Not to mention that he and the Commodore’s daughter have become very close.

   This is a somewhat mediocre episode and yet perhaps as enjoyable a one as viewers were able to see in 1960. The stories may very well have improved, as the series was on for two years. But when the “villain” of the piece has more screen appeal than its nominal three stars, something’s just not right.
   

AUSTIN REED – The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict. Random House, hardcover, 2016. Modern Library, softcover, 2017. Edited by Caleb Smith. David W. Blight (Foreword), Robert B. Stepto (Foreword).

   â€˜Cut off from all virtue a man will in time,

   Sit brooding on vice and preparing for crime.’

   Written in 1858, but privately held for 150 years until discovered at a Rochester estate sale in 2009, this is apparently the first prison memoir by a Black American.

   It is the picaresque bildungsroman (don’t I sound smart) of a man first imprisoned at aged nine at the House of Refuge in the Bowery in 1833 (for burning down the house of a farmer that horsewhipped him for stealing fruit and refusing to work off his debt), his multiple escapes and further crimes, and his placement at Auburn State Prison in 1840.

   By ‘picaresque’ what I mean is this: I went to a screening of the Italian movie Il Sorpasso. It’s a road movie about a drunken womanizing hooligan who convinces an uptight law student to forsake his exams for an intoxicated spree across the countryside. It inspired Alexander Payne to make Sideways. Payne was at the screening and said that the ‘road movie’ is just a picaresque novel in film form. And he claimed the picaresque novel is at least as old as Don Quixote.

   And that what’s fun and easy about the picaresque novel/road movie (at least from a creative standpoint) is that all you have to do is tell a series of chapters going from points a to b to c on a map. Each stop on the map is a different chapter. And that’s it.

   So while ‘picaresque’ sounds all hoity toity, all I mean to say is that this book is just a series of events in the life of a juvenile delinquent. A real-life Huckleberry Finn with horrific periods of imprisonment for his shenanigans.

   Each time he is caught and imprisoned: “awaiting my arrival… was Mr. Hard Heart, Mr. No Feelings. Mr. Cruel Heart, Mr. Demon, Mr. Fiend, Mr. Love Torture, Mr. Tyrant, and Mr. Cat Bearer” (‘cats’ being the cat gutted barbs slashed upon a prisoner’s back).

   And by ‘bildungsroman’ all I mean is that the book shows how the dastardly, bastardly treatment of a juvenile delinquent turns a mischievous boy into a hardened criminal. “Horrors, horrors, horrors, eternal horror of horrors came beating and pealting upon my mind.”

   I can’t say the book was that fun to read. It was okay. The goal, I guess, of the book was to convince other juvenile delinquents to stick to the straight and narrow — scaring ’em straight from a life of crime.

   The best thing about the book is how surprisingly modern the language is. I had read something somewhere from Raymond Williams, I think (what a great scholar I turned out to be!), saying that the hardboiled/proletarian novel emerged from the prison confessionals of the 19th century. And I guess I can see it to some extent. There is definitely a rough-hewn unvarnished quality to the prose. And it’s the heavy varnish and embroidery that I find so annoying about most literature prior to Hammett, Hemingway and Tully. Get to the freaking point! (My wife has an Onion T-Shirt that reads: “Let the Fucking Begin”).

   So, yeah. I’ve been reading 19th century slave narratives and prison confessionals on Raymond Williams’s recommendation. And so far I guess I agree. Not that I’ve gotten a great deal of joy from these reading experiences so far (although the Confessions of Nat Turner was surprisingly wacko — that dude was a total, astounding wack-job).

   But yeah. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that plain-talking, hard-boiled prose was happening in America much earlier than we’ve been led to believe. It’s generally criminous and confessional. And it may not be the most enjoyable thing in the world to read. But it’s there. It’s real. It’s hard as rocks and it’ll make your head bleed.

   Just take it from Rochester’s own Austin ‘Rob’ Reed. Stay free of crime, me lads, lest the blade’s scabbard broach its breach: “Show him to me, and ere the sun sets in the west the bowknife of my father shall be stained with his blood.” I beseech ye: don’t let it be so! Stay free of crime, me lads. Let the Lord’s path be your guide, lest your soul swelter in hell, yelping helplessly, forevermore.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW.  Paramount Pictures, 1938. Akim Tamiroff, Anna May Wong, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, Anthony Quinn, Roscoe Karns, Harvey Stephens, Hedda Hopper, Porter Hall. Screenplay: Harold Lipman & Horace McCoy, based on the novel and play On the Spot by Edgar Wallace. Song “Thanks for the Memory.” Directed by Robert Florey.

KING OF CHINATOWN.  Paramount Pictures, 1939. Akim Tamiroff, Anna May Wong, J. Carroll Naish, Philip Ahn, Anthony Quinn, Sydney Toler, Roscoe Karns. Screenplay: Irving Reis & Leland Hayward. Directed by Nick Grinde.

   Two films teaming Akim Tamiroff as a gangster with Anna Mae Wong, both giving strong performances in above average B-films, both co-starring a young Anthony Quinn. Of the two Dangerous to Know is the better film, though Wong has a bigger role, though not as showy, in King of Chinatown.

   In the former,Tamiroff is Stephen Recka, who runs the town, but would rather be accepted by society and appreciate his music with his “hostess” Lan Ling (Wong) who loves him despite his neglect. As the film opens, Recka has been double-crossed by an associate and arranges with his right handed man (Quinn) to cause an “accident.”

   But Recka has met beautiful society woman Margaret Van Case (Gail Patrick) and decides he wants her. She’s in love with young Philip Easton (Harvey Stephens) though, and Recka has to get rid of him first, which he does by getting Easton a job with a bank and then setting him up for the theft of bonds and kidnapping him.

   Meanwhile things quickly complicate when Tamiroff discovers the two thugs he hired to set Easton up have taken off with the bonds and been picked up by the police putting his old rival Inspector Brandon (Lloyd Nolan, making the most of a fairly small role in one of several films he did with Tamiroff) on his trail.

   Margaret comes to Recka to get help for Easton who has been arrested on a tip from Recka who left him drunk in a hotel room. Brandon further messes up Recka’s plans by not charging Easton, but Margaret agrees to marry Recka if he saves Easton.

   Coincidence runs rampant toward the end, but Wong gets to shine in a scene when she says her goodbye to Recka, which, while high melodrama is effective, and the thing gets wrapped up neatly in just under an hour, replete with the debut of Bob Hope’s theme song “Thanks for the Memory.”

   No one can say you didn’t get your quarter’s worth with a B and a feature plus newsreels, shorts, and cartoons.

   With an Edgar Wallace novel and play (Wong played the lead on Broadway with Glenda Farrell), a screenplay by Lipman and McCoy and always interesting direction by Florey, it is all much more than you have the right to expect from a B-movie.

   Wong has a much bigger role in King of Chinatown, where she is a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Ling, whose father, also Dr. Ling (Sydney Toler, in a debut of his Charlie Chan persona after he was cast, but before his first film was released) is resisting efforts of nightclub owner and self styled king of Chinatown, Baturin (Tamiroff).

   Ling and her boyfriend reporter Bob Lee (Philip Ahn in a rare leading man role) are witnesses when Baturin is wounded in a plot by his ex-murderer business manager the Professor (J. Carroll Naish) and an ambitious hood (Anthony Quinn) and thinking her father shot him try to keep him from talking.

   Ling operates on Baturin and keeps him isolated. and later takes a job caring for him in his home, where Baturin starts to fall for her. In the meantime, the police are starting to move in on the Professor and Quinn as the Professor decides to silence Baturin before he can come back and see what they have done in Chinatown.

   In the end with the money from Baturin, Wong and Ahn fly off to China with money to help with medical aid for the on going war with Japan.

   There is no big scene for Wong in this, though she is on screen much more of the time, and despite her strong presence, both films are much more showcases for Tamiroff, who starred in a number of strong B films in the period. The notable thing about both films is they are far better and more ambitious than they had to be and have fairly notable screen credits (Lipman, McCoy, Hayward, Reis).

   It’s also notable how many familiar faces wander in and out of these, with actors like Porter Hall and Roscoe Karns on hand for little more than walk-ons.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Hammer Films, UK, 1957. Peter Cushing (Victor Frankenstein), Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart. Christopher Lee (The Creature), Melvyn Hayes, Valerie Gaunt. Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster, based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Director: Terence Fisher.

   The previous time I had seen Hammer’s Gothic classic, The Curse of Frankenstein, it was at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Screened in glorious 35mm as part of a Halloween lineup, the movie’s aesthetic definitely made an impression on me.

   Much like the Universal Monsters films from the 1930s, the Hammer Films have the capacity to transport the viewer into a self-enclosed universe of ghouls and monsters. Everything from the costumes to the lighting works in tandem to create a celluloid dreamworld that is – in my humble opinion – simply unmatched in contemporary horror film-making.

   So when I came across a VHS copy, I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t that expensive ($10), and the box is in relatively good condition. Plus, it’s got somewhat atypical cover art that admittedly captures Peter Cushing’s eyes quite well!

   Now there’s nothing new under the sun here in terms of storytelling. If you know the Frankenstein story (legend?), then you’re not going to be surprised by all that much. Young Baron Frankenstein (Cushing) hires Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart), a tutor to help him with his studies. As years go by, Frankenstein emerges as a scientific genius with a penchant for danger.

   It doesn’t take long for the tutor to disavow his former student’s desire to create life from death. Complicating matters even further is the entrance of the beautiful Elizabeth (Hazel Court), Frankenstein’s cousin who threatens to pull the mad doctor not only away from his work, but also from the chambermaid he’s been having an affair with!

   Christopher Lee doesn’t speak a word, but he’s quite convincing as the scarred, deformed, and ultimately tragic Frankenstein monster – or, as the film credits state, “The Creature.” There’s a great scene in which Baron Frankenstein lords over a chained and terrified Creature, reminding us just who the monster in this movie really is.

   I appreciated watching this one on VHS as it allowed me to focus a bit more on the characters than I did when I saw it at the New Beverly. Altogether, well worth the ten bucks.
   

ROBERT C. DENNIS – Conversations with a Corpse. Paul Reeder #2. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1974. Ballantine, paperback, 1976.

   Robert C. Dennis wrote dozens of short stories for the pulps in the 1940s and hundreds of teleplays for such popular TV
series as Dragnet, Cannon, and Perry Mason from the 1950s to the early 1980s. But his output of novels, regrettably, was limited to just two — both published in the early Seventies; both narrated by architect Paul Reeder, “a psychic, a man with a freak brain capable of recovering mind pictures of past events”; and both literate and expertly constructed whodunits that even ESP skeptics can enjoy.

   On a business trip to the small California wine-country town of Orofino, the “Wine Capital of the West,” Reeder rents a car at the local airport and, as soon as he touches the steering wheel, has a psychometric vision telling him the man who last drove the car is now dead. Directed by his “inner mind,” he embarks on a search that leads him into conflict with Sergeant Dryden of the Orofino police and with members of the Chicano community; into an abandoned winery filled with bloated rats and an equally bloated corpse; and finally to a confrontation with a homicidal madman at the Mission Santa Teresa Dolorosa.

   Library Journal called the novel “a suspenseful and menacing puzzle”; the Los Angeles Times praised it as “tough and furiously fast-paced … [with] bone-chilling situations.” Both assessments are on target. The scene in which Reeder is trapped in the bankrupt winery is a minor masterpiece of its kind, guaranteed to give the most jaded reader a case of the shudders.

   The first Reeder novel, The Sweat of Fear (1973), is also a fine piece of criminous storytelling and highly recommended.

———
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.

   Rex Stout’s third Nero Wolfe collection, Trouble in Triplicate (1949), contains a trio of novellas first published in The American Magazine: “Before I Die” (April 1947), “Help Wanted, Male” (August 1945), and “Instead of Evidence” (May 1946); the latter debuted as “Murder on Tuesday,” yet was curiously advertised a month before as “Too Stubborn to Live.”

   That’s how Martha Poor describes husband Eugene, convinced that his partner, Conroy Blaney, plans to kill him for his half of their novelty business. All agree that it is impossible to prevent this, but Gene wants Wolfe to ensure that Blaney gets caught, while she would prefer that he be bought out for a ridiculously low $20,000 — yet remain alive.

   When a real exploding cigar kills Poor, obliterating his face, longtime genre readers are perhaps unsurprised as “Gene” is revealed to have been her accomplice, eliminated after helping Martha implicate Blaney, and in fact, all three stories have imposture in common. In “Before I Die,” Wolfe surprises Archie by having him admit Dazy Perrit, King of the Black Market, who provides a phone number to offset the “Great Meat Shortage.”

   He is being blackmailed by Angelina Murphy, set up in his penthouse off Fifth Avenue as his faux daughter, Violet; he took this precaution because his enemy Thumbs Meeker learned that he had one somewhere: Beulah Page, now “among the top of her class at Columbia.”

   She turned two the week he went to prison, and believes that Perrit merely represents her mysterious, wealthy father; Dazy, whose minion is Archie’s namesake, also fears that her appearance and mannerisms, strongly resembling her dead mother’s, will be a give-away. Himself posing as Harold Stevens of the Dayton, Ohio Community Health Center, Archie invites Beulah and her fiancé, law student Morton Schane, to dine with Wolfe, who later threatens to turn “Violet” (aka Sally Smith) in on a Salt Lake City charge if she does not give him 90% of what she gets from Perrit. Archie assumes he plans to kick it back, but as he escorts her home she is gunned down, her last words, “It’s — uh…shame. Shame!”

   Archie is released after telling Lt. Rowcliff that the killer fired from a (stolen) car with a handkerchief over his face; no sooner has he reached the brownstone to be confronted by Perrit and Archie 2 than they, too, are shot dead from a taxicab. L.A. Schwartz, Dazy’s lawyer, tells Wolfe he will get $50,000 if he assents to be the executor “and in effect the guardian of his daughter,” then turns over a sealed envelope containing background data on Beulah, and a request that Wolfe make sure she receives his sizable estate. They are interrupted by calls from Fabian, an “associate” who may blame them for Perrit’s death, and Beulah, who has seen Archie’s photo in the paper, and shows up with Schane in tow.

   With Beulah — to whom he has revealed her patrimony — up in the plant rooms, Wolfe has just convened Fabian, Schwartz, Schane, and Saul Panzer when Meeker breezes by Fritz; per Archie, “Before I die I get to hear Wolfe bawling hell out of Thumbs … for dashing in to where Fabian is ready with his gun out.”

   Wolfe denies telling the cops that Archie had fingered Dazy and Violet for him, explaining that she had learned Beulah’s identity, and Schane, with whom she had a history, secretly cultivated Beulah. Violet’s final word was not “Shame!,” but “Schane!,” and when confronted with the truth he fires on Wolfe yet is shot down by Fabian, Meeker, and Saul, leaving Archie to dine with Beulah at Ribeiro’s.

   Like the stories in Not Quite Dead Enough (1944), “Help Wanted, Male” occurs during Archie’s World War II service as Major Goodwin of Military Intelligence (who notes in “Instead of Evidence” that “I had been a civilian again for only a week”). Publisher and politician Ben Jensen, whistle-blower in the (unrecorded) case of court-martialed Captain Peter Root, brings Wolfe the warning he’s received in the mail: “YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE—AND I WILL WATCH YOU DIE!” Archie recognizes it from an ad for the movie Meeting at Dawn, published in The American Magazine, ha ha ha, but Ben is not amused, especially when Wolfe refuses to provide protection … and 12 hours later, Jensen is killed.

   Shot along with him, Cramer reports, was Doyle, the best man at the Cornwall and Mayer agency (hired by Jensen on Archie’s suggestion), but while “not interested, not involved, and not curious,” Wolfe receives an identical clipping. Presuming a connection, he asks Archie to fetch Root’s fiancée, Jane Geer, delaying his trip to Washington to ask General Carpenter to send him overseas; the head of G-2, introduced in “Booby Trap” (1944), he was revealed as Mrs. Boone’s cousin in The Silent Speaker (1946), where Ribeiro’s was first mentioned. Arriving simultaneously is Ben’s son, the handsome Major Emil Jensen, who leaves with Jane when Wolfe suddenly shifts gears and refuses to see either of them.

   His request refused, Archie confers with Colonel Dickey on various cases, and then spots an ad in the New York Star: “WANTED A MAN” of Wolfe’s description, “Temporary. Hazardous.” Fleeing Pentagon red tape, he returns home, where a retired architect, H.H. Hackett, “an unsurpassed nincompoop with the manners of a wart hog,” is impersonating Wolfe, who believes Cramer is wasting his time trying to nail Emil, due to a quarrel upon learning that Ben sued his mother for divorce while he was serving in Europe. No sooner have Jane and the gate-crashing Emil arrived to see “Wolfe” than a shot — fired inside the house — nicks Hackett’s ear, and a revolver wrapped in a handkerchief is found in a vase.

   Giving the gun and a bullet Archie digs out of the wall to Cramer, Wolfe persuades the guests to stay during a ballistics test to see if it killed Ben and Doyle, yet when Cramer shows up with confirmation, Purley Stebbins, and a search warrant, he angrily demands that the latter be torn up before playing ball.

   He suspects Jane and Emil, as the killer had intended, until the absence of a sofa cushion points him in the right direction: Hackett is in fact Thomas Root. Peter’s vengeful father took a job as a doorman at Ben’s apartment house in order to kill him, then fired a separate shot from one of Wolfe’s pistols into the cushion as part of an elaborate ruse to implicate them, nicking his ear with a pocket knife.

   Among a handful of works adapted for the Wolfe TV series starring both William Conrad and Maury Chaykin, “Before I Die” (1/30/81) was directed for the former by Edward Abroms, second only to George McCowan with his contributions.

   Along with The Red Box (1937), “Black Orchids” (1941), The Silent Speaker, and five of Stout’s later works, “Before I Die” was also dramatized on a Russian series that ran for two seasons (2001-2002 and 2005), featuring Donatas Banionis as Wolfe, with Sergey Zhigunov as Archie. The Conrad version was scripted by Alfred Hayes, who had shared Oscar nominations for Teresa (1951) and — with Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini—Paisà (Paisan, 1946).

   Dazy is now Leo Crown, played by Darren McGavin’s fellow Night Stalker alum Ramon Bieri, also seen in The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Sorcerer (1977); surprisingly, Russ Tamblyn turns up as an unidentified police detective. Kidnapped by Eddie Meeker (H.M. Wynant) to end a war between them, Violet (Char Fontane) is released to Leo and Harry Fabian (Eddie Fontaine), then admits her masquerade to Wolfe and Archie (Lee Horsley), fearing for her safety. Angelina is followed there by Leo, who agrees to let her “retire,” and the two shootings — separated by Cramer (Allan Miller) questioning Archie — follow, with no last words for Violet, and Leo survived by his useless bodyguard (Robert Sutton).

   Saul (George Wyner) learns that in Utah, hooker Angelina had a boyfriend, local hustler Harvey Pine, and Cramer tells Eddie — who denies hitting Leo — he’d grabbed the wrong girl; Schwartz, now Arthur Poor (John Ericson), provides the envelope identifying Elaine Page (Tarah Nutter), warning that Harry will dislike the will.

   Archie flies his true colors when inviting Elaine, about to head for Maryland to wed Paul Shane (Kale Browne), chez Wolfe, suggesting that she will learn the truth at last. The dialogue and Nutter’s delivery convey how badly she wants it (“I’ve lived in houses that weren’t mine, with families that weren’t mine”), and how devastated she is at the news that her father was killed that day.

   As in the novella, Wolfe confirms his suspicions of Paul by tripping him up on an arcane legal point at dinner, and having Fritz (George Voskovec) save his “cracked” wine glass, complete with Pine’s fingerprints. A shot through the window of the brownstone later on suggests an attempt on the life of Elaine, kept there for safety, but was only an attempt at misdirection by Paul, who wished to marry into her fortune.

   We are deprived a climactic hail of bullets (with Saul proven to have fired the fatal shot) as a tipped-off Cramer takes Paul away, but Hayes is largely faithful, eliminating the blackmail angle, and ending on a grace note as Theodore Horstmann (Robert Coote) presents Wolfe’s ward with an orchid.

   Both “Before I Die” (6/16/02) and “Help Wanted, Male” (6/23/02) were directed for the Chaykin series by its own runner-up (after star Timothy Hutton), John L’Ecuyer, airing on consecutive weeks in the second season. They were adapted by, respectively, Sharon Elizabeth Doyle (by far the most frequent scenarist, a contributing producer that season) and, in his only contribution, Mark Stein.

   Interestingly, although each episode features a half-dozen of the show’s repertory players, they have none in common, while Dazy Perrit is played by Seymour Cassel, whose collaborations with John Cassavetes include his film debut, Shadows (1958), and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Faces (1968).

   The double-length international version of “Before I Die” is augmented with comedic and Corleonesque scenes created by Doyle in which Archie 2 (Joe Pingue) earns the grudging admiration of Fritz (Colin Fox) by teaching him how to make “gravy” (spaghetti sauce, to us non-Sicilians).

   Michael Small provides a jazzy score befitting this underworld motif, while the opening narration by Archie (Hutton) preserves Rex Stout’s immortal line, “To Nero Wolfe a meal without meat was an insult.” Ostensibly fresh out of St. Louis, Violet (Christine Brubaker) makes her N.Y.C. debut when Dazy introduces her to Fabian (Doug Lennox), Archie 2, and their respective girlfriends (Nicky Guadagni, Angela Maiorano).

   An in-joke has Violet show her friends a designer dress from Saks in a box conspicuously labeled “L’Ecuyer,” while a sexual relationship with Dazy either wasn’t in the novella, or went right over my head (admittedly plausible). Beulah (Lindy Booth) is a social activist focused on health work, who insists she is not a communist, and brings Schane (Matthew Edison) to dinner, where she impresses Wolfe with more dialogue original to Doyle.

   Bill MacDonald returns as Rowcliffe (sic), his role in “Prisoner’s Base” (5/13 & 20/01), while the shooting spree by Fabian, Meeker (Beau Starr), and Saul (Conrad Dunn) is retained as Schwartz (Ken Kramer) witnesses that they fired in self-defense — since Schane shot first.

   In “Help Wanted, Male,” guest star Larry Drake, who won consecutive Supporting Actor Emmy Awards as mentally impaired office worker Benny Stulwicz on L.A. Law, is well cast as “Hackett.” Convinced that Wolfe turned down the job because he thought it was too hot, Cramer (Bill Smitrovich) invades Wolfe’s bedroom during breakfast to detail the deaths of Ben (James Tolkan) and Doyle (Randy Butcher). Jane (Kari Matchett) did have a grudge against Wolfe when she believed Peter (Steve Cumyn) a scapegoat, but revised her opinion of Root; she now fears that the adverse publicity from being a murder suspect will hamper her aspirations to be the first female vice president of her advertising agency.

   Noting the immediate attraction between Jane and Emil (Richard Waugh), Archie makes his abortive trip to Washington, where Carpenter (George Plimpton) states, “Your role as Mr. Wolfe’s assistant is absolutely vital.” Stein interpolates bizarre byplay between him and eyepatched Dickey (Robert Bockstael), and dramatizes Wolfe’s questioning of Root, brought to him from prison, which he merely related to Archie in the novella.

   Trying to maintain the façade, Archie has Fritz hold Jane and Emil at gunpoint so that he can coach Hackett, but Wolfe shortly reveals himself; as Cramer and Purley (R.D. Reid) investigate the shot’s trajectory, Archie and Fritz launch the separate search for the missing cushion.

            — Copyright © 2023 by Matthew R. Bradley.
   

Up next: “Door to Death” [See comment #1.]

    Edition cited:

      Trouble in Triplicate: Bantam (1955)

    Online sources:

[link mislabeled as “Wolfe at the Door”]

THOMAS M. DISCH “Voices of the Kill.” First published in Full Spectrum, edited by Lou Aronica & Shawna McCarthy (Bantam Spectra, paperback original, September 1988). Reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (St. Martin’s Press, trade paperback, 1989). Collected in The Wall of America (Tachyon, softcover, 2008).

   Thomas M. Disch was an author almost as well-known for his poetry as he was for his unique blend of science fiction and fantasy. While “Voices of the Kill” is a fantasy tale through and through, it is poetry as well, and in a way as opaque to me as most poetry is.

   It is the story of a man who, living alone in a cabin along a stream, falls in love (of sorts) with the flowing water, or (perhaps better said) is seduced by the stream, lying at night as he does in its waters and soothing embrace, listening to it talk to him.

   I do not know why Nixie asks him to place a twenty dollar bill under a stone in its (her?) depths. When William’s cousin Barry comes to visit, the overnight stays in the stream must end. When the two travel down it to its outlet into the sea, Nixie is annoyed.

   And what is the significance of the black woman in a pea-green swimsuit who is playing there with her son on the beach? (She does return.)

   In spite of these and other questions I cannot answer, the effect of this story is one I cannot get out of my head. Good poetry (and fantasy) can have an amazing effect on one’s mind. It is no wonder this was the lead story in the Full Spectrum anthology where it first appeared.

TIGHTROPE! “The Chinese Pendant.” Screen Gems / CBS, 29 March 1960 (Season 1, Episode 28). Michael Connors. Guest cast: Ted de Corsia, Mary Castle, Philip Ahn, Lisa Lu, Jeanne Carmen (as Saba Dareaux). Directed by Irving J. Moore.

   Tightrope! the TV series lasted but one season on CBS, but that was back when a season consisted of well over 30 episodes, in this case 37, running throughout the entire 1959-60 season. Mike Connors played an undercover cop in each of the stories, every week getting into scrape after scrape, but managing to escape just in the nick of time at the end.

   He has two problems hanging over him in “The Chinese Pendant.” The first he knows about – trying to get in with a mob boss by posing as a skilled diamond thief – the other he doesn’t – that of a would-be killer whom Connors sent to prison, and who wants revenge.

   Narrating the stories, Connors had a new name in each episode, but apparently he often went by “Nick.” Even though posing as a crook, he was suave enough to catch the eye of some very good-looking women; two, in fact, in this episode. Old time movie fans will recognize the name of Philip Ahn, who plays a fence this time around and whose career lasted some 40 years or more. His daughter, played by Lisa Lu, you may remember as Hey Girl in the Have Gun, Will Travel TV series, and who quite remarkably is still active today.

   There’s a lot of plot in “The Chinese Pendant,” and one could only wish the show was 60 minutes long instead of a very cramped 30 minutes. I enjoyed the series immensely back when it was originally on, and I enjoyed it equally so the other night when I discovered this episode on YouTube. See below, if still there:
   
   
   

WORLDS OF TOMORROW – May 1967. Editor: Frederik Pohl. Cover artist: [Douglas] Chaffee. Overall rating: ***½.

FRED SABERHAGEN “Stone Man.” Novelette. One planet in the universe is such that time is a variable capable of physical control. The berserkers’ attempt to destroy life there takes them back to the time of the first colonists so that the race can be exterminated at once. Very human story of conflict and life in wartime. (4)

      ADDED UPDATE: Taken from Wikipedia:

DOUGLAS R. MASON “Squared Out with Poplars.” A mad scientist uses human brains for his computers. A strange excuse for a love story. (2)

DAVID A. KYLE “Base Ten.” Novelette. A missing little finger keeps a man marooned in space for eighteen years. A different story of “first contact.” (5)

SIMON TULLY “Whose Brother Is My Sister?” Novelette. Alien scientists combine with those of Earth to prove a theoretical relationship between space and time. Their efforts to stop time do not succeed entirely, as the flow of time is simply reversed. The alien culture is superbly created. (4)

MACK REYNOLDS “The Throwaway Age.” Novelette. A spy who thinks of the enemy as “commies” is assigned to infiltrate a new group concerned with the waste of America’s resource and man-power. Reynolds has good points, but tells a poor story. (3)

   Several long time collectors have been renting a van and driving out from New Jersey to Chicago for at least a dozen years. Ed Hulse has always been the driver, but this year he retired as our chauffeur and decided to fly to the convention. It may be true that we behaved in such an exasperating manner that we drove him to give up his position. It didn’t help that behind his back I often referred to him as “Jim”, which was based on the character in the Major series of pulp stories by Greene. In the series The Major had an assistant named Jim who drove and performed various duties and we also had a Major in the van (E.P. Digges La Touche).

   Anyway, thanks for your years of service, Ed. The new drivers are now Scott Hartshorn and Nick Certo, both of whom have been my friends for close to 50 years. We will see how long they last before giving up this well-paying position.

   Doug Ellis sent me an email saying that this year’s convention set a new all time record of over 600 attendees. The dealers’  room seemed to be always crowded and quite busy/ and the 180 tables were crammed with pulps, books, vintage paperbacks, DVDs, and original artwork. Prices on the vintage paperbacks were not only quite reasonable but insanely low, as I saw thousands cheaply priced at fire sale levels. I saw one table that had a sign stating “Free digests.” Other tables had boxes of vintage paperbacks priced at a buck or two or even less than a dollar each if you bought 15 for 10 dollars, etc.

   On the other hand the auction, which was held Friday and Saturday nights, starting at 8:15 PM, realized some insane prices. The big sellers were issues of Weird Tales. I estimate that close to 150 issues were listed in the estate auction from my old pal Bob Weinberg’s collection. Most of these issues were from the 1920’s and 1930’s and many realized prices of not only a few hundred dollars but some a few thousand and I’m not talking about the large size, hard-to-get bedsheet copies either.

   The infamous “batgirl” Weird Tales went for $13,000. In the last 50 years I’ve had a half dozen copies, and I never considered it that rare. In fact my present copy is bound, and I’m thinking of ripping it out of the binding and shrieking “Hey, here is a batgirl Weird Tales and I’ll take only a few thousand for it, not no $13,000!”

   Another issue in the early 1930’s went for $14,000 and what surprised me was that the winning bidder was a well known dealer whose first name is David and last name Smith. We are in trouble as collectors when pulp dealers start paying these prices. Not just comic dealers buying for investment, but pulp collectors! Dealers quite often pay half or less of a book’s value and a $14,000 figure means the dealer may be thinking of selling for at least double and probably more if he thinks prices are heading into comic book territory.

   Speaking of “comic book territory,” Rusty Hevelin, organizer of the old Pulpcon, used to preach that we had to try and keep the comic book dealers out of pulps, because once they got in, then we could forget about reading the issues and selling to each other for reasonable prices. Because the comic dealers are into it as an investment, and the prices would sky rocket. Guess Rusty was right and he used to ban comic books from Pulpcon. But those days are over.

   I walked through the dealer’s room for four days but didn’t find much to buy. This is not because there was not anything for sale, but simply because I’ve been collecting like forever and I either have it or once did have it and got rid of it. In fact I’ve rebuilt sets of some of my favorites that I disposed of many years ago. I never did have much interest in sport, romance, or aviation pulps but everything else I’ve been interested in.

   Windy City had the usual film program put on by Ed Hulse and two discussions about the hero pulps. There also was the excellent art exhibit, which I always find of interest since I’ve been collecting original art now for over 50 years.

   The Windy City Pulp Stories #22 was full of interesting articles. Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books edited it. An excellent 150 page collection. Blood n Thunder 2023 Special Edition made its debut. Edited by Ed Hulse and over 300 pages. The highlight of the issue is Ed’s 40 page article about the British magazine, The Thriller. It’s an excellent essay covering the authors and history of the magazine, and we still can look forward to a second part in the future.

   Steeger Books also had some new books at the convention. One is a large collection of the complete  “Scientific Sprague” stories, and a second one breaks new ground by reprinting the extremely interesting letter column from Adventure, 1918-1920. It’s titled The Campfire, 1918-1920. It’s full of great accounts from old timers who lived during the great years of the west, 1850-1900. I’ve often thought that the letters would make a great collection, but I never thought I’d see the day. Here’s hoping we see more volumes from the 1920’s. Thank you Matt Moring!

   But this show will go down in my memory for three other reasons. While stopping over in Newton Falls, Ohio, I had the misfortune to eat one of the worst dinners I’ve ever had. It was Sunday night driving back to New Jersey and we were late stopping for dinner. Nothing appeared to be open, and I had to exist on a small bag of salted peanuts and a warm bottle of beer. The next day when the hotel had breakfast starting at 6:30 am, I was first in line.

   But this hotel must have been cursed, because I also slept in what had to be the worst bed I’ve ever encountered. I’m always complaining about my back problems and my leg cramps ,and I met a worthy foe in Newton Falls, room 223, Holiday Inn Express. The desk clerk said he would give me a king size bed at no extra cost. I always ask for two Queen size beds because they are smaller and don’t hurt my back as much. But this time I just wanted to eat my peanuts and guzzle my warm beer. Big mistake. I sat down on the bed and swung my legs up and immediately slid down the slope of the king size mattress until I hit the middle of the hole in the mattress. Some how I managed to claw my way back up the slope in the morning and get out of bed.

   The third event that I’ll never forget happened after turning in the rental van in Trenton, NJ. We hopped into Digges’ car and proceeded to immediately make a left into oncoming traffic, heading the wrong way down a one way street. Fortunately everyone got out of our way and we turned the car around and headed in the right direction, instead of against the traffic.

   Thanks to Paul Herman for the use of several of the photos included in this report. Next up, Pulpfest in August! It’s been 51 years that I’ve been driving to Pulpcon and Pulpfest. Matt Moring will be driving us on this adventure. Will I make it? Stay tuned!