JOHN LOCKE, Editor – City of Numbered Men: The Best of Prison Stories.

Off-Trail Publications, trade paperback; 1st printing, January 2010.

   Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s it was actually possible to find and build up extensive collections of many rare pulp titles. Most readers and collectors were aware of only the SF pulps (and pulps which printed early SF like Argosy and All Story), and the hero pulps like The Shadow, Doc Savage, G-8, The Spider, etc.

   There wasn’t a lot of competition for other pulps back then, and I managed to find many of the Harold Hersey magazines not many other collectors were looking for — magazines such as Ace-High, Cowboy Stories, Danger Trail, and of course one of the most fascinating titles, Prison Stories.

   Now of course it is very hard indeed to find such rare pulps as Danger Trail and Prison Stories. But we are fortunately living in the age of print on demand reprint collections. Now within a matter of weeks, it is possible to publish a collection of pulp stories with all sorts of interesting editorial comments in the form of original research articles.

   Another example of this trend is a new book which I have just received in the mail from John Locke, publisher of Off-Trail Publications, a pulp reprint line of books. The title is City of Numbered Man: The Best of Prison Stories. It is a very handsome large paperbound volume of 274 pages, priced at $20.00.

   You may order it from amazon.com, Adventure House, or Mike Chomko Books. It also is available from John Locke directly using Paypal by contacting directly at offtrail@redshift. com.

   The book consists of 12 stories reprinted from Prison Stories, all dating from 1930 to 1931, including a long novelet “Big House Boomerang.” These stories alone would make the collection a must buy, but there also is a 15 page article about the history of the magazine entitled “Imprisoned Pulp,” by John Locke.

   John has also included a 34 page biography, “Harold Hersey: Tales of an Ink-Stained Wretch,” and in addition, we have 7 pages of notes on the authors, an index, and 20 pages of letters from ex-cons and lovers of prison fiction, reprinted from the crumbling pages of the magazine itself.

   I repeat, if you are a lover of pulp fiction, then this is a must have volume. John Locke has done around 20 of these reprint books and we need to show our support so that he will continue this worthy cause. This book gets my highest recommendation.

    This column isn’t my usual hodgepodge but sticks to one subject and therefore deserves a title. How about “Call for Campion Complete”?

    A few months ago and for no particular reason I decided to read the first series of Margery Allingham’s short stories about Albert Campion in the order of their original publication as far as that could be determined.

    After some research on my own shelves and in The FictionMags Index, which is by far the leading Web source when it comes to identifying where almost any work of short fiction in English first appeared, I identified 18 tales that clearly belonged on my reading list: two dating from 1936 or earlier, fifteen that appeared in The Strand Magazine between late 1936 and 1940, and a singleton first published in a London newspaper shortly before the outbreak of World War II.

    There are also two short-shorts that present bibliographic as well as criminous puzzles but let’s save them for a while, shall we?

    Revisiting the Easy Eighteen between 70 and 80 years later, I found them by and large to be as clever, charming and delightful as I remembered them from decades ago. Most of the crimes in these stories are jewel thefts or con games, with hardly a murder anywhere but plenty of indications in the later tales that England is moving ever closer to that form of mass murder we call war.

    “The Man with the Sack” (The Strand, December 1936) is a light-hearted Christmas story in which Campion frustrates a jewel scam while attending a holiday party at one of those stately homes of England that abound in Golden Age crime fiction.

    Two years later, during the last peacetime Christmas season, came “The Case Is Altered” (The Strand, December 1938), where the setting is yet another holiday party at yet another stately home, but this time the McGuffin is a secret document revealing the country’s plans to purchase huge numbers of war planes.

    The next Campion tale in The Strand and for my money one of the weakest is “The Meaning of the Act,” an international espionage trifle which came out in the issue of September 1939, the month Hitler invaded Poland.

    The eighteenth and last story in the batch is “A Matter of Form” (The Strand, May 1940). This one centers around a magnificent con game which could only have been devised during the so-called phony war, a time of “children in uniform and bankers in mourning” but with minimal disruption of ordinary life, so that Campion can still enjoy an oyster appetizer in the heart of a London soon to be blitzed.

    The two stories that predate the fifteen in The Strand and a third from near the end of the cycle need to be treated separately.

    “The Border-Line Case” is shorter than any Strand tale and, unlike any other Campion exploit, has a first-person narrator, namely Allingham herself. A careless reading of the story might suggest that she was cohabiting with her character, but then one notices a few subtle hints that besides the narrator and Campion and Detective Inspector Stanislaus Oates, there is a fourth and silent person in the room, presumably P. Youngman Carter, to whom Allingham had been married since 1927.

    My guess is that this neat little impossible-crime story dates from between 1933 and 1935, making it Campion’s first short exploit.

    “The Pro and the Con” is the same length as the Campion stories in The Strand but doesn’t seem to have appeared there. In this tale we find Campion bound, gagged and beaten up by an Edgar Wallace-style gangster, and that fact alone suggests a date slightly earlier than the Strand fifteen.

    “The Dog Day” first appeared in the London Daily Mail sometime in June 1939, probably having been rejected by The Strand because of its complete crimelessness.

    So much for the eighteen Campion tales that definitely belong on my reading list. Now we come to those two pesky short-shorts, each limited to a single scene and just one or two characters if you don’t count Campion and Scotland Yard’s Stanislaus Oates and the corpse.

    The earlier of the pair to appear in the U.S. was “The Unseen Door” (Mystery Book Magazine, August 1946), which takes place in the billiards room of a London club. No concrete detail hints that the story might have been published in England ten or more years earlier and therefore belongs in the first series.

    My hunch that it does stems from the other short-short, “Mr. Campion’s Lucky Day” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1947). Judging from his introduction, founding editor Fred Dannay thought Allingham had just written the tale. In the EQMM version Oates is given the rank of Superintendent, which he first sported in “The Old Man in the Window” (The Strand, October 1936). But when this tale finally appeared in a collection (The Allingham Minibus, 1973), Oates’ title is Detective Chief Inspector!

    This strikes me as highly persuasive evidence that the story first appeared in England before October 1936. And is it plausible that two Campion short-shorts with as much in common as this one and “The Unseen Door” could have been written more than ten years apart? My tentative conclusion is that both are early entries in the Campion saga. Perhaps someday we’ll know for sure.

    While immersed in my Allingham project I came upon a curious connection between one of these tales and perhaps the most powerful of all English noir novels, Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock (1938).

    The sociopaths from the lower depths whose leader is the sexually terrified young racetrack racketeer Pinkie refer to women in several terms like “buers” which I’ve never seen elsewhere. But the Greene character who calls a young woman a “polony” has his counterpart in Allingham’s “The Meaning of the Act,” where a lower-class pickpocket uses the same word, although she (or perhaps her Strand editor) spells it “palone.”

    To anyone eager for more about this obscure contribution to English slang: Google the word in either spelling and you will be enlightened.

    Even reading the fifteen Campion stories from The Strand requires more work than one might think. Besides needing to be at home in FictionMags Index, and assuming you don’t own copies of the magazine from the second half of the 1930s, you must have access to most of the Allingham collections published over the past 70-odd years.

    The second edition of Mr. Campion and Others (Penguin, 1950) contains twelve of the fifteen, although chaotically out of order. But the 1936 Christmas story “The Man with the Sack” was collected only in Mr. Campion: Criminologist (1937) and The Allingham Minibus (1973), and its analogue from two Christmases later, “The Case Is Altered,” remained uncollected until The Return of Mr. Campion (1989).

    That volume is also the sole hardcover source for the crimeless but charming “The Dog Day.” “The Border-Line Case” and “The Pro and the Con” were collected in both Mr. Campion: Criminologist (1937) and The Allingham Case-Book (1969), with “Border-Line” also appearing in the first edition of Mr. Campion and Others (1939) but not the second (1950).

    Those pesky short-shorts “The Unseen Door” and “Mr. Campion’s Lucky Day” remained uncollected until the Minibus started to roll.

    Then there’s one final problem. If you set out to read the Campion stories in order of first publication, as I did, you wind up having to save one of the earliest for last.

    How can this be? Because of “The Black Tent,” which Allingham clearly wrote around 1936 but then put aside and rewrote as “The Definite Article” (The Strand, October 1937). The first version remained unpublished until almost a quarter century after her death, when it was included in a British anthology (Ladykillers: Crime Stories by Women, 1987) and then in the most recent Allingham collection to date, The Return of Mr. Campion (1989).

    What a mess! Wouldn’t it be loverly if someday all the Campion shorts were brought together in their proper order in a single book?

NOTE:   Previously on this blog: A Review by Mike Tooney: MARGERY ALLINGHAM – Mr Campion and Others.

[UPDATE] 02-25-10.   I [Steve] posted this last question asked by Mike on the Yahoo Golden Age of Detection group. That it was a good idea, everyone agreed at once. Others wondered if other authors might also be honored with Complete Short Story collections, including (and especially) Edward D. Hoch. Here’s a reply from Doug Greene, head man at Crippen & Landru, which he’s graciously allowed me to reproduce here:

   I fear that a complete collection of the Campion shot stories would make a hefty volume, but I’d love to see it done. C&L, however, specializes in books of uncollected short stories — though we made an exception of C. Daly King’s The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant, which added 4 or 5 previously uncollected stories to the original 1935 volume.

   The agent for Lillian de la Torre would like us to collect all of her Dr. Sam: Johnson stories into a single book — including 5 or so uncollected tales, but again the volume would be very long, and pricey to publish.

   On the Hoch suggestion, Ed wrote almost 1000 short stories, which would fill about 66 volumes of the usual C&L size. We’ve already published 6 Hoch collections and have plans for at least 3 more… depending on energy and cash flow.

   Our latest, Michael Innes’ Appleby Talks About Crime, is now in print, and we’re sending out copies to our subscribers as quickly as possible — especially since I leave for England in about a week (and will stay 10 days). After I return, we’ll take orders from the general public. And to answer an unspoken query, all the stories are previously uncollected.

                  Doug G

   Then this response, also first appearing as a post on the Yahoo GAD group:

   Barry Pike, chairman of the Margery Allingham Society, has been trying for a while to persuade Vintage, the UK publishers, to do this, but he doesn’t seem to be getting very far.

      Lesley
       —
         Lesley Simpson
          http://www.margeryallingham.org.uk

    In spite of some less than entirely optimistic answers, thank you both, gentlemen!

          Steve

JONATHAN LATIMER – The Lady in the Morgue. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1936. Paperback reprints include: Pocket Books #246, 1943; Dell, Great Mystery Library, 1957; International Polygonics, 1988. Film: Universal, 1938, with Preston Foster as PI Bill Crane.

   With its suggestions of necrophilia and glimpses of female bondage and nudity, as well as explicit racism on the part of the “sympathetic” characters, torture, grave-robbing and non-stop drinking, Jonathan Latimer’s The Lady in the Morgue is a rather spicy and unpleasant mystery tale for 1936 (or any other year, really!).

   I find it interesting that the explicit depiction of sex acts between LIVE people was verboten, but frank discussion about the physical allurements of female corpses evidently made the grade!

   Latimer is often paired with Craig Rice as a “zany” hardboiled writer of the period, but I would say Rice is the more simply zany of the two, while Latimer is much more hardboiled.

   The humor in this novel is black indeed, having been filtered, surely, through earlier works like William Faulkner’s Sanctuary. The lead detectives are an exceedingly callous group of individuals. There is also an unpleasant racist edge in their treatment of blacks, Filipinos and Italians (though I have to admit the “game” played in the morgue had its lurid fascination).

   Certainly this novel is a long way from modern “political correctness” (I doubt for that matter that it was politically correct in 1936).

   Buried in all this sensation is a quite solid mystery plot, one that would be at home in a classic British tale, revolving around a female suicide’s corpse stolen from the city morgue that becomes the target of interest of the cops, the detectives, a snobbish old-money family and two rival gangsters.

   If you can stomach all the grand guignol stuff, you should enjoy The Lady in the Morgue for its undeniable inventiveness. And if you enjoy very spicy narratives you have a definite barnburner on your hands!

Editorial Comment:   For a long insightful essay by John Fraser on Jonathan Latimer and his mystery fiction, plus a complete bibliography compiled by myself, go here on the main Mystery*File website.

THE NANNY. Seven Arts/Hammer Films, 1965. Bette Davis, Wendy Craig, Jill Bennett, James Villiers, William Dix, Pamela Franklin. Screenwriter: Jimmy Sangster, based on the novel by Evelyn Piper. Director: Seth Holt.

   Most of the reviews that I’ve glanced at so far have been fairly consistent about one thing, and that’s their telling their readers exactly what the movie’s about, in as much detail as you could ask, if you’d like to know what’s happening and what’s going to happen every step along the way.

   I’ll do my best not to duplicate their efforts, but I have to admit that with… Well, I’m not going to say what I was just going to say.

   When the movie begins, Bill and Virgie Fane (James Villiers & Wendy Craig) are about to welcome home their ten-year-old son Joey (William Dix) from where he’s been for the past two years — a children’s psychiatric institution, from all appearances — a suspicion that quickly proves to be correct.

   Even though Joey is about to be released, the head of the facility has his doubts. The boy is still very much prone to playing with nooses and pretending to hang himself in his room, but home he goes. Outwardly he appears to be normal, but he will have nothing to do with the family’s nanny (Bette Davis), for example, no matter how cheerful and understanding she tries to be.

   It is Joey’s mother who needs the nanny, however, a longtime fixture in her family, not Joey. We (the viewer) gradually learn that there had been a tragedy in the family, one that involved Joey’s younger sister, who’s no longer alive.

   What happened? And who was responsible? Those are the questions that have to be answered, and answered they are, but if you play the game (and don’t listen to people who want nothing more than to tell you the answer) you’ll be guessing for most of the movie.

   For the most part, this movie is little more than a battle of wits between Joey and Nanny, the only person siding with Joey being Bobbie Medman, the precocious and rather world-wise 14-year-old girl who lives in the apartment upstairs, played by 15-year-old Pamela Franklin. (Precocious in the sense that she has a boy friend and smokes cigarettes on the sly.)

   While all of the acting is of high caliber, I was most impressed by the performances turned in by William Dix and Pamela Franklin. Without them in their respective roles, this movie could have been dull, duller and dullest. Dix also had a part in Doctor Dolittle (1967), but essentially nothing more. Pamela Franklin had a much lengthier career, mostly on TV, but earlier on made some horror movies and had, for example, a significant role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).

   The Nanny, made in black and white, and correctly so, I believe, is a psychological thriller, and not the horror movie you might think it is, produced by Hammer Films as it was, and from the general tone of its advertising campaign. It’s not difficult to find on DVD, and in my opinion, well worth your time in watching. I enjoyed it, in any case, if you were still wondering.

SARA PARETSKY – Deadlock.   Dial Press, hardcover, 1984. Paperback reprints include: Ballantine, 1984 (shown); Dell, 1992.

   If I had the hardcover First Edition of this book, the second adventure of PI V. I. Warshawski, I imagine it’d be worth a fortune. (I might have had a review copy at one time, but if I did, it’s gone now. Easy come, easy go.)

   Vic finds the murderer of her cousin Boom Boom, the hockey player, in this one. Injured and out of the game, Boom Boom had stumbled across some funny things going on in the Great Lakes grain-shipping business, his new career, and then he met what everybody else has called a fatal accident.

   Vic’s investigation is as boring as most PI work probably is. It’s a tribute to Paretsky’ s writing ability that the case she cracks didn’t put me immediately to sleep. Grain-shipping is not the most fascinating topic in the world.

   A lot of deaths take place in this book, some incidental, some intentional. Coming from Michigan originally myself, I appreciated the big blowup at the Soo Locks more than someone who hasn’t, I imagine. (That’s a lovely pun built into the title, by the way!)

   This is not a puzzle type of a mystery, when it comes down to it. The killer(s) are reasonably obvious — it’s just getting the goods on him/her/them that’s the hard part.

[UPDATE] 02-22-10.   All in all, I believe I overestimated the long-run value of this book as a First Edition. Of course, I can blame it on the Internet, which has flattened the value of many books which would otherwise be considered hard-to-find and valuable, if only there weren’t dozens of copies available and easily found. In “Very Good” condition, a First Edition copy of Deadlock can be obtained for $40, while one in “Fine” shape might set you back $65.

   Nothing to retire on, in other words.

SHARON FIFFER – Buried Stuff.

St. Martin’s Minotaur, hardcover, October 2004. Reprint paperback: St. Martin’s, November 2005.

   Fourth in the series featuring Jane Wheel, antiques “picker” and ex-adwoman. This time, Jane is back in Kankakee with her geologist husband and son.

   Bones have been found on the farm of a longtime customer of Jane’s parents at the EZ Way Inn. The family is helping to identify the bones so the farmer can get government clearance to sell topsoil.

   The portrayal of family dynamics is the strongest element of this series, and Buried Stuff delivers that in spades. The decline of Kankakee and the schemes afoot to revive it are also astutely and evocatively described.

   In the final analysis, this small, bittersweet story about a shooting delivers an authentic emotional punch, but it’s not a clever or suspenseful mystery.

        The Jane Wheel Series —

   1. Killer Stuff (2001)

   2. Dead Guy’s Stuff (2002)
   3. The Wrong Stuff (2003)
   4. Buried Stuff (2004)
   5. Hollywood Stuff (2006)

   6. Scary Stuff (2009)

EILÍS DILLON – Death at Crane’s Court. Walker, US, hardcover, 1963. Paperback reprint: Perennial, 1988. Trade paperback: Rue Morgue Press, 2009 (shown). First UK edition: Faber & Faber, 1953.

   To his dismay, George Arrow, of no particular occupation but with a comfortable income, is told by a doctor he consults after he passes out one day that he has a bad heart condition and must avoid most activities and any excitement. A good place to go that meets those exigencies is Crane’s Court, a posh hotel in Galway, Ireland.

   Unfortunately, Arrow discovers that Crane’s Court is actually a hotbed of intrigue. A new owner has inherited the hotel and intends to put the old residents — old in both age and tenure — in their place or cast them out.

   Of course, the old people are up in arms, or at least those who can lift them are. Is it possible they en masse, or one of them a little more agile than the others, plunged a chef’s knife into the new owner? Or maybe it was the dotty old lady who has numerous cats that tend to die before their time and who gets visited by the haunt who built the original Crane’s Court.

   Referring to the elderly inhabitants, Professor Daly says:

   Heresy is about to he committed by this reviewer, and no doubt there shall be moves to have me expunged from the ranks of true mystery fans. Nonetheless, I have to state that this is a fine novel until the murder. When Inspector Mike Kenny arrives to investigate the killing, Arrow and Daly begin to take a back seat and the book then becomes only very good.

Bibliographic Data:   [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

DILLON, EILÍS.   1920-1994.

       Death at Crane’s Court (n.) Faber 1953.    [Insp. Mike Kenny]
       Sent to His Account (n.) Faber 1954.

       Death in the Quadrangle (n.) Faber 1956.    [Insp. Mike Kenny]

   Why only the three detective novels, in a long career of writing? (She “…was the author of fifty books, ranging from children’s stories to historical novels. She wrote and translated poetry, and had two plays produced by the Abbey Theatre company.”)

   There’s a long account of her life by her son, Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, at the Rue Morgue Press website, from which the previous excerpt was taken, along with the answer. As a short biography of her, it’s well worth reading.

   The other good news is that all three mysteries have been reprinted by Rue Morgue Press.

COLIN ROBERTSON – A Lonely Place to Die.

Robert Hale, UK, hardcover, 1969. No US edition.

   You can sometimes buy the darnedest things on eBay, which is what happened not too long ago, when I picked up a small collection (seven) of Colin Robertson’s hardcover mysteries from a seller in Canada.

   And even though seven sounds like a sizable amount, it is indeed small when you compare it to the author’s total output, which runs to something like 57 novels and collections under his own name, not including a Sexton Blake adventure that came out under the house name of Desmond Reid.

   The book I happened to pick, more or less at random out of the stack, is an adventure of Peter Gayleigh, a name I confess I did not know ahead of time, and whom I will get back to in a minute.

   First, though, here’s a list of all of the series characters that originated from the typewriter of Mr. Robertson. See how many of these fellows (and one gal, I believe) you recognize. In chronological order of their first appearances:

       Inspector John Martin (1935-39; three books.)
       Inspector Robert Strong (1935-40; four books)
       Victor Raiefield (1938-40; two books, both in tandem with Strong)
       Peter Gayleigh (1939-69; fifteen books)
       Edward North (1950-53; four books)
       Vicky McBain (1951-61; nine books)
       Supt. Bradley (1957-70; eleven books)
       Alan Steel (1965-68; three books)

   There were some stand-alone’s as well, in case you were trying to make the total come out right. And to tell you the truth, as I hinted at above, I am only assuming that Vicky McBain is female. Googling did not help. I found only one semi-useful reference, and it did not say either way, only that Vicky was a private investigator. And if you were wondering, no, none of the other six Robertson’s I obtained via eBay are Vicky McBain thrillers either, so there’s no assistance to be gained from that quarter.

   But a few of the ones I have are affairs that it was up to James Bond knockoff Alan Steel to handle. I use the term “knockoff” deliberately and in similar fashion to Peter Gayleigh, who seems to have followed in the footsteps of one Simon Templar, gentleman adventurer, rather closely.

   Or perhaps, if one to were to analyze the matter a bit more closely, it might be possible to conclude that John Creasey’s Richard Rollinson (aka The Toff) was also a model. At one point while reading A Lonely Place to Die, that’s who I was definitely reminded of, according to the note to myself I wrote at the time.

   In fact, what I’ll do is give you the paragraph I was reading when I made myself that comment, and you can judge for yourself. From page 62:

   Or maybe not. Note the use of the word “buccaneering.” On page 70, Gayleigh is again referred to as “a notorious character, an insolent buccaneer,” so maybe the Simon Templar comparison is not so far off, since that is exactly how I remember The Saint being described in Mr. Charteris’s books. You decide.

   I had no idea while I was reading this book that it was to be Gayleigh’s last (recorded) adventure, a spy caper involving a deadly virus designed for germ warfare, although I doubt that knowing it would have changed my opinion of it very much, if at all.

   He and Diana (see above) live apart, and they seem to have a rather chaste relationship, for all of the companionship there exists between them.

   What is rather remarkable – or let’s make that “who” – is a femme fatale who nearly comes between them. At the least, there are strong hints (see page 89) that Gayleigh is strongly attracted to Corinne Raeburn, a madcap heiress or jet-set socialite not akin to an early Paris Hilton, but one with a gun. And she is also a woman who knows how to use it.

   Unfortunately the plot itself is strictly a paint-by-numbers sort of affair, brightly colored in spots and not making a lot of sense in others. While the book kept me reading for the requisite amount of time, I see the other six books sitting there, and I say to myself about Colin Robertson, probably not next. Sometime soon, perhaps, but not next.

[UPDATE] 02-21-10.   Nor not yet, I’m sorry to say. I don’t remember this book all that well — that’s one of the reasons I starting writing reviews, way back when, so that I could remind myself of what I thought of a book, long after I’d have otherwise forgotten it — but for some reason, I remember enjoying it more than that last paragraph would indicate.

   Nor, in the meantime, do I seem to have learned anything more about Vicky McBain. At the moment I have the feeling, however, since the name is spelled Vicky, not Vickie, that “she” is a he. Someone who knows will probably tell us soon.

[UPDATE] 02-23-10.   And here’s the answer, which I’ve just received via email from British mystery bookseller Jamie Sturgeon:

Hi Steve,

     Vicky McBain, as you surmised, is a male. From the blurb to Who Rides a Tiger —

   The book is narrated in the first person so I can’t give you a physical description of him but he is 38 years old, he has an office in central London with a secretary called Kay and his car is a vintage coupe.

“One Tiger to a Hill.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 8). First air date: 3 December 1964. Barry Nelson, James Gregory, Diane McBain, Peter Brown, Warren Stevens. Writer: Robert Hamner. Story consultant: Anthony Boucher. Director: Jack Arnold.

   When $400,000 worth of valuable jewels are stolen, Lieutenant Wade (James Gregory) is certain who did it, his constant adversary cat burglar Colin Neal (Barry Nelson). But at the same time the theft occurs, Wade is enjoying some fine wine with Neal and his girlfriend Diana (Diane McBain) in a swanky restaurant, giving Neal an ironclad alibi.

   Lieutenant Wade knows Neal must be behind this somehow; what he doesn’t know is that Neal, well aware of the close police scrutiny he is under, has been training an apprentice, Chris (Peter Brown), to steal for him.

   But what even Neal doesn’t know is that his girlfriend has been seeing Chris on the side — and that Chris has plans for the loot that don’t include Neal. When Neal does become aware of these developments, however, he is moved to take action. How does the old saying go? You must set a thief …

   … To Catch a Thief, Hitchcock’s 1955 thriller, was undoubtedly the inspiration for this one. (And any instances of ingenuity you may detect in the storyline are most probably due to story editor Anthony Boucher, who excelled at this sort of thing.) The police lieutenant and the master thief are the best of enemies, each one having grudging respect for the other.

   Barry Nelson’s criminous credits include Eyes in the Night (1942), Casino Royale (1954, as the very first screen James Bond), The Borgia Stick (1967), and appearances on Nero Wolfe (1981) and Murder, She Wrote (1988).

   James Gregory appeared in nearly 200 TV shows and movies, including Naked City (1948), The Lawless Years TV series (1959-60), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the lousy Dean Martin “Matt Helm” film series (1966-67), Columbo (1972), Police Story (1974-75), Detective School (1979), and a long run on the Barney Miller series (1975-82).

   Unlike Nelson and Gregory, Peter Brown is still with us. His longest-running involvement with TV has been in Western series: as a deputy marshal on the serious Lawman (1958-62) and the humorous Laredo (1965-67).

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK. Paramount Pictures, 1950. John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Dennis O’Keefe, Eduardo Noriega, Thomas Gomez, Fred Clark, Frank Faylen, Grandon Rhodes, Walter Reed. Screenplay: Geoffrey Homes & Lewis R. Foster, based on a story by Jeff Arnold. Director: Lewis R. Foster.

   The time is 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, and Texas Ranger Todd Croydon (John Payne) is more than a little curious when the man he rescues from the Confederate army at the request of Governor Lubbock (Grandon Rhodes) of Texas proves to be Yankee spy Whitney Randolph (Dennis O’Keefe).

   The governor hasn’t turned traitor. O’Keefe is spying on Mexico not Texas. Someone is building an army on the border and O’Keefe has evidence it is part of plot by Napoleon III of France to seize Mexico and wrest it from President Benito Juarez’s fledgling democracy.

   Croydon agrees to escort Randolph to Mexico, and once they arrive they learn the plot is more dire than they suspected. Basil Danzeeger (Fred Clark), claiming to be an agent of Juarez, has convinced the charismatic El Captain, the Hawk (Thomas Gomez) to raise and army to invade Texas, vulnerable as the Civil War rages.

   What El Captain doesn’t know and must be convinced of is that Danzeeger is really an agent of Napoleon III and Maximillian, so Croydon agrees to spy on Danzeeger while Randolph infiltrates El Captain’s troops.

   And to complicate things Croydon finds himself falling for Clark’s beautiful wife Madeline (Rhonda Fleming) a French agent who has been smuggling arms into Mexico, and Danzeeger’s right hand man Red Hyatt (Frank Faylen) thinks he remembers Croydon’s face — as he should since Croydon once shot him during a bank robbery.

   Lewis R. Foster and John Payne teamed for several good tough films in this era including El Paso, Crosswinds, and Captain China, and this tough little A western is a good example.

   The script, co-written by mystery writer Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring) is smart and tough with a dash of international intrigue added to the usual western mix, and Payne and O’Keefe make a good team, the taciturn man of action and the glib fast talking but equally brave secret agent. A running gag about O’Keefe’s uncanny luck at cards and dice and losing his boots actually ties into the plot.

   Payne and O’Keefe teamed in at least one other western from the same era, Passage West (1951). Foster is best remembered for writing the original story for Frank Capra’s classic Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, for which he won an Oscar.

   The highlights of the film occur when the captured Payne is tied between two wild mustangs, a la Byron’s Mazeppa, to be torn apart as they run wild, and the fiery confrontation on a burning mountain between Danzeeger, Croydon, and El Captain in the finale. James Wong Howe’s legendary touch as the cinematographer is another bonus.

   You can download the comic book adaptation of this here under Movie Westerns for free along with a free CBR (comic book reader).

   A minor A western with a solid cast and better than usual screenplay, The Eagle and the Hawk will hold your attention, and remind you how many of these solid entertainments Hollywood used to turn out seemingly without effort.

   Payne is tough and romantic, O’Keefe cool and slick, Fleming beautiful and passionate, Gomez dangerous but noble, Clark and Faylen treacherous and sadistic — a fairly stock cast, but done with intelligence by sure hands it all adds up to an entertaining oater with a touch of something more, and a tough literate screenplay adds to the film’s bonuses, as does James Wong Howe’s cinematography.