CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Columbia, 1935. Peter Lorre, Edward Arnold, Marian Marsh, Tala Birell, Elisabeth Risdon, Robert Allen, Douglass Dumbrille, Gene Lockhart, Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Director: Josef von Sternberg.

   To begin with, the novel’s 600 to 800 pages long, depending on the size of font used and how wide the margins are. If a film adaptation is only 90 minutes long, as is this US version done in 1935, answer yourself this: how much of the book could be crammed in?

   So, OK, let’s let that go, and talk about the movie as a movie. It was one of the earliest films that Peter Lorre made in the US, and as a leading man yet, in the role of criminology student Roderick Raskolnikov, who commits a murder and almost, but not quite, gets away with it.

   Dogging his trail is Edward Arnold, as Inspector Porfiry Petrovich, not necessarily following the academic approach espoused by Raskolnikov, who as it becomes clear, is a rival in more ways than one.

   In spite of first appearances, Porfiry is gradually seen as a student of human nature, allowing his prey to alternate between arrogance and fear by using only one simple method: by allowing him to remain free — and thereby trapping and convicting himself by his own hand.

   A role that was meant to be played by Peter Lorre, perhaps, who does both arrogance and fear very well, and yet, in Crime and Punishment, he shows he has a human side as well, committing the murder of the miserly lady pawnbroker (Mrs. Patrick Campbell) yes, but giving the young streetwalker Sonya (a radiant Marian Marsh) all of the money given him earlier in return for pawning his father’s watch. (It is interesting to note how Sonya’s means of earning a living manages to be very conveniently skipped over.)

   The film came along far too early to be classified correctly as noir, perhaps, but there are a number of elements that could easily make it fit (one might argue) into the category.

    Not only the story itself, with Raskolnikov continually finding himself sliding into the abyss of his own mind — a quiet kind of desperation — but the black-and-white photography is also quite magnificent, showing the better parts of the unknown city (Moscow?) where the story takes place, as well as some of the worse, including Raskolnikov’s rather squalid apartment, for which, in spite of his brilliance, he cannot even pay the rent.

   So, my final comment and overall impression? A very entertaining film, a movie that when I started, I intended to see only the first ten minutes as a preview, but which I forgot myself and watched all the way through to the end instead.

JANE HADDAM – Cheating at Solitaire.  St. Martin’s, paperback reprint; 1st printing, April 2009. Hardcover edition: St. Martin’s, April 2008

   Upstairs as I’m typing this, I don’t have access to the Internet, so I don’t know how many books Jane Haddam has written in her series of ex-FBI agent Gregor Demarkian’s cases, but there have been quite a few of them. (According to Amazon.com, as I’ve discovered later, this is the 22nd.)

   I wish that I’ve read more of them — only one before this one — and that’s because of the question I’ve been trying to answer. I’m not trying to diminish Demarkian’s popularity by a single whit, but the strange thing is that I can’t quite explain why it is that he’s had the career he has.

   Are the books what are commonly referred to in the vernacular as cozies? Not really, although some of early parts of this particular adventure takes place in Demarkian’s boyhood Armenian neighborhood in Philadelphia (Cavanaugh Street) where his marriage to his long-time lover Bennis Hannaford is soon to take place. Check this off. Roots are important. Long time friends are important.

   But neither of the latter two items have anything to do with the case that Demarkian is called in on in Cheating at Solitaire, a fact for which I (admittedly) felt uncomfortably grateful, as the atmosphere felt a little too close for me. I suspect, however, that long time fans of the series might wish there were more!

   Dead is one of the crew of a film being made in Margaret’s Harbor, found shot to death in his car in a New England style Nor’easter on New Year’s Eve. The local police force, and very few in number, have chosen the most likely suspect, not realizing that (in Demarkian’s quick analysis of the case) simply do not add up. The bullet has not been found where it should be, and where the victim’s blood is found on the person arrested does not match the local authorities’ version of the events. (See page 135.)

   You might therefore check off great detective work as being part of the appeal, but Demarkian’s rebuttal of the prosecution’s facts is far from a work of genius. Anyone willing to let the facts guide the theory, rather than the other way around, could have done as well.

   Well before the end of the tale Demarkian also suggests that he knows who did it, too the surprise and amazement of all, but he later backs off suggesting that the he only knows the kind of person capable of doing it. By the story’s end, nor in the final wrapup, is his earlier claim mentioned.

   This may sound as though I was greatly disappointed in the mystery and how it develops and in the solution. No, not really. Only mildly. I do think, however, that Demarkian’s detective skills are more talked about than shown.

   I have not mentioned, though, what this book is really about. In paperback the book is 388 pages long, which is far too long for the small amount of detective work that’s involved to be a major reason for its popularity.

   What the book is really about is a certain disdain for the existence of popular culture creatures such as Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Spears. Three such women, key players in this book — two from out of town, one local and not exempt from the author’s indictment — reflect the same shallow values, at least outwardly. (A surprise or two may be in store here.)

   But by shallow values, I mean vapid, stupid behavior, including such actions as getting drunk in local bars and running about town in skimpy clothing and a noticeable lack of underwear. Not that they’re the only culprits and targets of Jane Haddam’s wrath. This book also includes one of the most vicious attacks by a gang of paparazzi on an extremely vulnerable celebrity that you will read anywhere, a statement that’s almost guaranteed.

   Time and time again the book stops while some rather effective moralizing takes place, sometimes in the minds of the players, sometimes as a general authorial voice. Such commentary on the modern world, if not modern society as a whole — or should that be the other way around? — is difficult to disagree with, but after a while it becomes as overbearing as the close-knit neighborhood that produced Gregor Demarkian into the world, along with his values.

   But do check off values. As overdone as the promotion may be, values are the key to Cheating at Soltaire — hometown values, small town values, I don’t believe it matters either way. Maybe they’re even universal values and and maybe this is why readers keep coming back for more.

   John Herrington sent me the following inquiry several days before my computer mishap. Here it is online at last:

    “I have spent some time trying to trace Bridget Yva Benediall who is in CF for one 1915 title (wrote three others before 1921). But the surname has failed to surface in a search of Ancestry and other databases. Could you possibly mention her, in case the name does mean something to someone?”

   From the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, here’s her full entry there:

BENEDIALL, BRIDGET YVA
     -Blind Sight (Mills, 1915, hc) Dodd, 1915.

   One online bookseller calls the book “a romantic detective story, listed in Hubin, Benediall also wrote Child Lover; Jeremy’s Love Story; The Pilgrim and Pamela…”

   Google has put a digital copy of Blind Sight online, in case you’d like to read it. (Note that the hyphen before the title in Hubin means either marginal or an unknown amount of criminous content.)

   And this — far too little, I’m sorry to say — sums up all I know about the lady.

   It’s a little strange, since he was a very popular mystery writer in his day, but so far only one other photograph of Philip MacDonald has turned up. (Here’s a link to the earlier inquiry.) This one arrived during this past hiatus, thanks to Juergen Lull in Germany:

      Hi Steve,

   You’ll probably have a better photo of Philip MacDonald by now. Anyway, this one is from the back of a Penguin of 1955 (X v. Rex).

         Regards,

            Juergen

Even though a new computer’s on its way, I thought I could do no harm in spending yesterday seeing if I could track down and get rid of the virus that waylaid my present one. It took a while, but to my surprise, given my lack of overall computer skills — anything beyond the basics is like magic — I think I’ve done it.

I don’t want to speak too soon, but everything’s working the way it should, and maybe this blog is back in business. When the new computer arrives, there’ll be another short break while I get it hooked up and humming, but later tonight I’m going to see about posting some of the huge backlog that’s accumulated.

Or at least that’s the plan.

As anti-virus software, Norton really let me down, first of all, for letting this last bugger in (called Zlob), and then for not knowing how to fix it. For what it’s worth, once I was able to restore my computer back to Sunday, when Firefox was still working, I was able to download a program called Spysweeper, which I used to clean out what I couldn’t eliminate manually. It found 15 viruses that Norton had missed. As I say, for what it’s worth.

   I just got back from Windy City. I went by Amtrak this year. Going from Trenton, NJ to Chicago only took an agonizing 28 hours with some delays and microwave food that I had trouble eating. Not to mention the claustophobia that kicked in when I closed the door to my sleeping car room.

   I traveled with long time pulp collector Digges La Touche and we spent the long train ride mainly reading. The last time I went to Windy City I drove for two days, but I can’t do that anymore since my eyesight is deteriorating. I’m a danger on the road for long trips or night time driving.

   I checked with Doug Ellis, and he said there were over 400 registered for the weekend and 128 tables. I spent all day each day in the dealer’s room roaming around looking through each table for pulps and artwork.

   I usually skipped lunch because I couldn’t tear myself away. However I did have breakfast and dinner each day with such great and out-of-control collectors like Nick Certo, Scott Hartshorn (Mr. Hollywood), Digges La Touche (The Human ATM Machine), Ed Hulse (the latest issue of his Blood n Thunder magazine debuted at this con and is over 100 pages!), Dave Scroggs (Pulp Librarian), Dave Kurzman, Kevin Cook, Steve Kennedy (pulp art dealer), and others too numerous to list. All these characters may not be well known to readers of this blog, but they all have enormous pulp collections.

   Bob Weinberg was there with his wife, and he has some great projects coming up. He and George Vanderburg of Battered Silicon Press are the new editors of Arkham House. I think this is great because Arkham has been a ghost of its former self the last few years. Others in attendance were Rodney Schroder, Paul Herman, Tony Tollin, Tom Roberts, Doug Ellis (thanks to you and John Gunnison for a great Convention), Rob Preston, Mike Chomko, Jack Cullers, John Locke, and others.

   I spent some time talking to Frank Robinson, who looks great, and he told me several stories about his experience on the Milk movie set. He evidently got a good salary for his 17 days on the set and will be in the DVD extras. Frank warned me before one auction, “Watch out for the paper.” At first I didn’t know what he meant but as the auction progressed, I realized some the great-looking pulps looked excellent on the outside but had browning paper inside.

   Speaking of the auction, both were well attended and packed with rabid bidders. The Friday auction was mainly material from the Frank Hamilton estate, such as artwork, Shadow and Doc Savage pulps.

   The Saturday auction was of more interest, with a complete run of Weird Tales being auctioned piece by piece, 1930-1954. All were from Ray Walsh’s collection. He had the 1920’s issues at his tables. Also auctioned were many issues of The Spider, Munsey correspondence and checks, and various pieces of artwork.

   The art exhibit was stunning, packed with work by Ward and Hubert Rogers. After seeing a room full of Rogers art, I upgraded my opinion of his work. The program book was edited by Tom Roberts and at 138 pages deserves to be in all our libraries. There were several articles on Hubert Rogers, Ward, and the Spicy pulps.

   What did I actually buy? Well I went with a few thousand dollars and came back with a couple hundred. I found some pulp wants like Dime Mystery, Western Story, Far West, Street and Smith’s Detective Story.

   I also came home with many pieces of art including an Arkham House dust jacket by Herb Arnold, The Watcher Out of Time, a Detective Fiction Weekly pulp cover from the mid 1930’s, a Two Fisted Tales cover by Severin, ten illustrations by Potter from a Arkham House anthology, a Cartier illustration, and several pieces of “Outsider” art by an unknown artist who evidently submitted the pieces to Castle of Frankenstein magazine but never got them back.

   There must be something bad I can say about this convention, but no, I can’t think of a single criticism. Well maybe I can gripe about not being able to see Ed Hulse’s film program, but that’s my fault becuse I can’t drag myself away from the dealer’s room and auction.

   So after four days and nights of pulps, pulps, and more pulps, I headed back to Chicago’s Union Station and caught the 7:00 pm Amtrak. Fortunately this time the food was cooked and not microwaved, plus they had a nice lounge and bar car where you could sit and watch the scenery. This time no claustophobia! I took a xanex, closed the door to the tiny room and got more sleep than I did at the pulp show.

   Next thing on the horizon is Pulpfest! All members of this group should support it either by attending or sending in a supporting membership. Since this is the first of the new pulp shows, it must have our support in order to survive and prosper. We don’t want to wake up one day and face a world with no dealers’ room! Mark these days on your calendars, July 31, August 1 and August 2, 2009. See you there!!

There’s some sort of virus or a “rogue anti-spyware” thingy on my computer that makes Firefox iffy and has shut down Explorer completely. I have a backlog of posts for this blog that I’ve been working on, and I can still receive and send email, but until this junk is cleaned out of wherever it it, there’ll be a another short period of quiet here, I’m sorry to say.

I’ll be back as soon as I can!

[UPDATE] An hour or so later, from my wife’s computer. Firefox is gone, and Eudora is getting temperamental. This is going to be longer than I thought.

[UPDATE #2.] 05-05-09. The computer’s a goner. I’ll be ordering a new one this afternoon, but this “vacation” I’m on is going to last another week or so before things are in order and I’m set to roll again. It’s been frustrating, aggravating, and total waste of time dealing with this, to say the least.

[UPDATE #2A.] Later the same day. I was way wrong on my previous estimate of when the new computer can be delivered. Then of course comes the dreaded part of loading the software and all of the other luxuries of computing we’ve discovered that we, collectively, cannot live without.

The bad news is that it will be three weeks, not “another week or so.”

If I were to post reviews and so on without cover images, and add them in later, maybe I can avoid going nearly a month without posts. It won’t be easy, as the major portion of this operation is all the way upstairs, and I’m down here a level on the othe side of the house, but it can be done. I’ll have to do some thinking about it.

In the meantime, I am not lacking for things to do — like doing some spring cleaning around here.

That’s last spring, mind you.

MATT WITTEN – Breakfast at Madeline’s.

Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, May 1999.

   I don’t what the following data signifies, probably nothing, since a book’s sales ranking on Amazon can fluctuate wildly. There are so many books listed there, all in competition with each other, and except for the top 100 or so, all so closely packed together, they should called tied. One sale and the ranking can go up by a million, just like that.

   In any case, as a writer of mystery novels, all of Matt Witten’s books are out of print, but as of tonight (01 May 2009) two of them are doing awfully well. (Relatively speaking, of course. Also note that rankings go down as far as the seven millions.) The fellow doing the sleuthing in all four is a struggling screenwriter living in Sarasota Springs NY named Jacob Burns:

         The Jacob Burns mysteries –

      Breakfast at Madeline’s. Signet, pbo, May 1999. Amazon.com Sales Rank: #172,411
      Grand Delusion. Signet, pbo, Jan 2000. Sales Rank: #1,700,960

      Strange Bedfellows. Signet, pbo, Nov 2000. Sales Rank: #172,444
      The Killing Bee. Signet, pbo, Nov 2001. Sales Rank: #1,601,905

   I’ve read only this first one, Breakfast at Madeline’s, so I don’t know what the future holds for Jacob Burns, but I’d better take back the “struggling” part of the description above. He’s struck oil, figuratively speaking, Hollywood style, having just earned a million dollars for doing the screen adaption for an “epic” called Gas, about “deadly fumes seeping out of the earth’s core after an earthquake and threatening to destroy the entire population of San Francisco.”

   One thing I do know, is that there are four books in the series, and there isn’t likely to be any more, not right away anyway. Matt Witten is not a big name on the tip of the general public’s collective tongue, but right now he’s certainly a big man in high-rise Hollywood circles, and that’s what counts. Writing mystery paperback originals is not anything he’s going to need to do for a long time to come:

   Credits on IMDB since 2002: Producer or supervising producer for CSI: Miami, JAG, House M.D., Supernatural, Women’s Murder Club and Medium.

   If you see what I mean. Witten is probably still a nice guy, though, since Jacob Burns, his leading character certainly is, and guys who aren’t so nice would find it, I suspect, awfully hard to create characters who really are. Nice, that is. And still living in Sarasota Springs NY.

   Burns is also happily married, and even though he comes awfully close to straying in this book, he says no and walks away, just before the point of no return. Burns also has two lovable little boys named (well, nicknamed) Gretzy and Babe Ruth, with whom he has a lot of fun, and likewise the same.

   Dead is an old man who hung out at Madeline’s Espresso Bar, a loner who spent most of his time scribbling on paper but known to all of the usual habitues, artsy types all, most of them members of the Sarasota Council Arts Councils and whom seem to get all of the available grant money, but Donald Penn (the dead man), no.

   Just before he died, Penn gave Burns the key to a safety deposit box, and inside? That’s the story, and all of the aforementioned artsy types want to know, too.

   Told in a friendly but wise-ass sort of way, there are probably too many F-words used for this to properly be called a cozy, but it is anyway. At least there’s no graphic violence, as long as you don’t count all of Jacob Burns’ very narrow escapes. There’s only a small amount of actual detection involved, but (come to think of it) there’s enough to form the basis of a pretty good TV series out of Burns’ adventures.

   I wonder if Matt Witten knows anyone who might be interested.

   I’ve received this inquiry in this afternoon’s email. I’m sure I’ve seen a photo of Philip MacDonald on one of his book jackets, but so far I haven’t come across it. I found this one on the Internet, but this is the one that Charles already has. Anyone else?

   My name is Charles Seper, and I’m currently working on a film documentary of Philip MacDonald’s author grandfather — George MacDonald. I intend to make mention of Philip in the movie also.

   My problem is finding a good photograph of him. The only one I’ve managed to procure thus far is very small and of poor quality. Do you by any chance know of any?

   Philip was often asked to speak at various Hollywood functions, so I know there must be a good photo of him somewhere. I also know he wrote many books that I haven’t yet read, so I thought perhaps you might have one which has a picture of the author on the cover.

    If you have any idea where I might find a photo I would much appreciate it.

         Sincerely,

           Charles Seper

CAPTAIN THUNDER. Warner Brothers, 1930. Fay Wray, Victor Varconi, Charles Judels, Robert Elliott, Don Alvarado, Robert Emmett Keane. Director: Alan Crosland.

   It was “Captain’s Day” one day last week on TCM. This one followed Captain Applejack which I watched and commented on a couple of days ago, with several more taped and ready to be watched as soon as I’m able, including Captain Blood, which is first movie I remember watching as a kid, when I was perhaps six or seven years old.

   Many of the other movies in this grouping, which were shown all day, seem to have been newly recovered from the vaults, but if so, this one may as well go back in. It does feature Fay Wray, whom I can watch in anything, as this movie has proven, but it has little else going for it that would prompt more than the slightest recommendation.

   Not only does Fay Wray have a leading role, but the very first time we see her, she’s in a very skimpy slip and little else, a fact worth both pointing out and explaining.

   Captain Thunder, a Mexican bandit raising havoc with the forces of the utterly inept and totally comical El Commandante Ruiz (Charles Judels), has previously robbed the stagecoach in which she was coming into town, and part of the tribute demanded was the outer clothing of all its passengers. (And perhaps the driver and the fellow riding shotgun as well. I should go back and look. I was distracted at the time.)

   El Capitan Thunder is played most boisterously by Victor Varconi, a Hungarian playing a Mexican in this movie. His career began in the silents back in his homeland, starting in 1913, and as is often the case with many early talking films, some actors did not at first understand that less is sometimes more.

   Be that as it may, Captain Thunder’s credo is that he will keep all of the promises he makes, which puts him in a quandary when one he makes to the slim and supremely beautiful Ynez Dominguez (Fay Wray) runs headlong into one he makes to the evil Pete Morgan (Robert Elliott), a strutting gent with eyes on Ynez himself, although she is about to marry another. Much booing and hissing expected here.

   Fay Wray’s career survived this pre-King Kong film, I’m happy to say, and surprisingly enough, so did Victor Varconi’s, who had many small parts and supporting roles through the early 1950s. Director Alan Crosland died in 1936 at the age of only 41, but before that, he was at the helm of a couple of Perry Mason movies, and The White Cockatoo (1935), a film based on a pretty good mystery novel by Mignon G. Eberhart.