Wed 21 May 2014
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: OLIVER WELD BAYER – Paper Chase.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Crime Fiction IV , Reviews[4] Comments
William F. Deeck
OLIVER WELD BAYER – Paper Chase. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1943. No paperback edition. Film: MGM, 1945, as Dangerous Partners.
According to The Crime Club, this is a “fast-paced mystery by a new writer who offers speed, humor, and one of the cleverest plot twists ever to appear in a mystery story.” One does wonder whether a fast-paced mystery could be achieved by a writer who doesn’t offer speed, but never mind.
On the subject of humor, of which I understand little, I yield reluctantly to those who think witless people in unusual situations, particularly characters beyond their depth, provoke mirth. Finally, if there is a clever plot twist, it escaped my, by the end of the novel, numb attention. Another point is that this book was serialized in Liberty, [a magazine] not noted as I recall for its departures from the norm.
After a plane crash, a confidence couple, man and wife, adopt Albert Mercer and his collection of four wills of which he is executor and beneficiary. When Mercer goes to Cleveland, he discovers that one of the will-makers is planning to write another in which Mercer does not figure. A statue topples on the will-maker, creating suspicion in the mind of his attorney, Jeff Piper, who is trying to get into Air Force Intelligence. Which he did, and how we won the war under that handicap is beyond my comprehension.
Piper teams up with Elizabeth Neff, detective-story novelist, who has a low opinion of her own books. Together they bumble through an investigation of the confidence couple and— But maybe that’s the clever plot twist and I shouldn’t mention it.
Bibliographic Notes: Information taken from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. No recurring characters.
BAYER, OLIVER WELD; pseudonym of Eleanor Rosenfeld Bayer, (1914-1981) & Leo Grossberg Bayer, (1908-2005)
Paper Chase. Doubleday 1943
No Little Enemy. Doubleday 1944
An Eye for an Eye. Doubleday 1945
Brutal Question. Doubleday 1947
The film exists. Starring are James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn and Audrey Totter. Has anyone seen it?
May 21st, 2014 at 8:37 pm
The film version had a fine cast, and while a director of little consequence, the screenwriter Ed Hartmann was a man of taste and is credited with dozens of fine light films and television shows.
May 21st, 2014 at 11:38 pm
Dangerous Partners played on TCM, though I don’t recall anything special. I think the Piper character was already in Naval intelligence, the girl became a refugee, and the plot more spies than murder or confidence men, but it has been ages since I saw it. I recall it as a fair B time passer with a better than average cast. It has shown up several times but I haven’t watched it since the original outing.
May 23rd, 2014 at 5:59 am
When last seen around a decade ago, didn’t like Dangerous Partners.
The film’s director Edward L. Cahn made a huge flood of low budget B-movies: crime films, Science fiction, Westerns. Some are quite interesting. My article:
http://mikegrost.com/cahn.htm
Cahn is something of a cult director today, more for his interesting crime and science fiction films, but not for his terrible Westerns.
July 1st, 2020 at 4:21 pm
Oliver Weld Bayer was a pseudonym used by the American couple Eleanor Bayer (nee Rosenfeld) (1914-1981) and Leo Grossfeld Bayer (?? -1950) for their mystery novels and plays written in the 1940s and 1950s. Eleanor went on to remarry Frank Perry, and became a successful screenwriter under the name Eleanor Perry.