The Avengers on location.

Patrick Macnee in
The Avengers

This 1966 clip from British Pathe shows Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg filming scenes in various vintage cars for The Avengers.

Norman Lloyd: 70 years in TV.

Norman Lloyd in
"Delusion" (1959)

The Archive of American Television marks actor-director-producer Norman Lloyd's 70 years in television with this interview from its archive and the following pieces from his long career:

• "The Jar," Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1964), dir. Norman Lloyd, based on a short story by Ray Bradbury (a mysterious jar attracts a lot of attention)

• "Delusion," One Step Beyond (1959), perf. Norman Lloyd and Suzanne Pleshette (man knows donating blood will result in unpleasant visions of the future)

During the interview, Lloyd discusses his role in Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), comments on Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), and talks about his directing work for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Georges Simenon in Hitler's Germany.

One selection in Oliver Lubrich's Travels in the Reich, 1933–1945 (2010) features Georges Simenon's account "Hitler in the Elevator" that describes the catastrophic events around the Reichstag in 1933.

In addition, Simenon unveils a Maigret statue in the Netherlands in this British Pathe clip from 1966.

Child prodigies: Thriller writer Horace Atkisson Wade, Barbara Newhall Follett.

Horace Atkisson Wade,
from Current Opinion
April 1920

In Lapham's Quarterly Portland State University's Paul Collins provides the fascinating but sad tale of Barbara Newhall Follett, who published The House without Windows (Knopf, 1927) at age twelve to wide acclaim.  In the piece Collins also mentions Horace Atkisson Wade, who published a 30,000-word thriller, In the Shadow of Great Peril (1920), at age eleven. Go here for an article on Wade, who apparently followed up the thriller with a few more books and became involved with horse racing. (Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Ngaio Marsh this week on BBC Radio 7.

Ngaio Marsh's aristocratic Inspector Roderick Alleyn is featured this week on BBC Radio 7 in the country house mystery A Man Lay Dead and A Surfeit of Lampreys (body is found in an elevator). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard online a week after broadcast.

Mysteries among BFI's most wanted films.

Ivor Novello in
The Lodger (1926)

In considering the British Film Institute's "Most Wanted" list of films, it should be noted that about 35 percent are either mysteries or thrillers that trigger desire in the mystery fan/scholar for their presence on DVD. They include the following:

• A Study in Scarlet (1914); Sherlock Holmes, of course

• Murder at Monte Carlo (1935); Errol Flynn's first film

• The Scarab Murder Case (1936), with Wilfred Hyde-White as S. S. Van Dine's detective Philo Vance

• Murder Will Out (1939), with Jack Hawkins

• This Man Is Dangerous (1941), with James Mason as David Hume's detective Mick Cardby

• Double Confession (1950), with Peter Lorre in a blackmail tale

• Two adaptations featuring John Creasey's sleuth Richard Rollison, aka the Toff—Salute the Toff and Hammer the Toff (both 1952)

• Films from the early career of director Michael Powell such as Two Crowded Hours (1931)

BFI also has launched an effort to preserve films from Alfred Hitchcock's silent film oeuvre, including his 1926 adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger with Ivor Novello.

Jonathan Eig's Get Capone.

In this interesting podcast from the Society of Midland Authors, Jonathan Eig, author of Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster, discusses his belief that Al Capone was not behind the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (positing an alternate culprit based on an FBI document), the central role of US attorney George Johnson rather than Eliot Ness in convicting Capone of tax evasion, and other facets of his book.

Freddy the Pig brings pork at auction.

At the Dec 8 Bloomsbury auction, a 26-volume set of Walter R. Brooks's Freddy the Pig series went for $2000. A separate set of pulp novels, however, failed to sell.

Another auction on Dec 9 featured various Edward Gorey-related items.

Bah, humbug: Wilkie Collins at Xmas.

Wilkie Collins, bet. 1880
and 1890. Library of
Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division.

Paul Lewis provides these insights into Wilkie Collins's various works aimed for a holiday market and the author's cranky reactions to the season such as "This awful Christmas time! I am using up my cheque-book—and am in daily expectation of fresh demands on it." Perhaps he took a leaf from his friend Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.

View classic holiday programs online via MBC.

Art Carney in TZ's "Night
of the Meek" (1960)

The Museum of Broadcast Communications offers various well-known holiday programs online, such as Twilight Zone's "Night of the Meek" with Art Carney, A Bozo Christmas (with everyone's favorite clown), and the Dick Van Dyke Show's "The Alan Brady Show Presents."

BBC Archive: Fleming and Chandler on thrillers.

Ian Fleming, NYPL

A new BBC Archive on James Bond features a 1958 conversation between Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler on the differences between British and U.S. thrillers, among other topics.

Thomas Hardy's holiday cards.

Thomas Hardy, 1923.
NYPL

Anthony Gardner in the Royal Society of Literature Review discusses the stories behind the holiday cards sent out by author Thomas Hardy.

D. A. Miller on "the French Hitchcock."

In Film Quarterly, UC-Berkeley professor
D. A. Miller offers an appreciation of the late Claude Chabrol, director of Merci pour le chocolat (adaptation of Charlotte Armstrong's The Chocolate Cobweb) and other thrillers. More here on Chabrol.

JPC: Nurse-sleuth Cherry Ames.

Cover of Cherry Ames,
Chief Nurse (1944), from
Series Books for Girls

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Popular Culture Adrianne Finlay looks at the portrayal of nurse-sleuth Cherry Ames during and after World War II as "an ambulatory recruiting poster and asexual pinup girl" (1200). Although Finlay identifies only Helen Wells as the author of the series, another writer who contributed to the series was Julie Campbell Tatham, creator of Trixie Belden.

A Hart to Hart retrospective.

The Paley Center for Media offers a clip from its November 2010 program "One from the Hart: A Hart to Hart Reunion" with Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner discussing their TV detective series that ran from 1979 to 1984.

Robert Altman, Elliott Gould, and The Long Goodbye.

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research features the early career of director Robert Altman, including his 1973 interpretation of Chandler's The Long Goodbye, an interview with star Elliott Gould, and this script by Leigh Brackett.

Happy birthday, Dalton Trumbo.

Peggy Cummins in Gun
Crazy (1950; dir. Joseph
H. Lewis)

Screenwriter and author Dalton Trumbo, a victim of the Hollywood Blacklist, was born today in Montrose, CO, in 1905. He won Oscars for Roman Holiday and The Brave One, and the National Book Award for the war protest novel Johnny Got His Gun. He was the screenwriter on such notable films as Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Exodus, and Spartacus. His crime-related work includes Fugitives for a Night (1938; studio employee is accused of murder), Half a Sinner (1940; schoolteacher gets mixed up in murder), Jealousy (1945; wife is suspected in husband's murder), and Gun Crazy (1950, cowritten with MacKinlay Kantor; a couple embarks on a robbery spree). He died in 1976.

Recent mystery acquisitions, UK National Portrait Gallery.

Edgar Wallace, from
The Biography of a
Phenomenon, by
Margaret Lane, NYPL.

Among recent acquisitions of the UK National Portrait Gallery:

• G. K. Chesterton
• Lady Antonia Fraser (additional photos here and here)
• Graham Greene
• J. B. Priestley
• Ian Rankin
• Edgar Wallace

Mr. Ed, mystery fan.

The well-read Mr. Ed

The collection Readers & Writers, one CD from the radio program Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story, features Walter R. Brooks's "Ed Has His Mind Improved" (1939), in which our equine hero Mr. Ed widens his literary horizons through reading adventure and murder tales, displaying a particular fondness for Edgar Wallace.

Listen to the story (performed by Tony Roberts) here. Those looking for a print version of the story can find it in In the Stacks: Short Stories about Libraries and Librarians.

James Sallis, Simon Brett this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week on BBC Radio 7: James Sallis's Eye of the Cricket with African American private eye Lew Griffin and Simon Brett's Murder Unprompted with alcoholic actor-sleuth Charles Paris. Go here for the schedule or to listen online; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

National Archives: Dillinger, Nelson, Hoover.

J. Edgar Hoover, 1940.
Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs
Division

The National Archives' Text Message blog features a 1934 Department of Justice press release offering a reward for the capture of John Dillinger and "Baby Face" Nelson, and a 1972 press release announcing the death of J. Edgar Hoover.

Boss Tweed goes on the lam, Dec 2, 1875.

Cartoon of Boss Tweed
Harper's Weekly, Oct 21,
1871. Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Div

As the House of Representatives historical highlights notes, New York's Boss Tweed (a one-time congressman) escaped from incarceration 135 years ago today. Infamous for running Tammany Hall, he was convicted of embezzlement in 1874 and received a 12-year sentence. After he escaped, he went first to Cuba, then to Spain, where the authorities caught up to him. Tweed died in 1878.

Valancourt reissues Marsh's The Second Coming (1900); Joseph Payne Brennan.

Illustration by Sydney Cowell
for Richard Marsh's
"Exchange is Robbery"
The Idler, 4 (1893–94)

Valancourt Books continues its reissues of the work of Richard Marsh (aka Richard Bernard Hellmann, 1857-1915, best known for The Beetle, 1897) with The Second Coming (1900), a daring work that posited the effect of the Second Coming of Christ on London society and brought an avalanche of criticism onto Marsh's head.

Also note that the spring 2010 issue of Wormwood includes an essay on Marsh by Callum James (also see this post on James's blog on Marsh) as well as a piece by Mike Barrett on supernatural sleuth Lucius Leffing, who was created by Joseph Payne Brennan (1918–90).

A glimpse of the Brighton Rock remake.

Richard Attenborough as
gangster Pinkie Brown in
Brighton Rock (1947,
dir. John Boulting)

The Guardian offers a sneak peek at the remake of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, which stars Helen Mirren and John Hurt, and is expected to be released on February 4 in the United Kingdom.

Wilde's "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" this week on BBC Radio 7.

Oscar Wilde, ca. 1882. Library
of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division

This week on BBC Radio 7, Lord Arthur Savile is told that he is destined to commit a murder, so he decides to attend to it—right away. Michael Maloney reads Oscar Wilde's lively work. Go here for the schedule or to listen online; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Read W. B. Yeats's review of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891): "Surely we have in this story ["Lord Arthur"] something of the same spirit that filled Ireland once with gallant, irresponsible ill-doing..."

Women in H. Rider Haggard.

In the latest issue of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies, University of Georgia's Elizabeth Lee Steere discusses the portrayal of women in African-set works of H. Rider Haggard, including King Solomon's Mines (1885), Allan Quatermain (1887), and Allan's Wife (1889).

Also of interest: Cheryl Blake Price's review of Elizabeth Carolyn Miller's Framed: The New Woman Criminal in British Culture at the Fin de Siècle, which mentions mystery author L. T. Meade (1844–1914).

Conan Doyle visits Kipling, Thanksgiving 1894.

Rudyard Kipling, c. 1897
Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division

In Rudyard Kipling: Hell and Heroism (2005), William B. Dillingham reports that Arthur Conan Doyle, who was in the United States on a lecture tour, visited Rudyard Kipling in Brattleboro, VT, over Thanksgiving 1894, but it appears all was not serene over the turkey and cranberry sauce:

Arthur Conan Doyle
Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs
Division

Conan Doyle . . . tried to persuade Rudyard to be kinder in his remarks about America. They argued a good deal but parted on good terms thanks to the determination of both men to be as reasonable and generous as possible. Conan Doyle's attitude . . . was that Kipling was misguided but that he could bring him around. . . . Kipling told [H.] Rider Haggard . . . that he "got nothing from [Conan Doyle]." (303) 

Adds Dillingham, "What appears to have alienated [Kipling] the most was Conan Doyle's immeasurable gullibleness" (303).

Conan Doyle had a rosier view of the visit, as he recounted in Memories and Adventures (1924): "I had two great days in Vermont, and have a grateful remembrance of Mrs Kipling's hospitality . . . We parted good friends" (220).

The mystery library of artist Donald Judd.

The Message in the Sand
Dunes, by Frances K.
Judd. University of
Maryland Libraries
Special Collections

The very cool interactive library of New York- and Texas-based artist Donald Judd (1928–94) allows the online researcher to click on shelves to see their contents as well as perform more typical searches by author, title, and subject. Mystery-related items include several novels by Raymond Chandler, The Complete Edgar Allan Poe, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, and The Message in the Sand Dunes (1938, one of the Kay Tracey mysteries) by Frances K. Judd (a pseudonym of Mildred Wirt Benson, best known for writing several of the Nancy Drew mysteries).

Chester Gould and other Oklahoma cartoonists.

Chester Gould's
Dick Tracy,
ca. 1953

A few sample panels available online from the Oklahoma History Center's exhibition "The Uncanny Adventures of Okie Cartoonists" feature, among others, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, Bill Mauldin, and—especially for Bill Crider—Kevin Stark's Geezer Comics.

Killer nun?

In the context of Craig A. Monson's new book Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art, and Arson in the Convents of Italy, the University of Chicago Press blog offers a few film clips depicting representations of nuns on film, including Anita Ekberg in Killer Nun (dir. Giulio Berruti, 1978).

More yellowbacks for Emory.

Cover of Mary Elizabeth
Braddon's The Fatal Three
(ca. 1890). Emory Libraries

Emory's Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library has announced the acquisition of 4,000 yellowbacks from Cleveland's Chester Topp; these will supplement its existing yellowback collection of nearly 1,300 titles. This is welcome news for those who love Victorian sensation works because Emory will digitize them for its online catalog (which includes images); one significant piece from Topp's collection is the first paperback edition of Dracula. Sadly, however, the collection will take about three years to catalog.

Braddon, Corelli in The Latchkey.

Marie Corelli. NYPL

The Latchkey: Journal of New Woman Studies has new essays on sensation masters Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Marie Corelli. I'm particularly entertained by the Latchkey's column "The Whine Cellar," which features antifeminist diatribes from the turn of the century.

The apartment in film noir and other genres.

Jimmy Stewart in
Rear Window

The Apartment Plot by Notre Dame's Pamela Robertson Wojcik analyzes the role of the urban apartment from 1945 to 1975 in film noir and other genres. The book includes discussion of Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, writ. Cornell Woolrich and John Michael Hayes, 1954).

Happy birthday, Michael Arlen.

John Irving, left, and
Ralph Clanton in "The
Gentleman from America,"
Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Michael Arlen—best known for The Green Hat (1924) and the series of films featuring the Robin Hood figure The Falcon (with George Sanders and his brother, Tom Conway)—was born today in Bulgaria in 1895. Several of his works involve murder and crime, especially those with Michael Wagstaffe. Hell! Said the Duchess (1934) features a supernatural being framing the duchess of the title for murder. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Gentleman from America," in which a man bets that he can stay in a room that reputedly is haunted, is based on an Arlen short story from The Omnibus of Crime (ed. Dorothy L. Sayers, 1929). Arlen's son, former New Yorker writer Michael J. Arlen, discusses his father in Exiles (1970).

John le Carré on Writers & Company.

Eleanor Wachtel of CBC's Writers & Company interviews John le Carré about his new book Our Kind of Traitor (part 1 here, part 2 here) and writes about le Carré's Cornwall residence here.

Residences of Poe, Alcott, et al.

Jack London. Library
of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division

On this podcast, Oberlin's Anne Trubek discusses her book A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses, which include her journeys to Edgar Allan Poe's various residences, Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, Jack London's home, and more.

Best Minnesota mysteries: Mabel Seeley, Thomas Gifford.

The blog 150 Best Minnesota Books opens a conversation on Minnesota whodunits, mentioning Mabel Seeley's The Chuckling Fingers (1941) and Thomas Gifford's The Wind Chill Factor (1975), Seeley's The Listening House (1938) appears on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mystery works. Gifford (1937–2000) was an Edgar nominee for The Cavanaugh Quest (1976). Seeley (1903–91) served on MWA's first board of directors, and four of her works are back in print thanks to Afton Historical Society Press.

For more on recommended Minnesota literature, see this Star Tribune article, which quotes former mystery bookseller Steve Stilwell.

A Boston murder; the pioneering Gothic career of Charles Brockden Brown.

Charles Brockden Brown.
NYPL.

NEH's Humanities Magazine discusses an 1849 murder of a Harvard-educated doctor in Boston and Gothic novelist Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810), who may be the first professional writer in the United States. (You can also check out Brown's works in the Library Company of Philadelphia's online exhibition "Philadelphia Gothic").

(Hat tip to the AHA blog)

Books about books: Bruccoli on Chandler, Sansom.

The Fine Books Blog offers a list of recommended books about books published in the past year, which includes On Books and Writers: Selected Essays by the late Fitzgerald specialist Matthew J. Bruccoli (which includes an essay on Chandler) and Ian Sansom's The Bad Book Affair: A Mobile Library Mystery. (Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Philip K. Dick this week on BBC Radio 7; neglected sci fi

This week, BBC Radio 7 features Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (made by Ridley Scott into the film Blade Runner). Go here for the schedule; episodes generally can be heard online for a week after broadcast.

Also of interest: Orson Scott Card in a November 3 online discussion with the Washington Post; writers and scientists select neglected science fiction.

Happy 5th birthday, The Bunburyist.

It's hard to believe that five years ago, I posted for the first time on this blog. My idea was to feature mystery history--particularly print, radio, and video pieces; archival items; and exhibitions that might not be on people's radar screens. I was especially concerned that little accurate information exists on the Internet on works such as those on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list, which does not assist potential readers or the mystery field in general.

I don't really know the impact of The Bunburyist, as I do not receive much feedback, which makes me wonder if I should continue it.

Where's your locker, shamus? The film Brick.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
in Brick (2005)

I had long wanted to see the film Brick (dir. Rian Johnson, 2005), for I had heard that it was an interesting cross between the teen flick and film noir, and I was not disappointed.

Loner Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sets out to discover what led to the death of his troubled ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin). Assisted by his aptly named friend Brain (Matt O'Leary), Brendan descends into a harrowing subculture headed by quirky drug dealer "The Pin" (Lukas Haas in a Sidney Greenstreet turn), whose headquarters is his rec room (don't miss the scene in which The Pin's cheery mom serves Brendan apple juice and cornflakes after he has been beaten by The Pin's henchman, who is obviously based on Elijah Cook Jr.).

An intriguing character is Kara (Meagan Good), who spends her time in the drama club and thus suggests the double-crossing nightclub femme fatale (that is, always playing a role). Another highlight (albeit brief) is Richard Roundtree (best known as John Shaft in Shaft) as the vice principal, which seems to resemble Ward Bond's role in The Maltese Falcon.

Those well versed in the genre will be able to guess the perpetrator, but that does not diminish the touching, unwavering determination of Brendan to see that Emily is not forgotten, in the best tradition of the Chandleresque lone knight on the mean streets.

Brick is available on DVD. For other takes on the film:
• Bill Crider
• Roger Ebert
• Entertainment Weekly
• The Guardian
• Radio Times
• Rian Johnson talks about Brick in the Independent 

Father Andrew Greeley: Some improvement reported.

It's good to learn from the latest posting on Father Andrew Greeley's Web site that he is now getting around via a walker after his accident in 2008. However, the 82-year-old creator of Blackie Ryan and Nuala McGrail is unable to write and has some difficulty in speaking. Father Greeley does have a new nonfiction book out: Chicago Catholics and Their Struggles within Their Church.

Depeche Mode's Vince Clarke: Book reviewer?

As the NYPL blog reveals, Depeche Mode's Vince Clarke may be the book reviewer we've all been waiting for. A few excerpts:

• On Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly:
"F----in' weird."

• On Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder: 
"My 'addiction to fiction' began right here."

• On John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath:
"The last sentence makes me cry (every time)."

Anna Katharine Green, Wilkie Collins this week on BBC Radio 7.

Wilkie Collins, bet. 1880
and 1890. Library of
Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division.

Some transatlantic sleuthing this week on BBC Radio 7's The Lady Detectives: "The Golden Slipper" (1915) by American bestseller Anna Katharine Green (one of the earliest US female college graduates) features New York socialite Violet Strange, who investigates thefts within her glittering social circle; and a wife in the British Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady (1875) endeavors to clear her husband of a murder charge. Episodes can be heard online for a week after broadcast.

Happy 84th birthday, H. R. F. Keating.

Distinguished mystery author-critic H. R. F. Keating—Detection Club member, Diamond Dagger recipient, Edgar nominee (for The Perfect Murder, 1965; Sherlock Holmes: The Man and His World, 1979; and Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, 1987), and creator of the wise Inspector Ghote—turns 84 today.

More spooky stuff.

Attack on Ft. Mifflin, 1777.
NYPL

Various videos from the guys behind Weird US (which began life as Weird NJ):

• The legend of the Jersey Devil
• Blairsden: a haunted mansion?
• The gates of hell
• Haunted Fort Mifflin, PA
• New Orleans cemeteries and voodoo

Lovecraftian bits in time for Halloween.

There is a fascinating account about the original manuscript of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" (published in Astounding Stories in 1936, although Lovecraft was dissatisfied with the edited version, and reprinted in the Library of America volume edited by Peter Straub). Thought lost forever, it came to Brown University, which details its provenance here, including the part played by "an August Derleth." Also of interest: audio clips of Straub as part of the Lovecraft Reading series and Straub's editing of an issue of Conjunctions with sci fi, horror, and fantasy contributions. Further details on Brown's Lovecraft Collection can be found here.

Paranormal tourism.

Grave of Stonewall Jackson, NYPL. The
Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery
in Lexington, VA, has reportedly been
the site of spooky occurrences.

Just in time for Halloween, the radio program With Good Reason tours spooky places in Virginia. (Also check out the Shenandoah Valley Paranormal Society and this account from the Arlington, VA, public library)

Exhibition: M. P. Shiel, Christopher Morley, etc.

Roberts 1895 edition of
M. P. Shiel's Prince Zaleski.
Providence Atheneum.

The University of Delaware exhibition "London Bound: American Writers in Britain, 1870–1916" includes M. P. Shiel (author of the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone work Prince Zaleski, 1895, and friend of Arthur Machen); Baker Street Irregulars founder Christopher Morley; and Stephen Crane's "The Ghost," to which authors such as Henry James, H. Rider Haggard, and A. E. W. Mason (the latter the author of At the Villa Rose, 1910) contributed. The exhibition is on display until Dec. 17.

Mitchum, Ryan, Young in noir classic Crossfire.

Robert Ryan in Crossfire
(writ. Richard Brooks, dir.
Edward Dmytryk, 1947)

Tonight's Big Broadcast with WAMU's Ed Walker at 10 pm features Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, and Robert Ryan in "Crossfire," a 1948 episode of Suspense, in which a group of ex-soldiers is under investigation for murder (Young plays the investigator). The program can be heard here both live and after broadcast.