The Great Detective film series in Australia.

Michael Redgrave and
Margaret Lockwood in
The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Envy the lucky Australians who can attend The Great Detective, a series showcasing mystery films at Australian Cinémathèque, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery, until September 2. Films include the following:

• Sherlock Holmes (1916)
• Sherlock Jr. (1924)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938)
• And Then There Were None (1945)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
• Vertigo (1958)
• Charade (1963)
  
• A Shot in the Dark (1964)
• Dirty Harry (1971)
• Death on the Nile (1978)
• The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
  
• Evil under the Sun (1982)
• Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Mystic River (2003)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

"Detective's Holiday" (dir. Blake Edwards, 1954).

Publicity shot of
Dick Powell, 1937.

In "Detective's Holiday," vacationing detective Dave Robinson (Dick Powell) thinks he may have come across a suspect in a robbery. This episode of Four Star Playhouse is directed by Blake Edwards and based on a story of the same name by Octavus Roy Cohen (repr. Reader's Digest Teenage Treasury, Vol. 2: Endeavor, 1957 and Great True Stories of Crime, Mystery, and Detection, from the Reader's Digest, 1965). Twilight Zone fans will spot Barney Phillips as Robinson's detective partner.

The Carey Treatment (1972).

Several works of the late Michael Crichton, whose birthday is tomorrow, are rooted in his medical background (e.g., The Andromeda Strain; ER). One is reflected in the film The Carey Treatment (1972, dir. Blake Edwards), in which Dr. Peter Carey (James Coburn) suspects that more lies behind a botched abortion than meets the eye. The film is based on Crichton's Edgar-winning novel A Case of Need (1968), which he wrote under the pseudonym Jeffrey Hudson.

Anthony's The Tamarind Seed (1974).

Saluting tomorrow's 85th birthday of British spy author Evelyn Anthony (aka Evelyn Ward-Thomas), this week's film selection is The Tamarind Seed--adapted by Blake Edwards from Anthony's book about a Russian agent romancing a British woman for possibly ulterior motives. Edwards also directed the film, which stars his wife, Julie Andrews. The rest of the cast includes Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, and Oskar Homolka.

The Notorious Landlady (1962).

In The Notorious Landlady, US diplomat Jack Lemmon suspects that his landlady (Kim Novak) has murdered her husband. Fred Astaire costars. The screenplay is by M*A*S*H's Larry Gelbart and director-screenwriter Blake Edwards, based on the 1956 Collier's story "The Notorious Tenant" by British author Margery Sharp (best known for The Rescuers).

"The Squeeze" (1953), with Dick Powell.

"The Squeeze" (1953), an episode of Four Star Playhouse, features Dick Powell as a safecracker turned club owner who discovers that his former criminal cohorts want him dead. Directed by a pre-Kiss Me Deadly Robert Aldrich and written by Blake Edwards, it also stars Richard Jaeckel, Regis Toomey, and Herb Vigran.