Film Music Friday: More music from film noir.

Joseph Cotten, left, with Jack Moss in Eric Ambler's
Journey into Fear (1943)

A recent episode of Kansas Public Radio's Film Music Friday focused on music from film noir, including selections from Double Indemnity (composer Miklós Rózsa, 1944); Journey into Fear (composer Roy Webb, 1943); Laura (composer David Raksin, 1944); Please Murder Me (composer Albert Glasser, 1956); Sorry, Wrong Number (composer Franz Waxman, 1948); and more.

Rough Shoot (1953).

Joel McCrea in Rough Shoot (1953)

In Rough Shoot (aka Shoot First), former US colonel Joel McCrea becomes entangled with murder and a spy ring in England. The film is based on A Rough Shoot by Geoffrey Household, with a screenplay by Eric Ambler. Costars include Evelyn Keyes, Herbert Lom, and Marius Goring.

Dorothy B. Hughes's classic mystery library.

Claude Rains and Edward Norris in They Won't Forget (1937),
adaptation of Ward Greene's Death in the Deep South

In the 13 Nov 1977 Los Angeles Times, author-critic Dorothy B. Hughes made 23 selections for a classic mystery library. Hughes defined a classic as "a book to which you return over and again ... primarily because for you it satisfies a hunger for the felicity of beauty and craft..."(N3). For Hughes, "style is the most important element in any mystery, let alone a classic" (N3).

Hughes did not include any works by Arthur Conan Doyle and Erle Stanley Gardner (although Hughes would publish a biography of Gardner), explaining that in the case of these and some other authors (such as Ellery Queen), their body of work constitutes the classic rather than a single book. Hughes's choices for her classic mystery library are the following:

• Eric Ambler, A Coffin for Dimitrios. "a hunt-and-search story with a background of the Near East leading to Paris"
  
• Edgar Box [Gore Vidal], Death in the Fifth Position. " . . . the world of the ballet, presented with perception and verisimilitude"
  
• Vera Caspary, Laura. "an enviable creator of plots which twist and turn and startle."
  
• Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely. "his making of poetry out of the tawdry was indeed something unforgettable"
  
• Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None. "two classic books"
  
• Len Deighton, The Ipcress File. "Deighton . . . devised a new style."
• Helen Eustis, The Horizontal Man. "a true academic background against which the tragicomedy is played."
  
• William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust. "a mystery sensation"
  
• Michael Gilbert, Close Quarters. "he has built a cathedral and its close, and has peopled it with verisimilitude."
  
• Graham Greene, Brighton Rock. "two sad insignificant persons revealed in their small moment of significance."
• Ward Greene, Death in the Deep South. "a classic of the regional and one of the first dealing with ethnic problems"
  
• Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon. "a classic romantic-adventure"
  
• H. F. [Gerald] Heard, A Taste for Honey. "Another of the instant classics"
  
• Francis Iles [Anthony Berkeley Cox], Before the Fact."a book whose plot must remain secret"
  
• Charlotte Jay [Geraldine Halls], Beat Not the Bones. "the primitive culture of Africa in collision with the 20th century"
  
• John le Carre [David Cornwell], The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. "tragic power"
  
• Meyer Levin, Compulsion. "a classic of major proportion"
  
• Marie Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger. " . . . a true crime story, in fiction form"
  
• Ngaio Marsh, Death of a Fool. "breath-taking"
  
• E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Great Impersonation. "a landmark"
  
• Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors. "background became not just background, but important"
  
• Josephine Tey [Elizabeth MacKintosh], The Daughter of Time. "Simply written but brilliant in premise and performance."

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  Ad for They Won't Forget (from the film pressbook)

  
   

Background to Danger (1943).

In Background to Danger, U.S. agent George Raft seeks to thwart a German plot that aims to mobilize Turkey against Russia during World War II. Costars include Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. Based on the novel by Eric Ambler, the film was directed by Raoul Walsh, with a screenplay by W. R. Burnett (Little Caesar, The Asphalt Jungle, etc.) and some screenwriting help by William Faulkner.

British Library event on Eric Ambler, May 6.

Ad for film of Ambler's Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

To mark the British Library Publishing reissues of Eric Ambler titles such as A Kind of Anger, A Passage of Arms, and The Light of Day, "Eric Ambler: Father of the Modern British Spy Thriller" has been scheduled for May 6 at the British Library. Ambler's life and work will be discussed.

The continuing contribution of Eric Ambler.

Ad for the 1943 film of
Eric Ambler's Background to Danger

John Gray pens an appreciation in the BBC Magazine of the spy novels of Eric Ambler (e.g., Journey into Fear, The Mask of Dimitrios):

The protagonists of Ambler's novels aren't the hearty public school patriots who stride through the pages of John Buchan.
. . . Ambler's novels are unsettling in a number of ways. 

(thanks to the Law & Humanities blog)

Podcasts on mystery films, Warner Archive.

The latest episode of the Warner Archive Collection podcast discusses the release of Bill Elliott Detective Mysteries (1955–57), a DVD of films with Elliott as a detective working in the LA sheriff's office:

• Calling Homicide (a police officer's death is connected to the murder of a head of a modeling school)

• Chain of Evidence (man with amnesia faces murder charges)

• Dial Red-O (disturbed veteran is accused of killing his wife)

• Footsteps in the Night (Elliott on the trail of a strangler)

• Sudden Danger (son seeks his father's murderer)

Other podcast episodes include:

• Episode on Terror on a Train (1953, with Glenn Ford) and The Decks Ran Red (1958, with James Mason and Dorothy Dandridge)

• Interview with Eddie Muller on the noir film Gun Crazy (1950)

• Episode on The Mask of Dimitrios (1944, from the novel by Eric Ambler), A Dangerous Profession (1949), Duffy of San Quentin (1954), The Fall Guy (1947, from Cornell Woolrich's "Cocaine"/"C-Jag"), FBI Code 98 (1963), and Loophole (1954)

• Episode on the Hildegarde Withers Mystery Collection that features the spinster detective created by Stuart Palmer and popularized by Edna May Oliver

The October Man (1947).

In The October Man, a chemist with a head injury from a bus accident is suspected of murder. Master spy novelist Eric Ambler wrote the screenplay and served as producer, and the film was directed by Roy Ward Baker (The Avengers, A Night to Remember, The Persuaders, The Saint).

Carleton Morse's 10 favorite mysteries, 1943.

In summer 1943 writer-producer Carleton E. Morse (of I Love a Mystery and One Man's Family radio fame) listed his favorite mysteries, which he planned to send to army camps. They are the following:

• Cleve F. Adams, Sabotage (1940)
• Eric Ambler, Cause for Alarm (1938)
• Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
• Manning Coles, A Toast to Tomorrow (1941; aka Pray Silence, 1940)
• Mignon G. Eberhart, Murder by an Aristocrat (1933, film 1936)
• Dashiell Hammett, The Dain Curse (1928, mini-series 1978)
• Jonathan Latimer, Red Gardenias (1939)
• Philip MacDonald, The Rasp (1924, film 1931)
• Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928)
• Rex Stout, The Red Box (1937)

Update. Photo of Carleton E. Morse.

Eric Ambler's Topkapi on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Peter Ustinov in Topkapi
(dir. Jules Dassin, 1964)

BBC Radio 4 Extra is now airing Eric Ambler's caper novel Topkapi; go here for the schedule or to listen. Episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Eric Ambler this week on BBC Radio 7.

Orson Welles (foreground)
and Joseph Cotten in
Eric Ambler's Journey
into Fear (dir. Norman
Foster, 1943).

An engineer stumbles into international intrigue in Eric Ambler's Journey into Fear (1940) this week on BBC Radio 7. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard online for a week after broadcast.

Robert Louis Stevenson this week on BBC Radio 7; happy birthday, Eric Ambler.

In "The Short History of Gothic" series, BBC Radio 7 is featuring Robert Louis Stevenson's "Markheim" (1885), read by Notting Hill's Hugh Bonneville, in which a thief receives an unsettling surprise. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Let's also remember that espionage master and screenwriter Eric Ambler (Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios, etc.) was born today in London in 1909 and recall Michael Gilbert's words about him in Crime in Good Company: "[Ambler] says that he was an unpleasant child, but produces no evidence of this beyond a single attempt to blow up his own house with nitroglycerin."
About the image: Robert Louis Stevenson, NYPL

Happy birthday, Peter Cushing.

Hammer Films stalwart Peter Cushing, OBE, was born today in Surrey in 1913. He died in 1994. Among the notable roles in his long career were Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (and in a subsequent TV series), Josef Vadassey in the TV series adapted from Eric Ambler's Epitaph for a Spy (1953), Dr. Who in Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD (1966), Holly in H. Rider Haggard's She (1965), and Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977).

About the image: Peter Cushing in The Hound of the Baskervilles (dir. Terence Fisher, 1959)

Fowler on Ambler, Shute.

Christopher Fowler's latest in his Forgotten Authors series for The Independent focuses on Nevil Shute and Eric Ambler, although he does acknowledge that they still have a presence in today's literary world. One aspect of Shute's oeuvre he fails to mention: aeronautical engineer Shute's No Highway (1948; filmed as No Highway in the Sky, 1951), which sounded a prophetic warning against the dangers of metal fatigue in planes.

About the image: Jimmy Stewart in No Highway in the Sky, 1951, dir. Henry Koster

BBC Film Programme: Eric Ambler.

In this December 4th broadcast of BBC Radio 4's Film Programme, Adrian Wootten discusses the "profound influence" of espionage master Eric Ambler on film and points out that 2009 marks Ambler's centenary.

About the image: Orson Welles (foreground) and Joseph Cotten in Eric Ambler's Journey into Fear (dir. Norman Foster, 1943).

Happy birthday, Hammond Innes.

British author and avid sailor Ralph Hammond Innes, known for thrillers such as The Blue Ice (1948) and works such as The Wreck of the "Mary Deare" (1956), was born today in Horsham in 1913. His writing career began far from promisingly: his first four novels, according to Contemporary Authors, only reaped a total of £120. He began to garner attention with Attack Alarm (1941), which was based on his experiences as a gunner during the Battle of Britain, and other novels were eventually adapted for film or television (for example, Fire in the Snow [1947], The White South [1949], Campbell's Kingdom [1952], and The Doomed Oasis [1960]). He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1978 and died in 1998.

About the image: Richard Harris (left) and Gary Cooper in The Wreck of the Mary Deare (dir. Michael Anderson, screenplay by Eric Ambler, 1959)

Happy birthday, Eric Ambler.

Master British spy novelist Eric Ambler was born today in 1909. He died in 1998.

Thankfully, much of his work has been reissued in trade paperback by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, including Background to Danger, Cause for Alarm, A Coffin for Dimitrios, Epitaph for a Spy, Journey into Fear, Judgment on Deltchev, The Light of Day, The Schirmer Inheritance, and State of Siege. His screen work includes the 1960 TV series Checkmate and screenplays for The Cruel Sea (1952), A Night to Remember (1958), and several of his own books.

Photo: Orson Welles (on the right) in the film version of Journey into Fear (1943).