The Mystery of Mr. X (1934).

An inspector (Lewis Stone) thinks that a jewel thief (Robert Montgomery) also is a serial killer of policemen, and the thief sets out to catch the murderer himself. Directed by Edgar Selwyn (a cofounder of Goldwyn Pictures), the film is based on Philip MacDonald's X v. Rex (aka The Mystery of the Dead Police).

23 Paces to Baker Street (1956).

Directed by Henry Hathaway and based on Warrant for X (aka The Nursemaid Who Disappeared) by author-screenwriter Philip MacDonald (The List of Adrian Messenger, etc.), 23 Paces to Baker Street features Van Johnson as a blind playwright who overhears a kidnapping plot.

MacDonald x 2: "The Fatal Impulse" (1960).

In this November 1960 episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller TV series, someone bent on political assassination places a bomb in a woman's purse, but the police are hot on the trail. Featuring Robert Lansing, Elisha Cook Jr., and Mary Tyler Moore, it is adapted by author-screenwriter Philip MacDonald (The List of Adrian Messenger, etc.) from the novella "The Impulse" by John D. MacDonald (Cape Fear, etc.) that appeared in the June 1955 issue of Cosmopolitan.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950).

Jane Wyatt and Lee J. Cobb in The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

In The Man Who Cheated Himself, a veteran homicide detective (Lee J. Cobb) faces the prospect of helping a wealthy woman (Jane Wyatt) cover up the murder of her husband as his brother (John Dall) takes charge of the case. The film was directed by Felix E. Feist (Tomorrow Is Another Day, Donovan's Brain, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), and the screenplay was cowritten by Haycraft-Queen author Philip MacDonald (The List of Adrian Messenger, Warrant for X, etc.)

Christie's Love from a Stranger (1937).

Agatha Christie's "Philomel Cottage," in which a wife suspects her new husband of sinister intentions, has been adapted several times. These include a 1937 film (also known as A Night of Terror; see below) with Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone and a 1947 film with stars John Hodiak, Sylvia Sidney, and John Howard, and a screenplay by Philip MacDonald (The List of Adrian Messenger, etc.). Other versions include a play by Frank Vosper and the October 1943 Suspense episode with Orson Welles and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

Mystery reading by Justice Holmes and friends.

He had just discovered [E. Phillips] Oppenheim and had been revelling in the world of international intrigue into which Oppenheim had transplanted him.

—1932 research material on Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. by Mark DeWolfe Howe

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,
ca. 1924. Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Div.

Justice Sonia Sotomayer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fondness for Nancy Drew has precedence on the Supreme Court. Harvard Law School Library's impressive digital project on Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. sheds further light on his mystery reading (Holmes once confessed his "ignoble liking" for detective stories to British jurist Sir Frederick Pollock). In one letter, he states, "I like what I have read of John Dickson Carr—(author of The Lost Gallows)" [1931]. An inventory of Holmes's library after his death in 1935 lists John Buchan's Greenmantle (1916) and The Three Hostages (1924), Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (1929), Oppenheim's A Prince of Sinners (1903) and Prodigals of Monte Carlo (1926), Dorothy L. Sayers's Have His Carcase (1932), and Edgar Wallace's The Man at the Carlton (1931). He also had a copy of Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case (1878, part of the Haycraft-Queen list of essential mysteries) with the following inscription by the author: "To Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes with birthday congratulations from Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs. Buffalo, March, 1926."

Some of Holmes's friends were equally enthusiastic about mysteries. In one letter, his British Marxist-socialist friend Harold Laski notes Freeman Wills Crofts's Inspector French's Greatest Case (1925), "which I commend warmly to you if it comes your way" and later urges Holmes to read Crofts's The Cask (1920; both books are on the Haycraft-Queen list). In another letter, Laski expresses appreciation for Mary Davies and the Manor of Ebury by Charles T. Gatty; in yet another letter, he recommends Philip MacDonald's The White Crow (1928) and The Rasp (1924; the latter is on the Haycraft-Queen list).

Pollock sent Holmes a list of his recommended detective stories, with a note by the names of Sayers and Agatha Christie that stated, "anything by either of these writers may be presumed to be good." Pollock's list included Margery Allingham, G. D. H. Cole, R. Austin Freeman, Ronald A. Knox, Anthony Rolls, Henry Wade, and Victor L. Whitechurch. It appears that Holmes did not need Pollock's prompting regarding Christie, as evidenced by the following passage from Some Table Talk of Mr. Justice Holmes and the Mrs. (1935): "Mrs. Agatha Christie may be pleased some day to know that at this moment [May 1933] she was sharing his attention and his praise with Aristotle."

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.

Philip MacDonald and Patrol; John Buchan and D. H. Lawrence.

On the Great War blog, George Simmers discusses Philip MacDonald's novel Patrol (1927; films 1929, 1934). The talented MacDonald is probably best known for The List of Adrian Messenger (1959, film 1963) and Warrant for X (aka The Nursemaid Who Disappeared, adapted as the film Twenty-Three Paces to Baker Street [dir Henry Hathaway, 1956]).

Simmers follows up this post with speculation on the identity of a character in John Buchan's Richard Hannay novel Mr. Standfast (1919): Could it be a thinly disguised D. H. Lawrence?

About the image: Victor McLaglen in The Lost Patrol (adapted from Philip MacDonald's Patrol, dir. John Ford, 1934)

Happy birthday, George MacDonald.

Scottish writer-poet George MacDonald, primarily known for fantasy works including "The Light Princess" (1864), "The Golden Key" (1867), and At the Back of the North Wind (1871), was born today in Aberdeenshire in 1824. For his influence on C. S. Lewis, go here; for his friendship with Mark Twain, go here. MacDonald, who died in 1905, was the grandfather of Philip MacDonald, screenwriter and author of mysteries such as The Rasp (1924), Warrant for X (1938; filmed as 23 Paces to Baker Street, 1956), and The List of Adrian Messenger (1959; film 1963).

About the image: George MacDonald, NYPL.

Philip MacDonald: The Choice (1931).

As a follow-up to my blog entry on Philip MacDonald's The Rasp, I'll feature another in the Anthony Gethryn series, The Choice (aka The Polferry Riddle and The Polferry Mystery).

In The Choice, the wife of a doctor is found one stormy night with her throat cut. Now the occupants of the remote house are being bumped off one by one, and Gethryn, who has systematically eliminated possible suspects, is stumped as to the perpetrator of these crimes. When another of the house occupants is kidnapped, Gethryn and Scotland Yard embark on a wild chase, and Gethryn eventually figures out the answer.

Like The Rasp, The Choice features paternal head-patting of female characters, although the kidnap victim, Susan Kerr, who is described as "very small and very charming," displays a calmer sensibility than her hysterical fiance. Also like The Rasp, The Choice has sudden turns and illuminating writing by MacDonald, such as "[t]he yellow flood of light swayed back, rushed through the doorway; sent flying the darkness between the doorway and the waiting men..." The Choice is a good choice for those who enjoy 1930s puzzle mysteries.

Leo Harris, who introduced the 1994 Chivers reprint of The Choice, stated that he could not understand the reason for the title, but I think it refers to a certain decision by the doctor's wife.

Cornerstone: The Rasp by Philip MacDonald.

I thought I would devote part of this summer to catching up on the books I've missed on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list---those mysteries published between 1748 and 1952 that were deemed essential by Howard Haycraft and Frederic Dannay. To date, I've read 34 works on the list.

I've been intrigued by the work of Scottish writer Philip MacDonald (1899-1981) since I saw the 1956 film Twenty-Three Paces to Baker Street (which features Van Johnson as a blind playwright who overhears a kidnapping plot). MacDonald, grandson of writer George MacDonald, is probably best known for the Edgar-nominated The List of Adrian Messenger (1959), but two of his other works appear on the Cornerstone list: The Rasp (1924) and The Nursemaid Who Disappeared (aka Warrant for X, 1938, the basis for Twenty-Three Paces to Baker Street).

The Rasp introduces the "hawky" Anthony Ruthven Gethryn, a former WWI secret agent, who looks into the murder of a cabinet minister. The hulking secretary is arrested, as his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon (a wood-rasp, a tool used in furniture making), and the grandfather clock was obligingly stopped to provide the time of the murder. Or does it? Gethryn is suspicious of the obvious clues.

The book poses some challenges for the modern reader, in a lengthy chapter of exposition as Gethryn explains his process for uncovering the murderer, and in the portrayal of two female characters who are presented as the epitome of competence until relatively minor circumstances cause them to change into quivering blobs of gelatin, and the male characters pat them on their collective heads. However, Gethryn is more than a dilettante amateur detective; hints of nasty goings-on during the war point to a need to atone through private investigation, while phrases such as "some cold, dark beastliness brooded everywhere" show an awareness of the dirtiness of the job. MacDonald has a facility for the well-turned phrase and a healthy sense of humor, as seen in the description of the newspaper editor Hastings as "looking, as a woman once said of him, rather like a stalwart and handsome chicken."

MacDonald once said, "The ideal detective story is a sort of competition between the author and the reader." I have to admit that I guessed the perpetrator, but the character of Gethryn, the dissection of the seemingly open-and-shut case, and some sudden turns make The Rasp an enjoyable read.