The Wall Street Mystery (1931).

In this short film based on a short story by S. S. Van Dine, Stagecoach's Donald Meek (as the sleuthing Dr. Crabtree) and Superman's John Hamilton (as Inspector Carr) investigate when two stockbrokers are found shot to death. Modern audiences may dislike the stereotyped portrayal of a black elevator operator.

Van Dine's Calling Philo Vance (1940).

Clues 30.1, with Brooks Hefner article
on S. S. Van Dine

Willard Huntington Wright, aka Philo Vance creator S. S. Van Dine, was born on October 15, 1887, in Charlottesville, VA. Calling Philo Vance was adapted from Van Dine's The Kennel Murder Case (1933).

Clues' Brooks Hefner on S. S. Van Dine, With Good Reason radio.

On the February 15 episode of the radio program With Good Reason, James Madison University's Brooks Hefner discusses the heretofore unknown pseudonym he uncovered of Philo Vance creator S. S. Van Dine (featured in his Clues article), Van Dine's alter ego of Willard Huntington Wright, and Wright's work in the context of highbrow/lowbrow debates of his time. The same program features Longwood University's Christopher McGee talking about the Hardy Boys series.

Clues 30.1: Newly discovered ss by S. S. Van Dine.

Clues vol 30, no. 1 has been published and includes the following:

• Clues reveals for the first time that S. S. Van Dine (aka Willard Huntington Wright, the creator of detective Philo Vance) published several short stories featuring an intellectual criminal; these were produced under another name well before Wright adopted the Van Dine pseudonym. Using archival evidence, Brooks Hefner (James Madison University) links these stories to Van Dine and discusses them in the context of highbrow/lowbrow debates, including Wright's 1928 essay "I Used to Be a Highbrow but Look at Me Now" and his short-lived term as editor of the Smart Set.

• Matthew McGuire (University of Western Sydney) discusses Scottish writer James Hogg's contributions to crime fiction via The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824).

• Lucy Andrew (Cardiff University) analyzes the relationship between children and crime via The Boy Detective; or, The Crimes of London. A Romance of Modern Times (1865–66).

• Mark T. Decker (Bloomsburg University) looks at some intriguing connections between Allan Pinkerton's The Model Town and the Detectives (1876) and Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest (1929).

• Dawn Keetley (Lehigh University) makes the case that certain novels with sexual crimes in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo feature political commentary, disputing the majority of critical opinion.

• Michael Given (Stephen F. Austin State University) discusses the Hap and Leonard novels of Joe R. Lansdale, dubbing them "hard-boiled Southern noir."

• Phyllis M. Betz (La Salle University) looks at the complex relationship between the female narrator and queenpin Gloria Denton in Megan Abbott's Queenpin (2007).

• Kerstin Bergman (Lund University) explores the relationship between science and truth via CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Patricia Cornwell's The Scarpetta Factor (2009).

• Reviews of a new edition of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Henry Dunbar and Christopher Pittard's Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction.

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.

Happy birthday, Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, S. S. Van Dine.

Two major mystery figures mark birthdays today: the late Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain and a slew of other pseudonyms, was born today in New York City in 1926. Smart Set editor in chief Willard Huntington Wright—aka S. S. Van Dine, the creator of sleuth Philo Vance and the famous "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" (1928)—was born today in Charlottesville, VA, in 1888. He died in 1939.

You can see Hunter discussing his theory of the Lizzie Borden case here.