British comics exhibition (incl Holmes spoof).

Cover of Jack Yeats
by Bruce Arnold

Among the fascinating images in the University of Oldenburg library's online exhibition "Wonderfully Vulgar: British Comics 1873–1939" are two pages from Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" in the Strand (illus. Sidney Paget) and the 1897 spoof The Funny Wonder featuring "Chubblock Homes" drawn by Jack Butler Yeats (the artist brother of W. B. Yeats; see also Chubblock's appearance in drag). There's also an excerpt from a 1936 sea serial starring James Cagney.

British Lib podcast: The Female Detective.

The British Library has just posted the podcast from the panel that discussed the female detective from the debut of "Miss G" in Andrew Forrester's The Female Detective in 1864. Held in conjunction with the exhibition "Murder in the Library," the event featured Lindsey Davis, Natasha Cooper, The Killing producer Piv Bernth, and former Clues executive editor Margaret Kinsman.

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.

Today in 1967: Raymond Burr as Ironside.

The Paley Center for Media recalls that today in 1967 Raymond Burr debuted as San Francisco detective Robert Ironside, left a paraplegic after a murder attempt. Writers for the series included Stephen J. Cannell, Davis Dresser (aka Brett Halliday), and Christopher Trumbo (son of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo).

Heyer's The Reluctant Widow (1950).

A former governess encounters spies employed by Napoleon in this adaptation of Georgette Heyer's novel (alternate film title: The Inheritance). Kathleen Byron (best known for Black Narcissus) is featured.

The life of the creator of Goodnight Moon.

With Good Reason radio program discusses the short life of Margaret Wise Brown, who wrote the children's classic Goodnight Moon (1947) and died at age 42 after an appendectomy.

Jacques Barzun, editor.

Those who miss Jacques Barzun (of the Barzun-Taylor Classic Crime Novels list) since his death at age 104 in October 2012 can now read Helen Hazen's delightful reminiscence in the American Scholar regarding his (sometimes painful) editing of her book during his time with Scribner. According to Hazen, Barzun once wrote, "I go through your pages like an angry bull."

More on Patrick Hamilton: Hangover Square.

Coinciding with Patrick Hamilton's birthday on March 17, BBC Radio 4's A Good Read program discusses Hamilton's Hangover Square (1941). Although noting that it often is not the most comfortable book to read, the commentators admire Hamilton's insights into psychology and obsession. (Below: The trailer to Hangover Square [1945], with Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, and George Sanders).

Conan Doyle to editor.

Arthur Conan Doyle, NYPL

The online slideshow of materials from Toronto Public Library's special collections includes some items from its noted Arthur Conan Doyle collection and sheds light on the author's relationship with Strand editor Herbert Greenhough Smith. One letter from Conan Doyle states, "I must say that I cannot agree with your estimate of the 'Norwood Builder.' I read it to a roomful of people and I was never more conscious of holding an audience absolutely spellbound." Another letter indicates that he wants a higher limit than 50,000 words for The Hound of the Baskervilles. Other items include covers from the Strand and a figurine of Professor Moriarty.

Happy birthday, Patrick Hamilton.

Playwright and author Patrick Hamilton was born today in Hassocks, Sussex, United Kingdom, in 1904. He died in 1962. In mysterydom, he is best known for his plays Rope, with certain parallels to the Leopold and Loeb case (1929; filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1948) and Gaslight (1939, aka Angel Street; films 1940, 1944, 1947, and several TV adaptations). He also wrote the novel Hangover Square (1941; filmed by John Brahm, 1945). The TV series The Charmer, with Nigel Havers as con artist Ralph Gorse, was based on Hamilton's Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953). Faber Finds has reissued his Twopence Coloured (1928) and Impromptu in Moribundia (1939).

Want to back a Veronica Mars film?

Annoy, tiny blonde. Annoy like the wind.

—Logan Echolls to Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars TV series creator Rob Thomas is attempting to finance a film featuring the savvy investigator via Kickstarter. There seems to be quite a bit of enthusiasm for the venture, for the level of funding has already exceeded its $2 million goal. Donations will be accepted until April 12. The Clues 2008 theme issue on the girl sleuth had Kristen Bell on the cover and featured Alaine Martaus's article, "'You Get Tough. You Get Even': Rape, Anger, Cynicism, and the Vigilante Girl Detective in Veronica Mars." (Hat tip to Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore)

Conference on weird fiction scheduled.

Algernon Blackwood, NYPL

The conference "The Weird: Fugitive Fictions/Hybrid Genres" will be held at the University of London on November 8, 2013. A keynote speaker is S. T. Joshi (who has done much work on H. P. Lovecraft). The conference call for papers mentions interest in papers on Lovecraft and similar writers (probably including Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, and Robert Louis Stevenson), but also indicates the intent to cover topics such as "modernism and the weird."

Fletcher's Night Watch (1973).

Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey reunite after Butterfield 8 in this tale of a woman who has experienced a nervous breakdown and believes a murder has occurred next door. Directed by actor-director Brian G. Hutton (Where Eagles Dare, Kelly's Heroes, High Road to China), Night Watch is based on the play of the same name by Lucille Fletcher (Sorry, Wrong Number; The Hitchhiker).

Book cover design: Tiny men, women's backs.

Jack Higgins cover illustrating
the "tiny man" scenario

The Times Literary Supplement blog builds on J. Kingston Pierce's earlier blog posts (such as here and here) on book cover designs that contain similar elements. I had not noticed the "women with their backs to the reader" and "tiny men walking into the distance" trends, but the evidence seems clear. Also noted: Web sites with bad book cover designs (one of which poses the immortal question, "Whose head is she wearing?").

The return of John Blackburn.

British mystery-horror writer John Blackburn (1923–93) returns with Valancourt Books' reissue of Broken Boy (1959), in which a dead body in a river connects to ancient evil. Valancourt's reprints of Blackburn's Bury Him Darkly (1969) and Nothing But the Night (1968; film with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, 1973) are scheduled for release this month, and more Blackburn reissues are planned by the publisher.

Blackburn may be best known for A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958). The nonfiction author Julia Blackburn is his niece (she's the daughter of poet Thomas Blackburn, who wrote the vampire novel The Feast of the Wolf, 1971).

Lizzie (1957).

Five months before the appearance of The Three Faces of Eve was the release of Lizzie (1957), in which a bewildered Elizabeth Richmond (played by Eleanor Parker) receives threatening letters from a stranger named Lizzie. The film (also starring Richard Boone and Joan Blondell, as well as Johnny Mathis singing "It's Not for Me to Say") was based on The Bird's Nest (1954) by Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, "The Lottery," etc.).

Coming Soon: Crime and Detective Fiction

Crime and Detective Fiction, part of the Salem Press series Critical Insights, is scheduled for release in April. I wrote an essay for this volume—"'Your Sin Will Find You Out': Critical Perceptions of Mystery Fiction"—which examines the response to Anna Katharine Green's The Leavenworth Case, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke, and Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution. Another essay, written by Kerstin Bergman (Lund University), is on Stieg Larsson's work. The editor of the volume is Rebecca Martin (Pace University).

Today in 1971: Columbo pilot debuts.

The Paley Center for Media recalls today's debut in 1971 of "Ransom for a Dead Man," the pilot for Columbo starring Peter Falk and Lee Grant.

Today in 1977: The death of John Dickson Carr.

Shelly Dickson Carr provides insight on her blog about the life of her grandfather, locked room mystery master John Dickson Carr, on today's anniversary of his death (see below for the trailer to Dangerous Crossing [1953], based on Carr's radio play "Cabin B-13").

BBC Radio 4 Extra: The life of Mata Hari.

Mata Hari, NYPL

This week on BBC Radio 4 Extra, Juliet Stevenson reads Femme Fatale, which explores the life of Mata Hari, the notorious female spy executed in France during World War I. Episodes usually may be heard online for up to a week after broadcast.

Charlaine Harris on writing.

At the Mercantile Library's Center for Fiction, Charlaine Harris talked about her approach to writing fiction, particularly regarding True Blood's Sookie Stackhouse and the initial resistance to selling the first book in the series, Dead until Dark. On keeping a series fresh, Harris noted, "There should be a constant stream of . . . exposing layers of the character."

Today in 1906: Alice Roosevelt weds Nicholas Longworth.

Portraits of Nicholas Longworth and Alice Roosevelt
in heart-shaped frames, Palestine [TX] Daily Herald
Feb. 10, 1906

Today in 1906, presidential daughter Alice Roosevelt married congressman Nicholas Longworth (R–OH) in, according to the New York Tribune, "the most brilliant nuptials ever celebrated at the White House or in the nation's capital." It was not exactly a serene union—Alice contemplated divorce and had an affair with Sen. William Borah (R–ID) that produced a child, Paulina, and Longworth acquired a reputation as a serial philanderer. He, however, was a devoted father to Paulina and died in 1931; Alice lived to age 96. My new ebook collection, No Man's Land and Other Stories, includes three stories with Alice as sleuth.

Fri Forgotten Books: The Mystery of Central Park, by Nellie Bly (1889).

He was questioned why he used the definite article instead of the indefinite in answering the officer's question.
—Nellie Bly, The Mystery of Central Park

In The Mystery of Central Park, lazy man-about-town Richard "Dick" Treadwell must prove his worth to prospective fiancee Penelope (and clear his name) by discovering who killed a young woman in Central Park. Dick finds that he is being followed as his investigation leads him into less savory areas of New York. Bly's interest in portraying the plight of the working class is evident in Dick's acquaintance with pretty factory worker Dido and her friends who are deprived of a living wage (a relationship not regarded with favor by Penelope).

"Penelope, with calm but serious face, kept close to the
morgue-keeper." Illustration from The Mystery of
Central Park by Nellie Bly. New York World,
19 July 1889

The modern reader will find it hard to give credence to Dick's chance discoveries of information that prove so crucial to the case, and those with even a passing acquaintance with forensics will loathe the fact that Dick is permitted to take the dead woman's clothes from the morgue (although his reason for doing so shows some logic). The portrait of the Pygmalion-like murderer has some elements of interest. The Mystery of Central Park should perhaps be regarded as a curiosity of a famed journalist's career and a continuation of her focus on progressive issues rather than as a significant contribution to the mystery literature.

Nellie Bly, ca. 1890.
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photos Div.

The intrepid Nellie Bly (aka Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, 1864–1922) became a reporter at age 16 and made her name as a "stunt" journalist, accomplishing a celebrated around-the-world journey in 72 days (meeting Jules Verne along the way and beating the 80 days of his character Phileas Fogg) and arranging her commitment to a mental asylum so she could write about the treatment of the mentally ill (see Ten Days in a Mad-House, 1887). The Mystery of Central Park was her sole mystery novel.

There are only three copies in U.S. libraries of the book version of The Mystery of Central Park. I found the serialized version in the New York World and have uploaded the parts as a resource for readers:

• Parts 1–4
• Parts 5–8
• Parts 9–12 

Update, 6-11-13. The Library of Congress has digitized its copy of The Mystery of Central Park (available at the Internet Archive). 

John Sayles and history.

At the AHA meeting in January, historians discussed the work of writer-director-actor John Sayles, including Matewan (1987) and Lone Star (1996); Sayles responded to their presentations about 1 hour into the session.

TV version of Spellbound (1962).

The Paley Center for Media remembers that today in 1962, a television version of Spellbound aired on Theatre 62 with Maureen O'Hara, Hugh O'Brian, and Oskar Homolka. The source material is The House of Dr. Edwardes by Francis Beeding (aka Hilary St. George Saunders and John Palmer) and the 1945 Hitchcock film.

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."

New! Collected Foxwell short stories.

Cover by Karen Jackson

Just out from Oconee Spirit Press (which has reissued the popular Sigrid Harald novels by Margaret Maron and early rarities by Carolyn Hart) is No Man's Land & Other Stories, an ebook collection of 12 of my (mostly historical) short stories. It includes two award winners ("No Man's Land" with WWI female ambulance drivers; "Keeper of the Flame" with a 19th-century lighthouse keeper); a story set on the Titanic ("Unsinkable"); three stories with Alice Roosevelt Longworth and her snide comments about her cousin, Franklin ("Come Flit by Me," "Alice and the Agent of the Hun," "Artistic License"); two stories inspired by Oscar Wilde ("A Roman of No Importance"; "Lady Windermere's Flan"); and some previously unpublished works (such as "Death in Blue and Gray," a Civil War story set in Washington, DC; and "An Epidemic Proportion," set during the 1918 flu pandemic). I provide an introduction that explains the background of the stories.

Ebook platforms:
• Kindle 
• Kobo
• Nook

French TV history: Les cinq dernieres minutes (The Five Last Minutes).

Les cinq dernières minutes (The Five Last Minutes) was a landmark police procedural series on French TV that starred Raymond Souplex as commissaire Antoine Bourrel and featured a jazzy score. It began as a game show, morphed into a drama, and ran from 1958–97.

Cain's Slightly Scarlet (1956).

Two sisters (Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming) become entangled with a mobster (John Payne), political corruption, theft, and murder. The film is based on James M. Cain's Love's Lovely Counterfeit (1942) and directed by Allan Dwan, creator of the dolly shot.

Unlikely pals: Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman, 1887.
Library of Congress,
Print and Photos Div.

In "When Bram Met Walt" (Humanities Nov/Dec 2012), Meredith Hindley discusses the friendship between Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman (with a cameo appearance by Sir Henry Irving; Stoker served as Irving's manager at the time).

Also of interest: this TLS review of Bram Stoker and the Stage

Capote's adaptation of Caspary's Laura, 1968.

The Paley Center for Media remembers the TV adaptation of Vera Caspary's Laura, which debuted today in 1968. Scripted by Truman Capote, it starred Capote friend Lee Radziwill (as Laura Hunt), Arlene Francis (as Ann Treadwell), Farley Granger (as Shelby Carpenter), Robert Stack (as Mark McPherson), and George Sanders (as Waldo Lydecker). Reviews were not that kind (see this example from the Milwaukee Journal).

Simenon's The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949).

In The Man on the Eiffel Tower, impoverished medical student Franchot Tone is hired to kill a man's rich aunt. Also featured are Burgess Meredith, Charles Laughton (as Maigret), and Wilfred Hyde-White, with directing duties taken by Meredith, Laughton, and Irving Allen. The film is adapted from Georges Simenon's A Battle of Nerves (aka War of Nerves).

Exhibition: The Cartoon in Wartime Propaganda.

The online exhibition "The Cartoon in Wartime Propaganda" at King's College London mentions Minute for Murder (1947) by Nicholas Blake (aka the Irish-born poet laureate Cecil Day-Lewis), who worked for Britain's Ministry of Information during World War II.

BL exhibition: Murder in the Library.

Ad for Sax Rohmer's
The Return of Fu Manchu
New York Sun, Mar 11, 1916
The nefarious criminal is
featured in the BL exhibition.

Opening today at the British Library's Folio Society Gallery is the exhibition "Murder in the Library: An A-Z of Crime Fiction," which looks at the history of the genre and runs to May 12. There also will be some events in conjunction with the exhibition:

• Real Crime, Real Fiction, January 21. With Barry Forshaw, Laura Wilson, and others. (Listen to the podcast here)

• The Story of Crime Fiction, February 8. With BBC Radio 4's Mark Lawson, P.D. James, and others.

• The Female Detective, March 8. Guests not yet announced.

Update: TLS review of the exhibition with images of some items from it.

Mystery on the Tube.

Ralph Richardson

In honor of the London Underground's sesquicentennial, the British Film Institute highlights 10 films with a Tube setting; some mystery-related ones are included:

• Bulldog Jack (1935). A Bulldog Drummond adventure with Ralph Richardson and Fay Wray.

• Death Line (1972, aka Raw Meat). Subterranean dwellers feed on passengers (Donald Pleasence, what are you doing in this film?).

• Hidden City (1987). Charles Dance on the trail of a enigmatic film and a government conspiracy.

• Skyfall (2012). James Bond at Temple tube station.

Caspary's Three Husbands (1951).

In Three Husbands, a troublemaker's letters to three men claim that he has had affairs with their wives. If the plot sounds familiar, it is—A Letter to Three Wives (1949) with a gender flip and the same screenwriter: Vera Caspary, the author of Laura. With additional screenwriting assistance by songwriter Edward Eliscu, the film was produced by I. G. Goldsmith, Caspary's husband, and directed by Irving Reis (director of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer; some of the Falcon films with George Sanders; Enchantment). Its stars include Eve Arden, Howard da Silva, Ruth Warrick, and Vanessa Brown.
(Hat tip to Caspary scholar A. B. Emrys for bringing this film to my attention)

"The Grave Grass Quivers," by MacKinlay Kantor (1931).

I had the strange notion that Doctor George Martindale, after unloading the sad story of his youth, had taken two days in going deliberately and completely insane.

—MacKinlay Kantor, "The Grave Grass Quivers" (Omnibus 184)

In "The Grave Grass Quivers," a country doctor suspects that his father and brother were murdered years ago, but thinks he can finally prove it with the assistance of a younger colleague. The story resonates today as the doctor conveys the anguish of himself and his family in not knowing what has happened to their loved ones.

MacKinlay Kantor (1904–77) is probably best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Andersonville (1955) and Glory for Me (1945; the basis for the film The Best Years of Our Lives), but he also wrote pulp stories and the story and screenplay (the latter with Dalton Trumbo) for the film Gun Crazy (1950). "The Grave Grass Quivers" was first published in the Elks Magazine in 1931 (repr. The Third Omnibus of Crime, ed. Dorothy L. Sayers, 1935; EQMM, Mar 1949; and It's About Crime, 1960). 

MacKinlay Kantor plays the guitar.
July 1950. Photo: State Library
and Archives of Florida

On Chinatown.

Jack Nicholson's J.J. Gittes being 
a "nosy fellow" in Chinatown

Over on the British Film Institute Web site, Geoff Andrew reflects on Chinatown (1974, dir. Roman Polanski) and the talented individuals brought together for the film.

He Walked by Night (1948).

In He Walked by Night, the police pursue a suspected cop killer and robber (Richard Basehart). Actor-screenwriter-director Crane Wilbur, a cousin of Tyrone Power, wrote the film's story and screenplay.

"You're going to jail, sir."

Michael Moriarty as exec ADA
Ben Stone, Law & Order

The Overthinking It blog compiles the results from the 20 seasons of Law & Order into a handy chart and reveals, among other findings, that a not-guilty verdict occurred in less than 10 percent of the cases.
(Hat tip to the Law & Humanities blog)

James Caan in Naked City (1961).

The Paley Center for Media remembers today's television debut of James Caan on Naked City in 1961 (also note Dick York in the clip).

The Limping Man (1953).

In The Limping Man, a World War II veteran (Lloyd Bridges) encounters spies in postwar London.

Dick Francis on BBC's Great Lives.

On the BBC Radio 4 Great Lives series, host Matthew Parris discusses the life of Dick Francis with Martin Broughton and racing correspondent Jonathan Powell. Francis's devastating experience at the 1956 Grand National, modesty, and "steely toughness of spirit" are recalled, as well as the role of his wife, Mary, in his mysteries.

Fri Forgotten Books: Crime Hound, by Mary Semple Scott (1940).

I'm just an ordinary fellow with sharp ears and eyes who can sometimes do a problem in mental arithmetic.

—Mary Semple Scott, Crime Hound 50

Jacket by Carl Cobbledick

Herbert Crosby, assistant to the St. Louis DA and self-styled detective, gets more than he bargained for when he vacations near the lakes of northern Michigan. A shady real estate agent with whom he had an appointment is found murdered in a sunken car, and the sheriff is asking uncomfortable questions about his movements. In addition, his defense of the beautiful Joan Ashleigh against a bully has made the man his sworn enemy, and his stolen gun is implicated in two additional murders. Soon Crosby is entangled with a proprietor of a former speakeasy, a twelve-year-old girl nearly suffocated in a closet, and a countess convinced that European communists are targeting her family. There also may be a connection between the recent murders and the mysterious deaths of Joan's parents. There's a nice twist on the scenario of gifted amateur/dumb yokel law enforcement and fairly advanced commentary for the time on prejudice against Native Americans.

Mary Semple Scott (1873–1968) was a granddaughter of Illinois senator James Semple; her brothers Ashley and Semple Scott made the first electric bus in St. Louis. She was active in the woman's suffrage movement, was the editor of the suffrage magazine The Missouri Woman, and was a friend of American novelist Winston Churchill (not to be confused with the British prime minister of the same name). Crime Hound was her only mystery novel.

 

Mary Semple Scott,
from Mar 1904
St. Louis Republic

Mary Semple Scott, at left,
plays the Democratic donkey
in a skit at the 1920 Nat
Amer Woman Suffrage Assn
meeting. Library of Congress,
Prints and Photos Division.

The Miracle on 34th Street (1955).

This 1955 TV version of The Miracle on 34th Street features Thomas Mitchell as Kris Kringle, MacDonald Carey as lawyer Fred, and Teresa Wright as Doris (the Maureen O'Hara part). Carey and Wright had appeared earlier together in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

From OSS to a winery.

After The Bunburyist featured the TV movie Deadly Harvest, in which a vintner finds Soviet agents on his trail, is it any wonder to find that truth is stranger than fiction? In this podcast, Peter Earnest of the Intl Spy Museum talks to Peter Sichel, who worked for the OSS, the CIA, and Blue Nun Wines. In the clip below, Sichel discusses his work in the wine business and mentions his intelligence background.



Update. Part 2 of the discussion with Sichel here.

Ardai on rediscovered Cain, From the Bookshelf.

On Gary Shapiro's From the Bookshelf, Charles Ardai talks about Hard Case Crime's release of James M. Cain's The Cocktail Waitress, the manuscript found in the files of Cain's agent and the Cain papers at the Library of Congress.

MacDonald on McBain/Hunter, David's Bk Talk.

Evan Hunter, NYPL

On David English's Book Talk, Erin MacDonald discusses her new book Ed McBain/Evan Hunter: A Literary Companion, vol. 3 in the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit. She covers the 87th Precinct series that did so much to establish the police procedural, Hunter's work with Alfred Hitchcock, and the differences between the McBain and Hunter works. On Hunter, MacDonald says, "His humor, his intelligence, his compassion, and his grasp of social issues come through in all his writing."

Please Murder Me (1956).

In Please Murder Me (1956), a lawyer (a pre–Perry Mason Raymond Burr) successfully defends his client (Angela Lansbury) against a murder charge, but all may not be well. The film is directed by Peter Godfrey (Christmas in Connecticut, The Two Mrs. Carrolls).

Chester Himes this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Clues 28.1,  2010
(theme issue on Chester Himes)

Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are on the case in Chester Himes's Cotton Comes to Harlem this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Episodes usually may be heard online for up to week after broadcast.

A vicar detects this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

James Runcie's Anglican clergyman-sleuth looks into the death of a lawyer in Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Episodes usually may be heard online for up to a week after broadcast. Runcie, artistic director of the Bath Literature Festival, is the son of the late Robert Runcie, the former archbishop of Canterbury.

Today in 1963: Sinatra Jr kidnapping.

British Pathe recalls the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. that occurred December 8, 1963. Sinatra Jr. discusses the kidnapping in this recent Guardian piece.

FBI CRACKS SINATRA KIDNAPPING CASE

Spies in fiction on SpyCast.

William Le Queux,  NYPL

In this podcast, University of Toronto professor Wesley Wark and International Spy Museum historian Mark Stout discuss the history of spy fiction, including mention of William Le Queux, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Erskine Childers (author of The Riddle of the Sands, 1903), Graham Greene, Peter Cheyney, Ian Fleming, and John le Carre.

Edwardian sleuth Thorpe Hazell this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

This week, BBC Radio 4 Extra features Edwardian sleuth Thorpe Hazell from Anglican clergyman-author Victor Whitechurch's Thrilling Stories of the Railway (1912), read by Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch. Episodes usually may be heard for up to a week after broadcast. Whitechurch, a member of the Detection Club, contributed to its round-robin novel The Floating Admiral.

Happy centenary, Gordon Parks.

Today marks the centenary of Shaft director and photographer Gordon Parks, who was born today in Fort Scott, KS, in 1912. He died in 2006. The Gordon Parks Foundation has a rundown of various events and exhibitions this year in honor of Parks.

Censoring Evan Hunter.

Evan Hunter, NYPL

Through documentation, British Film Institute senior archivist Jen Evans reveals that the 1955 film of Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle initially was rejected by the British Board of Film Censors for its portrayal of "irresponsible juvenile behavior." Once the film was cut, it achieved an X rating.

Household's Deadly Harvest (1972).

In this 1972 TV movie, a California vintner (Richard Boone) learns that he is the target of Soviet agents. It is adapted (not very faithfully) from Watcher in the Shadows by the Detection Club's Geoffrey Household (best known for Rogue Male).

Haycraft-Queen: More titles back in print.

Welcome developments in reprints of titles on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list (those mysteries deemed essential by Howard Haycraft and Ellery Queen):

• Arcturus Crime Classics has reprinted Helen McCloy's Through a Glass, Darkly and Francis Iles's Before the Fact

• Bello (an imprint of Macmillan) has reissued Roy Vickers's The Department of Dead Ends

• Felony & Mayhem has reprinted Edmund Crispin's The Moving Toyshop

• Ramble House has an edition of Harvey J. O'Higgins's Detective Duff Unravels It

• Titan Books has reissued Sax Rohmer's The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu

• There are new ebook versions of Charlotte Armstrong's The Unsuspected (1947 film available on DVD as well) and Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat

Note that there was a 2011 edition of Helen Eustis's The Horizontal Man in ImPress's Best Mysteries of All Time series, but this is an abridged version, and I believe this series is available only by subscription.

And to recap previous HQ reissues:
• Rue Morgue Press's new editions of Manning Coles's Pray Silence (US title: A Toast to Tomorrow) and John Dickson Carr's The Judas Window and The Crooked Hinge

• Blue Dolphin Publishing's reissue of H. F. Heard's A Taste for Honey

Haycraft-Queen Out-of-Print Titles in the United States (compiled and revised by Elizabeth Foxwell)

Anderson Frederick Irving - The Book of Murder - 1930
Bailey H. C. - The Red Castle - 1932
Benson G. R. - Tracks in the Snow - 1906
Charteris Leslie [Leslie Charles Bowyer Yin] - Meet the Tiger - 1928
Coates Robert M. - Wisteria Cottage - 1948
Cole G. D. H. [G. D. H. Cole and Margaret Cole] - The Brooklyn Murders - 1923 
Dane Clemence [Winifred Ashton] and Helen Simpson - Re-enter Sir John - 1932
Davis Dorothy Salisbury - A Gentle Murderer - 1951
De la Torre Lillian [Lillian McCue] - Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector - 1946
Dickson Carter [John Dickson Carr] - Lord of the Sorcerers - 1946
Dunsany Lord - The Little Tales of Smethers - 1952
Eberhart Mignon G. - The Patient in Room 18 - 1929
Ellin Stanley - Dreadful Summit - 1948
Eustis Helen - The Horizontal Man - 1946
Frome David [Zenith Jones Brown] - The Hammersmith Murders - 1930
Gardner Erle Stanley - The Case of the Sulky Girl - 1933
Halsey Harlan Page - Old Sleuth, the Detective - 1872
Hammett Dashiell - The Adventures of Sam Spade - 1944
Hart Frances Noyes - The Bellamy Trial - 1927
Hughes Dorothy B. - The So Blue Marble - 1940
King Rufus - Murder by the Clock - 1929
Lawrence Hilda - Blood Upon the Snow - 1944
Lipsky Eleazar - The People Against O’Hara - 1950
Lockridge Frances and Richard Lockridge - The Norths Meet Murder - 1940
Lustgarten Edgar - A Case to Answer - 1947
MacDonald Philip - The Rasp - 1924
MacDonald Philip - The Nursemaid Who Disappeared [aka Warrant for X] - 1938
MacHarg William and Edwin Balmer - The Achievements of Luther Trant - 1910
Marquand John P. - No Hero - 1935
Paul Elliot - The Mysterious Mickey Finn - 1939
Piper Evelyn [Merriam Modell] - The Motive - 1950
Rhode John - The Murders in Praed Street - 1928
Rhode John - The Paddington Mystery - 1925
Rice Craig - Trial by Fury - 1941
Ross Barnaby [Ellery Queen] - The Tragedy of Y - 1932
Seeley Mabel - The Listening House - 1938
Stribling T. S. - Clues of the Caribbees - 1929
Trevor Glen [James Hilton] - Murder at School [aka Was It Murder?] - 1931
Van Dine S. S. [Willard Huntington Wright] - The Benson Murder Case - 1926
Walling R. A. J. - The Fatal Five Minutes - 1932
Walsh Thomas - Nightmare in Manhattan - 1950
Waters [William Russell] - Recollections of a Detective Police Officer - 1856
Wells Carolyn - The Clue - 1909

Popeye, PI.

In Private Eye Popeye (1954), the spinach-loving shamus is on the trail of Olive Oyl's stolen gem.

Winifred Holtby's "Why Herbert Killed His Mother."

 . . . among the things a Fella does, correct grammar is not necessarily included.
—Winifred Holtby, "Why Herbert Killed His Mother"

Winifred Holtby is probably best known for South Riding (recently shown on PBS) and as the subject of her best friend Vera Brittain's book Testament of Friendship, but for one more week you can listen online to her sly short story "Why Herbert Killed His Mother" (read by Anna Massey) at BBC Radio 4 Extra. Although Holtby considered it a "very poor story" (Selected Letters of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby 293), it's been reprinted in at least four anthologies since it first appeared in Holtby's Truth Is Not Sober (1934; see, for example, Bad Behavior and P. G. Wodehouse's A Century of Humour). Sadly, Holtby died in 1935 at age 37 of Bright's disease.

Pulp magazines in "Thrill Seekers" exhibition.

Online items from the exhibition "Thrill Seekers: The Rise of Men's Magazines" (on view until January 4 at the Modern Graphic History Library, Washington University in St. Louis) include some pulp magazines such as The Saint from 1949.

And away we go: Gleason and the paranormal.

Gleason-designed bookplate
from U-Miami's
Jackie Gleason Collection

The University of Miami Library offers an online exhibition of paranormal items from its Jackie Gleason Collection such as an October 1953 cover from Fate Magazine that proclaimed, "Canada Builds Flying Saucer." The comedian, who was very interested in parapsychology, amassed a substantial collection on the subject.

Glimpses of royalty from Marie Belloc Lowndes.

Marie Belloc Lowndes, from
the Evening Public Ledger,
Apr 7, 1917

In letters to Alexander Woollcott now in Harvard's Houghton Library, Marie Belloc Lowndes (author of The Lodger) provided some charming glimpses of the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, Princess Margaret.

Lawrence Treat's "The Debt" (1952).

In "The Debt," a May 1952 episode of Suspense, a drifter confronts murder. The episode, which features Conrad Janis and Brian Keith, is adapted from "Twenty-Dollar Debt" by Lawrence Treat—MWA cofounder, Edgar winner, and an important figure in the development of the police procedural.

"... I have been prepared to be shot."

Theodore Roosevelt, NYPL

In this election season, Harvard's Houghton Library blog recounts the 1912 assassination attempt on former president Theodore Roosevelt during his campaign as a third-party presidential candidate, including TR's doughty account of the attempt sent to his son, Kermit, and the bullet-marked copy of TR's speech.

BBC Radio 4 program on European detectives.

BBC Radio 4 has a new series, Foreign Bodies: An Investigation into European Detectives, that looks at mystery fiction in an international context. The first episode deals with Christie's Poirot and Simenon's Maigret (although I disagree with presenter Mark Lawson's opinion that Christie made Poirot a Belgian to differentiate him from Sherlock Holmes; I thought she did so because she was familiar with the plight of World War I refugees and a detective who was a foreigner reinforced the role of the detective as outsider). The fifth episode focuses on Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck; the sixth episode on P. D. James's Adam Dalgleish and Ruth Rendell's Reginald Wexford.

Tune up the zither: Third Man Museum.

In the Washington Post, David Stewart White writes about the devoted collector who has opened a Vienna museum dedicated to the Carol Reed film of Graham Greene's novella. Film costar Joseph Cotten talks about the production and remeeting some of his castmates years later in his autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere.

Whispering City (1947).

In Whispering City (1947), Lifeboat's Mary Anderson is a reporter who learns that the death of an actress's fiance was no accident and may involve a smooth and calculating lawyer (Paul Lukas), who is busily blackmailing a composer (Helmut Dantine, best known for Mrs. Miniver and Casablanca). Set in Quebec, the film features Canadian composer Andre Mathieu's evocative "Quebec Concerto."

New TV version of Mystery of a Hansom Cab.

Burberry Entertainment just produced for the Australian Broadcasting Co. a new adaptation of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, the major mystery success of 1886–87 in Australia and the United Kingdom that was penned by British-born Fergusson Wright Hume (aka Fergus Hume). John Waters stars. Christopher Pittard discussed the novel in this 2007 Clues article. (Hat tip to Lucy Sussex)