The Moonstone (1934).

David Manners, who plays
Franklin Blake in
The Moonstone (1934)

There's a new BBC One version of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, which is the seventh adaptation for the screen of the tale about a stolen gem and its effect on a family. The third screen adaptation was in 1934, with Sergeant Cuff promoted to a Scotland Yard inspector.

"The Town that Slept w/the Lights On" (1958).

Edmond O'Brien,
ca. 1954

Edmond O'Brien directs this episode of Schlitz Playhouse as well as plays a hard-hitting New York reporter investigating two murders in a small town and doubting the Hispanic suspect fingered by vigilantes. The episode (which has a hardboiled-style voiceover and discussion of domestic violence) is written by Liam O'Brien, Edmond's screenwriter-producer brother (Police Story, Hawaii Five-0, Miami Vice).

A mystery parody by Harry Stephen Keeler?

Harry Stephen Keeler, from
his 1916 passport application

In the latest issue of Keeler News, the newsletter of the Harry Stephen Keeler Society, Morgan Wallace posits plausibly that mystery/sci-fi writer Keeler wrote a 1920 PI parody, "The Keenwit Case," for the Chicago Ledger under the pseudonym Lon Riggs to make a point about the types of material that could come over the transom at a periodical. "The Keenwit Case" is reproduced in the newsletter and features such immortal statements as "[t]hen he lighted a cigar, and smoked viciously. This indicated that his brain was very active, and that without a doubt the clever criminal would be in irons before the close of another day."

Of related interest:
• Link to cartoonist Al Hirschfeld's caricatures of Keeler
• "The Life and Death of Harry Stephen Keeler" by Vincent Starrett

Frances Chesterton, wife of G. K.

Stephanie A. Mann provides some insights on poet-playwright Frances Chesterton, wife of G. K. and niece of art historian Mary Margaret Heaton, and mentions the 2015 biography by Nancy Carpentier Brown, The Woman Who Was Chesterton. Brown blogs on Frances Chesterton here. Both writers paint a touching picture of a devoted couple. According to the 13 Dec. 1938 New York Times, G. K. regarded Frances as "in all ways a kindred spirit," and longtime G. K. friend E. C. Bentley (Trent's Last Case) called her G. K.'s "right-hand in all his dealings with the world" (qtd in Brown).

Of related interest: Frances Chesterton being mistaken for The Lodger author Marie Belloc Lowndes and her response: "I am quite willing to feel honored by [the] mistake, but they [Hilaire Belloc and Marie Belloc Lowndes] might feel aggrieved." Belloc (brother of Marie Belloc Lowndes) and G. K. Chesterton were close friends.

Paretsky companion published.

Just published is Sara Paretsky: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (vol. 7 of the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series) by MWA Raven recipient Margaret Kinsman. I edit the series. Goodies abound in this in-depth analysis of Paretsky's groundbreaking detective V. I. Warshawski and other subjects in the author's fiction and nonfiction works, including Margaret's discussion of Paretsky's first published piece (which she wrote at age 11).

Theodore Sturgeon's "No Answer" (1958).

A con man (Donald Cook) who targets wealthy widows seems to have an unshakeable alibi when one of his victims is murdered. Keenan Wynn stars as the police officer frustrated by his previous unsuccessful attempts to nab the man. This Dec. 1958 episode of Schlitz Playhouse is based on the story "Dead Dames Don't Dial" (1956; repr. in And Now the News...) by Theodore Sturgeon (1918–85, best known for science fiction) and is directed by Arthur Hiller (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, Perry Mason, The Americanization of Emily, etc.).

At Yale: An illustration of Edgar Allan Poe.

The Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities blog of Yale's Beinecke Library highlights its new acquisition: postcards that reproduce paintings by artist Peter Oresick. One of them is a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe.

Lady in the Death House (1944).

In Lady in the Death House, a woman (Jean Parker) is on death row for the murder of a blackmailer, although she claims she was framed for the crime. A criminologist (Lionel Atwill) looks into the case, seeking to save her from the electric chair. The film is based on "Meet the Executioner" by Frederick C. Davis.

Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950).

Based on "Once upon a Train, or the Loco Motive" (1950) by Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice, the comic Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone features Marjorie Main as a radio contest winner and James Whitmore as a lawyer who stumble over constant corpses on their train to New York. Note the sleuths are handcuffed together a la Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in The 39 Steps.

Mapping Sherlock Holmes.

Violet Smith pursued in "The
Solitary Cyclist." Detail from
the Sherlock Holmes
Mystery Map (1987).

One of the treasures accessible online via Recollection Wisconsin is the "Sherlock Holmes Mystery Map" (1987) created by Jim Wolnick and Susan Lewis and published by Aaron Blake Publishers. Complete with a "Dancing Men" border, it provides a visual guide to 130 locales in the Holmes canon.

A 2001 flashback with Ed McBain.

WYSO's The Book Nook recently rebroadcast Vick Mickunas's 2001 interview with Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter, 1926–2005) that coincided with the release of McBain's 87th Precinct novel Money, Money, Money. Mickunas describes it as one of his favorite interviews. In addition to Money, Money, Money, McBain discusses The Blackboard Jungle (the first Hunter novel), Cop Hater (the first McBain novel), The Chisholms (a Western), and Candyland (the innovative novel with the double byline of McBain and Hunter). He also talks about growing up in New York City, visiting the Apollo Theater, and working for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency (including editing P.G. Wodehouse).

Murder in song.

University of Kentucky law professor Richard H. Underwood looks at the real-life cases behind ballads featuring murder in Crime Song: True Crime Stories in Southern Murder Ballads. Individuals covered include Frankie Silver, Frankie Bailey (of Frankie and Johnny fame), Delia Green (of Delia's Gone), and Mary Phagan and Leo Frank (of The Ballad of Mary Phagan).  (Thanks to Law & Humanities blog)

John le Carre reads from The Pigeon Tunnel.

Via BBC Radio, you can listen to John le Carre reading from his new memoir The Pigeon Tunnel (including an explanation for the title and the intersections of his life between real-life espionage and fiction):

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5

Happy 80th birthday, Peter Lovesey.

Peter Lovesey—story consultant for the TV mystery series Rosemary & Thyme as well as creator of Victorian detective Sergeant Cribb; present-day detective Peter Diamond; and hapless, would-be detective Bertie, Prince of Wales—turns 80 today. His latest novel is Another One Goes Tonight. He appears in this CBS Sunday Morning tribute to P. D. James.

Heartbeat (1946).

Adolphe Menjou and Ginger Rogers in Heartbeat (1946)

In Heartbeat (dir. Sam Wood), Ginger Rogers flees reform school for tutoring at Basil Rathbone's school for pickpockets. She is caught in mid-theft by Adolphe Menjou, who compels her to steal a watch from diplomat Jean-Pierre Aumont, as Menjou is suspicious of Aumont's relationship with his wife. Further complications ensue as Ginger is threatened with a return to the reformatory.

More on Conan Doyle and spiritualism.

Arthur Conan Doyle. Library of
Congress, Prints & Photos Div.

New in the journal ELT (English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920) is Angela Fowler's discussion of the post-World War I career of Arthur Conan Doyle, examining his works dealing with spiritualism (The New Revelation, the Professor Challenger novel The Land of Mist, and the horror novella The Parasite) as well as considering his belief in spiritualism in a global context.

Conflict (1945).

Alexis Smith, Sydney Greenstreet, and Humphrey Bogart
in Conflict

In Conflict Humphrey Bogart plots the perfect murder of his wife (Rose Hobart) and courts her sister (Alexis Smith), but psychiatrist Sydney Greenstreet is skeptical of Bogart's version of his wife's death.

Clues 34.2: Webb, Woollcott, and actuarial detection.

The vol. 34, no. 2 issue of Clues (2016) has just been published and can be ordered from McFarland. The issue is also on Kindle, Nook, and Google Play.

The following are abstracts for the issue.

Probability and Capital Crime: 

The Rise and Fall of Actuarial Detection in Victorian Crime Fiction
CHERYL B. PRICE (University of North Alabama)
The author examines the influence of life assurance on early detective fiction. Actuarial detectives in Charles Dickens’s “Hunted Down” (1859) and life assurance influenced both the language and methodology of later fictional detectives, and the life assurance profession impeded detection in Charles Warren Adams’s The Notting Hill Mystery (1865).

Making Crime Pay: 
Alexander Woollcott, the Algonquin Round Table, and the Aesthetics of Crime Fiction
MARY LOUISE REKER (Library of Congress)
Between the two world wars New York theater critic Alexander Woollcott was deeply enamored of crime writing. He corresponded with both U.S. and British crime writers and promoted their work through his columns and broadcasts. Woollcott also wrote a regular column for the New Yorker, whose founding editor, Harold Ross, encouraged the writer Edmund Wilson to challenge Woollcott’s crime fiction aesthetic.

Policing the Crime Drama:
Radio Noir, Dragnet, and Jack Webb’s Maladjusted Text
JEFF OUSBORNE (Suffolk University)
The links between film noir and “radio noir” crime drama remain largely unexamined. The author explores the relationship between Jack Webb’s early radio-noir mystery program Pat Novak, for Hire and his work on the semi-documentary police procedural Dragnet. The programs suggest the porous borders of film, radio, and television, which together shed light on aesthetic, thematic, generic, and cultural shifts in the development of noir and procedural drama across different media.

"Deception" (with Linda Darnell and Trevor Howard, 1956).

Linda Darnell, ca. 1940

Based on the Alec Waugh Esquire story "A Small Back Room in St. Marylebone," this episode of the 20th Century-Fox Hour features a British plot to misdirect the Nazis through the capture of an Allied agent and the agent divulging information under torture. It is agent Linda Darnell's job to choose the person for the mission. Of course, the agent selected (Trevor Howard) cannot be informed about the real mission and the falsity of his information, so he ultimately believes that he is a traitor. John Williams and Alan Napier costar.

A later incarnation of the Waugh story is Circle of Deception (1960) with Bradford Dillman and Suzy Parker (later real-life spouses).

The female heist film.

In the spring 2016 issue of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Aya de Leon provides an interesting discussion of the female heist film, stating "women's heist narratives are comparatively rare" and outlining characteristics of male-centered heist films versus ones with female characters. She mentions How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980), Set It Off (1996), Bound (1996), Sugar & Spice (2001), Demi Moore in Flawless (2007), Mad Money (2008), and the TV series Leverage (2008–12). However, some might point out omissions that have important female characters such as The Big Caper (1957) and Modesty Blaise (1966). (Thanks to the latest issue of Feminist Periodicals for bringing this article to my attention.)

Shed No Tears (1948).

June Vincent in
Shed No Tears

In Shed No Tears, a couple (Wallace Ford and June Vincent) collude to fake the husband's death for the life insurance payout, but little does the husband know of his wife's plans for the money. The film is based on the novel of the same name by screenwriter Don Martin (1948), with a screenplay by Brown Holmes (The Maltese Falcon, 1931) and Virginia Cook (Lassie).

"Blind Spot" (w/Charles Bronson, 1958).

Charles Bronson, the
man with a camera

The TV series Man with a Camera (1958–60) starred Charles Bronson as a former combat photographer freelancing in New York and getting involved in crime-related cases. In "Blind Spot" (1958) he looks into the murder of a friend and fellow photographer in Lisbon. The screenwriter is Donn Mullally (Mr. and Mrs. North; 87th Precinct; Richard Diamond, Private Detective); F Troop's Frank DeKova appears in a supporting role.

Edgar Wallace's PC Lee on BBC's Radio 4 Extra.

Edgar Wallace, from
Wallace's My Hollywood
Diary (1932)

"England," said Police Constable Lee presently, "is the home of the free, an' the half-way house to liberty." (Wallace, "Pear-Drops" 1909)

This week, BBC Radio 4 Extra is airing stories featuring Edgar Wallace's London police constable P. C. Lee (1909). Actor Toby Jones stars, and the production company is Greenlit, which is responsible for Foyle's War.

The P. C. Lee stories can be found at this Web site; the ones noted below with an asterisk are the BBC Radio 4 Extra episodes:

• "Mr. Simmons' Profession"*
• "Change"
• "A Man of Note"*
• "A Case for Angel, Esquire"* (aka "The Inspector Gets a Brainwave" and "The Impossible Theft")
• "For Jewey's Laggin"
• "Pear-Drops"
• "How He Lost His Moustache"*
• "Sergeant Run-a-Mile"*
• "The Sentimental Burglar"
• "Contempt"
ª "Confidence"
• "Fireless Telegraphy"
• "The General Practitioner"
• "The Snatchers"*
• "The Gold Mine"
• "Mouldy the Scrivener"
• "Mrs. Flindin's Lodger"
• "The Derby Favourite"
• "The Story of a Great Cross-Examination"
• "Tanks"
• "The Silence of P.-C. Hirley"
• "The Power of the Eye"
• "The Convict's Daughter"
• "The Last Adventure"

The Fat Man, 1951.

J. Scott Smart

Based on a radio character created by Dashiell Hammett that has been described as a cross between the Thin Man and the Continental Op, The Fat Man features J. Scott Smart as private detective Brad Runyon, who looks into the murder of a dentist. The film is directed by William Castle, and its costars include Rock Hudson, Julie London, Jayne Meadows, Emmett Kelly, and Jerome Cowan.

The Armed Services editions and mysteries.

Cover of Armed Services edition
of Rex Stout's Not Quite Dead
Enough (1945)

I just finished Molly Guptill Manning's When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, which provides a lively and often poignant discussion of the importance to service members of the Armed Services editions in World War II. They were produced to be sturdy, lightweight, and sized for a pocket, and the Council on Books in Wartime, in charge of the effort, tried to supply a book "to fit the tastes of every man" (79). (One of the council's members was Farrar & Rinehart's Stanley Rinehart, son of Mary Roberts Rinehart). The council printed more than 123 million copies of Armed Services editions.

To mention a few mystery-related elements in the book:

• One of the authors listed as banned in Germany:
  G. K. Chesterton 

• "The most popular genre was contemporary fiction . . . followed by historical novels, mysteries, books of humor, and westerns" (79–80).

•  Among the earliest Armed Services editions: Earl Derr Biggers, Seven Keys to Baldpate; W. R. Burnett, Little Caesar; Daphne du Maurier, Jamaica Inn; and Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

• Some of the last Armed Services editions published in 1947: John Dickson Carr, The Sleeping Sphinx; Manning Coles, With Intent to Deceive; Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse; Hilda Lawrence, Death of a Doll; Richard and Frances Lockridge, Think of Death; Ngaio Marsh, Final Curtain; Craig Rice, ed., Los Angeles Murders; and Kelley Roos, Ghost of a Chance.

Related:

• BookTV footage of Manning talking about the book in 2015

• Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions (ed. John Y. Cole, 1984)

• Editions for the Armed Services Inc.: A History (1948)

Huxley's "The Gioconda Smile" (radio, 1945).

Charles Boyer and Ann Blyth in
A Woman's Vengeance (1948)

There have been several film, TV, play, and radio versions of "The Gioconda Smile" (1921) by Aldous Huxley, who was born today in Surrey in 1894. "The Gioconda Smile," listed as one of the best mystery short stories of all time, was adapted as the film A Woman's Vengeance (1948) with Charles Boyer and a 1950 play with Basil Rathbone. The story involves a man who faces questions after the death of his wife and his marriage to a much younger woman. This 1945 radio version is from the Molle Mystery Theater.

UCLA celebrates the films of Kirk Douglas.

Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker
in Detective Story (1951)

The UCLA Film & Television Archive is marking Kirk Douglas's upcoming 100th birthday in December with showings of Douglas films through Sept. 30. They include Posse and Tough Guys (Aug 14), Lonely Are the Brave and Strangers When We Meet (Aug 20; the latter written by Evan Hunter), and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Out of the Past (Sept. 18).

Web of Evidence (aka Beyond This Place, 1959).

In Web of Evidence Van Johnson returns to the United Kingdom after a long absence to find his father imprisoned for murder and becomes convinced of his father's innocence. Based on the novel Beyond This Place (1950) by A.J. Cronin (The Citadel, The Keys of the Kingdom, etc.), the film costars Vera Miles, Bernard Lee, Emlyn Williams, and Leo McKern.

Happy birthday, Donald Westlake: Bank Shot (1974).

Versatile mystery author Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark) was born today in Brooklyn in 1933. This adaptation of Westlake's 1972 Dortmunder novel Bank Shot by screenwriter-producer Wendell Mayes (Anatomy of a Murder, Death Wish, Von Ryan's Express) features criminal mastermind Walter Ballantine (played by George C. Scott), who decides to pull a bank heist by removing an entire bank from its location. Dancer-choreographer Gower Champion directed the film; co-stars include Bob Balaban, Sorrell Brooke, and Joanna Cassidy.

Of related interest: clips from the soundtrack for Bank Shot.

Found! The grave of Australia's Mary Fortune.

Wildside Press edition of
stories by Mary Fortune

Lucy Sussex, who has recently published a book on Fergus Hume (author of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, 1886) and was instrumental in recovering the work of early Australian mystery writer Mary Fortune, has discovered Fortune's grave. Although Fortune wrote more than 500 detective stories in her lifetime, she is not the first female detective-story writer; New England's Harriet Prescott Spofford predates her with works such as "In a Cellar" and "Mr. Furbush."

The life and times of Clarence Darrow.

Clarence Darrow, c. 1922
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Div

On the radio program University of the Air, lawyer-professor Dean A. Strang (author of Worse Than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror) discusses the career of Clarence Darrow (1857–1938), who was defense counsel for Leopold and Loeb in 1924.

"The Petrified Forest" (w/Bogart/Fonda/Bacall, 1955).

Humphrey Bogart as
Duke Mantee,
"The Petrified Forest" (1955)

This 30 May 1955 episode of Producers' Showcase features Humphrey Bogart reprising his 1936 role as gangster Duke Mantee, who takes as hostages Henry Fonda (in the Leslie Howard part) and Lauren Bacall (in the Bette Davis role). Jack Warden, Richard Jaeckel, and Jack Klugman appear in supporting parts. Directed by Delbert Mann, the episode is based on a play by Robert E. Sherwood.

See other related clips:
• Delbert Mann discusses Producers' Showcase, including "The Petrified Forest"

• Jack Klugman talks about working with Bogart and Bacall in "The Petrified Forest"

Illegal (w/Edward G. Robinson and DeForest Kelley, 1955).

Edward G. Robinson and Nina Foch
in Illegal (1955)

In Illegal, district attorney Edward G. Robinson convicts an innocent man (DeForest Kelley) and becomes entangled with racketeers. Costars include Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Edward Platt (of Get Smart fame), and Jayne Mansfield. The director is Lewis Allen (The Uninvited, The Unseen, Appointment with Danger, etc.). One of the film's screenwriters is W. R. Burnett (Little Caesar, High Sierra, etc.), adapting Frank J. Collins's play The Mouthpiece (allegedly based on William J. Fallon, a former Westchester [NY] prosecutor and lawyer for Arnold Rothstein and Nicky Arnstein, who was dubbed "The Great Mouthpiece" by the press).

Update, Westminster Detective Library.

Mark Twain, ca. 1907.
Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Div.

Since I last posted about the Westminster Detective Library—the effort by Edgar winner LeRoy Lad Panek (Introduction to the Detective Story) and Mary Bendel-Simso (McDaniel College, MD) to compile an online repository of short detective works published in the United States prior to 1891, some 300 pieces have been added, and there is a new Web interface. The pieces include 87 stories by 48 female authors, and Panek states, "There are no doubt many more as the majority of the stories we have cataloged have no author listed in the original." Panek also notes that he and Bendel-Simso will be issuing a book based on the works in the library.

A sample from the Westminster Detective Library:

• "The Female Assassin" (1850) by Prince Cambaceres, archchancellor of the French Empire and Duke of Parma

• "Who Is the Thief?" (1864) by Elizabeth Campbell (a writer and actress trained by Edwin Booth)

• "The Stolen Letter: A Lawyer's Story" (1855) by Wilkie Collins

• "Mrs. Fitzgerald's Life Policy" (1863) by Andrew Forrester Jr. (pseudonymous author of The Female Detective  [1864] unmasked by Judith Flanders in The Invention of Murder)

• "The Murder at Carew Court" (1868) by Amy Randolph

• "Edward Mills and George Benton" (1880) by Mark Twain

For the project, Panek and Bendel-Simso seek help from students and others with tasks such as editing, proofreading, and locating materials; clues to finding additional stories and sources; and comments on the materials in the library. Contact Bendel-Simso.

Detective Kitty O'Day (1944).

Jean Parker, ca. 1937

Jean Parker plays the title role in this screwball mystery, seeking the murderer of her crooked boss.

"The Artists Who Make Argosy."

4 Nov 1922 Argosy cover by
Stockton Mulford

In advance of July's PulpFest in Columbus, OH, Mike Chomko gives a preview of "The Artists Who Make Argosy," the upcoming session with David Saunders that will celebrate the contributing artists to the legendary pulp magazine launched in 1882. The magazine's contributing writers included Max Brand, Norbert Davis, Erle Stanley Gardner, Robert E. Howard, Mary Roberts Rinehart, and Cornell Woolrich. Saunders is the son of illustrator Norman Saunders.

"The Kids Who Knew Too Much" (1980).

This episode for Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color is based on The Whisper in the Gloom by Nicholas Blake (aka poet Cecil Day-Lewis) and features a band of smart kids and Sharon Gless looking into a murder and discovering ties to a political conspiracy. It is bittersweet to see the gifted actress Dana Hill (Shoot the Moon, Cross Creek, etc.), who died much too young at age 32 from diabetes-related complications.

Intl Centre for Victorian Women Writers.

Cover of Wyllard's Weird (1886)
by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

There's a newish International Centre for Victorian Women Writers at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom; one focus is crime and sensation fiction (especially by Mary Elizabeth Braddon). The center, which seeks to be a nexus for researchers on the writing of Victorian women and is hosting conferences and projects, is seeking information on birthdays of Victorian female writers for a list it is compiling.

Gangster Story (dir. Walter Matthau, 1959).

Walter Matthau
in Gangster Story (1959)

This low-budget, somewhat stilted film is the only one directed by Walter Matthau, who also stars as a wanted man who becomes involved with a crime syndicate. His co-star is his real-life wife, Carol Grace (who was previously married to William Saroyan).

Victorian yellowbacks in Canada.

Strange Secrets, a collection of ghost stories
(London, 1890). Image from the
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto.

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of the University of Toronto offers a nice online collection of cover images from Victorian yellowbacks—most notably from works by Canadian-born Grant Allen (mystery writer as well as friend and neighbor of Arthur Conan Doyle).

Diagnosis: Unknown (1960).

Lawrence G. Blochman from
UC-Berkeley's The Blue and
Gold (1922)

The series Diagnosis: Unknown featured Patrick O'Neal as pathologist Daniel Webster Coffee (created by Edgar winner Lawrence G. Blochman) who investigated cases of murder.

Rod Serling at war.

I want you to know what shrapnel and "88s" and mortar shells and mustard gas mean.

—The dedication of an unpublished short story by Rod Serling to his children, quoted in Anne Serling's As I Knew Him

Rod Serling with his 1960 Emmy
for outstanding writing
(for The Twilight Zone)

Rod Serling served as a paratrooper in World War II and was profoundly affected by his experiences. In Vincent Casaregola's thoughtful discussion "War in The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Haunted Visions of World War II" in Horrors of War, he notes that one-sixth of Twilight Zone episodes are about war (these include "The Purple Testament" with William Reynolds and "The Quality of Mercy" with Dean Stockwell; other examples from Serling's oeuvre are "The Time Element" aired on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, "The Strike" for Studio One, and The Rack). In the episode below from Writing for Television: Conversations with Rod Serling, Serling states, "I was traumatized into writing by war events."

"Night Ride" (1953).

In this episode of Four Star Playhouse, subway passengers wonder which one of them is a murderer sought by the police. Costars include David Niven and Rhys Williams, in a story by Lawrence B. Marcus and a screenplay by Seeleg Lester and Merwin Gerard.

Historic images of counterfeiters.

John S. Bell, chief of
the Secret Service (1888–90);
Newark (NJ) police chief (1884)

The Unwritten Record blog of the National Archives highlights historic mugshots of counterfeiters—both men and women—from the Secret Service files in its collections.

"Fraction of a Second" (w/Bette Davis, 1958).

Adapted by Kathleen Hite from the story "Split Second" (in Kiss Me Again, Stranger, 1953) by Daphne du Maurier, this episode of Suspicion features Bette Davis finding strangers in her house, although they insist they are the owners. Costars include Marian Seldes.

Exhibition on artist Everett Raymond Kinstler.

On view until July 4 at the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming, is the exhibition "Journeys West and Beyond," which features the work of Everett Raymond Kinstler. Kinstler's oeuvre encompasses portraits of political figures, comic books, dime novels, westerns, and pulp works.

"Alter-Ego" (1972).

This episode of Circle of Fear (aka Ghost Story, 1972, creat. Richard Matheson) features a boy's troublesome doppleganger. Costars are Sebastian Cabot, Helen Hayes, and Charles Aidman; the writers are Edgar winner Stanley Ellin (story, "Robert," 1958) and D. C. Fontana (screenplay).

"True Crime" exhibition, USC.

Eugene Francois Vidocq, NYPL

On display until May 31 is the exhibition "True Crime" at the USC Libraries, which features "the history of detectives in the popular imagination" and includes a handwritten letter from legendary private investigator Eugene Francois Vidocq and the "black bird" from The Maltese Falcon. (See review of the exhibition in LA Weekly.)

Danger on the Air (1938).

Lee J. Cobb in
Danger on the Air (1938)

An unpopular sponsor is murdered during a radio broadcast, and an engineer (Donald Woods) investigates. This comedic mystery, based on Death Catches Up with Mr. Kluck by Xantippe (aka actress, writer, and radio producer Edith Meiser), features Nan Grey, William Lundigan, and Lee J. Cobb.

New pulp reprints from Altus Press.

I have ... a face like a gargoyle and the disposition of a tired tarantula. —Norbert Davis, May 1941 Argosy

A scene from Max Brand's
Champion of Lost Causes (1925)

Among the new releases of Altus Press, a specialist in pulp reprints:

• Doan and Carstairs: Their Complete Cases by Norbert Davis. Boozy PI Doan teams up with his lofty Great Dane, Carstairs.

• Champion of Lost Causes by Max Brand (introd. William F. Nolan). Samuel Loring takes up the cause of a woman accused of murder.

• Sabotage by Cleve F. Adams. Detective Rex McBride races to prevent the destruction of an important dam by an implacable enemy.

X Marks the Spot (1942).

Author Stuart Palmer,
U-Wisc Class of 1928. U-Wisc
Alumni Magazine Dec 1934

In this film, a private detective who is also an army lieutenant pursues the killer of his policeman father and discovers traffickers in rubber. One of the film's screenwriters is Stuart Palmer (creator of spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers).

Doris Roberts on Brenner (1959).

Doris Roberts in The Taking of
Pelham One Two Three (1974)

The Paley Center for Media offers a 1959 clip with Doris Roberts and Edward Binns from the police TV drama Brenner in honor of veteran character actress Roberts, who passed away on April 17.

Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It (1941).

Alistair Sim in
Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It

In this film, Scotland Yard's Inspector Hornleigh (Gordon Harker) and his somewhat bumbling sidekick Sergeant Bingham (Alistair Sim) are on the trail of Nazi spies when murder occurs. This film is the third in a series (Inspector Hornleigh, 1939; Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday, 1939).

Houghton Library's Fu Manchu collection.

Ad for The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)

In this blog post, Harvard's Houghton Library highlights its collection of volumes by Sax Rohmer featuring the nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu and discusses fears of the "yellow peril."

"The Turn of the Screw" (with Ingrid Bergman, 1959).

John Frankenheimer,
ca. 1962

One of the many adaptations of "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James (whose 173rd birthday is April 15) was directed and produced by John Frankenheimer in 1959 for the Startime TV series. Ingrid Bergman played the governess who fears the effects of a malevolent influence on her young charges, and Paul Stevens was the servant Quint. Here are two clips from the program.

Clues 34.1: Agatha Christie.

Clues 34.1 (2016), a theme issue on "Reappropriating Agatha Christie" in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of her death, has been published; see below for abstracts. To order a print copy of the issue or to subscribe to the journal, email McFarland & Co.

Update, 4-26-16. The issue is now on Kindle, Google Play, and Nook.

Clues 34.1: Reappropriating Agatha Christie
Guest editors: Alistair Rolls and Jesper Gulddal

Reappropriating Agatha Christie: An Introduction 

ALISTAIR ROLLS AND JESPER GULDDAL (U of Newcastle)
The Agatha Christie corpus has long been encumbered by agendas and critical perspectives that effectively prevent close analytical scrutiny of her novels. The authors explore possible avenues for a reappropriation of Christie and particularly highlight the need for irreverent rereading that brings to light the textual complexity of her detective fiction.

“Beautiful Shining Order”: 
Detective Authority in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express JESPER GULDDAL
Using the work of Pierre Bayard, this essay presents a “counterinvestigative” reading of Murder on the Orient Express (1934) that highlights the undermining of Poirot’s unshakable authority as a detective and his solution. The essay argues that the dénouement fails in accomplishing complete transparency and reducing the literary complexity of Christie’s plot.

Agatha Christie and the Fantastic Detective Story 

SUZANNE VAN DER BEEK (Tilburg U, The Netherlands)
The author problematizes the restrictive categorization of Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None via the critique by Tzvetan Todorov in his study on the literary fantastic. Christie’s work, she argues, overthrows the dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural as well as creates a fantastic detective novel.

Metafictional Agatha Christie: Self-Parody as the Perfect Crime 

IRENA KSIĘŻOPOLSKA (U of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw)
The author examines the narrative structure of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, emphasizing the self-reflexive quality of the novel and seeking to establish 
its parodic intentions. Through the use of formulaic unreliability, clichéd characters, facile plot devices, and a comic detective, Agatha Christie deliberately constructs her text against the conventions of the genre.

Transforming Justice? Murder on the Orient Express 1934–2010


MERJA MAKINEN WITH PATRICK PHILLIPS (Middlesex U)
This essay compares the Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and the Phillip Martin adaptation (2010). Viewing adaptations as transformations, the essay analyzes four differences--- genre production, violence, justice, and Hercule Poirot---to argue for two differently rich texts sharing the same plot and characters across different  media.

Symons's "The Mystique of the Detective Story" (1981).

In March 1981 author-critic (Mortal Consequences/Bloody Murder, etc.) and then-Detection Club president Julian Symons (1912–94) delivered a lecture on "The Mystique of the Detective Story" at the Vancouver Institute, contrasting modern works with those of the Golden Age. He gave a humorous precis of a typical English country-house mystery and emphasized "the power of reason" in Golden Age mysteries. Symons discussed the work of Patricia Highsmith, noting, "Ripley is the horrific modern counterpart of [E. W. Hornung's] Raffles." He also dealt with the mysteries of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell as well as his own books. "Whatever its merits may be, [the crime story] does begin and end as sensational literature," he stated. He mentioned his admiration for George V. Higgins, as well as Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, and critiqued John Creasey. Symons considered Nicholas Blake (aka Cecil Day-Lewis) as one writer who bridged Golden Age and modern mysteries.

M. Pamplemousse on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Featured this week on BBC Radio 4 Extra are Michael Bond's hapless sleuth Monsieur Pamplemousse and his faithful doggie sidekick Pommes Frites.