Film on author Lloyd Alexander.

Jared Crossley, the director of Lloyd Alexander, has dropped the price of the DVD of his film on the noted American fantasy author (best known for the Chronicles of Prydain) in honor of what would have been Alexander's 90th birthday in 2014. The DVD is now $10.

Stolen (2006).

Stolen, a documentary by Rebecca Dreyfus, delves into the 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, with special attention to the role of art detective Harold Smith.

New Clues CFP: Patricia Highsmith.

Le cri du hibou (The Cry of the Owl),
dir. Claude Chabrol (1987, based on
the novel by Patricia Highsmith)

A Call for Papers has been posted for the Clues 2015 issue "Re-Evaluating Patricia Highsmith," guest edited by Fiona Peters (Bath Spa University, UK). Proposals for articles are due by May 1.

TLS on the model for a Buchan villain.

David Warner as
Appleton in
The 39 Steps (1978)

The Times Literary Supplement's Michael Caines discusses a new book on Sir Edgar Speyer, considered a model for a villain in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915).

Huston's Three Strangers (1946).

In Three Strangers, a lottery ticket spells trouble for Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Geraldine Fitzgerald. Story by John Huston, with a screenplay by Huston and Howard Koch.

August Derleth: Best mysteries of 1969.

Essential Solitude: The Letters of
H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
Hippocampus P

In the Dec. 6, 1969, issue of the Capital [WI] Times, August Derleth (creator of the Holmes-like Solar Pons) listed his selections for the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books of 1969. Mysteries and sci-fi appeared under the subtitle "Entertainments" rather than the "Fiction" category. It may have been ethically questionable that he listed H. P. Lovecraft et al.'s Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos—which was issued by Arkham House, the publishing firm he cofounded.

The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Daphne du Maurier's The House on the Strand were two of his fiction selections, whereas two of his sci-fi picks were Fritz Leiber's A Spectre Is Haunting Texas and Douglas Warner's Death on a Warm Wind. His mystery selections included:

Allingham, Margery. The Allingham Casebook. Campion and Charlie Luke short stories
Bernkopf, Jean F., ed. Boucher's Choicest. Some of Anthony Boucher's picks for best mystery short stories
Carr, John Dickson. The Ghosts' High Noon.
Carter, Philip Youngman. Mr. Campion's Farthing. Carter was Allingham's widower
Christie, Agatha. By the Pricking of My Thumbs.
Davies, L. P. Stranger to Town.
Fish, Robert L. The Murder League.
Gardner, John. A Complete State of Death.
Kahn, Joan, ed. Hanging by a Thread.
Marric, J. J [John Creasey]. Gideon's Power.
Marsh, Ngaio. Clutch of Constables.
Queen, Ellery, ed. Queen's Minimysteries.
Simenon, Georges. Maigret in Vichy (aka Maigret Takes the Waters)
Stout, Rex. Death of a Dude.
Whitney, Phyllis A. The Winter People.

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.

Finger of Guilt (aka The Intimate Stranger, 1956).

In Finger of Guilt, film studio honcho Richard Basehart receives threatening letters from someone who says she is his mistress, although he claims no knowledge of her. Roger Livesey and Constance Cummings costar. The film was directed by the blacklisted Joseph Losey (as Joseph Walton), with a screenplay by blacklisted screenwriter Howard Koch (as Peter Howard).

Anthony Mann films in Berkeley.

Claire Trevor in Raw Deal (1948)

Envy lucky San Francisco residents, because they can see the crime films of Anthony Mann (1906–67) at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley this month. These include Border Incident (1949), Desperate (1947), He Walked by Night (1948), Raw Deal (1948), Side Street (1949), and T-Men (1947). There's a new book about this aspect of the director's work: The Crime Films of Anthony Mann by Max Alvarez.

"Dutch" redux: Radio doc on Elmore Leonard.

The Trespassers, previously
unpublished by Elmore Leonard

On the KPFA radio program Bookwaves, Richard Wolinsky (known for various collaborations with mystery-science fiction author Richard A. Lupoff) hosts a documentary on Elmore Leonard that includes archival interviews. Two audio versions are available: a 36-min. edited version and a version as heard on KPFA.

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

Jill Paton Walsh on Lord Peter Wimsey.

Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter
Wimsey in "Clouds of Witness"

On the BBC Radio 4 program Open Book, Jill Paton Walsh—who completed Dorothy L. Sayers's Thrones, Dominations—discusses why readers remain devoted to Sayers's sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Walsh considers Wimsey an early feminist.

MacKinlay Kantor's It's about Crime (1960).

After reading MacKinlay Kantor's "The Grave Grass Quivers" (1931; see my post here), I wanted to read some of his other mystery work. In December 1960, he published It's about Crime, which includes "The Grave Grass Quivers" and 10 other short stories. The January 28, 1961, issue of the Saturday Review called the collection a "[f]ine pro job, as expected."

The collection provides much fascinating material and is a quick read. It is best suited to those who like hard-hitting mystery prose (for example, Kantor refers to a bullet as a "lead messenger"), and younger readers might need a tutorial from their elders as to past conventions such as a night letter.

In "Sparrow Cop," Nick, a rookie assigned to the zoo, receives a lot of ribbing about his job from his brother the seasoned cop ("you can never tell about bears," the latter says), yet Nick's encounter with an unaccompanied child leads to something far more sinister and gives his smart-aleck brother his comeuppance. "Rogues' Gallery" offers an unusual method for fingering criminals. The detective in "Something Like Salmon" must connect a bunch of fragmented clues provided by a lunch counter proprietor to find a gang of bank robbers. In "Nobody Saw Him Fall," an observant janitor who moonlights as Santa Claus figures out who framed him for murder (with Kantor commenting on class). An interesting twist occurs in "The Shadow Points," as a man thinks he has devised the perfect way to recover the valuable items from a long-ago robbery. The humorous "The Strange Case of Steinkelwintz" features an amateur sleuth on the trail of a missing baby-grand piano.

Kantor, Pulitzer Prize winner for Andersonville (1955) and writer of the story that became the film Gun Crazy (1950), died in 1977. His son, Tim, offers reflections in My Father's Voice: MacKinlay Kantor Long Remembered (1988).

Household's "Woman in Love" (1952).

This 1952 episode of Suspense about a woman attempting to smuggle an incriminating document out of communist territory features a story (published in Tales of Adventurers, 1952) by Rogue Male's Geoffrey Household, an appearance by Paul Newman, direction by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird, Summer of  '42), and a lot of melodramatic organ music.

Wellcome Library offers free historical images.

Dr. Joseph Bell, regarded
as the model for Sherlock
Holmes. Wellcome Images

The Wellcome Library, known for its medically related materials, has opened its historical images collections so that users can download high-resolution images for no charge. The only requirement is to acknowledge the library as the source. (Thanks to PhiloBiblos for the tip.)

Oxford DNB remembers Israel Zangwill.

Israel Zangwill. NYPL.

One of Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's Lives of the Week is Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), author of The Big Bow Mystery (1891).

Below: Clip from The Verdict (1946, dir. Don Siegel), with Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, based on Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery.

Kansas City Confidential (1952).

In Kansas City Confidential, John Payne is framed for an armored car robbery, and he sets out to learn who set him up.

New blog on Vincent Starrett.

Cover of Vincent Starrett's
Bookman's Holiday. NYPL

Ray Betzner has started a new blog on author-collector Vincent Starrett, a key figure in the Baker Street Irregulars and Sherlockian scholarship. I'm very fond of collections of Starrett's columns and essays: Bookman's Holiday (1942) and Books Alive (1940).

Jan 31 app deadline, UT-Austin Ransom Center.

Baroness Orczy, from the
May 26, 1906
San Francisco Call

The application deadline for research fellowships at UT-Austin's Harry Ransom Center is Jan. 31. Fellowships range from 1 to 3 months and from $1200 to $3000 for individuals who need to consult the center's collections (including those working on dissertations). Its mystery collections include the Sherlock Holmes and Sherlockian Collection; correspondence from Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, Patrick Hamilton, and Edgar Allan Poe; and manuscripts of J. S. Fletcher, Dashiell Hammett, A. E. W. Mason, Beverley Nichols, and Baroness Orczy.

Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar, 1948).

Adapted from the book by radio star Murray Forbes, Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar) features Paul Henreid attempting to evade a gangster and taking drastic steps to assume a new identity—with ironic consequences (especially relevant in today's context of identity theft).