R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour & Grampires

This one's a bit off-topic for a site called Traditional Mysteries but we are coming up on Halloween, after all.

The R.L. Stine craze came along too late for me to really appreciate it, but a while back I thought I might try out R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour. It's a horror anthology TV show that airs on a cable channel called The Hub. If you guessed that it's geared toward a younger demographic you get a gold star. If you guessed that there's nothing there for adults you might need to rethink your position.

The show is into its third season now and I've caught quite a few episodes. While there were some that didn't grab me there were probably a lot more that did. Production values are quite high, the acting and writing are a cut above and as a general rule episodes are not too "childish," for lack of a better word.

If you're only going to try one episode of the show then go all out and try two. Grampires was the two-part opener for the third season and it's one of the best episodes I've seen. I've never been a fan of vampires and all of the vampire mania of recent decades hasn't done anything to convert me, but Grampires proves that there's still a way to spin this sub-genre in a way that seems fresh. What's especially noteworthy is how the episode manages to blend humor with a few fairly decent scares.

For my money the best of the show ranks right up there with any of the horror TV anthologies of yesteryear. So if you've never heard of it or if you've steered clear because it's kid's stuff I'd encourage you to give it a look.

The Clocks, by Agatha Christie

The Clocks
By Agatha Christie
1963

There are a few novels that I've read and reviewed recently that started with a premise that really dug its hooks in me. There's Christie's Cards on the Table, which I reviewed not so long ago and there's Boris Akunin's Murder on the Leviathan, which had one of the best hooks I've run across.

Christie's The Clocks ain't so shabby in this department either, mind you. A young woman from a secretarial pool is asked for by name and goes to the house of the person who hired her. She's told to let herself in if no one is there and does so, only to find a nasty old corpse in the living room. As the owner of the house comes home, Sheila realizes that she's blind as she runs screaming from the house and into the arms of one Colin Lamb.

Who happens to be a friend of one Inspector Hardcastle, who's assigned to sort this mess out. Another interesting feature of the case is that the blind woman's living room contains four clocks that don't belong to her. None of them have been wound and each is set to 4:13.

That's the good news and a rather spiffing premise, if you ask me. It might not be fair to say that things went downhill from there, but there were a few things that didn't exactly knock me out about this one. I've never been a fan of espionage and spy fiction and Christie seems to have set out to combine elements of that with the more traditional whodunits she was known for. Which didn't really do it for me but I guess by 1963 Christie had written so many outstanding traditional mysteries that one can hardly begrudge her for wanting to mix it up a little.

I also found it odd that although this is a Poirot novel he doesn't really figure into the proceedings in any significant way until relatively late in the book. Until then we are present with the alternating viewpoints of Lamb and Hardcastle. Naturally when Poirot does finally get cracking on the case he solves it with relative ease even though he hasn't deigned to visit the crime site or talk directly to any of the witnesses or suspects. It all seems a rather Herculean feat - if you'll pardon me saying so - and perhaps just a bit of a stretch.

Which is not to say that this didn't make for good reading and I certainly wouldn't say that I didn't like it but I also wouldn't rank it near the top of my list of Christie experiences.

Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, by Robert Goldsborough

Archie Meets Nero Wolfe
By Robert Goldsborough
2012

I've read a couple reviews of Archie Meets Nero Wolfe thus far. Wolfe fan Patrick liked it, with a few minor reservations. Puzzle Doctor has never read an entire Wolfe book and didn't like it. Which makes sense. With apologies to the author and his publisher, who surely want to sell as many truckloads of books as possible, this one is pretty much for the Wolfe fans.

I've read all but a few of the many Wolfe books by original author Rex Stout and most of the ones by Goldsborough, who took over writing them after Stout's death in 1975. I'm not normally keen on writers pinch-hitting for dead authors but I liked the Goldsborough books for the most part and thought he did a good job of capturing the ins and outs of life at the old brownstone.

But let's move on to Archie Meets Nero Wolfe. First, the plot. There is one and it's perfectly serviceable but in the tradition of most Wolfe fiction it's not really a dazzler. That's to be expected. Most people I know read Nero Wolfe for other reasons and turn to the likes of John Dickson Carr and whatnot for those dazzling plots, intricately worked out impossible crimes and all that sort of stuff.

While I too liked this book for the most part, I can't really complain too loudly about the things I didn't like, or more correctly the things that I felt were lacking. Since it's clearly marked as a prequel it's reasonable to assume that it's not going to be the standard Wolfe novel.

One of the things that's most lacking here, as Patrick noted in his review, is Archie Goodwin's voice. Given that he narrates all of the Wolfe books that's a major issue, but it's understandable. Since he's still a relative youngster and fresh off the train (bus?) from Ohio he has yet to develop into what will be one of the great wiseacres in mystery fiction.

Also lacking is that comfortable and highly structured routine at the brownstone, a routine that's shaken up to good effect from time to time in service of the latest yarn. Obviously since Archie is not yet in Wolfe's employ, we're not going to see any of that daily routine simply because it doesn't exist, at least not in the form we've come to know.

Along the same lines are the lack of interactions between key Wolfe characters. Most notable is that curious relationship between Archie and Wolfe, which finds the former goading the latter at nearly every turn and the latter putting up with it, simply because he knows he needs Archie or someone like him to do his leg work. Ditto for those mostly confrontational interactions between Archie and Wolfe with Inspector Cramer and the other guys at the police station. On the plus side of all this, the better part of the book involves many of the freelance operatives that Wolfe so often employs, including a few who rarely appeared in the Wolfe books proper.

Having re-read this review a few days after originally writing it I'm not sure what I think of it but I'll let it stand. I guess I can best summarize by saying that Archie Meets Nero Wolfe is a well-written and entertaining book and an interesting look at the early days of the Wolfe-Goodwin partnership but I much prefer to read about that partnership in the established form of the "later" books.

An Unmourned Death, by Audrey Peterson

An Unmourned Death
By Audrey Peterson
2002

There are certain sub-genres of mystery that I can't pass up and country house mysteries are right at the top of the list. So when I ran across An Unmourned Death at my local library I snapped it right up.

This one is not exactly like the country mysteries most of us are probably used to. It takes place a bit earlier than one typically would expect, in the late nineteenth century, and the protagonist is one Jasmine Malloy, a young widow who works for a detective agency on cases that require a woman's touch.

In the latest such case Malloy is sent to Renstone Hall to investigate the disappearance of Lord and Lady Renstone's daughter, Phoebe. The Lord is not about to take home any awards for winning friends and influencing people and he makes it clear to Malloy from the outset that he wants nothing to do with her investigation. Fortunately the rest of the residents of the Hall are more helpful.

Some rather dark and disturbing things are afoot here and as Malloy begins to make some progress on the missing persons case, murder breaks out, as it so often does in these books. With a little help from a few interested parties Malloy proceeds in a rather methodical fashion to get to the bottom of things. Though I thought I had this one all sorted out, the culprit in this case actually came pretty much from way out in left field, though not so much so that you could accuse the author of not playing fair.

Psycho Article at Criminal Element

Is there such a thing as too much Psycho? With all of the various sequels, remakes and various other re-imaginings over the years I got to thinking so. I put forth my arguments in an article for Criminal Element.

(Please Let) Norman Bates, Rest in Peace
By William I. Lengeman III

I liked Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as much (and perhaps even a bit more) than the next person. When I watched it again a few years back I found that it didn’t pack quite as much of a punch as it had all those years earlier when I first saw it, but it was still worth watching to admire Hitchcock’s skill in creating it.

As I recall I didn’t find the idea of Psycho II (1983) particularly appealing but I watched...

more

Spoof - Who Poisoned Whose Tea?

The plots don't get much more intricate than this one.

Movie Review - Charlie Chan in Egypt

Charlie Chan in Egypt
Based on a character
created by Earl Derr Biggers
1935

The latest adventure out of Charlie Chan's casebook lifts the sage of Honolulu several notches above the Philo Vances and the Perry Masons. Where these eminent sleuths are curiously helpless until the fifth or sixth assassination has removed most of the suspects from active competition, Charlie requires only two murders for a good running start. (Andre Sennwald - New York Times)

A little while back I decided it would be a good idea to finally get around to reading a Charlie Chan novel. I liked it quite a bit and you can read my thoughts about it here. By the same token I thought it might be a good idea to finally get around to watching one of the zillion or so Charlie Chan movies and Charlie Chan in Egypt just happened to be the one.

The title role here was played for the eighth time by Swedish-born actor Warner Oland, who would go on to play Chan eight more times. Yes, Chan is in Egypt this time around, trying to sort out the matter of some missing antiquities when he falls in with some archaeologists and their circle. One of their number has gone missing and before long is found inside a sarcophagus, the victim of foul play.

As the quotation listed above suggests, that's not the end of it, as another murder soon follows and then an attempted murder after that. Pausing just long enough to toss off a quaint homily ever now and then, Chan considers the evidence and the small circle of suspects and manages to figure it all out, including the seemingly clever (but actually flawed) method used to commit one of the murders.

Not a bad outing overall, though you'll have to put your political correctness on the shelf to get through it. While some of the portrayals of Egyptians are rather ridiculous, it's the role of Snowshoe, played by Stepin Fetchit, that stands out like a sore thumb. Since there have been several books written on Fetchit there's no need to rehash any of that here. But even ignoring the un-PC aspects of his role, I'd rank this as one of the more irritating characters I've seen. Then again, the New York Times reviewer referenced above said, "the cast includes Stepin Fetchit, the master of slow motion, who manages as usual to be both hilarious and unintelligible." So I guess it's all relative.

Here’s a link to that review and a good overview of Chan, from TCM.

The Scarab Murder Case, by S.S. Van Dine

The Scarab Murder Case
By S.S. Van Dine
1929

I'm putting a lot of trust in you - you confounded aesthete.
(John Markham, to Philo Vance)

Say what you want about Philo Vance but you can't say that he doesn't have a vast knowledge of pencils (a comment that will make more sense if you've read this book). You could also say that he's a quite unique and distinctive character, one whose adventures were chronicled in twelve novels from 1926 to 1939. Many of these made their way to the big screen and you can see my reviews of the adaptations of The Dragon Murder Case and The Casino Murder Case, here.

Not long ago I decided that it was finally time to experience Philo Vance in print. I started with the fifth volume in the series simply because I'm a sucker for works that take Egyptology as their theme. Although the characters here never get any closer to Egypt than Manhattan (at least not during the course of the novel) this one, as the name suggests, is all about Egyptology.

The novel kicks off with the murder of a wealthy New Yorker who has backed a number of archaeological expeditions. His body is found in a private museum run by Egyptologist Dr. Mindrum Bliss and he's been given a one-way ticket to oblivion courtesy of a nasty knock on the noggin with a weighty statue.

Which sounds like a job for Philo Vance, who is called in to help sort things out, along with the rather inept police and his old friend District Attorney Markham, who vacillates between deferring to Vance and overruling him. As it so happens Vance is something of an expert in Egyptology and he wastes no opportunity to impart staggering amounts of detail (in those famed footnotes, no less), no matter how irrelevant.

Not that Vance's irrelevancies are limited to Egyptology, mind you. I suspect that he was also an expert in just about everything else under the sun, but having only read this one volume I can't be sure. In any event there's a limited circle of suspects here, mainly the residents of and frequent visitors to the house/museum complex and it's not even forty-eight hours before Vance has tied everything up in a nice neat package.

I have to say that I found the print incarnation of Philo Vance to be not particularly likable but you certainly can't deny that he's a memorable character. As is the case with those other great, memorable and not so likable detectives like Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe and Hercule Poirot, just to name a few. I did find this book quite entertaining and when the To Be Read pile permits I'm sure I'll be checking out other installments.

Full Dark House, by Christopher Fowler

Full Dark House
by Christopher Fowler
2003

But where to start? We have yet to discover the lair of the Leicester Square Vampire. He's still got my shoes, you know. (Arthur Bryant)

After reading two of the later books in Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series I decided to go back to the beginning - Full Dark House. In writing it Fowler also went back to the beginning of the sixty-some year relationship between these two detectives. It's a story that jumps back and forth from the present day, where the offices of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have been leveled by a bomb, and the first case that Arthur Bryant and John May worked on together, not long after the latter joined the unit.

That part of the story takes place in war-torn London, which is being decimated almost nightly by Nazi bombers. The author does a great job of capturing the oppressive feeling of a city where blackouts, air raids and sudden death have almost become normal. In the midst of all this Bryant and May are called upon to investigate the murder of a dancer in a city theatre who died after having her feet severed by an elevator.

Which is pretty gruesome stuff, to be sure, but that's not the end of it. More gruesome and possibly symbolic murders take place at the theater and then one of the actors disappears and a number of people report seeing some sort of a phantom creeping around in the bowels of this vast, creaky and labyrinthine place. If it all sounds like something out of a grand old horror movie then consider that Fowler has also pressed his pen into the service of writing horror in the past.

As it turns out the two separate threads of narrative may have something to do with each other and Fowler manages to tie things up pretty neatly. It's also interesting to note that his two main characters have apparently not changed all that significantly over the course of sixty-some years. Quirky Arthur Bryant seems just as much an oddball in his early twenties as he does later on. It's not long before down-to-Earth John May steps into the role of minder, of sorts, for a partner who's more comfortable living in an odd alternate reality inside his head than in the real world.

For my other Bryant and May reviews look here.

Image: christopherfowler.co.uk

Movie Review: Murder on Approval

Murder on Approval
Starring Tom Conway
1956

It's suggested here but not explicitly stated that detective Tom "Duke" Martin (Tom Conway) has something of a checkered past, as does his comic relief sidekick, Barney Wilson. Which leads me to believe the producers of this British flick (released there as Barbados Quest) were going for something like a Lone Wolf feel but I could be wrong on that count. The same pair turned up in one other film, Breakaway, which was released in the same year.

Rare stamps and murder are the special of the day this time around. Regardless of what might have happened in his past, Martin is on the side of good here and is called in to sort things out. Before long he finds out that there are a few more copies of a certain rare stamp in circulation than there should be. Needless to say he gets to the bottom of things in a sequence of events that are relatively uninspired. Though I will say that this one managed to hold my attention, which is more than I can say for a lot of movies.

Here's a 1956 review that appeared in the New York Times.

Movie Review - The Bat

The Bat
Starring Vincent Price, Agnes Moorehead
1959

The Circular Staircase, a novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, appeared in many different forms in the years following its first publication in 1908. By 1915 it was already the subject of a silent film of the same name. In 1920 it was adapted as a popular play called The Bat by the author and dramatist Avery Hopwood. This was further adapted into a silent version called The Bat in 1926 and with sound in 1930 as The Bat Whispers.

The Bat made its way to TV in a 1953 episode of Broadway Television Theatre and The Circular Staircase was produced for the TV anthology series Climax! three years later. Three years after that, in 1959, it was time for The Bat to make its way to the big screen again in a version that starred horror movie standby Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead (people from my generation know her best from her role as Endora, on the TV series Bewitched).

Moorehead takes the starring role in this version of The Bat, playing Cornelia van Gorder, a well-to-do mystery writer who rents a mansion where all manner of unsettling things are going on. There's a large sum of money missing from a nearby bank and several people really want it and a maniac killer named The Bat is on the loose and that's about all I'll say about the nuts and bolts of it all.

If you're a fan of old dark house stuff (guilty) with a dash of mystery thrown in - and there usually is - you'll probably go for this one. Although I have to say that the pace was just a bit on the glacial side and I found my attention lagging a bit in the latter stages. Overall the movie felt like it might have been made three decades earlier. I don't recall if I saw the earlier version, the one that actually was made about three decades earlier, and I might be confusing my bats with my cats as in The Cat and the Canary (1927, 1939) but these old dark house mysteries do tend to blend together sometimes.

Here's a brief contemporary review from the New York Times that also considers a Hammer remake of The Mummy (it's not like this current fever for remaking movies is a new thing, mind you).

Movie Review - Fast Company

Fast Company
Based on a novel by Harry Kurnitz
1938

I wasn't knocked out by Melvyn Douglas's performance in the Thin Man knockoff, There's Always a Woman, which I reviewed recently. But I forged on and watched Fast Company nonetheless, in which Douglas co-stars with Florence Rice as a husband and wife crime-solving duo named Garda and Joel Sloane. That's two Thin Man knockoffs in one year for Douglas, if you're scoring at home, and a pretty impressive record, if I do say so myself. And a pretty impressive performance by Douglas, I might add.

Until I actually watched this one I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that I'd seen it already, even though I had no record of it. Then I remembered that it was the first of a series of three "Fast" movies, each of which starred different actors in the main roles. See my review of Fast and Loose here. Screenwriter Kurnitz adopted his novel in this installment and ended up with quite a list of credits in Hollywood. Among these were an adaptation of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, which he co-wrote with Billy Wilder, and some of the later Thin Man movies. Kurnitz's play A Shot in the Dark was also made into the outstanding comic mystery starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

I suppose it's natural to hold William Powell as the gold standard for these screwball mysteries, given that he made things look so effortless. But even though I wasn't so impressed with Douglas the last time around I'd say that he gives Powell a good run for his money here. It probably didn't hurt that he had some great material to work with. As with Powell in the Thin Man movies it seems that Douglas is the source of much of the mirth here and at times the wisecracks are flying fast and furious (which is the name of the final installment of this series, by the way).

As for the mystery portion of our show, it's fairly standard stuff, as tends to be the case with this kind of movie. I guess I didn't mention yet that the Sloanes are rare book dealers and in this installment of their adventures one of their fellow book dealers is sent packing from this mortal coil with a blunt object applied to his skull with great vigor. All fingers point to a recently released ex-con whom the Sloanes have championed but they're convinced he didn't do it and set out to prove otherwise.

I'm not sure if there's anything the in the way of screwball mysteries that can top the first few Thin Man movies but this one came rather close by my reckoning. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes this sort of thing.