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- In Your Hands – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
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- St. Ives (1976) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
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Category Archives: Scene of the crime
Ragu in The Smoke – part 2
In British parlance I am supposed to be ‘Exchanging Contracts’ this week – putting a deposit on my flat, binding all parties to the sale. These things always take longer than you imagine, however … so activity here at Fedora … Continue reading
Posted in 'In praise of ...', London
20 Comments
THE NAKED FACE (1970) by Sidney Sheldon
In the 1970s Sidney Sheldon became one of the biggest names in publishing after an already highly successful career as a screenwriter and producer, his dozens of film and TV credits ranging from the musical Easter Parade to the sitcom … Continue reading
MAIGRET SETS A TRAP (1955) by Georges Simenon
A psychopath is stalking the women of a small district in Paris and Jules Maigret of the Police Judiciaire is under pressure to find the culprit. Pretty soon, after a failed attack, an arrest is made – but then another … Continue reading
In Your Hands – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Kristin Scott Thomas is the woman in jeopardy in this unusual suspense movie. It opens with a nervy bravura sequence, dialogue-free and shot hand-held, charting her return home in a highly agitated state. She is days late getting back from … Continue reading
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TURK! (1986) by Jakob Arjouni
This fast-paced private eye novel stands out in a very crowded field thanks to its originality of tone, theme and setting. The place is Frankfurt and the time is August 1983, well before Germany’s reunification. The protagonist is Kemal Kayankaya and … Continue reading
Posted in Germany, Jakob Arjouni, Private Eye, Scene of the crime
22 Comments
St. Ives (1976) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Steve Chibnall in his 400-page tome on the films of J. Lee Thompson (director of The Guns of Navarone, the original Cape Fear and the war classic Ice Cold in Alex) devotes a grand total of three words to the … Continue reading
FUZZ (1968) by Ed McBain
And Fedora is back (for now …) and so is Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series (for my previous reviews click here). I am reading them chronologically, an approach that pays dividends in the case of Fuzz. Not only does it … Continue reading
MEMOS FROM PURGATORY (1961) by Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison is a writer with a unique voice, paddling his own caustic canoe (sic), defying all those who would pigeon-hole his talent. His resistance to easy categorisation remains ever more laudable in an age of cookie counter consumerism and … Continue reading
Ragu in The Smoke
Activity here at Fedora will be decidedly erratic over the next couple of months while I move the ragu (me) out of Caversham (on the Berkshire/Oxfordshire border) and relocate to a temporary abode in The Smoke (London). This will be … Continue reading
Posted in London
48 Comments
Les Seins de glace (1974) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
On Friday I reviewed Richard Matheson’s debut novel Someone is Bleeding (click here to read it), a pretty decent whodunit spiced up with some less convincing post-war cod Freudian psychologising. The novel was filmed in France and released there in … Continue reading
SOMEONE IS BLEEDING (1953) by Richard Matheson
Like so many writers of his generation, Richard Matheson – who turned 87 last month – was shaped by his experiences in World War Two. Though this produced only one directly autobiographical book, The Beardless Warriors, postwar malaise and unease … Continue reading
The Age of Revolution
Corks – it’s the return of theatre impresario Henry Gordon Jago and pathologist Professor George Litefoot, those two fruity Victorian investigators played to perfection by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. They are back for another quartet of audio adventures, courtesy … Continue reading
EIGHTY MILLION EYES (1966) by Ed McBain
It’s common to hear it said that an act ‘died’ on stage but in the case of TV comic Stan Gifford this proves to be literally true – and in front of 40 million viewers too. This is the premise … Continue reading
THE CASE OF THE LATE PIG (1937) by Margery Allingham
This is Margery Allingham’s shortest Albert Campion novel (my Penguin TV tie-in edition, featured on the right, runs to 138 pages) but it certainly packs in plenty of incident with the sleuth battling problems on the domestic and romantic front … Continue reading
Garde à vue (1981) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Also released in some English-speaking territories as either The Inquisitor or The Grilling, this was the first cinema adaptation of John Wainwright’s 1979 novel Brainwash (click here to read my review). The second, Under Suspicion (2000), was in effect a … Continue reading
THE GREEN PLAID PANTS (1951) by Margaret Scherf
This was the second of four screwball mysteries featuring Emily and Henry Bryce, full-time husband-and-wife interior decorators and part-time amateur sleuths. After eleven months of marriage the volcanic Emily is already feeling that their life in New York is in … Continue reading
Side Effects
The thriller genre can be so capacious and seductive that filmmakers often use the form to smuggle in less commercial content on its coat-tails. Successful examples of this include the debate on Britain’s antiquated homosexuality laws found in Victim (1961), … Continue reading
THE BLOODY MATCH by Paul Halter
I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions usually but I promised myself two things for 2013: first, that I would try some of the great books recommended by my blogging compadres; and second, that I would finally read some of … Continue reading
The Mystery of the Missing Hour
Agatha Christie meets Pirandello in this rather splendid audio mystery by Joseph Lidster starring Susannah Harker and David Warner as ‘time detectives’ Sapphire and Steel. It’s Cairo in 1926 and an expedition arrives from England to uncover the secrets of a … Continue reading
DREADFUL SUMMIT (1948) by Stanley Ellin
Stanley Ellin burst on the literary scene in Spring 1948 with a one-two punch with the twin successes of his first short story, ‘The Specialty of the House’, the classic tale of the macabre for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and … Continue reading
Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
John Ford was one of the great directors of the studio system, winner of four Oscars, a tyrant on the set, and maker of many classic Westerns – but he also made dozens of films in other genres including comedies, … Continue reading
Fedora’s 200,000 visits
Where does the time go? This site just passed another milestone at the beginning of this week with its 200,000th visit! Flabbergasting is the word. To celebrate, here is Alain Delon sporting one of my favourite fedoras in action in … Continue reading
Posted in 'In praise of ...', France, Scene of the crime
34 Comments
The Big Sleep (1978)
Michael Winner, the pugnacious British filmmaker (and restaurant critic), died in January at age 77. He dabbled in almost every genre (Westerns, musicals, horror, costume melodrama, war movies etc.) though was most at home with ironic comedies during the 1960s … Continue reading
DEKOK AND THE SORROWING TOMCAT by Baantjer (1969)
Revered in The Netherlands (and translated into several languages), this series of mysteries by ex-policeman Albert Cornelis Baantjer featured Inspector Jurrian De Cock and his sidekick Dick Vledder and appeared at a rate of roughly two a year from 1963 … Continue reading
Douglas Slocombe – 100 years old today
OK movie buffs, here’s a fun pop quiz for you: what do Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sean Connery’s last Bond movie, Michael Caine in The Italian Job, Montgomery Clift’s turn as Sigmund Freud and several classic Ealing comedies such … Continue reading
DOLL (1965) by Ed McBain
After an unexpected break of several months I return to the urban (and sometimes urbane) world of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct with one of its best and most compact entries so far. I am at present re-reading the entire corpus … Continue reading
Top 20 TV Spies
Not everyone agrees, but for me the spy story is definitely a subset of the crime and mystery genre. However, tales of espionage do come in all shapes and sizes: from contemporary to historical, deadly serious like Tinker Tailor Soldier … Continue reading
THE HORIZONTAL MAN (1946) by Helen Eustis
Phew! By the skin of my teeth I’ve managed to complete the 2012 Vintage Mystery Readers Challenge. To celebrate, and as my last blog post until late January, here is my (short) review of Helen Eustis’ influential Edgar-winning debut. Set … Continue reading
NIGHT WALKER (1954) by Donald Hamilton
Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) produced many different types of adventure books including Westerns such as The Big Country (filmed in 1958 with Gregory Peck). He is best known for his series of 27 Matt Helm novels, four of which were adapted … Continue reading
THE G-STRING MURDERS (1941) by Gypsy Rose Lee
Rose Louise Hovick (1914-70), better known under her stage name, ‘Gypsy Rose Lee’, had a brief but notable career. Her autobiography, Gypsy, detailing her rise to become the ‘Queen of Burlesque’ was a Broadway hit and was later filmed with … Continue reading
GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST by Tony Lee
This new audio play by Tony Lee brings together two (fictional) icons of Victorian England – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, that perverse satyr, sensualist and scoundrel whose own narcissism led … Continue reading
Posted in Audio Review, Big Finish, London, Scene of the crime, Sherlock Holmes
11 Comments
Stalag 17 (1953) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Christmas Mystery
Now, I know what you’re thinking – isn’t this the Oscar-winning war movie starring William Holden, the one that got ripped off and turned into that silly 1960s sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes? Wasn’t this film a big hit in its day? … Continue reading
A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS (1990) by Ray Bradbury
Hollywood, 1954 and the unnamed protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s Death is a Lonely Business (which I reviewed here) is back. When we saw him last he was a struggling pulp writer living in Venice (California) – since then has moved … Continue reading
The Mind Benders (1963) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Dirk Bogarde is the troubled scientist at the centre of this suspense drama combining espionage, brainwashing, sensory deprivation chambers and domestic navel gazing that often feels like a rich inverted pudding, light on the bottom and heavy on top. This … Continue reading
Top 20 Spy movies
The release of Ben Affleck’s smart historical satire Argo, based loosely on the true extraction by the CIA and Canadian officials of six American Embassy staff members out of Tehran in 1980, made me reflect on the spy genre as … Continue reading
Posted in 'Best of' lists, Adam Hall, Alfred Hitchcock, Amnesia, Billy Wilder, Brian de Palma, Cold War, Elleston Trevor, Eric Ambler, Espionage, Film Noir, George Smiley, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Frankenheimer, John le Carre, Len Deighton, London, Michael Powell, New York, Paris, Quiller, San Francisco, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
69 Comments
NIGHTMARE (1941) by Cornell Woolrich
During the 1940s Cornell Woolrich was one of the true masters of the psychological suspense yarn, as adept at creating ingenious and outlandish plots as painting an atmosphere of universal dread and irrationality. This is a case in point with … Continue reading
Telefon (1977)
This adaptation of the 1975 spy novel by Walter Wager has a great central gimmick and features the unlikely pairing of granite-faced action hero Charles Bronson and high-class beauty Lee Remick under the take-no-prisoners direction of Don Siegel. It often … Continue reading
Posted in Amnesia, Cold War, Espionage, Los Angeles, Moscow, Scene of the crime, Spy movies, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged Charles Bronson
35 Comments
THE ZEBRA-STRIPED HEARSE (1962) by Ross Macdonald
This review is my final contribution to Kerrie’s 2012 Alphabet of Crime community meme for her Mysteries in Paradise blog, which this week reaches the letter Z. It’s been an amazing ride for six months and I am pleased as … Continue reading
Two O’Clock Courage (1945)
Something of a forgotten semi Noir, this mixture of comedy and thrills marked the RKO debuts of director Anthony Mann and Jane Greer (here billed with her full name, ‘Bettejane’). The leading man is Tom Conway, already established at the studio … Continue reading
THE YELLOW DOG (1931) by Georges Simenon
This is one the first Maigret novels. Georges Simenon chronicled some 100 of his cases over a period of 40 years but initially churned them out in a blaze of activity – indeed this was the first of seven Maigret … Continue reading
The Blake Edwards mysteries
In a career spanning six decades, writer-director Blake Edwards (1922-2010) really mixed it up, making almost every conceivable type of film. There were westerns (Panhandle and Wild Rovers), musicals (Darling Lili and Victor Victoria), dark drama (Days of Wine and … Continue reading
THE BEAST OF THE CAMARGUE by Xavier-Marie Bonnot
Dr Xavier-Marie Bonnot, author of the Commandant de Palma series, is the focus of this week’s Alphabet of Crime entry, which is reaching its always fairly head-scratching conclusion now that most of the ‘easier’ letters, shall we say, have been … Continue reading
The Perry Mason movies (1934-37)
Before the hugely popular TV show of the 1950s and 60s starring Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale (not to mention the long running reunion TV-movies they embarked on two decades later), the cases of Erle Stanley Gardner’s ultra-sharp defence attorney … Continue reading
Skyfall – five star movie review
Yes, the title of this post does rather give things away – I loved the new Bond movie. Have you been to see Skyfall yet? You really should. In the UK the new 007 adventure, the first in 4 years, came … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, Five Star review, James Bond, London, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
Tagged James Bond
36 Comments
THE WENCH IS DEAD (1955) by Fredric Brown
This unconventional mystery by cult author Fredric Brown has unfortunately become a little bit scarce, its absentee status probably not helped by the fact that the title, taken from Christopher Marlowe, has been used for several other novels too. The … Continue reading
The Last Page (1952)
Released as Man Bait in the US, this story of blackmail and murder in the London book trade was adapted from a 1947 play by James Hadley Chase, a writer still best-known for the pulp shocker No Orchids for Miss … Continue reading
VERONICA’S ROOM (1973) by Ira Levin
Even if you have not seen his plays performed on the stage or read his novels, you are probably familiar with some of the movies adapted from the work of Ira Levin (1929-2007). I thought I knew his output pretty … Continue reading
The Last of Sheila (1973)
This Edgar-winning murder mystery challenges a group of Hollywood players to solve a series of riddles while on the French Riviera – but just what is the prize and who is playing who? This fabulously elaborate movie was co-written by … Continue reading
TRAITOR’S PURSE (1941) by Margery Allingham
This is an Albert Campion novel like no other. Margery Allingham had introduced the character in the late 1920s and deployed him in a broad range of books, alternating between whodunits like Police at the Funeral (1931), Death of a … Continue reading
