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- In Your Hands – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
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Category Archives: Scene of the crime
REUNION WITH MURDER (1941) by Timothy Fuller
Harvard University is a real character in this novel, as a place rich in tradition, as a maker of men and as a source of continuity and reassurance ahead of America’s entry into the Second World War. However, while conventional … Continue reading
Mantrap (1953)
Paul Henreid stars in this fast-paced British whodunit, an adaptation of Adam Hall’s Queen in Danger, my review of which you can read here. In the US the film was released as Man in Hiding and was one of dozens of … Continue reading
Posted in Adam Hall, Hammer Studios, London, Terence Fisher, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged robert lippert, terence fisher
20 Comments
QUEEN IN DANGER (1952) by Adam Hall
Elleston Trevor doesn’t rate a single mention in The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing (1999), and that’s a real shame. The author of some 100 novels, as Trevor he published exciting war and adventure stories that easily stand … Continue reading
Dying Room Only (1973) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
In 1953 Richard Matheson published ‘Dying Room Only’, a vanishing spouse variant on the Paris Exposition story. Like in his Twilight Zone episode ‘Nick of Time’, a young couple stop at a cafe and find their lives unraveling as unexpected … Continue reading
THE PIZZA HOUSE CRASH (1989) by Denise Danks
Georgina Powers is 25 years old and her life is a bit of a mess. A journalist working in London for a weekly computer magazine, she doesn’t take very good care of herself and is recovering from a brief and … Continue reading
That Woman Opposite (1957) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Phyllis Kirk stars as the eponymous young woman in peril in this unpretentious British whodunnit (released in the US as City After Midnight). Eve Atwood is a wealthy American divorcée living in the small town of La Bandalette in France. She … Continue reading
Posted in France, John Dickson Carr, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged dan o herlihy, petula clark
20 Comments
THE EMPEROR’S SNUFFBOX (1942) by John Dickson Carr
Singled out by Carr himself as one of his best efforts, this is quite an anomalous title from the great writer’s oeuvre, though it displays many of his greatest virtues. Constructed with his trademark cunning, the story does not feature … Continue reading
ONE FOR THE ROAD (1958) by Fredric Brown
A whodunit that, as the title suggests, is more than a tad on the bibulous side, One For the Road is one of the less well-known mysteries by cult author Fredric Brown and one of his last. In the 40s … Continue reading
NIGHTMARE CRUISE (1961) by Wade Miller
The phrase ‘cook’s tour’ takes on a rather sinister meaning in this unjustly neglected maritime thriller, first published in 1961 as an Ace paperback original from the team of Robert Wade and Bill Miller. It was their penultimate book though a … Continue reading
Running on Empty (1988)
There are films that you love unconditionally and irrationally, ones so bound up in your own personal circumstances and psyche that it is impossible to truly convey to others why this is so – it simply is. Then there are … Continue reading
Posted in New Jersey, Sidney Lumet, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
21 Comments
THE ETERNAL ACTRESS by Nev Fountain
This new entry in the Dark Shadows series is produced for audio by Big Finish, makers of such fine products as the truly wondrous Jago and Litefoot thrillers (for my reviews of these, click here). I have to admit to … Continue reading
Posted in Audio Review, Big Finish, Billy Wilder, Dark Shadows, Doctor Who, Film Noir, Gothic, Hollywood, Nev Fountain, Scene of the crime
Tagged hollywood, oscars
7 Comments
MURDER ON THE BLACKBOARD (1932) by Stuart Palmer
This book features one of the first, and funniest, examples of that mystery mainstay, the spinster sleuth. From Mary Roberts Rinehart’s plucky one-off heroines to the more professional investigating of Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple and Patricia Wentworth’s Maud Silver (both first … Continue reading
I Spy (1965-68)
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson bravely intoned, “We shall overcome” and enacted legislation finally enfranchising black American voters, knowing full-well that he was handing the South to the Republicans for decades to come. Within a month the Watts riots … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Los Angeles, Mexico, Robert Culp, Rome, Scene of the crime
31 Comments
Vertigo (1958) – Best film ever?
Is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo the greatest film of all time? The 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll thinks so. And even if this is not true (some don’t even think it’s the best of the director’s thrillers), how well do people … Continue reading
K is for … Stuart Kaminsky
The prolific mystery writer and academic Stuart Melvin Kaminsky was born in Chicago in 1934 and spent most of his career as a professor of film. Eventually he would spend 16 years teaching at Northwestern University before becoming a Professor … Continue reading
RIP Gore Vidal (1925-2012)
The American novelist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and all-round man of letters Eugene Louis ‘Gore’ Vidal has died at the age of 86. He spent much of his life living in self-imposed exile in Italy though returned to the USA in … Continue reading
Posted in Gore Vidal, RIP, Scene of the crime, Washington DC
Tagged books, city and the pillar, detective novels, myra breckinridge
10 Comments
ROUGH RIDERS by Charlie Stella
Courtesy of those very nice people at Stark House Press, I have in my hands an advance copy of the new novel by Charlie Stella, purveyor of humour, violence, complex plots and double crosses aplenty. Although this zesty thriller is told … Continue reading
Posted in Charlie Stella, Noir, North Dakota, Stark House Press
4 Comments
J is for … Jonathan Latimer
Kerrie’s 2012 Alphabet of Crime community meme over at her Mysteries in Paradise blog continues this week and has reached the letter J. As part of my contribution, I offer a look at the work of Jonathan Latimer, one of … Continue reading
Clue of the Twisted Candle (1960)
The Edgar Wallace Mysteries were a series of roughly four dozen hour-long B-movies made to sit on the lower birth of a cinema double bill, originally released in Britain at a rate of roughly one-a-month between 1960 and 1965. For a … Continue reading
MAIGRET STONEWALLED (1931) by Georges Simenon
If one thinks of the great detective story writers from the Golden Age that have received serious and continued critical attention over the decades, the names that immediately spring to mind are Poe, Doyle, Christie, Hammett and Chandler. The only … Continue reading
Hickey and Boggs (1972) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
A train arrives and a woman in sunglasses gets off and quickly walks away. She passes through LA’s Union Station, still looking largely as it did since it opened in 1939. We dissolve to a street scene – it is … Continue reading
INVISIBLE GREEN (1977) by John Sladek
This detective novel by science fiction author John Sladek offers several impossible crimes in the style of John Dickson Carr and deserves to be much better known. It was paid a great compliment in 1981 when, only two years after … Continue reading
HE WHO HESITATES (1965) by Ed McBain
Today we turn to one of the most anomalous entries in the 87th Precinct series, which I am currently re-reading in the order of original publication (my previous reviews can be found here). The chronology of the series is only … Continue reading
Edgar Wallace Mysteries (1960–65)
Between September 1960 and October 1965 cinemas in the UK screened 47 films produced by Anglo Amalgamated as part of their Edgar Wallace Mysteries series. These low-budget movies, more or less based on the works of the celebrated mystery author, … Continue reading
G is for … William Goldman
What do The Princess Bride, All the President’s Men (1976), Marathon Man, the cinema adaptations of Maverick (1994), Misery (1990) and The Stepford Wives (1975) as well as that great counter-culture Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, all have in common? … Continue reading
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
After Sergio Leone, Italy’s best known genre filmmaker probably remains Dario Argento, even though his heyday was a good three decades ago. He had already worked on several films as a screenwriter when he collaborated with Bernardo Bertolucci on a … Continue reading
FACE TO FACE (1967) by Ellery Queen
Did you know that at the end of his illustrious career Ellery Queen retired to Italy, got married and sired a son? And that ‘Queen’ was not his real name, even in the fictional sense? Well, this is the information … Continue reading
Posted in 2012 Alphabet of Crime, Crime Fiction Alphabet, Ellery Queen, New York, Scene of the crime
Tagged frederic dannay
34 Comments
WHERE THE SHADOW FALLS by Gillian Galbraith
Something really odd happened while I was prepping this post - there I was, after a brief pause, about to continue my Support Your Local Library Challenge, when I discovered that someone in the blogosphere had beaten me to it! … Continue reading
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
A topical satire and a crackerjack suspense movie, this still stands up among the cream of 1970s crime movies, especially when compared with its two inferior remakes. The plot remains the same in all three versions: a New York subway … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, New York, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
36 Comments
DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS (1985) by Ray Bradbury
I delayed reading this book for the best part of thirty years but finally made the leap last week. I was thirty pages in when I heard the news: Ray Bradbury had died at the age of 91. The following, … Continue reading
Dead Bang (1989)
I saw this movie at a sparsely attended screening in Berkeley, California in the Spring of 1989 but it has stuck with me as a superior manhunt thriller that deserved a better commercial fate. It has a compelling subject – … Continue reading
DO EVIL IN RETURN (1950) by Margaret Millar
During the 1950s the Canadian author Margaret Millar proved herself, along with Patricia Highsmith, to be arguably the great innovator of the postwar crime and mystery genre. She was certainly crucial stepping stone in the later development of such notable … Continue reading
No Way Out (1987)
This movie was hit in its day but 25 years after its initial release I’m still not convinced it has received the critical respect it deserves. A smart Cold War thriller – with 80s heartthrobs Kevin Costner and Sean Young … Continue reading
BLOOD ON THE MINK (1962) by Robert Silverberg
Counterfeiting is the name of the game in this hardboiled thriller by the legendary Robert Silverberg, one of the busiest writers of the 50 and 60s. Having made his short story debut while still in his teens and getting his … Continue reading
James Bond teases in SKYFALL
Well, the Leveson inquiry continues and the appalling Murdochs and their apparatchiks have yet to fold, but at least we now have a couple of proper teasers for the new Bond movie. First there is the poster, which displays very … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, James Bond, London, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
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Town on Trial (1957) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
John Mills is the hardboiled Superintendent of Police with a serious chip on his shoulder trying to crack a series of stranglings in this highly entertaining whodunnit made for Columbia at Shepperton Studios in the UK. It imported two Hollywood … Continue reading
SOME OF YOUR BLOOD (1961) by Theodore Sturgeon
OK folks, this one might get a little bit tricky. For the record, let me state that Exhibit A, Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon, is a remarkable book. It describes an investigation into a person’s character, via a case … Continue reading
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
Imagine a 40s Hollywood movie shot in gorgeous black and white, backed by a swelling Miklos Rozsa score and costumed by Edith Head. Add a dream cast featuring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Lana Turner, … Continue reading
THE HOURGLASS KILLERS by Justin Richards
The title may sound like an episode of The Man from UNCLE but in fact this is the cracking climax to the fourth season of Jago & Litefoot. And one of the things that becomes clear almost immediately is that … Continue reading
A TRICK OF THE LIGHT by David Ashton
“That’s done it!” is what Arthur Conan Doyle is reputed to have said upon completion of his historical novel, The White Company, before throwing his pen across the room! I felt a bit like this after reading the last page of … Continue reading
AXE (1964) by Ed McBain
Today we turn to one of the briefest entries in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series. I am re-reading them in chronological sequence (click here to read my previous reviews) though this is not really necessary as they are all fairly … Continue reading
Violent Playground (1958) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This story of juvenile delinquency in 1950s Liverpool was one of a series of topical dramas made by director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph from subjects ripped from the headlines. Since the 1940s they had alternated more commercial fare … Continue reading
THE LONELY CLOCK by Matthew Sweet
The Jago & Litefoot audio adventures, a spin-off from the Doctor Who characters featured in the classic Tom Baker serial, ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ by Robert Holmes, continue into their fourth and potentially best season yet. Trevor Baxter plays pathologist … Continue reading
THE TIGER AMONG US (1957) by Leigh Bracket
It is an oft-repeated cliché that reading can be a ‘magical’ experience. It is certainly a special kind of pleasure but sometimes I think ‘alchemical’ may be a more appropriate term, not least because it can rely on so many … Continue reading
Rynox (1932) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
Rynox is writer-director Michael Powell’s earliest surviving film and a fine adaptation of Philip MacDonald’s eponymous novel (also known as ‘The Rynox Murder’). In 1928 the out-of-work Powell arrived in London to find the British film industry in a state … Continue reading
SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE ADVENTURE OF THE PERFIDIOUS MARINER by Jonathan Barnes
One of many releases timed to coincide with the Titanic centenary, this audio play runs the risk of being taken for just another chair on a very overcrowded deck (sic). Which would be a great shame, because this has almost … Continue reading
Posted in Audio Review, Big Finish, London, Scene of the crime, Sherlock Holmes, Sussex
8 Comments
THE SCARF (1947 / 1966) by Robert Bloch
“I have the heart of a young boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk” Robert Bloch was the prolific author of novels, short stories and screenplays in the horror, science fiction and mystery genres. He also possessed … Continue reading
The Case of the Curious Bride (1935) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This stylish and fast-paced thriller, adapted from the eponymous Perry Mason novel by Erle Stanley Gardner, was just one of the fifty movies made in the 1930s by Warner Bros. auteur Michael Curtiz, a director still under-appreciated despite regular periods … Continue reading
TEN PLUS ONE (1963) by Ed McBain
Today we return to the world of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct mysteries as I continue my challenge to read the entire series in its original publication order. For our reviews of previous volumes, visit the dedicated miscrosite here. “Where are … Continue reading
Posted in 87th Precinct, Ed McBain, New York, Police procedural
5 Comments
BEAUTIFUL THINGS by John Dorney
Roll up, roll up for the exciting new season of audio adventures featuring Jago and Litefoot, the Victorian duo specialising in ‘infernal investigations’ played with brio and vim by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. After their emotional Brighton sojourn in … Continue reading
Posted in Audio Review, Big Finish, Jago & Litefoot, John Dorney, London, Scene of the crime, Steampunk
3 Comments
