Forgotten Book - Some Must Watch

Ethel Lina White is a writer I've mentioned a few times on this blog. She's remembered today mainly as the author of the book on which Hitchcock's great film The Lady Vanishes was based, but in the Golden Age, she specialised in "woman in jeopardy" stories with great success. Little is known about her, though, apart from a few basic details on the internet, and if anyone knows more about her life, and her approach to crime fiction, do get in touch.

Some Must Watch is one of her most famous stories, and again it was turned into a popular film, Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase. The book first came out in 1933, and it has now been republished by Arcturus Crime Classics. In fact, it's due out next week - along with titles by Erle Stanley Gardner, Anthony Berkeely, and others - including me. I'm flattered and thrilled to find All the Lonely People in such company.

I enjoyed the story, even though it's really a tale of suspense, rather than actual detection. The pert and likeable Helen, is recruited as a "lady-help" to a strange family who live on the Welsh borders. Unfortunately, a deranged serial killer is on the loose, and his first four victims have all been single young working women. Will Helen be next?

White does a very good job at building the tension. Inevitably, the story-line is dated, and some of the plot elements and characters (the invalid who may not be an invalid, the sinister nurse, the weird professor, the vampish woman) became over-used in the Golden Age and may thus be seen as cliched. But White writes with a great deal of skill, in my opinion, and she also comes up with a unique and extraordinary murder motive into the bargain. A marvellous period piece.

Compulsion

The Leopold-Loeb case is one of the most famous American crimes. Two students – intelligent, but not as intelligent as they believed themselves to be – abducted and murdered a young man as a Nietzschean ‘experiment’ in committing the perfect crime in 1924. Of course, it was far from perfect. They were duly caught and convicted, but Clarence Darrow’s advocacy saved them from execution. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner, but Leopold was released after 33 years and died in 1971.

The story inspired Patrick Hamilton to write the famous play ‘Rope’, filmed equally famously by Alfred Hitchcock. Meyer Levin based his book and play Compulsion on the story, and I’ve just watched the film of the same title, starring Orson Welles as Darrow, made in 1959. Apparently, Leopold tried to prevent the film’s release, arguing that it breached his privacy. This may be why the characters are named Steiner and Strauss rather than Leopold and Loeb.

Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman do a good job as the selfish young men, and convey the gay undercurrents of their relationship reasonably well, given the constraints that existed at the time the film was made. But it has to be said that they are unappealing characters, and although their motivation was fascinating, it is less than fully explored. The abduction and murder of the victim is not shown at al, and I felt that was a structural weakness since the central horror of the story is dealt with at one remove. I do not suggest that the crime should have been depicted graphically – that would also have been a mistake – but to omit it altogether struck me as odd, though it is a reminder that the focus of the film is different from that of most crime-based movies. Further weaknesses are the duo’s attempts to avoid arrest are puerile, and the action is rather slow at times.

However, Welles gives a towering performance as Jonathan Wilk (the Darrow equivalent) and his passionate opposition to capital punishment is so effectively conveyed that it is the highlight of the film and the reason why, more than half a century after it was made, it remains well worth watching to this day.

Young and Innocent

Young and Innocent sounds rather like the title of dodgy movie screened in a back street in Soho, but in fact it is the title of a pre-Hollywood Hitchcock movie, dating from 1937. I was alerted to its quality by comments on this blog some months ago, and now I’ve finally got round to watching it, I can say I agree that it’s a very entertaining film, which has stood the test of time better than many.

From the start, there isn’t much doubt about the identity of the murderer of actress Christine Clay, or the motive, but when her strangled corpse is found by a young man who was friendly with her, the police ignore the obvious suspect (this is never explained) and arrest the young man. The fact she was strangled with the belt of his raincoat is a clinching piece of evidence, although he claims the coat was stolen from him. The hunt for the coat in this film is an early example of a Hitchcockesque pursuit of a Macguffin.

The young man escapes police custody, and is assisted in his flight from justice by the daughter of the chief constable – a part played by a young woman with the marvellous name of Nova Pilbeam. Along the way, the pair bump into a jovial chap played by Basil Radford, soon to earn fame in a real Hitchcock classic, The Lady Vanishes.

The film is allegedly based on Josephine Tey’s book A Shilling for Candles. However, Hitchcock butchered the source material, not for the last time in his career. Inspector Alan Grant, Tey’s series detective, does not even feature in the film – nor, amazingly, does Tey’s murderer. A loose adaptation, then, to put it mildly – but a likeable film nonetheless.

To Catch a Thief

Alfred Hitchcock based his famous film To Catch a Thief on a book by the American crime writer David Dodge. It’s the story of jewel theft on the Riviera and it stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, who combine together splendidly. To use a term that wasn’t around when the film was first shown, it’s a ‘feelgood movie’.

Grant , who plays John Robie, lives quietly in a lovely villa. He was once a famous jewel thief, but worked in the Resistance during the war, and has now renounced his old criminal ways. But when wealthy women of the south of France suffer a fresh series of jewel thefts which seem to bear all his hallmarks, Robie is the inevitable suspect. His old friends don’t believe in his innocence, let alone the police. Danielle, daughter of a former comrade who is now a wine waiter, urges him to take her to South America with his ill-gotten gains. But Robie decides to prove that he is innocent by catching ‘the Cat’.

This brings him into enjoyably close contact with Grace Kelly, playing the daughter of a scoundrel’s widow whose jewels make her an obvious target for ‘the Cat’. Kelly’s lustrous beauty and the couple’s developing relationship are more memorable than the actual plot. This is one of Hitchcock’s lighter movies, and the plot is scarcely complex, but even so, it offers a couple of hours of pleasant entertainment.