Inside the Room - 1935 film review

Inside the Room is a short black and white movie released in 1935 which features both an "impossible crime" puzzle and a very, very early example of the serial killer story in which the culprit sends enigmatic, menacing messages to his intended victims . One of the most interesting aspects of the film is how it originated. The story began life as a short story written by Marten Cumberland towards the start of his career. "The Diary of Death" was an entertaining tale which merited inclusion in Ronald Knox's famous anthology of 1928, Best Detective Stories. Much more recently, I included it in Miraculous Mysteries.

Cumberland turned his plot into a play, which he called Inside the Room, which was produced in 1934. This was in its turn adapted for film, but by the prolific screenwriter Harry Fowler Mear, rather than by Cumberland. In the short story, the detective, Loreto Santos, is a cosmopolitan character, born in Argentina of Spanish parents, and raised in England. In the film, he becomes Pierre Santos, and is played by Austin Trevor, who had already made a name for himself by portraying Hercule Poirot on the screen.

The story begins with the death in poverty of Lilian Hope, once a celebrity stage performer. She'd fallen on hard times, and been deserted by her friends. Embittered, she'd written a vitriolic diary condemning those she blamed for not rescuing her from tragedy. After her death, fragments of the diary are found with the bodies of two murder victims. Who is killing the people that Lilian scapegoated?

Most of the film takes place in a classic country house setting. A former admirer of Lilian's is among the house guests, and after receiving a warning that he is next on the killer' list, his body is duly found in his room, along with an extract from the diary. Santos, needless to say, applies his brilliant mind to the problem and comes up with the solution. It's not a great film, but quite watchable. Overall, though, I prefer Cumberland's original short story.

Miraculous Mysteries

Today sees the UK publication of Miraculous Mysteries, my collection of classic locked room and impossible crime mysteries for the British Library. I've always had a love of this paradoxical type of puzzle, and this book is dedicated to the memory of Bob Adey, the greatest expert on the subject, who guided me to so many hidden gems prior to his untimely death.

The first locked room detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Poe, was a short story, and I feel that the short form is best suited to the locked room puzzle, because of the necessarily fantastic nature of most of the plots. Of course, there are some fine novels featuring impossible crimes, and John Dickson Carr wrote a bunch of them. But I see these mostly as exceptions to the general rule.

As ever, I've tried to include a range of familiar and unfamiliar authors. We all know Conan Doyle, but Grenville Robbins is long forgotten. And so too is Marten Cumberland, even though he had a long and relatively successful career. I'm very pleased too that I've been able to include a little known story by Christopher St John Sprigg that I found highly enjoyable.

I'm delighted by the initial reaction to the book, including this splendid review. It would please me enormously if this book were to sell well, since there are plenty of good classic impossible crime stories around, and I'd love to put together a follow-up volume. But that lies far in the future. Right now, I'm celebrating this book, and I hope that it provides thousands of readers with plenty of entertainment.

Miraculous Mysteries and Continental Crimes

I'm delighted to have received my author copies of Miraculous Mysteries, my latest anthology in the British Library's Crime Classics series. The book is due out in a few weeks' time, but I thought I'd whet the appetite of locked room fans by telling you something about it now. And the first thing to say is that I've dedicated it to the memory of the late Bob Adey, from whose superb and truly unique book Locked Room Murders I have derived a vast amount of information and pleasure.

Bob collaborated on the production of one or two locked room mystery anthologies himself, and I hope and believe that he would have approved of this collection of stories dealing with a wide variety of impossible crimes. I've included the work of several major authors, and although this particular book does not include anything by the American maestro John Dickson Carr, it's not impossible (so to speak) that future BL anthologies will feature his work.

As usual with these anthologies, I've aimed to include some stories that are likely to be unfamiliar even to those well versed in the genre. Thus there are contributions from E.Charles Vivian, Grenville Robbins, and Marten Cumberland (best remembered as the creator of Saturnin Dax). I really enjoyed putting this one together, and I'm optimistic that it will encourage even those who aren't Golden Age fans or enthused about locked rooms to sample the delights of this very enjoyable form of the crime story.

In the early summer, there will be another Classic Crime anthology. This time it's Continental Crimes.- stories set in Europe long before the EU, let alone Brexit. I'm delighted to say that an Agatha Christie story - not an especially well-known one - is included, as well as stories by authors as diverse as Ian Hay, E. Phillips Oppenheim, J. Jefferson Farjeon, H.C. Bailey,, and Michael Gilbert.

Finally, a bit of news. I've just reached an agreement to compile two more Classic Crime anthologies - and that will take the total of story collections in the series to twelve. The BL and I are delighted by the way the book-buying public has responded to the short stories as well as to the novels (Crimson Snow,for instance, has done wonderfully well, with very good sales and equally gratifying reviews). And I can promise that there are some real treats in the books that are yet to come.