Bognor is Back

I never got to see Bognor when it was first shown on television. It ran for 21 episodes from 1981-2 at a time when I wasn't watching much if any TV. Years later, I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Heald, author of the books on which the show was based, and asked him about it. To cut a long story short, he felt that Thames TV had made a bit of a mess of it. For instance, he'd very much favoured Derek Fowlds being cast in the lead as Simon Bognor, but in the end the role went to David Horovitch, a decent actor but perhaps not ideal for the part. They also put the shows out at times which were unlikely to attract a big audience.

Thanks to Talking Pictures TV, it's now possible to judge Bognor for myself. This channel has a real knack of finding lost gems, as well as some shows and films that haven't really stood the test of time. They have run Public Eye, the downbeat series about the private eye Frank Marker, which was very low-key but pretty good, and the obscure but rather enjoyable anthology series Shadows of Fear as well as the original Van der Valk, which I found surprisingly disappointing.

Bognor comprised the adaptations of four books, starting with Unbecoming Habits, set in a monastery, with one of the monks played by Patrick Troughton. Bognor, who works for the Department of Trade, is sent to investigate a suspicious death. There are some pleasing moments in the story, but overall it's pretty lightweight and forgettable. Apparently the series was cancelled long before it came to an end, and in all honesty, I can see why.

I'm glad to have caught up with it, though. Tim was as amusing in person as he was on the page, and although he took the disappointment of the adaptations in his stride, his enthusiasm for writing about the character waned. I encouraged him to consider reviving Simon Bognor after a long hiatus, and he duly contributed a fresh Bognor short story to an anthology I edited for the CWA, Original Sins. Before long, he was working on a new Bognor novel. Thanks to Bognor, I've thought back to those times (too few, alas) that I spent in his convivial company, and those pleasant memories are enough to keep me watching, even if the scripts don't quite do the trick.

More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The first person to compile an anthology of stories featuring rivals of Sherlock Holmes was Hugh Greene, brother of Graham, and at one time the Director-General of the BBC. I received his first anthology as a birthday present, and loved it. He came up with three more anthologies and some of the stories were televised - the episodes have reappeared recently on the Talking Pictures TV channel. There have been similar anthologies to Greene's in the intervening years, and Nick Rennison produced one back in 2015. He's now edited another collection, More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, which is published by the splendid No Exit Press.

I haven't read Rennison's earlier anthology, but a few years ago I greatly enjoyed his "unauthorised biography" of Sherlock Holmes. His evident knowledge of Victorian crime fiction means that he's well-qualified to put a book of stories of gaslight crime together. The first question is: do we need yet another book of this kind?  The second question is: given that the stories are out of copyright, is there enough fresh editorial material to justify the purchase?

My answer in principle to the first question is yes, provided it doesn't just round up the usual suspects, in terms of authors and stories. And here I think Rennison does a good job. Believe me, I've read a lot of stories from this era, but there are three authors featured here whom I can't remember having read: Herbert Kean, David Christie Murray, and Percy James Brebner. These are not the strongest stories in the book, admittedly, but I was glad to be introduced to them, as well as to meet again Arthur Morrison's unscrupulous Horace Dorrington (one of my favourite rivals) and Richard Marsh's Judith Lee, an accomplished lip reader.

As for the second test, again I think Rennison passes it. He doesn't deluge his readers with information, but certainly gives enough to put the stories and their authors in context. As he says, he set out to demonstrate the range and variety of late Victorian and Edwardian detective fiction. The title of this book may be less than original, but  that doesn't matter: the Greene books appeared a long time ago.  I'd say that he has succeeded in this aim.

The Anderson Tapes - 1971 film review

Over the years, I've somehow managed to miss The Anderson Tapes, a 1971 film directed by the gifted Sidney Lumet, and based on a novel by Lawrence Sanders. It's a heist movie starring Sean Connery at the peak of his powers, and I've long been familiar with the excellent theme tune by Quincy Jones. Finally, I managed to catch up with it, thanks to the admirable Talking Pictures TV.

It's apparent that Lumet was trying to do something more than direct a straightforward film about a robbery. This is a story, in part, about covert surveillance, and it pre-dates The Conversation, which is my favourite movie about surveillance, a genuine masterpiece. At the start of the film, Connery is released from prison. He is an angry man, who immediately reunites with his girlfriend, Dyan Cannon, who is being maintained by another lover in a posh apartment block. Connery decides to rob her fellow residents.

The trouble is that this is a two-hour film with barely ninety minutes of material. Lumet's approach may have been cutting-edge in its day, but it seems to me to have dated, and this film is much less effective, in my opinion, than some of his other work. I am a Connery fan, but I never warmed to his character, and the heist seemed to me to be hopelessly protracted, and so obviously doomed to failure that tension faded.

Even Quincy Jones' soundtrack seems, to a modern ear, to be intrusive and occasionally a bit irksome, despite the quality of that theme. The ending is meant to be ironic, but I'm afraid that by that stage, I didn't really care too much. You'll have gathered that I was disappointed by this one. Maybe it's a case of having had expectations that were too high. But in my opinion, it's nothing like as good as The Conversation.

The Spiritualist - 1948 film review

The Spiritualist is a film from 1948 which is also known as The Amazing Mr X, a title which might have put me off had I been aware of it. At one time, apparently, it was also known as The Mystic. Anyway, I'm glad I wasn't put off, because it's quite a good movie, certainly worth a watch. And the focus is on a topic that became fashionable with crime writers during the Golden Age - spiritualism, and the dangers posed by fake mediums.

We are introduced to Christine Faber (Lynn Bari) whose beloved husband Paul died two years ago in a tragic accident when his car burst into flames. She hasn't got over her grief, although her young and ingenuous sister Janet (Cathy O'Donnell) is keen for her to put the past behind her, and become engaged to her boyfriend. When I learned that the boyfriend was a lawyer by the name of Martin, I became convinced that Janet was absolutely right to root for him. There is a regrettable suggestion that Martin (Richard Carlson) is actually rather a dull dog, but somehow I felt that could not be right!

Anyway, Christine encounters a charismatic medium called Alexis (played, rather well, by Turhan Bey, an interesting actor with whom I was previously unfamiliar). She falls under his spell, and Janet becomes suspicious of his motives, with good reason. But when Janet goes to confront Alexis, she too is bamboozled by him. And poor old Martin's hopes of happiness with Christine begin to dwindle...

There is a pleasing plot twist which I should have seen coming, but didn't, and the movie proceeds in an entertaining way to its conclusion.  There's a good review of the film on the ever-reliable Tipping My Fedora blog, and I concur with Sergio's enthusiasm. It's a short movie which doesn't outstay its welcome. I'm glad it's shown up on the splendid Talking Pictures TV channel. And as for what happens to good old Martin - well, you'll have to watch it to find out!

Black Widow - 1954 film review

Black Widow is a popular title for crime films. The one I'm discussing today showed up recently on the wonderful Talking Pictures TV channel. I've made many fascinating discoveries thanks to Talking Pictures. As with forgotten books, there are some forgotten movies that really ought to be left in peace. But Black Widow, I was delighted to find, is based on the book of the same name by Patrick Quentin. I've read quite a lot of Quentin books (and novels by the PQ alter ego, Q. Patrick) and they are invariably well-plotted. Black Widow is no exception.

The film was made in Cinemascope, and the bright colours slightly distract from the darkness of the storyline. It's almost a film noir in mood, if not in look. The cast is very strong, with Van Heflin, a dependable performer, playing the hero, Peter Denver (in the books, Peter Duluth - was that surname deemed "too difficult" for audiences of the time?) At the start of the film, Peter is waving goodbye to his beloved wife Iris (Gene Tierney) at the airport. She's off to look after her sick mother, and she urges him to show his face at a party thrown by an actress who is starring in Peter's current show, and who lives in the same block as the Denvers.

The actress is "Lottie" Marin, played by Ginger Rogers (who doesn't dance in this story.) She's a famously unkind woman with a huge ego and a sharp tongue. Her husband Brian (Reginald Gardiner) is a weak character who allows her to bully him. At the party, Peter meets a young woman, Nancy (Peggy Ann Garner) and they become friends. Their relationship is platonic, but Peter invites her to stay in his apartment while Iris is away, and on the day of her return, Nancy is found there, dead. It appears to be a case of suicide, but soon questions arise. Is it possible that Peter has killed her?

The plot is pleasingly convoluted, although I found Nancy's psychology slightly baffling. Peter, naturally, tries to find out what is going on, but the official detective work is undertaken by a cop played by George Raft, whom one associates more with gangster roles. Even as a detective, he is pretty menacing. The film wasn't a huge box office hit, but it's worn pretty well, mainly because of the cast and the strength of the plot twists. Overall, definitely worth watching.

Undercover Agent aka Counterspy - 1953 film review

As I settled down to watch another of the long-forgotten films that have been resurrected on the excellent Talking Pictures TV channel, I was startled to see on the titles that the screenplay was based on a short story by Julian Symons. The film, Undercover Agent, is also known as Counterspy, and was released in 1953. The story it was based on is called "Criss Cross Code", but I'm unfamiliar with it, and I now plan to set about tracking it down.

Nobody ever thinks of Symons as writing espionage fiction, as the film's titles would suggest, although a few of his early short stories (and this one must have been among his very earliest) touch on international intrigue. The film is a thriller, and although it's creaky in parts, the screenplay is a lively one, co-written by Guy Elmes and Gaston Lazare (the latter name sounds as though it may possibly have been a pseudonym - I can't trace any of Lazare's other work).

The cast is a cut above the average for a British B-movie. Dermot Walsh, later to play Richard the Lionheart in a popular TV series of that name, improbably plays a meek but persistent auditor, who is called in to look over the books of a company where some mischief is afoot. His wife is played by Hazel Court, who was at the time married to Walsh in real life. The principal villain is played by Alexander Gauge, memorable in the role of Friar Tuck in the TV series Robin Hood. Here, Gauge acts rather like a poor man's Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. Hermione Baddeley plays a fortune teller, and even less likely is the casting of Bill Travers - yes, the chap from Born Free - as a brutal thug.

Yet somehow it all makes for agreeable light entertainment, mainly because the pace of the script doesn't allow one time to reflect on the daftness of it all. I'm not sure what Symons would have made of it, and I strongly suspect it bears only a limited resemblance to his story. He probably cringed, but it's no mean feat to have a short story turned into a film, even a comparatively short movie such as this one. An enjoyable curiosity..

Midnight Fear - 1990 film review

Midnight Fear is a not very well-known American film that was recently screened on the Talking Pictures TV channel. It's not an old black and white movie, but a film that, in 1990, clearly had aspirations to be cutting-edge. In more ways than one - it's a violent, and at time disturbing thriller about a crazed killer. It's not a masterpiece, but it has some unusual aspects, and it kept me interested.

Early on, it seems as if the story will follow a predictable path. A young couple seem to be building their relationship on a lonely ranch, while a woman is savagely murdered in the same area. David Carradine rolls up to the crime scene: he's an ace detective, but he's also hopelessly drunk. He becomes fascinated by the case, and determines to investigate, even though he's moved to other duties after making a fool of himself on television.

Meanwhile, a couple of nasty-seeming characters are on the loose. They are two brothers - one has just been released from a mental hospital, and is deaf, the other is his brother. They find themselves at the ranch and start to take an unhealthy interest in the young woman who lives there. She's played by August West, an actor about whom I know nothing. Her career seems to have faded, which is a great shame, since I thought she was excellent.

Carradine, as charasmatic and troubled in this film as evidently he was in real life, soon finds himself on the trail of the two brothers. It seems that the deaf chap murdered the girl, and one presumes that there will be a race against time culminating in his trying and failing to murder August West's character, before Carradine ultimately prevails. In fact, the plot veers off in a different direction. As I say, it's a disturbing film, with a number of striking plot twists, and it does not deserve to be consigned to oblivion.

Mrs Pym of Scotland Yard - film review

I never met the late Nigel Morland, but I was in touch with him briefly prior to his death in 1986. He edited a magazine called Current Crime, which coincidentally is discussed in the latest issue of CADS. I was keen to lay my hands on copies, but although he supplied some to me, he was clearly struggling to cope with things at that point, when he must have been about 80. But he had a long and rather interesting career in crime fiction.

His real name, it seems, was Carl Van Biene, and after a spell in journalism as a teenager, he worked for a short time as Edgar Wallace's secretary. in his debut novel, The Phantom Gunman, published when he was 30, he introduced Mrs Palymyra Pym. Although he wrote under a host of pen-names, and produced a long list of books over the next four decades, Mrs Pym remained his best-known character. In 1953, he became a founder member of the CWA.

Mrs Pym made it into the movies in 1939, when Morland wrote the screenplay for Mrs Pym of Scotland Yard. This film was thought for a long time to have been lost, but it resurfaced a while ago, and I've now caught up with it on Talking Pictures. And I'm glad I did. It's decent entertainment for its period, and there's a lot of pleasure to be taken in the chauvinistic reaction of the male establishment to the arrival in a murder investigation of a female cop, Mrs Pym. What would Cressida Dick make of it, I wonder?

The story concerns the mysterious deaths of two women, who just happen to have bequeathed substantial sums to a psychical research society. A young newspaper reporter (Nigel Patrick) is sceptical about the psychics, and Mrs Pym (played with gusto by Mary Clare) suspects dark deeds. The mystery is nicely done, and I enjoyed watching it. I'm not suggesting that Morland was a great writer - I suspect he was essentially a journeyman, but there's no shame whatever in that. I get the impression of a hard-working professional who came up with a very good idea, a detective character who really was ahead of her time.  ,

Three Black and White British Crime Films

The Talking Pictures TV channel has given me the chance to watch a fascinating mix of older films, including some old crime movies that until recently were highly obscure. Naturally, the quality varies. Some of the films are "quota quickies", short films produced to make sure that a statutory requirement supposed to foster the British film industry was met. As with so many protectionist measures, it wasn't really a great idea, and it didn't last too long. Some "quota quickies" were poor, others surprisingly good.

Body Vanished, is a very short film from 1939, whose title gives you a clear idea of the storyline. It's a light comedy thriller, with Anthony Hulme cast as a police inspector, whose holiday with a journalist chum is rudely interrupted by a report of a murder. The crime scene is a country house, but the corpse cannot be found. Not at all a bad movie.

Hulme also stars - in more than one role - in a shortish film set in Britain in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Mysterious Mr Nicholson.. A solicitor sends a young female employee out with a will - a rich client has decided to disinherit his wastrel nephew. Alas, by the time she arrives, the client has been murdered. I'm afraid this is a pretty feeble film - at one point, the scriptwriter seemed to give up the unequal struggle, so we're treated to a long scene in a music hall, with a performing dog act that has no relevance to the story. The big twist came as no surprise at all.

Much better is a later film, Girl in the Picture, from 1957, directed by the very competent Don Chaffey. Donald Houston stars as a journalist investigating a cold case - the murder of a policeman. A photograph which shows a girl waving to the driver of a car believed to be that used by the killer, on the very day of the murder, leads him to pursue an ill-assorted pair of villains. There's not a lot of mystery in this one, but the pace is good, and Houston makes the most of his part.

Three Steps in the Dark - 1953 film review

I stumbled across the Talking Pictures TV channel recently, and it's proved to be a real find, featuring plenty of obscure and rather interesting movies. A prime example is a classic whodunit, absolutely in the Golden Age style, and based on a story by a Golden Age writer who deserves to be better known. The film is Three Steps in the Dark, and the writer was Roger East - the pen-name of Roger Burford, who focused on screenwriting after starting off as a novelist.

The film was made in 1953, but it looks very much like something written and made twenty years earlier. It's a black and white film with actors mostly unknown to me, and I wonder if it seemed very dated even when it was made. Apparently it had a limited release and was feared "lost" until quite recently. But I'm really glad that it's been retrieved.

What I don't know is whether East's story was ever published independently, or whether he just came up with the plot and characters, and passed it over to the prolific screenwriter Brock Williams to turn it into a movie. The set-up is highly traditional. A rich and grumpy old uncle summons his family, and his solicitor, to his stately pile, to announce that he's thinking of changing his will. This remarkably stupid plan has the usual, utterly predictable consequences...

I've read enough whodunits of this type to be able to spot the villain, and I did so on this occasion, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment. Yes, this film really is a period piece, but it doesn't outstay its welcome, and the woman detective novelist who solves the puzzle is a rather pleasing character. She reminded me slightly of Louie, wife of East's amateur detective Colin Knowles. East is certainly a writer I'd like to know more about.