The Bird with the Crystal Plumage - film review

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage marked the debut in 1970 of Dario Argento as a film director. The movie was a big success, and he proceeded to become known as "the Italian Hitchcock", although as he has himself admitted, his output differs from Hitchcock's in many respects - even if both men are Catholics, with an acute sense of sin that is relevant to their work.

I find it interesting that Argento was inspired to write the film in part by Fredric Brown's excellent thriller The Screaming Mimi, and in part by the film The Spiral Staircase, based on a novel by Ethel Lina White. The connection between these works isn't obvious, but it is there for those who want to look for it - rather like well-hidden clues in a mystery.

Tony Musante plays Sam Dalmas, an American holidaying in Rome with his girlfriend Julia (Suzy Kendall). Walking past an art gallery, he sees a bizarre sight - a woman is stabbed after grappling with a leather-clad assailant. His attempt to save her is thwarted, but even so, she survives. The Rome police are investigating a series of killings of women in the city, and Sam forms a bond with the chief detective, while pursuing an investigation of his own.

There are some gripping set piece scenes - for instance when a brutal hitman in a yellow jacket hunts Sam down in a coach park. Some of them are set in darkened rooms, with lights and telephone lines cut - yes, Argento plays around with cliches, but he does so in an arresting way. A soundtrack by Ennio Morricone offers a jaunty bonus to the action, and although the psychological explanation put forward for the crimes struck me as dodgy to say the least, I thought this film - which launched the "giallo" movement of lurid Italian crime films - was very watchable.

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.

Ethel Lina White

The writer I mentioned yesterday as having been born in Abergavenny was Ethel Lina White. It’s fairly safe to say that Ethel’s is not a household name – yet perhaps it should be. For she was the author of the books that sourced two extremely successful films. Some Must Watch became the movie The Spiral Staircase, while The Wheel Spins became one of Hitchcock’s most celebrated films, The Lady Vanishes.

White was born in the Welsh town in 1876. Apparently, her early work was mainly in the short form, and she wrote three non-crime novels, before moving into the genre at the age of 55. She gave up her job in the Ministry of Pensions to write full-time, and the gamble ultimately paid.off.

Her work is (roughly) in the tradition of the American Mary Roberts Rinehart, sometimes unflatteringly known as the Had-I-But-Known school. Her main focus is on women in jeopardy, and in that respect at least, you might say that she was a literary forerunner of fine modern writers such as Nicci French and Sophie Hannah.

Despite the success of some of her novels, others remain obscure, and I’m quite interested in hunting them down. Even though it is very different from Hitchcock’s great film, The Wheel Spins is a very good story. White, who died in 1944, was skilled at building suspense, and although her work is, perhaps inevitably, rather dated, I think she deserves to be better known. She is one of the most successful Welsh crime writers of all time.