Scandal - 1989 film review

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'It may be false, it may be true, but nothing has been proved.' I've loved the theme song from Scandal for a long time - a great collaboration between Dusty Springfield and the Pet Shop Boys which, astonishingly, wasn't nominated for an Oscar - but I'd never seen the film, until the other day, when it was screened by Talking Pictures TV. The film is about the Profumo Affair, which was the biggest scandal in British politics until the still-unfolding story which has been filling the Press recently, and which no doubt will generate plenty of films and TV dramas in years to come.

Scandal is a terrific film, very effectively directed by Michael Caton-Jones and benefiting from a superb cast led by John Hurt (who manages to make the creepy Stephen Ward almost sympathetic) and Joanne Whalley, as Christine Keeler. Ian McKellen is Profumo and Leslie Phillips is Lord Astor, while Bridget Fonda is very good as Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the few people in the case who seems to have profited from it in the long run. The impressive supporting cast includes such excellent actors as Terence Rigby (once of Softly, Softly), Alex Norton (a future star of Taggart), Trevor Eve (Shoestring), Ronald Fraser, Iain Cuthbertson, Britt Ekland, Daniel Massey, and Keith Allen.

The script by Michael Thomas is strong, and although I'm not convinced that Ward was quite as much a victim as the film suggests, it is compelling viewing from start to finish. The story is in many ways an amazing one, but recent events have shown that this calamitous episode in British history did not spell the end of misbehaviour at the heart of the establishment.

Carl Davis composed the music for the film, but the film also makes clever use of pop songs of the era to underpin some of the central themes. Peter Bradshaw, a very good film critic, regarded Hurt's performance in Scandal as his masterpiece, and who am I to disagree?

Len Deighton R.I.P.

I was very sorry to learn of the death of Len Deighton, one of the most influential genre writers of the twentieth century, and someone whom I had the privilege (and I feel that's an appropriate word) and pleasure of getting to know personally.  

The quality of Len’s writing, and the significance of his contribution to espionage fiction (and much else besides) will be discussed extensively in the obituaries. In a future newsletter, I hope to write about his work, but in this post, I’d like to focus on the man himself.

My connection with him came about through the Detection Club. He was always enormously enthusiastic about and supportive of the Club, and Corinne Hitching tells me that over the many years she has been our assistant secretary, Len was invariably one of the first to respond to her emails with a warm message, even though the fact that he lived outside the UK (he had homes in California and Portugal, but his main base was Guernsey in the Channel Islands) meant that he hadn’t been able to join us in person for some years. 

As is well-known, Len eschewed literary and other honours. He is, as far as I'm aware, the only person who has ever declined an invitation to be honoured by the CWA with the Diamond Dagger. However, there was something about the Detection Club and its heritage, and above all the congenial and collegiate nature of our activities, that appealed greatly to him.

Len was elected to membership of the Club back in 1969, when Agatha Christie was President. He had a very entertaining story about reminding her that they’d met once before, when as a BOAC steward, he served her on a flight to the Middle East. At no time in our 96-year history (yes, the Detection Club is one year younger than Len was) has anybody else been a member of the Club for as long as Len.

I first met him at an autumn dinner of the Club at the Savoy. On checking, I find to my astonishment that it was way back in 1994, though I recall it vividly. At that point I’d only published three or four novels, and I was invited as a guest by Robert Barnard, who showed me many kindnesses from the start of my crime writing career and for the rest of his life. Knowing of my admiration for Len’s work, Bob kindly introduced me to him. I had a fine time at that dinner, and met many delightful people, but chatting with Len was undoubtedly a highlight.

Of course, in those days I never dreamed that I’d ever have any further involvement with the Club. Fast forward to 2015. When it was announced that I would succeed Simon as President, Len immediately got in touch with me. He said he wanted to offer congratulations and support, but more than that, he’d like to invite me to lunch next time he was in England so that we could get to know each other better. A very generous offer, to say the least.

Len was, famously, a gourmand, and suffice to say that our lunch wasn't any ordinary lunch. It was at Koffmann's at the Berkeley Hotel and the whole experience exceeded even my high expectations. We spent the best part of four hours chatting together, as Len – who was a great raconteur – reeled off one fascinating anecdote after another. At the end of the lunch, as you can see from the above photo, he wrote personal inscriptions in first editions of his first four books which I'd brought along, just in case he was willing to do so. It was quite incredible. I’ll never forget it. 

Len also gave a wonderful encomium to The Golden Age of Murder. I was, again, hugely grateful for his kindness. There aren't so many authors around who have had a laudatory blurb from one of the greats, and he certainly didn't have to do it. This is what he said:

'You don't have to be a fan of 'whodunits'  to enjoy this amazing story of their creators and their works. Here you will meet the Detection Club; a still existent and somewhat incongruous band of writers. Elected by secret ballot, their lives were seemingly stranger than fiction. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping, true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.

Edwards is widely read and authoritative in his analysis. He probes the psychology of writers and dissects their plots. He provides true murder cases that inspired Christie books and Hitchcock films. Best of all, he provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I found Martin Edwards' 'The Golden Age of Murder'  illuminating and entertaining; what writer could hope for more?'

And what writer could hope for a better quote than that? 

Len contributed to a number of Detection Club books over the years, and when I started work on a volume of stories in tribute to Peter Lovesey, I asked him if he'd be willing to contribute a foreword. He replied at once in the affirmative and his foreword to Motives for Murder proved to be as witty (he took no prisoners where publishers were concerned!) as it was warm.

When we began work on another book to raise funds for the Club, about the art and graft of crime writing - Howdunit - I asked Len (knowing his aversion to the limelight) if he would mind if the book was dedicated to him. He said he’d be thrilled, and that – even though he’d retired from writing fiction long ago – he would be more than happy to contribute. He duly wrote a terrific essay to conclude the book, called ‘Different Books, Different Problems, Different Solutions’, and sent me some fascinating additional material, including some photos that were included in the book.     

After that we stayed in touch mainly by email and occasional notes written in his extremely legible hand. He was very keen to see the Club continuing to flourish. One message came a couple of years ago, when he was in good spirits, He said he was extremely frail, yet extremely well cared for by his wife Ysabele. He said ‘we are very happy in our friendly little island’ (that is, Guernsey) and added: ‘I wish I could see all my old friends. But being 95 has its drawbacks.’

Rest in peace, Len. You were a terrific writer and, even more importantly, a true gentleman.

Forgotten Book - Death in a Domino

Death in a Domino is the American title of a novel originally published in the UK and US in 1932 and now reprinted in the excellent series Stark House Crime Classics. In Britain, the title of the book was It Means Mischief , but there was a more curious change between the British and American editions. Originally, the screenwriter and playwright John Hastings Turner was credited as co-author. But in the American edition, as in the reprint, the sole author named is Roland Pertwee; Turner had to be content with a prefatory note in which Pertwee expressed his gratitude to Turner, 'whose ingenuity helped me over several difficult stiles'. 

This isn't the only example of collaborators in novels of the 1930s finding their role minimised at a later stage; it happened to Robert Eustace and Henry Jellett, who collaborated on novels with high profile detective novelists, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh respectively. Pertwee (1885-1963) wasn't in the same league as Sayers or Marsh, and he only dabbled in the writing of crime novels for a short time, but he enjoyed a long career as an actor, playwright, and screenwriter, and other family members (Bill, Sean, and above all Jon) also achieved success as actors, while his son Michael was a writer.

The story makes use of three classic ingredients of Golden Age detective fiction. The victim is an unpleasant newspaper baron; such characters can be found in quite a few books, among them the Detection Club's Ask a Policeman. There is also a 'murder game', during the course of which an actual murder is committed. And finally, there is a significant false confession.

There are some amusing moments, especially when an elderly general witters on about his passion for fishing. The plot also twists quite nicely, if improbably. I was rather startled by one scene, in which a young woman is persuaded to sniff cocaine; there are plenty of Golden Age stories in which drugs play a part, but I can't immediately recall a scene quite like that. 

The writing style, as befits two screenwriters, is extremely economical. Sometimes the concision comes at the cost of character development, but the pace of the story is, overall, a strong point. The book was filmed (by the great Michael Powell at the start of his career) in 1934 as The Night of the Party, starring Leslie Banks - and both Pertwee and Turner were credited as the writers.

 

Czech Mate - 1984 TV movie

Czech Mate was a feature-film-length episode in the series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, a TV anthology series I didn't watch the series first time around, but it has quite a reasonable reputation and I thought I'd take a look at one of two of the shows. This one was written by Jeremy Burnham, an actor and screenwriter who also has a minor role in the film.

The star is Susan George, an actress whose reputation for glamorous good looks may not have done her too many favours in the long run; I think her acting skills were under-rated, and they were also limited by the roles she was given. One of the merits of Czech Mate is that the role of Vicky Duncan is a good one, and Susan George holds the story together despite some flaws in the script.

At the start of the film, Vicky is greeted outside her home by her ex-husband John (Patrick Mower, who was also a hearthrob in that era). Despite their divorce eighteen months ago, John wants to get back together again. And Vicky, who has just come out of another relationship, succumbs to temptation. He takes her to Prague (although in those Cold War days, the location filming took place in Vienna) before disappearing in mysterious circumstances. With her passport taken, Vicky is at a loss. The police are unsympathetic and she doesn't get enough help from the guy from the embassy (played, incidentally, by Richard Heffer, an extremely pleasant fellow with a strong interest in crime fiction and whom I've had the pleasure of chatting to on several occasions over the past few years).

The story develops along relatively ho-hum lines for quite a while, but I must say that the ending is very good. So good that it deserved a better build-up. It's a long time since Susan George was a box office star, but Czech Mate shows the quality of her acting and that's among the reasons why, despite its weaknesses, it's worth watching.  

The Man Between - 1953 film review

Carol Reed was a first-rate film director and The Third Man (1949) was perhaps his greatest achievement. That is a film I know well, but I wasn't familiar with The Man Between, released in 1953, until recently. This film revisits some of the issues at the heart of his earlier masterpiece, in particular the complexities of life in post-war continental Europe. The setting is Berlin, a divided city.

I first visited Berlin as a student and stayed with a nice family, the Wehmeyers, who had an apartment right next to the Berlin Wall. Occasionally, for instance while having an evening meal, you would hear shots being fired at people trying to escape to the West. It was a surreal and memorable trip, totally fascinating, and the history of Berlin has intrigued me ever since. When I visited many years later and wandered freely around the Brandenburg Gate, something that was impossible on my first visit, it was a truly moving experience.

The Man Between is set at a time before the Berlin Wall was erected, but the tensions between East and West are already apparent, with posters of Stalin everywhere on the East side, and authorities in the East determined to crack down on people trying to get away. Into this tinderbox ventures Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom), who has come to visit her brother Martin (Geoffrey Toone) and his newish German wife Bettina (Hildegard Knef). It soon becomes clear that Bettina has something to hide and that her secret concerns a German called Ivo (James Mason).

Bloom, Knef and Mason are three particularly charismatic and gifted actors, and their performances make the most of the material. The story begins extremely well, but once Bettina's secret is revealed, and Susanne finds herself mixed up with Ivo, the pace does drag a bit. The presentation of war-ravaged Berlin is excellent, and the finale poignant, and although this isn't in the same league as The Third Man, it's a very well-made movie. 

Forgotten Book - Home to Roost

Not long ago, I acquired a copy of Andrew Garve's Home to Roost (1976) and it was working its way up the to-read pile ever so slowly until Jamie Sturgeon happened to recommend it to me. I was conscious that it was Garve's penultimate novel, written when he was coming to the end of a long career, and this made me wonder if it might be a bit lacklustre. Not a bit of it. The story is interesting and definitely 'different'.

The narrator is Walter Haines, who starts with a straightforward but rather enticing opening sentence: 'This is an account of how Max Ryland got himself murdered, and what happened afterwards.'  As Haines says rather disarmingly, the build-up seems a little slow - and this may be what prompted Collins Crime Club, not for the only time, to tell a good deal of the story (too much, I'd say) on the dustwrapper blurb. But Garve writes readably and moves things along at a decent pace, so the extended build-up wasn't a problem for me.

Haines, like his creator, is a journalist who becomes a crime novelist and enjoys success. His work is filmed, as Garve's was. And when he meets the lovely Laura, who becomes his wife, all seems set fair. The snag is that Haines isn't as likeable as one might wish. Laura understandably becomes frustrated and when the couple are befriended by a famous actor, Max Ryland, one thing leads to another, and she becomes Max's lover. And then, as we've expected from that first line, Max winds up dead. But - Walter has an alibi. So he's in the clear. Or is he?   

The plot is unusual and the ending of the story is subtle. One of the online reviews of this book is by that voracious reader and thoughtful critic Kate Jackson. Her thoughts are here, and all I will say is that there is a coded interpretation of the ending which reflects my understanding of the final pages. I liked this book a lot. The sheer variety of Garve's stories was a great strength of his.

Moon - 2009 film review

I've always enjoyed science fiction, although I read and watch much less of it than crime fiction, partly because I must admit that I find a little can often go quite a long way. As a writer, I've dabbled in the genre, and I might well do so again in the future. So when I get the chance to see a well-regarded sci-fi film, I'm happy to take it. And I was pleased to catch up with Moon, a film that dates back to 2009 but which still strikes me as fresh and interesting, with some sharp social points lurking beneath the surface of a well-crafted script by Nathan Parker. The director, by the way, is Duncan Jones - son of David 'Space Oddity' Bowie.

A company called Lunar Industries has prospered by mining helium-3 and sending it back to Earth in canisters to alleviate an energy crisis. Thanks to the use of automation and AI, only one human being is required to be on the Moon to supervise this activity. He is Sam Bell (played by another Sam, Sam Rockwell) and he's coming to the end of his three-year contract.

Sam is looking forward to going back home. He gets video messages from his wife Tess, who was pregnant with their daughter when he went on his mission, but live communication isn't possible because of technical problems. Sam is, however, supported by GERTY, a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey (prior to his well-documented career implosion). Unfortunately, it seems that the lack of direct human contact for so long is having an effect, and Sam begins to experience hallucinations. Things start to go from bad to worse...

There are some good plot twists, so I don't want to say too much more about the film, other than that I enjoyed it. The story unfolds at a fairly good pace, and Sam Rockwell's performance, in a challenging role, is first-rate. He's not an actor I know much about, but I was impressed. If you like sci-fi, Moon is definitely worth watching.

BlackBerry - 2023 film review

I can remember quite vividly a partners' meeting that I attended, perhaps twenty years ago, when a corporate lawyer in my firm waxed lyrical about the virtues of the BlackBerry device. At that time, BlackBerries were much in vogue, and before long we all had one for work use. It seemed so cutting edge...but of course, with technology, the cutting edge soon gets very blunt indeed.

BlackBerry is a 2023 Canadian film, co-written by Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, and directed by Johnson, which charts the rise and fall of the company that made the device. It told me quite a bit I didn't know (although of course, the story has no doubt been significantly adjusted to make it more entertaining) and gave me no reason whatsoever to reconsider my instinctive wariness of tech barons.

The story begins twenty years ago. Two boffins who run a company called Research in Motion, Mike Lazarides and Douglas Fregin (played by Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson himself) pitch a new device which attracts the interest of a hard-nosed businessman, Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). He puts some money into the company and before long, despite a chaotic approach reflected in the cinematography, they come up with the BlackBerry and starting raking in zillions.

All goes well until the arrival of the iPhone. The success story starts to unravel and things go from bad to worse once the authorities start looking into some dodgy stock options. The weakness of the film is that we don't get much insight into the outside lives of the key players. When you're telling a story about living people who aren't short of money, you have to be very careful. But as light entertainment, BlackBerry works fairly well. And I found it almost nostalgic viewing - it's a very long time since my own BlackBerry went to the scrap heap...

The Woman in Cabin 10 - Netflix 2025 film review

Ruth Ware is a very successful writer whose novels of psychological suspense show a real talent for, and commitment to, ingenious plotting. Over the past fifteen years or so there have been many psychological thrillers that are said to have 'a jaw-dropping twist', but in some cases, I find that the finale is quite a let-down. It's one thing to come up with a brilliant premise, something else to deliver a resolution that doesn't disappoint. Ruth Ware's ability to do both is what has put her in the elite. I've never met her in person, but I did once chair an online panel on which she was a speaker, and very good she and her distinguished colleagues were too.

I read her novel The Woman in Cabin 10 several years ago, and now I've had a chance to watch the Netflix version of the book. It's a story that seems to me to be a modern version of the kind of emotional thriller at which Cornell Woolrich used to excel - in books like Phantom Lady. A protagonist comes across someone, who promptly disappears - and everyone else denies that they ever existed. This is a set-up that I love, as long as the explanation works.

The cast is very good. The consistently excellent Keira Knightley plays Lo Blacklock, a journalist invited to join a party on a superyacht owned by billionaire Anne Bulmer, who is terminally ill, and her husband Richard (Guy Pearce). The guests include a doctor played by Art Malik and a chap called Heatherley (David Morrissey). The production, equally, is top-notch.

Lo finds herself in the wrong cabin (cabin 10, next to her own) while trying to avoid her ex, a photographer who just so happens to be on board. In cabin 10, she sees a woman, to whom she apologises before making a hasty exit. But that night, someone goes overboard and Lo is convinced it's the woman in cabin 10. The snag is everyone tells her that cabin 10 was never occupied, and there's no sign of the woman she saw.

The solution to the puzzle, when it emerges, is not totally original, but that's fine - true originality is vanishingly rare. The way the story is presented works well. Of course, some suspension of disbelief is required. But I enjoyed this one. 

    

Forgotten Book - The Unicorn Murders

 'You are on holiday in Paris...There is nothing on your mind, and you are utterly at peace with all the world...Then you see walking towards you a girl you have previously known in England...[who] walks straight up to your table and veryy gravely begins to repeat a nursery rhyme. She then sits down at the table and proceeds to tell you what sounds like the most bewildering gibberish you have ever heard in your life.'

So begins The Unicorn Murders by Carter Dickson, narrated by Ken Blake (also the narrator of The Plague Court Murders) who humours the girl, Evelyn Cheyne, and thus 'became involved in a series of events which can still retrospectively give me a shiver...' It's a tantalising start to an unusual story, which blends a secret service thriller with a cerebral 'impossible crime' problem and plenty of twists in the finest tradition of whodunits.

Sir Henry Merrivale is a former employer of Ken and before long he comes on to the scene. After a series of unlikely events, Sir Henry, Ken, and Evelyn wind up in a French chateau, along with a superstar French detective and a French master criminal. But who is the detective and who is the super-criminal? And how are two murders, apparently inflicted by the horn of a unicorn, actually committed?

This is a complex mystery, so complex that Sir Henry's explanation at the end of the book is necessarily lengthy. But he does tie together all the many strands of a convoluted plot that tests one's suspension of disbelief to the limit. However, I'd say that Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr, of course) just about manages to make it all work, quite an achievement. A rollicking read.