The Riverside Murder - 1935 film

Having recorded The Riverside Murder when it was screened by Talking Pictures, I was astonished to find, once I got round to watching it, that the source material was S.A. Steeman's excellent novel Six Dead Men. It has to be said that the script alters the storyline very considerably, and not just because the action is switched to England. But the writing is pretty slick, and that's no surprise, considering that the writer was a good crime novelist in his own right, Selwyn Jepson.

A wealthy financier is murdered by a mysterious gunman, and it soon becomes clear that present at the scene were (at least) two men with a very good reason to kill him. The tontine that features in the original story is, here, turned into a "pact", which means that a number of individuals have motives for murder.

The official detective work is undertaken by affable Inspector Winton (Philip Sydney), aided and abetted by Sergeant McKay (none other than Alastair Sim - apparently this was his first film appearance). But their investigation is interrupted by an intrepid and cheeky young woman who wants to make her name as a crime reporter - this isn't the only film of the 30s to feature such a character, and here she's played by Judy Gunn. Quite a few familiar crime story tropes make an appearance (the threat to take a cop off the case, leading to him to plead for just a few more hours, etc.) But they are handled in a light, entertaining way.

The suspects include one character played by Tom Helmore, who almost a quarter of a century later would make quite an impact as Gavin Elster in Hitchcock's classic Vertigo. The body count rises rapidly as Jepson's script breezes along to a pleasing conclusion. I must say I found it all very enjoyable: a real find.

The Murderer Lives at Number 21

The Murderer Lives at Number 21 is a 1942 film, the directing debut of Henri-George Clouzot, who co-wrote the script with Stanislas-Andre Steeman. I've mentioned Steeman before in relation to his very interesting novel Six Dead Men and the film imports from that book the detective Wens, played by Pierre Fresnay. It's a serial killer whodunit mystery with plenty of comic touches - a remarkable mix, given that the film was made during the German occupation of France.

We learn right away, in a pub scene, that a murderer who leaves the calling card of "Monsieur Durand" is terrorising the city. A vivid Hitchcock-style sequence sees a drunken tramp who has just won a lottery prize becoming the latest victim. Wens is under pressure to solve the mystery, and an aspiring musical comedy actress, played by Suzy Delair, also determines to make her name by finding out whodunit.

Wens is led to a boarding house - No. 21, Avenue Junot - where the murderer appears to live. The occupants are a motley crew, but although the killings continue, Wens finds himself confounded each time he seems close to identifying the culprit. The explanation for the puzzle, when finally revealed, is pleasingly quirky.

Hitchcock himself pointed out that filming a whodunit is very tricky, and Clouzot too would go on to find greater fame with stories that emphasised suspense rather than puzzle plots. But this is an enjoyable film to watch, a period piece that is lively and entertaining from start to finish. The fairly recent DVD version includes an insightful discussion by Ginette Vincendeau, which sets the film in its historical context. I'd like to know more about the collaboration between Clouzot and Steeman. Incidentally, in commenting on my post about Six Dead Men, Xavier Lechard recommended this film warmly. His praise of it was well merited.

Forgotten Book - Six Dead Men

Xavier Lechard, a great expert on Golden Age detective fiction, alerted me to the book which I have chosen to feature today in Patti Abbott’s Forgotten Books series. It is certainly forgotten – in fact, I’d never even heard of it. The title is Six Dead Men, and the author Andre Steeman.

The author was Belgian; he was born in Liege, and he was only 23 when this novel was published in 1931. It won the Prix du Roman d’Aventures that year, and was promptly translated by Rosemary Benet and published in the US. The blurb hails Steeman as ‘the Continental Edgar Wallace’. He never became as prolific, but research on the internet suggests he was pretty successful, and several of his books were the subject of screen adaptations.

The premise is appealing. Six young men have agreed to spend five years seeking their fortunes all over the world, before returning to Paris to share equally their gains. But one by one, they are murdered. Who will be next?

Does this remind you of And Then There Were None? I don’t know whether Agatha Christie read this book, but suffice to say that apart from a few similarities, the books are very different in mood and theme. I enjoyed Steeman’s pacy story, and the tension is built up very well. The plot is full of twists and cleverly done. Of course, there is much that is implausible, but it’s a book that deserves to be much better known. Arguably a real landmark in the genre.