Month: October 2011

EP0526: Barrie Craig: Dead Loss

William Gargan

Barrie is hired to protect a man until his divorce can be finalized.

Original Air Date: October 15, 1952

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Telefilm Review: Appointment with Death (2009)

“Your appointment with death was always to be here…”

In Appointment with Death(2009), Poirot arrives inSyria to follow the expedition of Lord Boyton (Tim Curry), who is searching for the head of John the Baptist. While there, Poirot witnesses Lady Boyton’s unpleasant behavior towards everyone other than her husband and overhears two of her children talking about how she must die.

And die she does. She’s found stabbed to death from her perch in the sun above the excavations where she watched her husband’s team excavating. Poirot is asked to investigate, but there are more secrets being kept by members of the party other than murder. Poirot (David Suchet) must sort through them all to find the real killer.

Review:

The acting in this telefilm is superb. David Suchet is his usual self and is supported by a fantastic cast of supporting players including Curry who has a great scene with Poirot in a cave where the two retell an ancient fable that’s written on the wall. This foreshadows much of the rest of the story and forms a narrative that suggests that no matter how long evil is unpunished, judgment and death finally catch up with the perpetrators.

Suchet was spell-binding in a 23 minute wrap-up of the case in which he deals with all the “red fish” in the case and reveals all.

The story (while not at all faithful to the book it’s supposedly adapting) is compelling and well-written. The teleplay like the later adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is a product of its times, as it focuses on Lady Boyton’s sadistic abuse of her children from childhood to the present, and is in many ways reflective of frustration with the pervasiveness with this sort of behavior and the seeming inability or unwillingness of the courts to punish it.  It is a very dark story, yet the writers do manage to work a few rays of hope into what is a very heavy ending.

Appointment with Death also features stunning cinematography, as well as a powerful soundtrack that makes it a solid mystery.

Of course, as mentioned earlier the film deviates so much from the original novel, it’s barely recognizable. It’s addition of characters, subtraction of characters, change of murder methods and murder motives, change of location has been documented by many sites.

Clearly, Christie fans who complain about the movies have a point as the changes from Christie’s original are extreme. Ideally, if you title a movie by a book title and say it’s an adaptation, the movie should keep to the book. And if you’re going to make something vastly different, it ought to have a different title just as the 1940s Sherlock Holmes movies which borrowed elements from the Arthur Conan Doyle Stories were titled completely different from the canonical Sherlock Holmes stories.

One also has to ask whatever to the cozy mystery series? The original series of one hour Poirot episodes was more genteel, while recent films have taken a more gritty turn. The changes seem to be the result of ratings pressure. Scripted television of any sort is in an endangered species and if a TV show is going to be shot as an expensive period piece, it better draw rating. So far, these grittier Poirots have succeeded as the series has drawn good ratings and been renewed and perhaps will generate interests in the original stories.

Despite its departures from the source material, Appointment with Death is a compelling story in its own right and one of my favorite mystery films of recent years.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0

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EP0525s: Columbia Workshop: Murder in Studio One

Ruth Gordon

A female detective tries to solve a murder in a radio studio in the series 26 by Corwin.

Original Air Date: October 12, 1941

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Mr. Monk’s Top Twenty List, Part Five

Past Posts: 6-10 11-1516-20 and honorable mentions.

We’ve reached the end of our top 20 list. I do have to say that it appears that the second half of Season 2 of Monk was the show at its absolute best as 3 of the top 5 episodes are from that period.

5) Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing (Season 5, Episode 4):

Mr. Monk is blinded while trying to protect an elderly firefighter from his murderer. The great detective finds himself apparently temporarily blinded, which at makes him happy as many of his obsessions, compulsions, and fears are tied to eyesight. He struggles with his blindness, but using his sense of touch, he manages to compensate for it. The episode features an involved mystery with a false ending and a final scene that is perhaps the most thrilling in the entire series.

4) Mr. Monk and the Paperboy (Season 2, Episode 10): Mr. Monk’s paperboy is murderered in an attempt to keep Monk from reading his morning paper. Monk surmises that the cause was stop him from reading the paper lest he discovers a crime. Monk’s challenge isn’t finding a crime, but finding the right one. He solves two unrelated crimes after reading the paper and still hasn’t found the reason for the murder of the paperboy. This is definitely a story of legendary proportions, with some great payoffs.

3) Mr. Monk and the Astronaut (Season 4, Episode 13): Monk faces another impossible murder. This time, Monk identifies the murderer. The problem? He was an astronaut in orbit of the Earth at the time the victim died. Monk is dismissed and underestimated by the astronaut as a weakling who will always back off until Monk begins to close in and the astronaut has to stop Monk from the finding the key evidence. The climatic scene on the airstrip is one of the most memorable and satisfying of the series.

2) Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny (Season 2, Episode 13):
Monk is engaged to find a woman’s kidnapped grandmother in hopes of getting help with his reenstatement case. What Monk finds is a baffling case where as ransom, the kidnappers demand that they provide the homeless a meal and the perpetrators claim to be tied to a radical group from the 1960s. This one is very cleverly plotted and one of the few Monk episodes where there’s no homicide.

1) Mr. Monk and the Three Pies (Season 2, Episode 11): This is the first episode in which we meet Monk’s more ingenusous and more disturbed brother Ambrose whose agoraphobia hasn’t allowed him to leave their house since their father left them and has caused him to save all mail and newspapers for the day their father returns. Monk’s been nursing a grudge because Ambrose missed Trudy’s funeral and never calling or writing Monk afterwards. Ambrose suspects foul play in the disappearance of a neighbor. At the same time, murders are being committed involving people who won the neighbor’s pies at the fair. A great classic mystery puzzle with that perfect blend of comedy and drama.

That brings us to the end of this series and there were many great Monk episodes that didn’t make the cut. Be sure to let me know what you think in the comments.

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EP0525: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Elliot Champion Manner

John Lund

 A warehouse burned down and Johnny and a team of investigators arrive, believing the owner burned it for insurance, but the owner insists that the perpetrator was a man he sent up for embezzlement.

Original Air Date: December 12, 1952

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EP0524: Sherlock Holmes: The Cadaver in the Roman Toga

Sherlock Holmes goes to investigate the case of a man found dead in Toga where there used to be Roman baths.

Original Air Date: November 9, 1947

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EP0523: Let George Do It: Island in the Desert

Bob Bailey

George goes South of the border at the request of a dead Mexican fire insurance investigator and sets out to find why the investigator was killed.

Original Air Date: July 10, 1950

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EP0522: Rogue’s Gallery: Phyllis Adrian Is Missing

Barry Sullivan

Rogue is hired to the find the wife of a lawyer who wants to divorce her.

Original Air Date: June 29, 1947

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EP0521: Barrie Craig: Murder by Threes

William Gargan

William Gargan is hired by a man to find out who is trying to kill his wife, an entrant in a combination beauty and pie baking contest.

Original Air Date: October 8, 1952

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Raiders of the Lost Episodes

Todd wrote in with a question about lost episodes of the radio series, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:

How many episodes of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes exist? This posting says that there maybe another 150 floating around. Is it true?

The Wikipedia article linked states that there are 150 episodes of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (with Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone/Tom Conway) in existence. Is this true? The answer is, “possibly.” On the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio, we played around 90 episodes of that run. In addition to that, I found one episode, “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box” that was so unintelligible and at such bad sound quality I couldn’t play it. I also discovered an intact episode, however it was one part of a six part telling of Hound of the Baskervilles. And I found fragments of a few other episodes with 10-15 minutes of an episode with poor sound quality.

But saying it could be true and saying it is are two different things. Indeed, someone updated the Wikipedia article to state that there was no evidence to back the assertion up (in which case, it would probably make more sense to delete the assertion.) While its true that any number of Sherlock Holmes episodes could exist, the poor sound quality episodes and fragments I’ve found higlights a big barrier to the episodes being listenable or available.

More than half the lost episodes come during World War II with all but one of the rest being pre-World War II. During World War II, the use of aluminum transcription discs was abandoned as aluminum was a vital war material. Instead, glass was used transcription discs and glass discs are far more likely to be damaged, and there’s also a possibility that metal transcription discs were given to various metal drives during the war. Of course, there are shows that ran during World War II that survive in listenable form, so it remains possible that a large number of episodes could have survived, but the odds are against the discs.

If episodes did exist in listenable form that are not available to the public or most collectors, where might they be? They could be either inaccessible or in the hands of people who don’t know what they have.

There are a large number of OTR collectors as well as educational institutions that keep their collections under wraps for a variety of reasons. For many shows, the number of episodes outstanding is quite substantial.

For example, we played the Adventures of the Thin Man, all eight playable and complete episodes in circulation. Dennis at the Digital Deli estimates that he has 30 episodes and that there may be 200-300 episodes in circulation. There are 125 episodes of Nick Carter in circulation online, the Radio Goldindex catalogs the existence of 350. Why might some of these episodes not be available to the public?

1) They don’t that anyone other than fellow collectors care: If you can find one person out of twenty who knows who the Great Gildersleeve or Fibber McGee and Molly are, you’re doing good. The idea that anyone other than fellow collectors care about it may seem odd. In addition, some may have given up the hobby but still have their collection stored.

2) They’re collectors: A g0od collection (regardless of what you’re collecting) has what no one else has. When it comes to radio shows, having programs that no one has or few people have is what makes a collection worthwhile and as long as they’re able to hold on to their collection, they’ll keep what they have under wraps.

3) Concern about Commercialization: Many collectors have been extremely piqued at commercial exploitation of Old Time Radio by OTR MP3 companies that will often take carefully preserved high quality mp3s and downgrade the audio so that they can fit 100 episodes on a $5 CD. It leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many collectors, particularly when you consider that there are some collectors who think the only real way to listen to golden age radio is right off the transcription disc. For people who have spent decades collecting, the shoddy packaging of these recordings is a big discouragement from sharing more.

For those who aren’t collectors, it’s easy to not know what they have. Golden Age radio programs are preserved chiefly on electronic transcription discs and reel-to-reel tape recorders. While the electronic transcription discs look a lot like vinyl records, they won’t play on a normal record player, and hardly anyone has a reel-to-reel tape player.

This means that items can end up in thrift stores, estate sales, or even thrown away with no one knowning what they are. If you happen to stumble on a transcription disc or golden age of radio reel-to-reel tape, contact a local Golden Age radio group or the Old Time Radio Researchers.

Will missing episodes of Sherlock Holmes and other programs be found? Yes, but many will be lost. Dennis at the Digital Deli warns fellow collectors regarding the Thin Man warning that uncirculated episodes of the Thin Man will either be digitized and appear, “or quite frankly they risk being lost forever…Despite everyone’s best efforts, those examples that remain undigitized simply continue to disintegrate or corrode beyond satisfactory recovery.”
A dire warning indeed. So we’ll see what emerges and what will be lost. In the meanwhile, we’ll enjoy the episodes that have surved to modern day.

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Mr. Monk’s Top 20 List, Part Four

Past Posts: 11-15, 16-20 and honorable mentions.

10) Mr. Monk and the Sleeping Suspect (Season 2, Episode 7):

A beautiful woman is murdered by a mail bomb. Monk thinks her brother committed the crime. The problem? The brother Monk identifies has been in a coma for months. This case was a real puzzle as Monk has to find out how the comatose man perpetrated a seemingly impossible murder. In addition to this, with Dr. Kroger out of town, in lieu of therapy, Monk talks out his problems with the still comatose suspect.

9)   Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa (Season 4, Episode 9): At an office Christmas Party, poisoned wine that was sent to Captain Stottlemeyer. The episode is clearly the best of the four Monk Christmas episodes with a right mix of mystery, comedy, and sentiment.

8 ) Mr. Monk and Dale the Whale (Season 1, Episode 4): Dale “the Whale” Biederbeck appears to be “the guy” in the killing of a woman as witnesses claim to have seen the 800 pound man in the house of a murdered woman on the night she was killed, but the bed-bound Biederbeck couldn’t possibly have even gotten through the doorway.

Biederbeck is a personal enemy of Monk’s, vindictive and spiteful. He sued Trudy over an unflattering article and sent the Monks into bankruptcy.

The way Monk solves the case is genius as was the case with most of the Monk episodes. The denoument is somewhat reminiscent of Poirot particularly when Monk says the phrase, “A very fat man.”

I should add that this isn’t the last that the series would see of “Dale the Whale.” Appeared twice more and in each of three appearances, he was played by a different actor.  So fans can compare their favorite. Tim Curry’s version was mine.  Dale  always seemed to know more about Trudy’s death than he let on, and had a mix of power, cunning, and ruthlessness working for him. It always seemed to me that the writers could have done more with him than they did.

7) Mr. Monk and the End (Season 8, Episode 15 and 16): There’s much to like about Mr. Monk and the End. First of all, it actually gives Monk’s story an ending. This itself is rare in detective fiction. Historically, this is very rare for detective series. Think about the Columbo or The Rockford Files and you realize that the detective show typically goes out unplanned with a whimper.

In the course of investigating a murder at the same place he’d been when he learned at Trudy’s death, Monk gets too close for comfort to finding his wife’s killer, who orders Monk killed. The assassin poisons an item in Monk’s grocery cart.

The doctor informs Monk that the poison will kill him in a matter of days and that not only had someone tried to murder Monk, but that they may have succeeded.  The doctors can develop an anti-toxin if they can find the source of the poison in time.

The police set out to find Monk’s killer before it’s too late. When hope appears to be lost, Monk finally discovers a clue to the identity of Trudy’s murderer, but is it too late? Will Monk run out of time before the killer does?

The overarching plot of the two part episode is a great homage to that Noir Classic, DOA which features a hero (played by Edmond O’Brien) who has been  murdered with luminous poisioning and seeks to find the killer before the poison runs its course.

“Mr. Monk and the End” has moments of high-level dramatic intensity and while there’s not a whole lot of mystery in this story, Monk does some fancy deduction at the end.

The show also had some very comedic moments as well, particularly when Monk is told about the poison and its effects:

Dr. Shuler: You’re gonna feel normal for a while. And then there’s gonna be some vomiting, followed by death.
Monk: Vomiting?
Dr. Shuler: That’s right. Followed by death.
Monk: Vomiting.
Dr. Shuler: Yes. Followed by death.
Monk: Vomiting!
Dr. Shuler: Adrian, I really need you to focus on the last part of that sentence. There’s gonna be some vomiting and then death.
Monk: Is there any chance death could come before the vomiting?

There are a few points to criticize the episode on. What became clear from watching the episode, it seemed to me that the writers really hadn’t thought of who’d killed Trudy and that over the course of the show they threw out random clues (“the six fingered man,” “the judge,”)  and in this episode had to find some way to come to a coherent conclusion. They succeeded mostly, but had they had more of an idea as to the who and why of Trudy’s murderer, it would have flowed a bit better.

I did appreciate how they brought most of the characters (Disher, the Captain, Monk) to some point of change in their lives, but their effort to insert a love interest for Natalie into the story with no foreshadowing in prior episodes (as happened with Disher and the Captain) was clunky.

One criticism I’ve read of the episode is that some think the actual reason for Trudy’s murder was too “soap operaish.” Some would hope that the reason for the murder would be something big like a corporate scandal or a political cover up rather than something personal. Without giving away the ending, I’ll say that I understand why the writers chose to play it the way they did.  They’re ultimate goal with the ending was not just to wrap up Monk’s case, but to give a satisfying change in direction to Monk’s life. Mere vengeance or catching the bad guy wouldn’t do that.  The way they wrote this episode was a master stroke and a fitting end to the 21st Century’s best detective, complete with a new Randy Newman song written especially for the end.

6) Mr. Monk and the Billionaire Mugger (Season 1, Episode 7): A mugger jumps out with a knife to rob a man. The man promptly shoots him in self-defense. A uniformed police officer is seen fleeing the scene. When its revealed that the mugger is a billionaire and the media begins talking down the department for the actions of “Fraidy Cop,” Monk is called in.

The episode was both uproariously  funny and at the same time, a classic mystery puzzle.

Next week: the top 5.

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EP0520: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The James Clayton Matter

John Lund

A doctor tells Johnny that he advised a patient to divorce her husband, and his life is now in danger from the irate husband

Original Air Date: December 5, 1952

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EP0519: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

A young governess turns to Holmes when she receives an unusual offer of employment.

Original Air Date: November 2, 1947

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EP0518: Let George Do It: Scream of the Eagle

Bob Bailey

A woman appears claiming to be an heiress that’s been long thought to be dead. The one man who can identify her for sure  is murdered.

Original Air Date: July 3, 1950

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EP0517: Rogue’s Gallery: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Murder

Dick Powell

Rogue is hired by a miserly old woman to find out who stole her will. It becomes a murder case when Rogue finds her dead.

Original Air Date: July 14, 1946

Quote of the show: “”Every nerve in my head was doing the highland fling to the tune of the anvil chorus.”

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