Category: Golden Age Article

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Blu-ray Review: 4-film Collection

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This Warner Archives collection features four Noir films of different sorts.

One note on the quality of the set. I ordered this set twice. The first time I watched the first film and it was fine. I waited a few weeks to watch the second and all the remaining disks were bad and I was past the return window. Then the next time, the second and third films played fine but the fourth was unwatchable and I was once again past the return window. Given that this happened with two sets in row, it’d be critical to check all disks before watching. Now onto the films.

Murder My Sweet (1944): This was an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel Farewell, My Lovely. It stars Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe. The film allowed Powell to transition from the light musical comedy roles that defined his early career into the more hardboiled and serious roles that he played for the rest of his career. Powell turns in a superb performance that captures the character perfectly. I don’t think there’s been a better on-screen Marlowe.

Powell’s supporting cast is superb as well. Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley are great as the female leads. Mike Mazurki is superb as the towering thug Moose Malloy. Malloy is terrifying but not entirely unsympathetic. This was the result of some smart changes from the book.

Beyond, the movie has some good camera work and solid incidental music. It’s easily my favorite film in the set.

Out of the Past  (1947) stars Robert Mitchum as private investigator Jeff Balley, who has gone into hiding and running a gas station after crossing a sinister client (Kirk Douglas).

Out of the Past has a lot of twists and turns. At first, I thought it might be a story centered on a flashback like The Killers, but there are plenty of past and present activities that really build suspense. Kirk Douglas hadn’t yet become a superstar, but he’s marvelous, providing equal measures of charm and menace. Jane Greer is great as the femme fatale who really drives the action in the film.

Gun Crazy (1950) is about a troubled young man (John Doll) who is a great marksman but afraid of killing anyone. He marries a woman (Peggy Cummins) who’s already killed, someone. while both are working at the circus. Together they spend his life savings on their honeymoon and then she leads him into a life of crime.

The acting was good and there were some really superb moments from a technical standpoint. I had trouble getting into this one because I thought the premise and some of the psychology were a little too contrived. Still, I can see why it’s viewed as a Noir classic. It just wasn’t for me.

The Set-Up (1949) is a boxing film, but different than many others. The focus of most famous boxing films is huge prize fights that go fifteen rounds with the championship of the world at stake. The Set-Up is about pro boxing in a more seedy part of town. The central story is about a three-round fight fought by an over-the-hill boxer (Robert Ryan) with a losing record. His cornermen agree their guy will take a dive for a local gambler without even cutting their boxer in for a cut of the $50 bribe or telling him he’s supposed to take a dive because they’re so sure he’ll lose, but what if he doesn’t?

There’s so much to like about this film. This is one of those films that really works to make its location feel like a real place. There are so many realistic touches to make this feel like a real arena and give the viewer the impression they’re seeing what boxing is like for all the pro-fighters who never quite make the top tier.  The acting is realistic and adds to the atmosphere the film’s trying to establish.

While I think all of these films look good., this one may be my favorite from an artistic perspective. One thing the movie really went for was capturing how bloodthirsty fans could be at a match and they really excelled themselves in that.

It’s also the shortest film in the collection (at only 72 minutes) which leads to a very pacey film that doesn’t waste any time in crafting a compelling narrative. While it wasn’t my favorite film in the collection, this may be the best one.

Overall, if you love noir movies from this era, this is well worth getting. Do watch out for discs that don’t work, but other than that this is a collection of superb exemplars of American noir films.

Rating:4 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: George Edwards’ Les Miserables, Volumes 1 and 2

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Radio Archives often comes up with unique offerings that separate it from other old time radio sellers. Such is the case with its two-volume release of the Australian serial adaptation of Les Miserables by Australian actor/producer George Edwards.

Transcription disks of the fifty-two episode 1949 serial are not in general circulation, so this has been a treat that has not been heard in decades.

The sound quality is immaculate and I expect nothing less from this company. Radio Archives has consistently shown a talent for bringing these golden age treasures to listeners in sound quality that exceeds what most original listeners heard over the radio.

The classic story follows Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who spent nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread and for subsequent escape attempts. On his release, Valjean is forced to carry a yellow passport that causes would-be employers and landlords to repel him, but his life is changed forever by the kindness of a bishop.

Les Miserables is a massive work with a giant cast of characters and no adaptation can capture everything. Still, the story seemed to get most of the essential and best-known elements of the novel and makes it fit into the serial format. Episodes five and six are missing from the collection, but I didn’t really feel I missed much by their absence. Episode four ends just after Valjean’s encounter with the Bishop and episode seven starts just after Valjean has become mayor of a small town under an assumed name. Even basic familiarity with the story kind of allows you to fill in the blanks and Valjean himself summarizes important details.

The story does take a few twists noticeably different from the book, and ends in a very different way, which may offend literary purists, but is nevertheless is still a reasonably satisfying ending to the story.

There were a couple moments I questioned in this. Given the limited time for the adaptation, it was odd that the story includes both Valjean as a prisoner showing a feat of strength and Inspect Javert having a flashback to that exact same scene a few episodes later. A little bit of exposition or a shorter flashback would have provided economy and more time to expand the story. Or they could not have shown the scene at all the first time, since we were going to have Javert remember.

The sound design and music on the production is, for the most part, standard and competent in a way that you’d expect from a production of the era. It uses similar themes and musical bridges over and over again. But there are also some high points in the series that really are brought home by some really outstanding musical arrangements.

The unnamed cast is solid. There’s not a weak performance in the entire company. The actor who plays Inspector Javert delivers the best performance. He brings out Javert’s manic madness in a way that’s captivating. He makes every ridiculous, mad step Javert takes in the story completely believable. In another context, the performance might be over the top, but this actor nailed the performance and captured the character of Javert in a way that really elevates the entire production.

Radio Archives released the set in two volumes. The first collected episodes one through four and seven through twenty-seven. The second volume collected volumes twenty-eight through fifty-two.

If you’ve listened to and enjoyed other George Edwards serials such as The Adventures of Marco Polo or if you’d just like to hear a fresh serialized take on Les Miserables, this is a collection worth listening to.

Radio: 4.5 out of 5

Volumes 1 and 2 of Les Miserables are available to purchase as downloads on the Radio Archives websites.

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: The Glass Key

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The Glass Key was a 1931 novel by Dashiell Hammett (best known for The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man.) The story follows Ned Beaumont, a gambler and the chief lieutenant and best friend of town’s corrupt political boss Paul Madvig. Madvig has been calling the shots in his town for many years but now is facing challenges. Madvig plans to endorse a Senator who had been previously been Independent of him but figures he can only survive with Madvig’s support. However, everything gets complicated when the Senator’s son is murdered and signs point to Madvig as the culprit.

The mystery in the story is one of the better plots from Hammett. The clues are well-placed. A fair play purist can go through the book and find everything laid out but not in a way that’s very obvious. It’s well-plot and well-paced, making for a solid reading experience.

As a protagonist, Beaumont is actually very interesting. He’s neither a policeman or a professional detective, but he thinks on his feet, is bright, and generally makes smart moves throughout the book. He is, at best, a morally gray character who works in the furtherance of a corrupt political machine. Yet, he has a couple of virtues that do make him appealing. Chief among them is his personal loyalty.

We”re told that Madvig had help Beaumont out of the gutter when he’d come to town and Beaumont has never forgotten that. He tries to help Madvig often in spite of the political bosses instinct.The Glass Key portrays Madvig as a political boss in decline. It’s not that Madvig doesn’t possess political capital, but rather that it’s dwindling. Beaumont spots mistakes and pitfalls of Madvig’s attempts to maintain his power and tries to warn him. When Madvig refuses to pay attention, Beaumont decides to clear out of town. However, he refuses to provide information to a rival political boss that could be used against Madvig even though it leads to Beaumont being beaten and hospitalized.

Beaumont decides to staon on to clear up the murder of the Senator’s son but finds Madvig as an impediment to resolving the issue. Is Madvig really behind the killing? The book really toys with us right until the last few chapters and a surprising reveal.

The book’s only weakness is that the characters are almost completely unremarkable beyond Beaumont and Madvig. There’s no Casper Gutman or Joel Cairo in this book. Just a pretty run-of-the-mill bunch of underworld characters, society people, and non-descript political figures.

Beyond that weakness, this book is a gem of a mystery and well worth reading for fans of hard boiled fiction.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0

 

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

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The Hound of the Baskervilles is like the Christmas Carol. You don’t watch or listen to an adaptation to find out what happens but to see how well the creators have captured the story. Big Finish does a superb job of capturing the spirit of the Hound of the Baskervilles in a very traditionalist adaptation. Amazingly, the entire program was recorded and rehearsed in a single day.

The cast is wonderful. Richard Earl has got the part of Watson nailed and that’s vital since most of the story centers around him. John Banks and Charlie Norfolk did Yeoman’s work, playing five parts and three parts respectively. They did it so seamlessly, I didn’t know they didn’t have separate actors for each part until I listened to the Extra’s CD. Samuel Clemens is very compelling as Sir Henry Baskerville. And of course, Nicholas Briggs is great as Holmes.Of course, what makes the piece so atmospheric over audio is the sound design and music, coupled with Earl’s narration and they did an incredibly good job in post-production. It captured the spookiness and suspense of the story. Overall, Big Finish does Doyle’s most legendary story justice in a superb adaptation.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0

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A version of this review was posted in 2015

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

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A version of this review was posted in 2012.

The Hound of the Baskervilles marked Sherlock Holmes return to literature after he was killed off by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Final Problem” eight years previously. Doyle had not yet brought Holmes back to life. This story was set prior to “The Final Problem.”

Sir Henry Baskerville is the heir of his late uncle Charle’s Estate. However, his uncle passed away under mysterious circumstances and one of Sir Charles’ friends, Dr. James Mortimer comes to Holmes to ask for assistance. Local legend is that Sir Charles was killed by a ghostly hound that haunts the moor to avenge the sins of one of the Baskerville ancestors. Mortimer confides to Holmes that he found a hound’s footprint at the scene of the death.

Intrigued, Holmes takes the case, and the case gets more interesting when Holmes spots a man following them in London and someone steals one of Sir Henry’s boots. Surprisingly, Holmes doesn’t go to Dartmoor, but sends Watson to investigate and report his finding to Holmes.

Watson finds strange goings-on: suspicious-acting servants, a dangerous convict on the moor, and of course, the legend of the hound.

This remains the most oft retold Holmes story and a pioneering mystery story that has been ripped off repeatedly over the years. While it’s a Holmes story, with Holmes absent from the main action for about half the book, it gives Watson a chance to shine and show his intelligence and resourcefulness.

Despite its popularity, I didn’t enjoy this as much as The Sign of Four. However, this is a matter of taste. The Sign of Four was an action-packed thriller while Hound of the Baskervilles relied much more on a build-up of suspense. This one builds slowly and in a less skillful hand, it would have been easy for The Hound of the Baskervilles to become boring, but Doyle sensibly used Watson’s reports to Holmes and Watson’s diary entries to avoid bogging the story.

Overall, the Hound of the Baskervilles deserves its reputation as a true detective fiction classic.

Rating: 4.75 out of 5.00

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Saint Double Feature

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Editor’s Note: A version of this review was posted in 2014.

In 1941, George Sanders left the role Simon Templar in the Saint series and was replaced by Hugh Sinclair.

The contrasts between Sanders and Sinclair is pretty striking.  For Sanders, the Saint was an early highlight of a career that would see him earn parts in A pictures and even earn an Academy Award. For Sinclair, this was as good as it got.  Sinclair just didn’t have the presence that Sanders did, and so both of his Saint films were below Sanders best stories. Though both films were better than Sanders subpar The Saint’s Double Trouble.  

The Saint’s Vacation (1941)  is the better of the two films and truthfully above average when compared to most 1940s B detective features. The Saint is on vacation and gets involved in international intrigue over a music box that serves as the stories Macguffin. It’s not an original idea, but the execution of it in this film is pretty enjoyable. The end is somewhat frustrating and drawn out particularly since we never get to find out what exactly the hubbub was about other than that it was a Macguffin.

The Saint Meets the Tiger  (1943) is based on the first Saint Novel and finds the Saint on the trail of international gold smugglers. Most of the movie is a little boring and hard to follow, so it’s a bit below average. However, at the end of the movie, we get a madcap scene where the Saint’s sidekick and girlfriend are knocking people out aboard a ship really livens things up.

So in short,  the two films are almost mere images of each other. The Saint’s Vacation is an above average film that’s pretty interesting in the beginning but is bogged down by a slow ending. The Saint Meets the Tiger is a below average film that’s propped up by an ending that’s a lot more fun than the film itself.

Overall, I’d give the DVD 3.0 out of 5.0 and recommend it only for Saint completists at its retail price.

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Death on the Nile

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Editor’s Note: A previous version of this review was posted in 2014.

The plot of Death on the Nile is familiar to me. In the past,  I’ve reviewed the Ustinov big-screen version and the David Suchet version.   Recently, I was pleased to enjoy the BBC Radio 4 version.

It can seem odd to listen to, watch, and experience a mystery multiple times because to the viewer or listener, it’s no longer a mystery. We know whodunit and we know why. Yet, there are some stories that are so compelling that the stories never get old. And that’s definitely the case with Death on the Nile. 

The plot has Poirot (John Moffat) on vacation in Egypt and stepping smack into the middle of a huge drama.  Simon and Linnet Doyle are on their honeymoon being staked by Jacqueline, Simon’s former fiancee who he jilted in order to marry Linnet, who was Jacqueline’s far richer best friend. Poirot sees trouble coming and tries to head it off, warning Jacqueline not to let evil into her.  However, the tragedy occurs when Linnet is murdered with Jacqueline’s gun. However, Jacqueline didn’t do it as she had just attempted to kill Simon and had panicked and was staying with a nurse at the time Linnet died.

The good news for Poirot is that the boat is full of potential suspects or at the very least, people who have their own secrets to hide.  Thus Poirot has to sift through an amazing array of lies to find what really happened.

While you listening to the radio adaptation, you may miss the stunning visuals that defined the television and film adaptations, I think that the radio version may have been the best at capturing the emotional conflicts at the heart of Death on the Nile. The pacing is very deliberate. It was aired as a five-part drama, and the first murder didn’t occur until the end of part three. They really did a great job setting up the situation and the characters. The interactions between Poirot and Jacqueline are priceless, and the resolution to the secondary storylines add a more positive counterbalance that makes this enjoyable.

Death on the Nile is a great story that brings home the brilliance of the murder and the tragedy of the perpetrators in a way that captures the imagination and makes this a must-listen-to Poirot adaptation.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5.0

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Back on Murder

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Editor’s Note: A version of this review was posted in 2013.

For Roland March, it’s pretty simple, either he’s going back (to being homicide detective) or he’s going out (as in completely out of the Houston PD) March made headlines seven years before when he solved a sensational murder, but the high expectations caused by the publicity of the case combined with a personal tragedy led to a decline in his work where he’s on one dead-end assignment after another, most regularly working a sting where police capture stupid wanted felons lured into the open with the promise of winning a free car contest.

March makes some keen observations at scene of the murder of an inner-city drug dealer. March believes that the murder is tied into a nationally covered disappearance of a teenage girl. He goes against orders to look into the angle and gets yanked off the case and on to the task force looking into the disappearance, another dead end. Can March somehow parlay his hunches, uncover the secrets of a group of crooked cops, and stay alive so that his career and life get back on track.

The writing is top notch. March is a fantastic character with his own set of inner demons. March’s narration varies from hard-boiled wry cop sarcasm to poignancy, to vivid and powerful word images that paint as clear a picture of 21st Century Houston as Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe’s stories did of 1940s Los Angeles. The character does change as the story goes on. He becomes more of a team player. At the beginning of the book, his focus is really on him: The quest to get back into Homicide. As his focus shifts to the case at hand, actually getting his man leads to real cooperation.

The mystery is a clever tangled web of intrigue that intersects with crooked cops, with honest efforts to help others, and an old rival of March’s that won’t go away. Really, everything ties together in the end and the clues are solidly laid out.

The last quarter and the last sixth of the book in particular do suffer a bit of a slowdown with more fizzle than sizzle. Bertrand made the dubious decision to fill in a bunch of back story details towards the end of the book as we were closing in on the killers and a hurricane kills not one by two birds for our hero. These are minor issues given how good the rest of the book was.

Overall, I enjoyed the book immensely and will be watching for the next book in the series.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Streaming Review: The Hardy Boys, Season One

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The latest Hardy Boys series was released in December 2020 by Hulu and in the Spring of 2021 on YTV in Canada. The series itself was filmed in Canada.

The Plot 

The Hardy brothers: Sixteen-year-old Frank (Rohan Campbell) and twelve-year-old Joe (Alexander Elliott) live in “The City” (No word on whether they’ve ever met The Tick). Their world is shattered when their mother is killed.

Their detective father (James Tupper) decides the best possible thing he can do is to dump the boys on his wife’s sister Trudy (Bea Santos) in his wife’s hometown, so he can go investigate a case that relates to his wife’s killing. The hometown is dominated by their mother’s estranged mother Gloria Esterbrook (Linda Thorson, The Avengers) and she has plans of her own for Frank and Joe. Frank and Joe begin to find what they believe to be clues to their mother’s death.

What Works

In my initial review of the first episode, I was not happy that the show’s creators saw fit to back away from the typical close ages that Frank and Joe share in the books, but I can’t help but feel the age gap works.

In the books, Frank and Joe are essentially peers. Frank’s a Senior, Joe’s a Junior, and that’s about it. By putting four years between them, they do a lot of things. They more easily have the two go to separate locations. They each have their own distinct friend group, with Joe particularly close to the adopted daughter of a local police lieutenant Biff Hooper (Riley O’Donnell) The decision also adds a level of drama and conflict between the brothers that you just don’t get in the books. So for a series like this, I can look back and see they made the right decision.

The era of the series is not discussed but it’s clear it’s set before the Internet which makes for a lot more interesting adventure. They have to actually find out things rather than ask Google or search an app. They can’t just be called on a cell phone. Watching this series makes you realize how hard our device-saturated world makes the work of the writer.

The story also does have some consequences and dwell on things that were rarely addressed in the kid’s mysteries I saw. Frank, Joe, and their friends tell lies and deceive a lot of people, including the local police, in order to continue their investigation. There are consequences to this that do pay out and they have to deal with these consequences. Also, Fenton leaving his grieving boys alone for weeks on end is also called out.

In that vain, I think Trudy’s an interesting character. In years past, she’d be the typical clueless adult that the Hardy Boys would run rings around. While initially she fills that bill, she’s not a fool and while she’s not a detective, you don’t have to be one to figure out the Hardy Brothers are hiding something. The way her character is handled is interesting as well as who she is by the end of the story.

Linda Thorson is always a delight and her performance as Gloria Esterbrooke is intriguing. Esterbrooke is written as a character you’re not supposed to figure out what exactly she’s up or or where she stands, and Thorson’s performance is pitch perfect. She makes every scene she’s in better.

The mystery itself has some good twists and intriguing elements that definitely keep the guessing going. Also compared to the storyline of the Nancy Drew TV series, this series didn’t go near as dark.

What Doesn’t Work

With a single storyline for a kids/teen show told over thirteen forty-five minute episodes, this series is too long. While there are some interesting features of this series as we talked about above, the major approaches to the making the series last longer is padding out the story or making it more convoluted than it needs to be.

The great example of both points is the effort by Frank’s grandmother to recruit him into an elite private school. This is a huge focus of Gloria’s efforts for several episodes, quite a bit of time spent there by Frank and the story goes….nowhere. It’s a tedious plot point that’s given so much airtime because we’ve got more than nine hours of story time to fill.

It’s also what we’re told the stakes of the adventure might be. A typical kids mystery will have the kids save a town or a farm. By the end of this, the fate of all humanity hinges on what three guys found in a cave near a small town and what the Hardys do about it. And because this plays into the solution, the solution to the mystery is also ludicrous.

That’s just ridiculous and what’s even more ridiculous is having the kids go around and enroll in school (because Fenton’s long absence pressed through Summer.) Then there’s the question of which girl Frank likes, is it Callie or the new girl at school? These sort of questions are trivial when the fate of the world is at stake. As it is, these just get added to the padding and there’s a lot of it.

Of course, it would be fair to point out that by its nature, the story is not made for me. However, it’s hard for me to imagine Generation Z and Generation Alpha being into a padded thirteen episode series that’s set when their parents were kids.

The Hardy Boys wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. It teased a second season, which is coming, but I have no interest in seeing it. I could see some parents thinking this might be a good way to introduce their kids to detective stories, but I think there are better options. The series was set in the 1980s and 90s and was so authentic to the era that it could have been released then. There are a good number of kid-based detective TV shows and movies that were made in this era that are better than the Hardy Boys and available on DVD.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Red Panda Adventures, Season Eleven

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With the end of Season Ten of The Red Panda Adventures, The Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel retired and are thought dead by the general public. Toronto has a new protector, so what exactly is left for Season Eleven? Six lost stories occurred between the Adventures of the Red Panda that we heard on audio.

Each episode has a framing device that sets up a look back at a never-before-told story. It’s a fun format that doesn’t carry the weight of trying to fit into the ongoing arcs of the previous seasons. The adventures are fun and imaginative and most tended toward the pre-war era for the Terrific Twosome of Toronto which had a nostalgic effect. My favorite episode was Twas the Night Before in which the young son of the Red Panda and the Flying Squirrel tells a story of the Red Panda and how he encountered Santa Claus. It’s easily the best Christmas episode Decoder Ring Theater ever produced and fun.

If I had one complaint, it was that a few framing stories seemed to be related and that they were all going to tie together with our heroes taking some (out of costume?) action but alas they weren’t going anywhere. Still, I’m not certain how much of that’s Taylor’s fault and how much it’s mine for having the expectation.

Overall, this is a nice little encore for the Red Panda and Flying Squirrel whose past adventures continue to be explored in comics and audiobooks.

Rating for the Series: 4.25 out of 5

Overall Thoughts on the Series:

The Red Panda Adventures was a cleverly structured series. The series has ongoing plot arcs throughout its run. Gregg Taylor was clever in the show’s early run with the way each series would seemingly be episodic but would also be setting up future events, such as the Red Pandas encounter with the Nazis before World War II, hints of magic influences that would culminate in the Occult War, and the mysterious disappearance of former Red Panda operative during the latter part of the War, which would be a big concern for the Flying Squirrel during Season Nine and paid off in Season Ten.

As a pastiche to mystery men and shows like the Green Lantern and the Shadow, it’s unparalleled. In one way, Taylor improved on these old radio programs and pulps. In the original stories from the golden age, these characters never aged, but did change to meet the needs and demands of wartime. Taylor gave his characters life. They changed and evolved. The Red Panda had an era of dominance and an apex of power that waned, giving way to the age of costumed and caped superheroes that succeeded him. It’s a good solid character journey through an exciting era.

Taylor’s stories used pulp-style stories of monsters, crime, and horror, but also was clearly influenced by later works as well, as Marvel and DC stories, along with Science Fiction franchises clearly were an influence that Taylor managed to translate back to his golden age setting.

The acting was good. Often over the top, but that’s  what the series called for and it did a good job delivering it. The series had a recurring ensemble cast that made it possible to bring Taylor’s vision of the Toronto of the 1930s and 1940s to life.

The show’s biggest consistent problem was its weak sound effects. These weren’t “cheesy like the old days.” In the old days on radio, they had sound effects men who could have produced much higher quality effects when the Shadow was on the air then were included in The Red Panda. The best thing that could be done to improve the series is remastering it with better effects. The series mostly avoids moments that call for big effects, but I can’t recall a single time a big effect landed.

Some ideas developed during the series weren’t fully explored. Taylor introduced characters featured only once, such as a new butler whose memory wasn’t wiped and the Flying Squirrel’s mother moving in to take care of the baby or different new superheroes or villains. The limits of the series left a lot of interesting ground unexplored.

The series also could try a bit too hard with modern-thinking characters existing in the 1930s and 1940s. But it never took itself too seriously, which makes such efforts clumsy but inoffensive.

Overall, The Red Panda Adventures is not only a pioneering series in the new world of original podcast audio dramas, but it also manages to capture the spirit of programs like The Shadow and the old pulp magazines and find new ways to make them fun for a modern audience. It overcomes its weak sound effects through well-plotted and interesting series and continues its legacy in books, audiobooks, and comics.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

 

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: The Mountains Bow Down

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FBI Agent Raleigh Harmon is on an Atlanta Cruise, officially on-vacation but working as a consultant on a direct to DVD film  It stars a washed up Hollywood actor as an FBI agent. When the actor’s wife commits suicide, Raleigh investigates.

The mystery itself is a solid and well-thought out. The setting of an Alaskan cruise offers some great opportunities for atmosphere. The C-list Hollywood personalities likewise have good angst and conflicts . As usual, writer Sibella Giorello has done some great research that makes the mystery feel intriguing but grounded. There’s some superb misdirection and a solution that’s not immediately discernible.

The book is not without problems. I enjoyed the first three Raleigh Harmon mysteries, but I found this a frustrating read in the early going. Her internal mean girl monologues in the first section of the book seemed way off for Raleigh.

Raleigh did things that did not make sense. She got engaged to her old boyfriend and flew thousands of miles from home despite them having very little chemistry in the first books. In addition, Raleigh’s mother has had mental health problems and Raleigh fears if her mother ever finds out she’s an FBI agent she’ll have a mental breakdown. Thus, it must be kept from her at all costs. So Raleigh brings her on a cruise where she’s working on a project that’s based on her FBI agent. And she also brings along her mom’s sister and her sister’s flaky psychic friend who also know she’s with the FBI. What could go wrong?

Also, the story seems to be setting up a Seattle field agent as her ideal love interest under the theory, if you find someone utterly loathsome, they’re really the one for you. Her language and internal monologue about this agent are over the top. It feels like Giorello has things she wants to do with Raleigh and her supporting cast and is determined to do set these things up no matter what. It’s contrived in a way that I found annoying.

Once the book focuses on the mystery, the book is fine. It’s a good puzzle. However, a less contrived plot would have done it a world of good.
Rating 3.5 out of 5

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Philo Vance Murder Case Collection

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This DVD collection features six Philo Vance different Philo Vance movies starring six different actors. The films were released between 1929 and 1940 and includes Vance films that Warner Brothers either made or has the right to distribute.

The Bishop Murder Case

This film was released on New Year’s Eve in 1929, thus some sites state it was released in 1929 while others say 1930. It starred a mustached Basil Rathbone as Philo Vance a decade before he played Sherlock Holmes. He investigates the murder of a young man nicknamed Cock Robin. It’s the first in a series of a nursery-rhyme related crimes.

For the era, this isn’t a bad film. Basil Rathbone turns in a great performance and has a great sense of warmth as Vance in the same way he’d bring it to Holmes in a decade. The mystery has some interesting clues. A relatively young Roland Young also turns in a solid performance. James Dolan plays the obligatory dumb cop in Sergeant Heath. He is constantly shown up and plays the fool, but at least he’s an affable fool.

The mystery also has some interesting features, but it’s one of those mysteries where the detective doesn’t look as clever as the film thinks he is due to the sheer body count needed for him to solve the case.

It’s still an early talky and that brings some inherent flaws you have to adjust for. Many actors haven’t figured out how to deliver their lines in a film and give broad theatrical performances. The sound has weird moments as there are odd volume variations, the film has extremely wonky camera work and some weird angles. It also drags because it didn’t know when scenes should start and end, so there are some meaningless seconds (which add up over the course of a movie) in which actors are, in effect, standing around with no real purpose. Filmmaking would get better in the later 30s and 40s, but films from this era generally struggled with this. If we adjust for that, this is an interesting detective film.

The Kennel Murder Case: This film was released in 1933 and saw William Powell reprising the role for Warner Brothers after playing Vance in three films for Paramount. A wealthy man is found dead in a locked room in the middle of getting undressed, and it’s thought to be suicide, but Vance disagrees and it’s thought the man was killed by his brother, but that theory quickly runs into trouble.

There’s a lot to like about this film. For the time, it’s technically proficient. It tries some methods out that add visual appeal. Split-screen phone conversations and Vance using a full-scale model of the neighborhood to explain his theory of the crime are highlights. The cast is superb. Powell is so likable and charismatic, it hardly matters that the film doesn’t make Vance sympathetic in the way the book did. Mary Astor features, and Eugene Pallette is the perfect actor for Sergeant Heath.

The story is good as far as it goes. The solution in the film is as ludicrous as in the book, but these type of mysteries were fashionable at the time.

The one thing I have to emphasize is that do buy this DVD set just to see this film. The Kennel Murder Case has long been in the public domain and nothing is special about this print that couldn’t be obtain from any free, legal public domain copy.

The Dragon Murder Case

In this 1934 film, a man attending a well-to-do dinner party disappears while swimming, presumably drowning, but there’s no body. Philo Vance (Warren William) is called into investigate.

At 66 minutes, this has a strong second feature feel. It’s inhabited by broad characters played fairly well with no character going too far. Pallette returns at Sergeant Heath and is quite a bit of fun. Warren William is fine as Vance if a bit generic.

The story’s entertaining and plays with the idea of whether a sea monster might be involved. The running time leads to a slightly rushed conclusion. However, if you’re looking for a fun little B-movie, this will definitely do.

The Casino Murder Case

A wealthy socialite receives a threatening letter and murder follows.

At 82 minutes, this 1935 film feels too long. Paul Lucas plays Vance with as much charm as he can bring, but he can’t overcome one fundamental problem. His continental accent is a poor fit for Vance. Rosalind Russell gives a decent performance that’s wasted on a less memorable cast than prior films.

It’s not the worst story, but it’s below average in terms of script and most of the talent in it, and I can’t recommend it.

The Garden Murder Case

In this 1936 film, A wealthy man is murdered and it’s suspected someone who lives in his apartment did it. Philo Vance (Edmund Lowe) investigates.

This one is only 61 minutes long but feels longer. The mystery has some interesting points, butthere are so many scenery chewing moments by the supporting characters, which feels more odd with Lowe’s relatively bland performance as Vance. Virginia Bruce is probably the best part of the picture, but the romance between her character and Vance seemed forced.

This is by far, the weakest film in the set.

Calling Philo Vance

This film was another adaption of the Kennel Murder Case released in 1940 after Vance’s Creator S.S. Van Dine passed away. This time it was done as a low-budget B-picture. While remaking a superb film as a cheap knock-off would be majorly offensive to me usually, this movie does have an interesting twist. This time the movie was about espionage.

World War II had started in Europe. While the U.S. was still neutral, there was a lot of interest in all the international intrigue. So it seems like someone decided, ‘Let’s do the Kennel Murder Case, but this time with spies.” Vance (James Stephenson) was doing counterespionage regarding aircraft designs which is what all the suspects want. It’s hilarious as  most of the suspects who were normal civilians in the book and first movie turn out to be foreign agents desperate to get their hands on aircraft designs. The movie is about as neutral as the U.S. officially was at the time, not preferring one foreign agent over another.

Stephenson is no William Powell but he’s charming enough and fun. If you have seen The Kennel Murder Case, there are a few moments where the film’s low budget shows, such as when Vance uses a paper map rather than the full-sized city models of the first film. There are also some bizarre changes that don’t seem to be for any reason, like changing District Attorney Markham’s initials to “JP” and changing Sergeant Heath’s name to Sergeant Ryan.

While it can’t hold a candle to The Kennel Murder Case, this isn’t a bad little film at all.

Overall, this is a tough set to recommend. On one hand, it has one good movie on it. On the other hand, that movie can literally be watched anywhere. The rest of the films are unremarkable and while they’re not all bad, so many films were as good or better than these.

if you’re a big fan of Philo Vance, or a fan of Basil Rathbone who’d enjoy the novelty of seeing him play a non-Holmes detective, this could be worthwhile. Otherwise, I’m not certain you’ll get much out of it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Black Jack Justice, Season Eleven

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Black Jack Justice ended its run as an audio drama with a six-episode eleventh season, once again featuring Christopher Mott as Black Jack Justice and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective.

The Eleventh Season was much the same as the first ten. The series has a very established beat at this point in the run. You get a typical mix of mystery, comedy, and glorious witty banter.

Big moments were rare. Perhaps, the biggest was the appearance of a federal agent leading to an explanation of the disappearance of a long-time supporting cast member. They did their best to manage it, but the fact that was the cast member left off-stage and they tried to give it as much weight as they could. The series finale featured Jack and his wife Dot going on a double date with Lieutenant Sabian (Gregg Taylor) and Dot’s supervisor in hopes of them getting together while Trixie is undercover as a waitress at the restaurant trying to get to the bottom of a client’s allegation that a mob is starting a protection racket. It’s a fun story.

It’s not what you expect from a series finale these days, though. However, writer Gregg Taylor argued that Black Jack Justice was one of those series that had no need for a big series finale and he’s right.

Serialized storytelling has become all the rage and with good reason. There’s something satisfying about watching characters not only have adventures, but grow and change, and having their world and life change as a result of the decisions made by them and those around them. To not have a big finale for these type of programs that ties up all the plotlines and character arcs would be a shame.

Black Jack Justice is an old-school episodic series. You can listen to any of its seventy-two episodes in any order without any real confusion. So there’s no need for closure, no requirements for the characters to come to a dramatic end.

Season Eleven does a fine job and is entertaining as always. At this point, it’s a comfortable blanket and a cup of cocoa. It delivers everything you would expect. I don’t think any episode would stand out as the series best, although I feel the finale was the best of the season with some great humor and some good moments for some supporting characters.

Season rating: 4 out of 5

Thoughts on the Series:

Typically, most hard boiled private eyes are solo acts. The Justice and Dixon combo where both narrate at different times, both have hard-boiled banter is, as far as I know, unique. The origins of this was a stage comedy act, and having dueling noirish narrators sounds like a Whose Line is it Anyway sketch, not a blueprint for a seventy-two episode series. So credit to Taylor, Lyons, and Mott for making it all come together.

The series came up with consistently good mysteries. The solutions rarely could be guessed from the beginning. Usually they were surprising and often added to the humor of the episode. The character of Lieutenant Sabian wasn’t incompetent, but was a smart cop who asked smart questions and even solved the case a couple of times. While Jack tended to solve more mysteries than anyone, really the solution could come from Trixie or Sabian as well.

While there was little character development, the characters were more complex than their typical jobs would allow. While Tracy and Jack act like they’re complete cynics, they both have shown moments of compassion and a desire for justice.

The series also breaks a key dramatic trope. From the first season, Jack and Trixie irritated each other, got on each other’s nerves, and were often nice to each other. Contrary to dramatic expectations, this didn’t mean they were destined to fall in love. This means they found each other mildly irritating and didn’t like each other. Bold move.

Justice and Dixon’s talents compliment each other well, but they’re not friends or buddies. Tolerance and a joy of annoying each other is probably the closest they’re going to get.

The series is a model of episodic fiction. There are changes that happen for our leads: Clearly establish Trixie as an equal partner in Season Two, the adoption of the office dog King, Jack getting married, and two other characters leaving the series stand out. But none of these really change the essential: Justice and Dixon sitting around the office, waiting for cases, chatting with clients, and going out and solving them.

At times, this series set in the 1950s does a stretch a bit too much to be modern but not too often. It’s a delightful throwback that has a real staying power. It’s fun and well-written. These 72 episodes stand up as a fun homage to the hard boiled detective drama and it’s been a delight to listen to them.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: DC Comics Greatest Detective Stories Ever Told

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DC is known as one of the two big Superhero comic book companies in the United States. However, it’s easy to forget “DC” actually stands for “Detective Comics,” which is also the title of the company’s longest-running title. This book collects a selection of DC comics that center on some of the DC universe’s most noted detectives.

Most comic fans associate the title, Detective Comics with Batman. However, Batman didn’t appear in the series until Issue 27. The book opens with a story from Detective Comics #2, “Skyscraper Death” where two-fisted private eye Slam Bradley finds himself implicated in a murder. This 1937 story has a lot of action, compared to modern comics. The story is only 13 pages long but has a lot to it. It feels like a complete B-Movie in comic book form. The transfers on this story are not great, but they’re probably about as good as DC Comics could get given that it’s an obscure 75 year old story.

Next up is, “The Van Leew Emeralds” which finds the Sandman (Wesley Dodds) in a caper involving crooks and a game of getting them in the right place so the right people will be prosecuted by the police for them. It’s a fun bit of running around.  There’s a tough of Leslie Charteris’ Simon Templar (aka: The Saint) mixed a bit with the Green Hornet in the Golden Age presentation of the Sandman.

Then there’s, “The Puzzle of the Purple Pony” featuring Elongated Man (Ralph Dibney.) Elongated Man was a private detective who got stretching superpowers. He fell in love and married a wealthy woman named Sue and they traveled around and he found and solved mysteries. There’s more than a little touch of the Thin Man in the Dibney’s crime-fighting escapades. In this particular story, while out West, Sue becomes curious why a cowboy’s horse is painted purple. While initially, Ralph thinks its none of their business, Sue plunges them headlong into the adventure. The result is a fun Silver Age mystery that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t go over the top into silliness.

“When it Rains, God is Crying” is a much more recent story. It’s a two-issue Lois Lane series mini-series from 1986 in which Lois does her own investigation into a child’s death  As Lois becomes personally involved and answers become scarce, she begins to alienate everyone in her life. This was a relatively long story, the length of many graphic novels of the era, but felt a bit short. The story becomes a more focused on Lois’ emotional state and her alienation from her friend than it does the investigation itself. There are plot details that are incongruous or don’t quite make sense. For example, her sister Luci appears and plans to write something that she’s afraid Lois will be angry about but that could fix things. We never find out what exactly Lucy did, but we kind of see an outcome. There’s a lot of potential, but this could have used more space to develop as a story. I will say that the art is very evocative for the era, and while the ending is unsatisfying, I think that was intentional to the crimes against children at the center of the story.

“The Doomsday Book” is a giant-sized Issue of Detective Comics put out for the book’s 50th Anniversary. It starts with a visit to the office of the aging private eye Slam Bradley that goes wrong and requires help from Batman. The very involved mystery brings in not only Bradley, Batman, and Robin, but even involves an old case of Sherlock Holmes. Detective team-ups are tricky because generally one detective looks far brighter than the other. Here though, every detective is given their due, and it’s just a really fun yarn.

“The Mikado” is a story from the 1980s Question comic series that finds Victor Sage investigated of murders and mutilations by a man who follows the famous line from the Miakdo, “My object all sublime I shall achieve in time— let the punishment fit the crime.’ It’s actually an effective story that is contained within one issue. It’s gritty, but very well-written.

“The Origin of Detective Chimp” is a 1989 story that provides an origin story for Detective Chimp, a super detective introduced in 1952, and then popping up here and there throughout DC history. The story involves aliens, an incident in a jungle, and just weird things happening but also manages to work in a little bit of mystery for our newly minted detective to solve. I’m not the biggest fan of the artwork, but the story is a fun little jaunt.

The book concludes with an excerpt from the “Parallel Lines” part of the “A Lonely Place for Dying” story. Tim Drake shows up wanting to take on the mantle of Robin. He explains to Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth how he figured out Bruce Wayne was Batman and Dick Grayson was the original Robin. It was based on a personal encounter and some information in the newspapers. While this excerpt’s only 11-pages, it’s an incredibly effective bit of storytelling. Drake’s discovery goes a long way towards making him a plausible Robin. His understanding that Batman needs someone to balance him out and bring a bit of lightness to his dark world would be another. This was a very effective and beautifully drawn excerpt.

Overall, while I had issues with the Lois Lane story, this was a really good collection. If you enjoyed detective-themed Comics, this will be a fun read.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Quincy, M.E. Seasons 1 and 2

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Before there was CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, there was Quincy, M.E. CSI owed its existence to Quincy. Quincy owed its first DVD release to the success of CSI. The box hailed Quincy as the original Crime Scene Investigator. The three-disk double-sided DVD box set was pressed in 2005, at the height of CSI’s popularity.

Double-sided DVDs remain one of the worst ideas of the early-to-mid 2000s. Still, if you want to enjoy Season 2 of Quincy without getting a bootleg, this is your only option. Shout Factory bought the rights to the series and reissued Seasons 4-8, but only offered Season 1 as a double-sided DVD release. Four years later and nothing has been done for Season 2.

The whole Season 1 and Season 2 thing with Quincy feels like a bit of a money-making conceit. Season 1 and Season 2 were released during the 1976-77 Television season. Every other dramatic show on television was considered to have one single season. Not Quincy. (He never does anything the easy way.) In the fall of 1976, the series had 90-minute episodes and was part of NBC’s Mystery Wheel along with Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. This is Season 1. In the Spring, the series became a regular one-hour weekly drama which the DVD makers refer to as Season 2. The longest-existing Quincy fan site insists there’s just one season. Whether there’s any legitimacy to creating two seasons in the same broadcast season, NBC Universal was right when they sold the episodes together.

The technicalities out of the way, let’s move on to discussing the show.

Quincy starred Jack Klugman (The Odd Couple) as a medical examiner for the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office. Quincy is a tireless pathologist who often proves a thorn in the side of his boss, the officious Dr. Robert Astin (John S. Ragin,) and in the side of Lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg.) of Homicide.

Quincy as a character required a bit of work. In the first story, “Go Fight City Hall…To the Death” has Quincy as a somewhat problematic character who borders on being insufferable. Quincy is not only a brilliant pathologist, he’s a brilliant Doctor in general and the only one who actually cares about finding the truth. Quincy is quickly thrown into accusing his boss of being in on a cover-up of the crime.

The series dialed back Quincy’s arrogance a bit. Quincy was still brilliant and a great outside-the-box thinker. He never accepts an easy answer and has great instincts. Yet, sometimes he gets carried away with his ideas as in one episode where a long-buried human thighbone was found at a University Construction site and Quincy shut it down to find out who committed the murder. Quincy has a great sense of justice and drive to ensure that crimes are properly solved, which made him a difficult person to befriend or to date. He’s prickly, and demanding, particularly to his assistant Sam (Robert Ito.)

The supporting cast also develops from the opener. The image of Astin and Monahan as uncaring gave way to a more realistic as indifferent to the truth of a case gives way to them as more realistic characters who believe all Quincy is doing is wasting time. They know how to do their jobs and have done them and find Quincy never letting things go to be exhausting and you can’t blame them. While Quincy is almost always right, he makes life difficult for them. Why they continually assume he’s most likely wrong each week is a question, but no different than the challenge every maverick investigator confronts.

The episodes are well-written. Some have standard mystery plots with some forensic twists but some have ingenious ideas that stretched the forensic knowledge of the era to its limits. In the episode, The Thigh Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone, Quincy excites some of the students in the college class in the teaching by setting out to learn everything about the man and how he died from a single thigh bone.

Some episodes don’t quite fit. In, “Has Anybody Seen Quincy,” the character of Quincy doesn’t appear. Instead, the story follows a senior pathologist named Dr. Hiro (Yuki Shimoda) on a typical workday as he encounters short cases/issues to address. Klugman had refused to appear in it and didn’t like the script. While I’m not a fan of stars doing that, Klugman had a point. While it’s not a bad script, it’s not good. It’s also not something a show plays during its first broadcast season. If this episode were presented during season five or six as a filler program, I could buy it. To present a program that says, “We’re running out of ideas,” during the first broadcast season is not a good choice.

The series also had a couple of episodes where Quincy went on crusades with barely any mystery. “A Good Smack in the Mouth” finds Quincy at the hospital after Doctor Astin’s wife and a tween boy she picked up were in a car accident. Quincy views the X-ray and sees wounds that can’t be explained by the mash-up but are consistent with what he’s seen on child abuse victims and is determined this boy won’t be another statistic. While its heart’s in the right place, this episode is weak. Once the abuse is discovered, the story becomes melodrama. By 1976, many programs had already addressed the scourge of child abuse. The one thing it contributes is a bit of pop psychology that will tell who the abuser is. Quincy doesn’t understand and nearly makes a tragic mistake, so I’m not certain what good this episode did.

The far better crusade episode is the season finale, “Let me Light the Way.” The episode finds Quincy busting into a hospital room where a rape victim was being treated by incompetent physicians who destroy all evidence of the rape. Quincy sets out to get rape kits and training for the medical personnel on how to handle and process all evidence of rape, He’s teamed up with a rape counselor (Adrienne Barbeau.) When the counselor is raped, she calls for Quincy to treat her to ensure that the evidence is properly collected so they can bring her rapist to justice. I have to say this was a gut-wrenching episode. Barbeau turns in a great and all too believable performance. In its time, it highlighted an important issue and how public health systems and police departments were failing victims. Watching it in the twenty-first century, the procedures used by Quincy to preserve evidence seem antiquated compared to the efforts to capture rape evidence in something like Broadchurch Series Three. Still, it represents a great bit of insight into the history of this issue.

Overall, this first season of Quincy has some rough edges, much like Quincy himself. For my money, the character worked better in the one-hour format than in the TV movies. While he does a crusade, there’s little of the preachiness many associate with later episodes of the series, although a very high tolerance for those tendencies. Overall, this set is worth viewing (although perhaps not at current prices) if you like the show already, enjoy scientific mystery shows, or like characters crusading for truth and justice.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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