Category: Golden Age Article

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Dick Tracy (1990)

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Dick Tracy is a comic strip movie starring Warren Beatty as the famous detective Dick Tracy, as he tries to take down the criminal organization of Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) while avoiding the designs of Breathless Mahoney (Madonna.)

This film won three technical Oscars and deserved it. The world created for this movie is visually appealing with some stunning use of color and art deco touches as well. The make-up and costume design are top notch. In addition, Danny Elfman turns in a typically good score.

The story is decent if not spectacular. The final the twist at the end is good. The plot points related to Junior are taken right out of the comic and feel right in place. There are also some great actors in relatively minor roles including Dick Van Dyke, Dustin Hofffman, and James Caan. In addition, in a nod to classic detective movies, Mike Mazurki shows up.

There are three problems with the film. First, I don’t care much for Beatty’s performance as Tracy. He was going for strait-laced and upright but instead comes off as stiff. Al Pacino, on the other hand, gives a performance that is way over the top. I’ll never understand how he got nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Saturn Award. For me, it was a grating, scenery-chewing performance that was more annoying than funny.

Second, there’s too much of Madonna singing in this film. One or two musical numbers, I can see. But she has five numbers in this film. They’re all well-written, but the only one that worked was, “Back in Business.”

Third, the film’s tone is inconsistent. It’s a movie that doesn’t know who its marketing itself to. I remember seeing happy meal toys for this movie and the bright colors and character of Junior would appeal to kids. On the other hand, some of the violence was too extreme for children and Breathless Mahoney is an over-sexualized character in keeping with Madonna’s 1990s brand. On the other hand, much of the plot, story, and characters doesn’t appeal to adults. The tonal differences means that sometimes, it feels like the characters are in different movies.

They were trying to imitate Chester Gould, who made Dick Tracy, the type of comic strip the whole family wanted to read by mixing elements that appeal to kids and adults to satisfy everyone. In the film, they seem to have succeeded in not fully satisfying many people at all.

That said, there are worse attempts to adapt a classic property. A lot does work about the film. Something Val Kilmer would prove six years later in The Saint. The film looks classy and has a great sense of style, with a lot of homages to its source material. If you’re a Madonna fan and/or you liked Al Pacino’s performance in this, you’re going to like it more than I did. For me, it’s a film that had a lot of potential but never fully lived up to it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Before Midnight

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Editor’s Note: A version of this review originally appeared 9 years ago.

How annoying can a client or set of clients get? Nero Wolfe finds out in Before Midnight.

After the death of a hotshot advertising executive, his firm hires Wolfe not to find the killer, but to locate the dead man’s wallet which contained the answers to a verse-guessing contest with $800,000 in prizes at stake.

The story plodded along. While some of the suspects were interesting, I couldn’t consider most of them as likely suspects for either the murder or taking the wallet. The focus was on the contestants, four of whom came from out of town. To go to a place you don’t know, commit a homicide, and evade detection by the police is a tough task, and nothing made me believe any of these out-of-towners would do it.

What held the story together was watching Wolfe’s clients from the advertising firm of LBA, who represented the most annoying and foolish clients Wolfe ever had the misfortune of taking on. There was a pleasure of seeing these guys in action that wasn’t unlike watching a trainwreck. Wolfe had been about his leisurely pace of crime solving for 20 years, LBA was in a mode of “hurry up and do something,” even setting a deadline for Wolfe.

Their battles with each other and Wolfe continue for most of the book. Toward the end, just when we’re expecting Wolfe to spend a few chapters and several glasses of beer unraveling the mystery, we’re thrown for a loop with a plot twist that leaves Wolfe reeling, embarrassed, and determined to get a daring soul who committed a murder right in Wolfe’s office.

The twist makes up for the weakness of the book, which was a letdown after the pure brilliance of Murder by the Book. Still with a twist ending and some classically annoying clients, I’ll give it a:

Rating: Satisfactory (4 stars)

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Streaming Review: Knives Out

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Knives Out is a throw-back as a big-screen murder mystery. This is the type of film made all the time during Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the sixties and seventies, these sort of films began to feature all-star casts such as Murder in the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Evil Under the Sun.

Then, the big-screen detective faded in popularity and murder mysteries became almost exclusively the province of television. There have been exceptions over the years, but in general, the murder mystery has been replaced by more Thrillers at the box office or occasionally we’ll see Sherlock Holmes re-imagined as a steampunk action film.

What Knives Out offers is an original, modern day American murder mystery that feels a lot like Agatha Christie. Mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead in his mansion the night after his birthday party. He informed family members that he was going to be making some changes to the financial arrangements that his family members enjoy, including to his will. The physical evidence points to a suicide, however Louisiana-based Benoit Leblanc (Daniel Crag), “the last of the gentlemen sleuths” has been hired to investigate the case by an anonymous client. Due to his reputation, the local police take a second look at the case and find that all is not as it seems.

Daniel Craig is good at playing this eccentric detective. There’s a touch of Columbo that has most of the household not taking him as seriously as they should. He has many quirks to his method, plus great human touches. He calls to mind Hercule Poirot. The accent is only so-so, but to be fair some Poirot actors are a bit dodgy.

Ana de Armas has a lovable turn as Marta, the dead man’s nurse and his best friend who Benoit designates as his Watson, as he has a hint that she knows far more than she’s letting on.

We also have a supporting cast with Hollywood mainstays like Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon and lesser known competent character actors, and some younger actors who know what they’re doing.

The mystery itself is something right out of a classic mystery novel and while the plot is complicated, some might say convoluted, it’s played out and resolved with a wonderful sense of style.

While this has a lot of throwbacks, it’s still set in the modern day and also includes enough modern touches to make the story work. In a lot of old detective stories, the victim is a really horrible person to nearly everyone they met. Here, I think there’s more nuance. Harlan does things that makes his family angry and provides good murder motives, but he’s still a decent guy whose actions are taken out of an abundance of concern. He’s actually an interesting person who has complex relationships. The main characters are handled pretty well in that regards.

The family is also a nice mix of modern day characters. They reflect a lot of aspects of society, including the current political divides, but the movie resists the urge to paint some family members as better based on politics or cultural alignment. In fact, with most of the family, it just means that they are equally horrid but in different ways.

There are also some great camera techniques that are used to enhance our enjoyment of the story without overwhelming us with CGI effects. It’s a well-balanced mix of classic and modern storytelling.

If I have one issue with the story, it’s that Marta has an unusual tell that means she throws up when she lies. I’m not a fan of gross out humor, and it was used to facilitate a couple of the laziest writing moments in the film.

Beyond that, this is good. This is a recent Hollywood film that lives up to its hype and I can only hope its success will lead to more films like it.

Based on its returns, I’m hopeful. It grossed $320 million at the box office. That’s not Marvel Movie money, Ant Man and the Wasp grossed $622 million the same year. However, Knives Out did this with a $40 million budget, which is 1/4-1/5 of Ant Man and the Wasp. Knives Out shows there’s still an audience for a well-made and well-written detective movie.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Dick Tracy: Dailies and Sundays: 1931-33

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Dick Tracy is the legendary detective created by Chester Gould whose comic strip adventures continue until this day. Dick Tracy first hit newspapers in 1931 and this book collects his first strips from October 1931 to May 1933.

This collection is notable for what you won’t find: any of Tracy’s garish rogues gallery. No Flattop, Mumbles, or Pruneface. The most prominent villain is Big Boy, but in here he’s a regular mob boss. The colorful villains would come much later for Tracy. This book features Tracy taking on thieves, kidnappers, and racketeers that were typical 1930s villains.

The book opens with the father of Tracy’s fiancée being murdered. Tracy joins the police force in order to catch the killer. The most unrealistic part of this entire collection is when Tracy is so quickly graduated and placed in a leadership position on the force with no explanation. Three months later, he slacks off because of personal problems with Tess and is demoted to uniform duty and complains about how he was demoted despite all he’d done in the three months on the force. 

Once you get past that silliness, the book is good. The crimes aren’t outlandish and Tracy’s methods are pretty solid for a 1930s newspaper strip, featuring some real detective work. The book also did go for some “ripped from the headlines” cases. For example just after the Lindbergh kidnapping, Tracy had to solve a similar baby kidnapping case.

Other than introducing Tracy and Tess Trueheart, the book’s important contribution is introducing Junior, the homeless, seeming orphan who Tracy adopts, or perhaps it may be he adopts Tracy.  He becomes part of the action on several occasions and you can see why he’s often viewed as a precursor of teenage sidekicks like Robin, the Boy Wonder and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky Barnes.

The art in the book starts off looking a bit primitive but as Gould continues to draw, it becomes a lot more polished. The book is mostly in black and white with the exception of the earliest Sunday strips. These strips didn’t follow the daily strip plot, opting instead for a separate mystery or  sometimes just a one-off gag strip. They continued until May 1932.

The book also includes an interview with Gould by his successor on the Tracy comic strip, Max Allan Collins. 

Overall, while the book doesn’t capture Tracy at the peak, it does manage to capture Tracy’s beginnings and also help readers understand how Tracy became so popular in the first place with fun and exciting stories, detective work, and a broad-based appeal to multiple members of the family with character drama and a kid sidekick. Worth a read for both Tracy diehards and those who are curious about the beginnings of this iconic character.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Complete PRC Michael Shayne Mystery Collection

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Most of the Michael Shayne films from the first half of the 1940s starring Lloyd Nolan have been on DVD for years. This DVD features five films released in 1946 and ’47 starring future Ward Cleaver actor Hugh Beaumont as Michael Shayne.

The earlier films were B pictures for Fox, however the Hugh Beaumont films were poverty row pictures, with low budgets and generally dodgy acting with no-name casts.

The restoration is phenomenal. While the typical poverty row picture from original prints looks grainy and even unwatchable, these films look superb, given the source material. The production team on the release went to a lot of work to make these look as good as possible. Given I watch so many DVDs of older material where it looks like a straight transfer was done to get them out and start taking money, I was really impressed.

Hugh Beaumont elevates the quality of these films. The ordained minister who would go on to play Beaver’s dad is miscast. But Beaumont’s an actor and pulls this off. An annoying lead can wreck one of these films. (See George Montgomery in the Philip Marlowe “B” film The Brasher Doubloon.) 

The films are helped by having good underlying stories. The Fox Shayne films adapted one of Britt Halliday’s Shayne novels. All five of the PRC films were adapted  from Shayne novels. Halliday was great at constructing mystery plots and these transfer over well when the producers don’t tinker with them too much.

In the course of five films, Beaumont was paired with three different actresses as Phyllis Hamilton. Hamilton was a composite of Shayne’s wife Phyllis in the novel and Lucy Hamilton, who became Shayne’s secretary after his wife died. Cheryl Walker played the role in three films, Kathryn Adams in Blonde for a Day, and Trudy Marshall in Too Many Winners.  Walker and Adams did fine in the role, but I found Marshall irritating, though it’s hard to tell whether it was the screenwriting or her acting, but she was a negative on that film.

The rest of the supporting actors range from competent to awful, reflecting the sort of variety seen on these hour-plus-long poverty row films.

As to individual films, Murder is My Business, Three on Ticket, and Too Many Winners were decent to good films with Murder is My Business being the best. Larceny in Her Heart was based on the novel Bodies are Where You Find Them which was going to be a difficult novel to adapt in this format due to its complex political subplot, which does get reduced to confusing nonsense. In addition, in the novel, Shayne’s wife Phyllis heads to New York and isn’t heard from again. In this movie, Phyllis returns in the middle of the movie and adds a plot complication that the film didn’t have time for.

Blonde for a Day is undermined by weak acting apart from the leads and once again is too complicated for the limited run-time of the film, though I did find it more visually pleasing than when I first rented a non-restored version off Amazon a few years back.

While Too Many Winners was not my favorite, it’s the most noteworthy. As part of the plot, Mike and Phyllis are planning a duck-hunting vacation which is disrupted by the mystery and the movie is obsessed with this point, even using drawings of Mike and Phyllis duck-hunting in the opening credits. This film also featured the most recognizable actors to appear outside of Beaumont in the entire series. John Hamilton (aka Perry White from The Adventures of Superman) and also veteran TV and film character actor Ben Weldon who has 249 acting credits on his IMDB profile.

Given two of the movies aren’t good, it’s hard for me to recommend the set for everyone. However, if you love Michael Shayne books, are a fan of Hugh Beaumont, or if you like poverty row, B-movie mysteries and would like to see a well-restored production, this could be worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, Volume 7

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The seventh volume of the Twilight Zone Audio Dramas adapts six more stories as audio dramas:

“Hocus-Pocus and Frisby” is the story of a small-town braggart and teller of tall tales who garners the attention of aliens from outer space who think his whoppers are true. This is a fun story, with a nice dish of the absurd.

“Cavendar is Coming:” An angel with a problematic track record is given one last chance if he can help an awkward young woman. This is just bad. The premise is stupid (and depressing), the story is nonsensical and the dialogue is unimaginative. The TV version had the benefit of featuring a young Carol Burnett as the young woman Cavendar “helps.” The TV episode was released in 1962 and was a backdoor pilot for an unrelated series. It does not hold up.

“The Little People:” Two members of a spaceship crew land on a planet that’s seemingly uninhabited and work on repairing their ship. However, one of them sneaks away and discovers there is life: tiny people with their own society, who he decides to oppress by pretending to be their god. This is a somewhat typical Twilight Zone story, with some nice details and even a computer that plays a role, as well as a solid twist.

“One More Pallbearer:” A wealthy man invites three people over for dinner who he blames for embarrassments earlier in his life. He has a scheme to make all of them apologize and beg him for shelter. This is  the best story in the release. While actor Chelcie Ross isn’t a household name, he’s great in the lead and manages to embody the pettiness and the damaged mind of the wealthy man. The story has not only a twist ending, but a double twist.

“The Big Tall Wish:” A washed-up boxer boards with a single mom and is beloved by her son. He decides to make a comeback and a hopeful boy makes a wish, the biggest wish (a big tall wish) but will it be enough for the boxer to win. This is a simple, wistful tale, with a downbeat conclusion.

“The Living Doll:” A tyrant of a father is infuriated that his wife spent money to buy his stepdaughter a doll at the department store. The father doesn’t like the Talking Tina doll and is shocked when Tina lets him know the feeling is mutual. He hears the doll speaking, but only when no one else is around. Probably of all the stories I’ve listened to in the first seven volumes, this is the one that fits most easily into the horror genre, though it’s definitely a more psychological horror.

Overall, this box set is a mixed set. “One More Pallbearer” and “The Living Doll” are superb, “Cavendar is Coming” is awful. The other three are between okay to good.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Deathgame

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In the Hardy Boys casefile Deathgame, the Hardy’s friend Biff Hooper is big into survival games and decides to go to an exciting survival camp. Biff tells Joe the truth, but tells his parents he’s visiting his cousin.

When Biff doesn’t return as scheduled, the Hardy Boys and his parents go to Florida to look for him, but the camp claims never to have seen him. Biff’s parents insist he must be there as he doesn’t lie (apparently forgetting about the whole cousin visit thing.) The Hardy Boys set out to find their lost friend and face off against dangerous foes.

We get to see a little of the Hardy’s sleuthing but this is most a set up for them and some other teens to get involved in a take on The Most Dangerous Game. It deals a bit more heavily in the adventure/suspense elements than the typical mystery elements.

For what is, the book is fine. It’s a light, breezy 152-page read that has great pacing, featuring short chapters that end on generally solid cliffhangers.

The book is not for everyone. Deathgame was released in 1987 and it shows as the villains and the plot feel very 1980s. The main villain (the aptly named Colonel Hammerlock) reminds me of Karate Kid villain Sensei John Krese. If the A-Team van had rolled in, it would not have been out of place.

In addition, there’s a certain conceit about the entire Case Files series that you have to acknowledge. The books were released as pocket paperbacks (as opposed to the 6″ x 9″ size of many kids books) and had action packed pictures on the front and occasionally dealt with topics like terrorism that made them seem more grown up. At their core though, they were still written for 10-year-olds.

So this is the type of book, you’ll like if you grew up with the Hardy Boys case files, enjoy 1980s mystery adventures, or if you’re a child who likes to read mystery and adventure stories and don’t mind that they were written before they had a cell phone.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

DVD Review, Golden Age Article, Podcast, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Cannon/Barnaby Jones: The Deadly Conspiracy

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A young woman who works at an oil company calls a congressional staffer promising to blow the whistle on her employer. This is overheard by the head of public relations who plots her death. A wine delivery man with a record is set up at the patsy for raping and killing the woman.

Frank Cannon (William Conrad) is hired by the an attorney for the accused, while the Congressional staffer hires Barnaby Jones (Buddy Ebsen), thus setting up a rare crossover between two TV detectives. Cannon had appeared in Barnaby Jones’s first episode.  Both programs were produced by Quinn Martin who used Cannon’s presence to jumpstart Barnaby Jones. Here the two detectives have both been on multiple seasons and would in effect be sharing star billing and solving the case together. 

This is a good story. Like many Quinn Martin detective shows, it was not a whodunit. Who is pretty clear from the start. However, there are all kinds of mysteries to solve along the way such as why, and what the goal of the titular “Deadly Conspiracy” is.

I liked a lot about the conspiracy. Their goal is complex, but it makes sense and also seems realistic and believable. While the conspirators are willing to kill for their goals, unlike other villains, they don’t just kill. They’re able to throw roadblocks in front of our heroes in ways that don’t involve homicide, which I think makes for a more interesting plot.

Both Conrad and Ebsen are given a chance to shine, and overall the team is very well-balanced with both playing nearly equal parts in the action and detective work. The guest cast is a notch above the typical guest cast with a lot of recognizable  actors including Diana Douglas and Francis De Sales.  Barry Sullivan shines as the chief villain.

There are two versions of the story available. The Season 5 DVD of Cannon contains a modified version of the story that’s trimmed down to a single episode of Cannon with an alternate (and in my opinion inferior) ending. The Season 4 DVD of Barnaby Jones collects both episodes and I recommend that version. While several episodes of existing programs were backdoor pilots for possible detective programs, this was the only crossover episode for two established 1970s Detective programs. It does its job well and deserves to be seen in its complete form.

Rating 4.5 out of 5

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Graphic Novel Review: Superman Smashes the Klan

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Superman Smashes the Klan is inspired by the 1946 Superman Radio serial: The Clan of the Fiery Cross. 

Teenagers Tommy and Roberta Lee move to Metropolis with their parents after their father gets a job as Metropolis’ chief bacteriologist. Tommy is a good pitcher and gets picked for the Unity House baseball team that Jimmy Olsen is a manager of.  Tommy displaces the team’s existing pitcher, Chuck Riggs, who is kicked off the team due to his bad sportsmanship. Chuck tells his Uncle Matt, who is a leader of the Ku Klux Klan stand-in, the Clan of the Fiery Cross.  The clan burns a cross on the Lee’s front yard and it’s up to Superman to protect the Lees and Unity House and bring the clan to heel.

This is not an exact adaptation of the radio story, but it captures the spirit of it. The book manages to be mostly true to the era the story is set in but also make changes to fit a modern audience. Superman was written as much more of a boy’s adventure story, and Tommy’s sister wasn’t even named.

In the novel, she’s a central character and provides a lot of emotional insight.  She’s sweet but awkward. She reflects that she felt out of place and like she didn’t belong even in China. She’s wonderfully relatable and interesting as a character and she has a superb bond with Superman. 

This also has a good portrayal of Superman, though it took me a while to see what he was doing. For example, in the earlier pages, he had Superman still “leaping tall buildings” rather than flying, even though by 1946, Superman had been flying in both the comics and the radio show. However, as I read the book, I saw exactly what writer Gene Yang was doing.

Yang incorporates more recent ideas about what it was like for Clark Kent growing up when he started to manifest his powers, which led to people becoming afraid of him, and him becoming an outsider, and having to hide who he is and what he can do in order to fit in and have a normal life. 

It’s a different take on Superman that’s still very true to the character. Even many of the writers who write Superman don’t get him and it’s popular for many fans to cast Superman as this distant unrelatable character. However, Yang succeeds in giving Superman a solid character arc.

The basic plot does follow along the lines of the radio serial, though it does try to enhance it. Like many modern Superman stories, the writer wants to have Superman face a real threat, and the thing I least like about that is how they do that. The Atom Man (the most dangerous villain Superman ever faced over radio) is introduced and dispatched in the first section of the novel, but his technology is used as a plot device in the hands of the Klan. It’s a clunky way to raise the threat level, but I can forgive it because I’m satisfied with how the book plays out in the end.

The overall tone is preachy, but keep in mind i’ts based on a radio serial that was far preachier.  This one fleshes out the characters and helps the readers empathize with them in a way that works for modern audiences and it has  good light moments. The art is clean and kid-friendly as well.

The book is great for kids if you want to introduce them them to the story of the 1946 radio series or if you want them to understand the history of the groups like the Klan and how they operated and were ultimately defeated. It’s also a well-done adaptation of a classic Superman radio story that does the original creative team behind the radio story proud.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Sherlock Holmes Theatre

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In 2005, the Hollywood Theatre of the Ear released a series of Sherlock Holmes plays starring Martin Jarvis as Holmes, and Kristoffer Tabori as Watson.

First up is Sherlock Holmes. The play is written by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and its performed (as far as I can tell) unabridged from the original text. The play is solidly acted, but the main reason to listen to it is to hear the play exactly as it was performed when it was first written.

From a modern listener’s perspective, the play’s a mixed bag. On one hand, it is delightful to see how many bits from the Holmes stories get mixed into this play. On the other, it has a very slow pace and quite a few scenes that are not that interesting. The opening scene in particular seems to go on forever. This is a play that goes on well over two hours. Orson Welles took the text of the play and condensed it back in 1938 for the Mercury Theater, and I think that version is more entertaining.  This version is more authentic as it has so much in it.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is, while Holmes still does his deductive bits, the play makes him into a swashbuckling romantic hero. Doyle was not  proprietary about the character or canon and went places that many Holmes purists would frown upon to make a commercially successful play.

Next up is The Speckled Band. This play was written by Doyle alone and it expands on one of the best Holmes short stories.  The play changes the name of the woman who comes to Holmes for help from Helen Stoner to Enid Stoner for reasons that aren’t clear.

The play begins after Enid Stoner has died under mysterious circumstances just before she was about to marry. Much of the information about the elder Stoner sister’s death that was relayed in the client consultation in the short story, we get to hear discussed at a coroner’s inquest.

Perhaps the highlight of the play is that we get to hear more of Doctor Grimesby Roylott. Next to Professor Moriarty, he’s the most memorable villain in Holmes but we only get to see him for one scene in the short story and otherwise learn about his actions second hand.  In the play, we get to hear him in action. Dwight Schultz (A-Team and Star Trek) does a great job bringing to life this dangerous, maniacal, manipulative villain in a really unforgettable performance.

The play does have its weak points. A lot of the material does come off as fluff and padding. One of the silliest parts was where Enid needed someone to tell her to go and see Holmes and Watson, even though the play has her meet Doctor Watson at the inquest. Also, Roylott is undermined after he asks her to sign over her money to him and she refuses and he tells her this is her last chance and she’ll be sorry, and then comes back later in the play to make the same offer and once again is clear that it’s her last chance.

Like with the first play, The Speckled Band’s biggest selling point is its authenticity to the original Doyle play.

The collection concludes with Ghastly Double Murder in Famed Detective’s Flat, a one-act comedy play by Yuri Rasovsky. It’s essentially a three-hander with the premise that Holmes, Watson, and Mrs. Hudson are unlikable, amoral, hypocrites who secretly despise one another. When Holmes announces he’s going to retire to beekeeping and give up his rooms at Baker Street, leaving Watson without a meal ticket to help retire his gambling debts and Mrs. Hudson without a tenant. So the only thing to be done is for Watson and Mrs. Hudson to frame Holmes for murder. Rasovsky also inserts that Holmes and Mrs. Hudson had an affair.

In my opinion, this isn’t funny at all. Comedy is possible in Sherlock Holmes  but good comedy works when its consistent with the characters and draws its comedy from who the characters are. In this case, this is a cynical play that’s far less clever than it thinks it is. I question the decision to include it in this collection. The first two plays are going  to appeal to fans of Holmes and Watson who’d love nothing more than to hear the original Victorian plays. A lot of people interested in that would be turned off by Rasovsky’s one-act play and I doubt those who would be interested in Rasovsky’s play would be into 4 hours of Victorian Melodrama. The best thing about Ghastly Double Murder in the Famed Detective’s Flat is that is mercifully short, adding up to about 45 minutes. Although, it does feel considerably longer. If it were longer, it would seriously downgrade the set.

Overall, I’d recommend this collection if you’re interested in hearing full cast Victorian Sherlock Holmes plays. If you’re not interested in the final play, you can skip it and your life won’t be the poorer for it.

Rating; 3.75 out of 5

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Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: Tekwar

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This 1989 novel written by William Shatner (with Ghost Writer Ron Goulart) is set in the 22nd Century. Former Cop Jake Cardigan is released early after being wrongfully convicted on corruption charges. In the future, criminals sent to prison are put into suspended animation.

In the four and a half years he’s been incarcerated, his wife has divorced him and left him an empty apartment. Cardigan finds out the reason he was released was because the private investigation firm that his old partner worked for wants to hire him to find a missing scientist and the scientist’s daughter in Mexico, where Cardigan’s ex-lover Warbride has become a powerful rebel leader.

What Tekwar does really well is worldbuilding. It spends a great deal of the book establishing a realistic and intricately designed world for Greater Los Angeles and Mexico. It manages to create a solid hybrid world of a detective story set in a world with cyborgs and androids.

One of the interesting concepts was that he meets an android duplicate of the scientist’s daughter who has all of her memories and acts like her, so he starts to fall for the daughter before he meets her. I did wonder about the rationale for the criminal justice system freezing offenders. It gives up on  rehabilitation and appears to be a cost-cutting measure that instead just prevents them from learning to be better criminals while in prison. Also, I had to chuckle that some technologies in the book harken back to that symbol of late 1980s cutting edge technology–the fax machine.

The only characters who grabbed my interest were the daughter’s android duplicate and Warbride. Beyond that, the best you could say for the rest of the characters is that they avoided being annoying (with the exception of one character whose role was relatively small.)

The story’s pacing is off. This is a full-length novel with enough story to fill a good novella or an hour-long TV episode. For the length, I expected a mystery and resolution that was a lot more satisfying than what I got. The dialogue is functional, workmanlike, and occasionally dull.

Overall, Tekwar is a bit frustrating. The world has so many good ideas, so many intriguing possibilities as to what could be done, but ultimately fails to deliver a story that falls far short of its intriguing concept. Still, Shatner’s storyworld has great potential, if he hired the right ghostwriter to revise it.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Film Review: The Body Vanished

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The Body Vanished is a 1939 British film where a vacationing Scotland Yard detective inspector and his reporter chum stumble across a mystery at a country house where the butler discovers a body, which then disappears.

I was able to watch this film for free on Amazon Prime. It’s a fun comedy mystery and seems to be a Quota Quickie, which adds up to the equivalent of an American B movie. This works better than your average American “B” picture. While it is low budget and some of the characters are a bit broad, the actors all know their business.

I admire the economy of the story telling. This is 15-20 minutes shorter than an American “B” film and that makes it a better movie because the story moves at a faster pace and avoids the more annoying padding you’d see in many of the American “B” films of the era.

This is by no means a classic, or a must-see film. It is a competently done black and white mystery that doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you like B-movies or simple light comedy mysteries, this will be an entertaining enough use of 46 minutes, so it’s worth checking out.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

DVD Review, Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Cannon: Nightmare

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The Season 5 premiere of Cannon from 1975 opens with a hitman being gunned down while trying to escape from prison. His wounds are fatal and he summons Cannon (William Conrad) to his bedside to confess to having murdered his wife and son by running them off the road. The criminal isn’t able to explain why the contract was put out before he died except that he stated that Cannon’s wife was a prostitute.

After an angry scene outside the killer’s room, Cannon realizes, while he’d always thought an old enemy of his had been responsible, his wife had been killed in a case of mistaken identity. He sets out to find the intended victim in order to flush out the man who hired the killer.

This episode feels different from the rest of the series. Usually Cannon is a genial, professional, and wise investigator who can  be intimidating when he has to be and can always handle himself well in a fight. Here Cannon is very much on edge. He’s relentless and with far less tolerance for nonsense than usual. He’s a man whose long-buried grief and rage is waiting to boil over. At one point, Cannon seems to realize he’s going too far and backs off. And the confrontation with the killer is intense.

Throughout his career, Conrad was mostly cast as “cops” or “heavies,” but when he was given something good to sink his teeth into (such as on Nightbeat or the radio version of Gunsmoke) he showed time and time again, that he was as good as any actor of his time. This story is no exception as he brings new dimensions to his portrayal of Cannon. 

The story itself is well-written. Despite being set in the 1970s, the story has a noirish feel that works well for it. The rest of the cast other than Conrad is little better than competent but with a story that gives Conrad so much to work with, that’s all that’s necessary.

If I had one complaint, it would be that the series didn’t  lay the foundation for this story at all. I remember (vaguely) in an early episode that it was mentioned that Frank Cannon’s wife had died, but this wasn’t Monk where the death of the hero’s wife was front and center throughout the series. The episode does offer a bit of an explanation for this as the death occurred fourteen years previous (nine years before the start of the series) and that Cannon had stuffed his emotions while trying to move on. This is shown through his visit to his former father-in-law, who he hadn’t spoken to in years. It’s implied on some level, that was part of his efforts to put the tragedy behind him.

Overall, if you’re a fan of William Conrad or 1970s Noir-style stories, this is a stand-out episode that is well-worth watching.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: Martin and Lewis

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Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were the last of the great legendary comedy teams. They’d been a success in night clubs prior to landing their own radio show over NBC in 1949.

There were two Martin and Lewis shows, though collectors and CD makers group them into one long run. The first ran in 1949 until January 1950. The second, The New Martin and Lewis Show ran from 1951-53. Both programs had different formats.

The 1949 series started off with a comedy variety-style program with Bob Hope but reverted to a situational format. Martin and Lewis played themselves in the radio program, which was about them making the radio program. It also had an ongoing plot arc about starting a nightclub.  Martin would still manage at least one song an episode, sometimes with a hilarious plot justification for him singing. The series featured Sheldon Leonard as a shady conman named Soapy Leonard who served to get our heroes into trouble. Flo Macmichael played a maid who became Dean and Jerry’s assistant and then played some other female characters during their initial radio run. The show featured a variety of guest stars including William Bendix, Bing Crosby, and Victor Moore with the actors playing “themselves.”

The New Martin and Lewis show followed a comedy/variety format with no plot, Dean Martin as the host who sings two or three songs in the course of the show (one often a duet with a guest star), he and Lewis banter and do a skit, they introduce the guest star, banter with the guest and do a sketch with the guest. The guests included strong performers like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Anne Bancroft, Jack Webb, and Ida Lupino.

Dean Martin is a superb singer. He’s fun to listen to and his singing is the best argument for buying high quality recordings of this program. The guest stars are good, and it’s nice to hear Martin and Lewis getting to play off of some of Hollywood’s finest actors.

The comedy is a bit more uneven. Even though the plots were formulaic or silly, I prefer the original Martin and Lewis show. It gave Lewis more to work with. The new series format limited Lewis. Radio already took away the physical comedy which was such a big part of his appeal, but there was only so much that he could do with the banter portion of the shows, that many of the jokes and bits feel repetitive.

However, that’s not to say there aren’t laughs to be had, but the show is far from the team’s best work, particularly when compared to their films or the appearances on television’s Colgate Comedy Hour.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Martin and Lewis or either of the two on their own, both series are worth a listen.

Martin and Lewis Show rating: 4.25 out of 5
New Martin and Lewis Show rating: 3.75 out of 5

Golden Age Article

Is a New Golden Age of Audio Dramas Coming

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As we hunker down during the global pandemic, those with more leisure time have binged a whole lot of television and been able to find distraction in new episodes of their favorite programs.

Many live late night programs have continued with the host at home and guests also at home. While this can work to an extent for Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, it raises a point.

How is this going to work for scripted dramas? There are so many logistical issues with filming a TV show or movie. The sheer number required to be working together on the set, the close proximity that actors have to get to each other, etc. If some form of social distancing continues to be enforced, any TV shows and movies produced during this time are going to look quite odd. That’s if they can be produced at all.

While it’d be an interesting idea to do more animation of popular TV shows, the truth be told, there’s not going to be time before the Fall Season to produce high quality animation to continue beloved shows.

The answer may be for the shows to re-embrace the audio medium they abandoned nearly sixty years ago and work to release new programs over radio. British Audio Drama company Big Finish announced on March 17th that it was suspending recording due to the COVID-19 virus and therefore would not be in studio. However, 9 days later, they were back in production having discovered that most of their stars could work from home and the direction could also be done remotely.

Dramatic podcasts around the world have been doing the same thing for years, as producers using affordable software have been able to mix and blend voices from thousands of miles away to tell stories via audio that sound just like they were recorded with all actors in the studio together.

While it might be tempting for any audio content to go to a premium provider like Audible, there’s going to be a larger audience for radio and a good potential to earn advertising revenue during a time when filming’s going to be difficult. The added listeners might also help radio stations who have seen their listening numbers decline with less people on the roads.

Several types of radio programs could work over radio during this period:

  1. Exploring Continuity Gaps:

A lot of dramatic television is highly serialized today. In an earlier era of television where continuity was light, it’d be easy if you made one-off radio episodes that told previously untold one-off adventures. That’s harder today because so many episodes are interconnected. TV shows also won’t want to continue their ongoing planned storylines over radio because we hope that television will eventually return to normal and they don’t want to mess up their reruns and resyndication plans by having audio episodes you have to listen to in order to understand what’s going on. They would have to re-record the audio shows for TV and I assume they won’t want to do that.

Some series could return and explore gaps in the continuity. For example, months often pass in-world between the end of one season and the start of another. If a TV series has already shot its season finale and knows that it wants to start the next season by jumping forward several months, it might do a radio series that explores what happens in those intervening months.

It might also explore past gaps in continuity. For example, the third season of the CW Series The Flash ended with the hero being imprisoned in the otherworldly Speed Force. The fourth season began after his friends had protected the city for six months in his absence. In the premier episode, they bring him back from the Speed Force. CW could commission a radio series based on what happened during that six-month period.

2. Spin Offs

Many programs have had popular guest characters and this might be a great time to explore whether their stories might be worth exploring in their own right. Creating Spin Offs will once again spare the main series from having to mess with its continuity. If the radio spin off works well, then a TV spin off may make sense once all returns to normal.

3. Return of the Cancelled Shows

Some shows continue to be popular even though they’ve gone into reruns. A new Golden Age of Radio could see them return for a limited run. There are two approaches that could be taken. First, is the continuity gap solution listed above. Secondly, you could set a show after its finale.

Monk would be a fun program to bring back by either approach. Attempts at making a Monk movie over the last 11 years have been stymied, but a series of radio dramas could hit the spot in these difficult times.

4. Original Programming

The networks have a whole host of ideas for concepts for new TV programs. Many of these could be adapted to radio, as well as bringing programs especially created for radio to light. Radio could provide a low-cost way to test the market for shows that would have high production values on TV.

5. Movie Adaptations

During the Golden Age of Radio, the Lux Radio Theater, Screen Guild Theater, and Screen Director’s Playhouse were dedicated to adapting movies to an audio format and recreated great big screen moments over the radio.

In the 1980s, George Lucas sold rights to adapt the Star Wars Trilogy to NPR for $1 per film and NPR produced adaptations of each of the first three films in the trilogy.

Adaptations of other popular films to radio with some of the original cast would be worth exploring. The Star Wars adaptations were popular even though fans could now watch the original films on VHS or TV.

Star Wars has a devoted fan base, which was key to the success of the audio dramas. Any successful adaptation of film to radio would have to be of a film which features equally devoted fans.

Overall, a new golden age of audio dramas would offer the entertainment industry a chance to bring something positive out of the awful events of the last few months, and I hope they avail themselves of the opportunity.