Category: Golden Age Article

Golden Age Article, Nero Wolfe

Book Review: Where There’s a Will

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The family of a deceased millionaire come to Wolfe to mediate a dispute over their brother’s will, which surprisingly left little to the man’s wife and sisters, but left the balance to an unrelated woman. The will didn’t meet many of the brother’s  promises including leaving a million dollars to one sister’s university.

Wolfe’s job is simply to negotiate with the man’s unrelated heiress, but the case takes on a whole new complexion when its learned that the millionaire has been murdered, and the only way for Wolfe to question all the suspects is to leave the Brownstone.

Archie and Wolfe are at their best in this novel,  and the mystery has a very clever solution.

The big negative of this story is that unlike in both previous and later Wolfe novels, the family is not all that interesting.  While the Hawthorne sisters are very accomplished women from a family of very accomplished people that doesn’t make them interesting characters. Indeed, they are a bit flat.

Still, with Wolfe and Archie on the job and no other major snags, I’ll give this one:

Rating: Satisfactory

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Golden Age Article

To be Continued…

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To be Continued is a word fraught with mixed emotions for many television viewers. When their favorite Television show embarks on a muliple episode story line, viewers are guaranteed more complex, more involved, and perhaps developed stories. On the downside, there’s the long wait to find out what happened next week or in some cases, next season.

Many radio detectives began as 15 minute serialized programs in the 1930s and 1940s. Programs such as I Love a Mystery, Charlie Chan, A Man Called Jordan, and Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons began as 15 minute serials. However, most went to half hour format. And in the half hour format, each episode was a self-contained story with very few exceptions.

What were these rare multi-part episodes of half hour programs?

Generally, adapting a novel as a half hour radio series guaranteed the novel would be condensed beyond recognition, so a few mystery novels were adapted to radio in multiple parts. In the 1930s, several Charlie Chan novels were adapted this way. In addition, the  Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio franchise adapted three of the Holmes’ Novels in the midst of doing half hour adaptations of Doyle’s stories as well as original stories based on suggestions in the stories. Only one of these (from the Rathbone-Bruce perfomance) is in circulation.

Another detective story to get the multi-part adaption was Wilkie Collins’  The Moonstone considered by many to be the first detective novel, it was adapted in four parts by NBC’s series The World’s Great Novels and then in two parts for Suspense, both of which are in circulation.

Beyond these literary adaptations, there were some detectives that ventured into the land of To Be Continued…

Adventures of Sam Spade (1946):In November 1946, CBS tried what had to be one of the boldest ratings plays ever in making a radio sequel to The Maltese Falcon called the Khandi Tooth Caper. The original movie was an all-time classic, so this radio version was against tough odds. Still, CBS must have gotten good reaction, because when Suspense expanded to an hour, CBS smashed the two scripts of Sam Spade together to make one hour long episode of Suspense.  Thus, while the original Sam Spade episodes aren’t in circulation, the one hour Suspense story is about the same thing only with a cameo by Philip Marlowe.

Sherlock Holmes (1949) : In John Stanley’s second season of Holmes, Mutual experimented with doing multi-part stories in “The Elusive Agent” trilogy which as the title implies was much more of a spy story than a traditional detective mystery. It appears that they didn’t quite get the reaction from the public that they heoped for to the experiment as they’d hoped for, as it wasn’t repeated.

Candy Matson (1950): According to Digital Deli, Candy Matson’s attempt at the two part episode was a bit of fiasco. To begin with, without any notice to its audience NBC moved the show leading, a local newspaper to print, “Don’t tune for Candy Matson tonight on KNBC, because she will not be present. In a last minute move, KNBC put the show on last night at 7 o’clock. ”

Then an episode with a cliffhanger with Candy praying the 23rd Psalm as an airplane was crashing into a lake. The show didn’t air the next Monday, but that was because NBC movied it back to Tuesdays. Under such circumstances, getting one parters done was hard enough. Sadly, the episodes are not in circulation.

Dragnet (1950-53): Jack Webb did a grand total of six two part episodes out of Dragnet’s first two hundread and six. These were more elaborate story lines that allowed for a more-in-depty portrayal of criminal investigations. None of the episodes were cliff-hangers. With the exception of “The Big Mask,” the two parters showed Friay and his partner capturing accompliaces, but still in need of getting Mr. Big. The two parters fell out of favor in the final third of Dragnet’s run. This may be because viewers had not reacted well to the only Dragnet two parter to air over television and by mid-to-late 1953, the radio show had become the source for future scripts to the television series, so if it couldn’t be used on television, it wasn’t much good to do it.

Yours Truly Johnny Dollar (1957-59): Johnny Dollar in the Bob Bailey era was best known for its five part serials from 1955-56, after which it shifted to the half hour format. However, the show also turned out one two part episode a year from 1957-59. This included “The Mason-Dixon Mismatch Matther” and “The Dixon Murder Matter” from 1957 and the two part “Mojave Red Matter” (1958)  and “Buffalo Matter” (1959). The multi-part matters became more necessary as CBS became more aggressive in selling ads, thus cutting the amount of time for plot down to a minimum. Two two part episodes may have only had a little more plot than what used to be single 30 minute shows.

Matthew Slade, Private Investigator (1964): Just past the traditional endpoint for Old Time Radio (September 30, 1962), this show was a solid radio revival entry which attempted to recreate the feel of hard boiled detectives. It began with a three part serial, The Day of the Phoenix. While Parts 1 and 2 are available everywhere, Part Three is hard to lay its hands on.

These multi-part episodes are fun when you can find them,  but in a way, I’m glad there weren’t more. With so many gaps in old time radio series, we benefit from having self-contained shows that don’t require two or three shows ahead of it be intact as well. The way radio worked out in the 1940s and 50s has made it possible to enjoy prograsms without having to worry about gaps.

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Golden Age Article, Hercule Poirot, Movie Review

Telefilm Review: Appointment with Death (2009)

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

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

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

Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0

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Golden Age Article

Mr. Monk’s Top Twenty List, Part Five

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Past Posts: 6-10 11-15, 16-20 and honorable mentions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Golden Age Article

Raiders of the Lost Episodes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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If you have an Old Time Radio, Classic Television, or Classic Cinema question you’d like me to research, email me and I’ll consider it for a future article.

Golden Age Article

Mr. Monk’s Top 20 List, Part Four

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next week: the top 5.

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Book Review, Golden Age Article, Nero Wolfe

Book Review: Plot It Yourself

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In Plot It Yourself, Rex Stout follows the old writing axiom of, “Write what you know.”

A joint writers-publishers committee turns to Wolfe to stop a plagiarism swindle. Four authors created successful novels and plays were sued by others writers who claiming that the successful works were stolen from them. The unknowns all cashed in with settlements or court victories which cost writers   and publishers in money and reputation.

Wolfe gets hold of the fraudulent manuscripts and by comparing the styles, discovers that with one exception, all of them were written by the same writer. However, when he compares that style to that of other writing by the phony claimants, he discovers that none of them wrote the fraudulent manuscripts, which means that the mastermind of the scam could be anyone and that the writers filing false claims are only shills.

Wolfe tries to beg off the case, but is persuaded to take part in a plan by the committee to pay one of the phony authors to obtain the identity of the mastermind. However, before Archie gets to him, the man is murdered much to the embarrassment of Wolfe and Archie. The body count rises quickly and so does the pressure on Wolfe to crack the case.

The murders at the center of the case were the result of Nero Wolfe bungling by failing to have a man guards the accomplices before approaching them. This seems to be a recurring theme in the Wolfe novels of the 1950s. Wolfe bungles led to deaths in If Death Ever Slept and Before Midnight. At this point, it seems to have been overdone. Master detectives shouldn’t require a warning label.

Other than that, the mystery went very well. I had suspected the murderer early on, but Stout was a master at misdirecting the reader, so I’d moved on to other suspects by the end of the novel.

Wolfe was wonderfully eccentric throughout the novel. He went on strike against himself, offended his own self-esteem, and even swore not to eat meat until the case was solved. Wolfe did go a little over the top when Wolfe spent the last few pages complimenting the murderer and building their self-esteem.

The only other thing to note is that a writer, I found the whole discussion of plagiarism swindles fascinating, however I could see someone who wasn’t a writer being less thrilled with the long and involved discussion that prefaces the case.

For my part, I’ll give it a:

Rating: Satisfactory

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Golden Age Article

Mr. Monk’s Top 20 List, Part Three

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See 16-20 and honorable mentions.

15) Mr. Monk and the Panic Room (Season 3, Episode 2):  This is a classic locked room mystery. A man is found murdered in his personal panic room and his chimp is found holding the murder gun. In addition, multiple shots were fired foreclosing the possibility of suicide.  Sharona takes a shine to the chimp, and takes it away from Animal Control to avoid it being put to death. It’s up to Monk to find out what really happened. This episode also featured some zaniness as the Captain tries to find out if the Chimp could have fired the gun by trying to provoke the chimp with an empty gun (or at least one the Captain thought was empty.)

14. Mr. Monk v. the Cobra: (Season 3, Episode 11): The martial arts star, “The Cobra” is believed to have been long dead. However, he apparently comes back to murder a man who wrote a tell-all book about him. Monk is on the case, searching for the truth. At the same time, Natalie is upset when she learns that while struggling to pay her, Monk is keeping up Trudy’s office. This episode has a very solid ending and a great denoument as Monk gets very close to death.

13) Mr. Monk and the Big Reward  (Season 4, Episode 13): Once again, Natalie’s pay is an issue and she wants Monk to get more money. This time, Natalie wants Monk to find a missing diamond that has a million dollar reward attached to it. However, to solve the case, Monk has to beat three other archetype detectives who figure out the easiest way to collect is to just follow Monk around. Hilarity ensues, along with a fun mix of guest detectives.

12) Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico (Season 2, Episode 2): A truly bizarre death sends Monk and Sharona South of the border. A young man dies when his parachute fails, but the medical examiner says the cause of death is drowning. To make matters worse, someone is trying to kill Monk. When Monk arrives, he finds life in Mexico difficult without his favorite brand of bottled water available, Monk suffers mightily, and has to solve the case and get out of Mexico quickly.  A very funny episode with a great denoument.

11) Mr. Monk Goes Home Again (Season 4, Episode 2) Monk’s secnd visit home to his brother Ambrose comes on Halloween as their estranged father is supposed to come for a visit. However, a murderer is loose, having shot an armored car guard with his own gun. And someone is attacking Trick-or-Treaters who have gone to Ambrose’s house and stealing their candy.  One of the show’s better mix of comedy, mystery, and some poignant moments between the brothers Monk.

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Golden Age Article, Hercule Poirot

Audiobook Review: Hercule Poirot’s Unpublished Stories

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Hercules Poirot was featured in 33 published novels, 51 published short stories, and a stage play. But there were two Poirot Short stories that were not published during her lifetime. They appeared in book form in Agatha Christie’ s Secret Notebook by John Curran. However, the Christie estate decided to make the two short stories available seperate audiobook read by David Suchet.

The title of one story will be familiar to Christie fans, it’s called “The Capture of Cerberus,” which is the title of the published story that wrapped up, The Labours of Hercules. This particular story is vastly different as Poirot’s labour is truly Herculean as he tries to uncover the truth behind the assassination of a lightly fictionalized version of Adolf Hitler.

The story was interesting for its historical value. It also provided Christie’s answer to a question many science fiction authors have addressed, “What if Hitler had been assassinated.” Christie suggests that Hitler would have been viewed as a martyr and would have radicalized and galvanized the German people. The story is hopeful that after the horrors of World War I, another conflagration could be avoided and peace and brotherhood could somehow win out.

It was a nice thought, but the story was shelved with good reasons. To have a fictional character “use the little gray cells” and prevent a real life war that’s certainly inevitable in the real world is just not appropriate. In addition, the story is definitely not as fun as the version that went into the book. It should be noted that Christie would feature two of the characters who were in this story in the published version.  It felt like it was in more of a draft state when compared to the stories that did make into Labours of Hercules.  Thankfully, it was discarded for a much better story.

“The Incident of the Dog’s Ball” was much more satisfying.  In it Poirot receives a rambling letter from an old woman asking for help. He arrives at the lady’s house, only to find out she’d passed on (apparently of natural causes)  and had  forgotten to mail it. Slowly and methodically, Poirot begins to uncover what really happened and why the lady contacted.

Later, the short story was expanded and revised into the novel, Dumb Witness,  but works just fine as a very satisfying short story.

David Suchet’s definitive Poirot voice truly makes the story a delight. He also  read nearly all the voices well (with one exception). Suchet’s reading and the novelty of these lost stories makes this collection a must for fans of Christie and Hercule Poirot.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

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Mr. Monk’s Top 20 List, Part Two

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Having dispensed with the honorable mentions, we turn to the actual 20 best Monk episodes.

20)  Mr. Monk is Someone Else (Season 8, Episode 4): This episode begins with a bang. It appears that Monk is killed in the first scene. But of course, it’s not Monk, it’s contract killer Frank DePalma, who is a dead ringer for Monk. The FBI asks Monk to go undercover, find out who DePalma’s target was, and stop the killing.

Monk goes undercover, taking on the role of a wise guy assassin. Monk discovers that the target is an elderly man with no ties for the mafia.  It’s not long before everyone feels that Monk has gotten too much into character, and they attempt to pull him off the case, but Monk persists.

The mystery is one of the more solid entries of the show’s latter seasons. The highlight though is Monk finding his inner tough guy and holding his own with the mafiosos who hired him. Add in two classic confrontations with the Captain and Harold Krenshaw, and this one is definitely a keeper.

19) Mr. Monk is Up All Night (Season 6, Episode 9)

Mr. Monk is having trouble sleeping, so he heads out on a walk, and through a restaurant window, witnesses a murder. Or does he? When the Captain and Disher arrive, they find no evidence of the crime. Was it covered up or is Monk having a breakdown.

This episode, as the title implies, occurs almost entirely at night.  This gives it a noirishfeeling, that makes it particularly appealing. It also has to feature perhaps the best Randy Disher scene ever when the true culprits are apprehended.  

18) Mr. Monk and the Red Herring (Season 3, Episode 10)

The context of this episode does not make it an obvious fan favorite.  This began the 2nd half of Monk’s 3rd Season. In the interim, Sharona had been written out of the series due to contract disagreements with Bitty Schram.  This meant that the episode which introduces the “new assistant” had better be good.

The cast and crew managed to pull it off. Natalie meets Monk after killing a burglarar in self-defense. The apparent reason for the burglary is Natalie’s daughter’s fish.

The episode does a good job introducing Natalie. As a widow, she is in-tune with much of what Monk has gone through. In addition, she’s a jill of all trades which made her a valuable assistant to Monk.  She had a very distinct personality and style that differed from Sharona.

The mystery is clever and  quirky, making this a solid introduction for Natalie Teeger, despite the rough background that the episode aired against.

17) Mr. Monk’s 100th Case (Season 7, Episode 7):  Many television shows have faced the challenge of celberating a milestone. Many just ignore it, blowing past 100 or 200 episodes like it doesn’t mean a thing. Others have had clips shows, where 4 or 5 minute new footage is package with a bunch of used footage. (This is known as the cheapest type of television episode.)

In the Golden years of television when TV programs did 39 half hour episodes a year, 100 episodes wasn’t a big deal. But given that Monk’s first season was 13 episodes and subsequent seasons were 16 episodes each, this was truly a big deal for the show’s longetivity.  It was also a big deal for a reason referenced in the Season 2 episode, “Mr. Monk and the T.V. Star,” with 100 episodes, Monk would live on in syndication and create even more fans and generate millions in additional revenue.

The writer marked the event, by having a news magazine follow Monk as he solves his 100th case. The episode begins with Monk’s friends gathering around the television at the house of the magazine’s anchor to celebrate, with Monk alone at the party, and thinking something is very wrong.

The episode did a great job recreating the feel of a news magazine, and also brought back several past Monk foes back in new footage. One remarked, “Do I remember Adrian Monk? That’s like asking the Titanic if it remembers the iceberg. ”

In doing the show this way, Monk took a look back without being hokey, satisfied fans, and left plenty of room for a good mystery twist.

16) Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas (Season 3, Episode 14):  Monk gets a call from an inebriated Captain Stottlemeyer stating that he knows a man murdered his wife, whose death had been assumed to be accidental.  Monk and Natalie head out to investigate, but a hungover Stottlemeyer doesn’t remember what it was he’d noticed.

This episode was a lot of fun. Monk has a formidable villain in James Brolin, and Vegas setting was nicely done.  Monk and Natalie also have some great scenes together. Perhaps the most notable realization what that the Captain could solve crimes as easily as Monk provided the Captain was drunk. This was reminiscent of Anthony Boucher’s character, Nick Noble.

Overall, “Mr. Monk Goes to Vegas,” offers a very even mix of comedy and mystery.

Next week: 11-15

Golden Age Article

Michael Reston: The Washington Generals of Prosecuting Attorneys

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With the end of Starz’s relationship with Netflix, the Perry Mason TV movies are set to disappear off the Instant Watch. I’ve set the goal of seeing all the 1980s-90s Mason TV films before they disappear.

So far, I’ve seen nine of them which encompasses the Paul Drake, Jr. era.  Some observations so far on these Perry Mason mysteries:

D.A. Michael Reston’s amazing prosecutorial road show:  The first Perry Mason movie, Perry Mason Returns featured a generic prosecutor.  For the second Mason film, The Case of the Notorious Nun,  Michael Reston (David Ogden Stiers, M*A*S*H*)  took over the role of prosecutor for the next eight movies.  Reston is moderately competent, prone to cockiness no matter how many times Mason hands Reston’s head to him, Reston is always ready to tell Mason that this time he’s picked a loser.

Perry Mason  has never been a “by the book”  legal procedural, but Reston may have been the show’s biggest legal plothole. In his first appearance, Reston is the prosecuting attorney  as Mason represents a nun in California. The next movie, Perry Mason is in New York and defends a TV star accused of murder in The Case of the Shooting Star and once again, inexplicably, Reston is the prosecutor.  Perry Mason’s next case is in Denver, where he defends the hushband of a woman likely to be appointed to the United States Senate. Reston is once again the prosecutor and this time explains that due to the politically charged case, Reston was called in as a special prosecutor. The series then settles down in Denver with Reston having apparently moved to Denver along with Perry Mason, so that he could at irregular intervals, lose court cases. Or perhaps, he thought eventually, somewhere, he could beat Perry Mason. It’s reminiscent of the Washington Generals who travelled the world  for decades losing thousands of games in a row to the Harlem Globetrotters.  Reston’s final case has him prosecuting a case, not in Denver, but in a rural county in Colorado.  I’ll definitely miss Reston’s presence in future films, but at least he got to settle down.

Paul Drake, Jr: I didn’t really get into watching the Perry Mason movies until the 1990s, so prior to my recent spree, I’d only seen one of the episodes featuring Paul Drake, Jr. (William Katt, The Greatest American Hero.)  When Perry Mason Returns aired in 1985, the writers dealt with the death of William Hopper (who played Paul Drake in the original series) by introducing Drake. Jr. as a free spirited young private eye who had pared the once-powerful Drake Detective Agency to just a one man operation, so he could pursue his other interests.

In this case, the resemblance between father and son ended at the name. Drake Jr. more often than not, comically stumbled through his cases, habitually just missing leads and losing suspects.  He was likable, but I definitely prefer William Moses’ performance as Ken Malansky.

Perry Mason and Della Street:  One thing, I’ve found astonishing, reading through fan reviews of the various Mason Telefilms is the complaints about Raymond Burr’s poor health> Some even suggested that show producers should have required Burr (who was 68 when the first film was made and 76 when the last one was completed) to lose weight for the role.

Such thoughts never occurred to me, either when watching Perry Mason as a child, nor watching the movies now. It’s true that Burr has to use a cane in many episodes, but he was still Perry Mason, and while Perry was not in his physical prime, he was just as sharp, shrewd, and dangerous of an adversary as he’d been in the 1950s. Raymond Burr’s voice, his presence, and his great chemistry with Barbara Hale made even the weaker entries worth watching, even all these years later.

Suspending Disbelief: Watching these Perry Mason movies, I’m constantly struck by how much suspension of disbelief is required for some of the courtroom scenes, and I’m not referring to the trademark courtroom confession.  I’m struck by some of the utterly amazing lines of questioning that the lawyers ask for soeemingly no good reason. In one movie, Perry impeaches the credibility of a witness when it will do absolutely nothing to cast a reasonable doubt on his client’s guilt.  In another movie,  Reston  challenges Della’s character testimony on behalf of a client by making he radmit she’d been briefly engaged several decades ago to the Defendant’s brother. I’m reminded that Perry Mason was practically a courtroom fantasy and to properly enjoy it, you have to forget, at least temporarily, how real courts work.

The Best So Far: Of the first nine Movies in the Drake. Jr.-Reston era, I’d say the three best so far  would be:   Perry Mason and the Case of the Lost Love which featured an intricate mystery, the solution to which put Perry in a very difficult position. I also liked the twists in Perry Mason and the Case of the Sinister Spirit and Perry Mason and the Case of the Lady in the Lake. The weakest was  Perry Mason and the Case of the Murdered Madam.

I hope to see the remaining 17 Perry Mason Movies before they disappear from Netflix. The Ken Malansky (William Moses) era of the movies were the ones I remember best.

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Golden Age Article, Hercule Poirot, Movie Review

Movie Review: Evil Under the Sun (1982)

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In Evil Under the Sun, Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) mixes business with pleasure. An insurance company calls Poirot in when the wealthy Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely) requests to have a necklace insured for a large sum of money and the necklace turns out to be a paste copy.  Blatt tells Poirot that he gave the necklace to a woman he intended to marry named Arlena, but that she opted to marry someone else and returned the necklace. She’s staying at an Island resort where Poirot and Sir Horace can confront her.

So Poirot heads off to a beautiful island resort where he relaxes and watches the situation escalate as it becomes apparent that everyone at the resort from the owner on down has cause to hate Arlena (Diana Rigg), from the owner to her husband, to the wife of a man she’s having a very indiscrete affair with. About an hour into the movie, she is murdered–to the surprise of no one familiar with Agatha Christie stories– and it falls to Hercule Poirot to find the killer. However, Poirot pool of suspect begins to dwindle as it looks like everybody has an alibi.

Review:

First, let me take a moment to praise the cinematography. The result is truly beautiful and Evil Under the Sun does a great job of bringing this fantastic setting to life.

As to the mystery itself, Evil Under the Sun is solid. The Edgar-nominated movie delivers a tough puzzle for the viewers to solve (even though, it took a long time to get to the inevitable murder.) The mystery was well-paced as I kept wondering how Poirot was going to crack this one. The story delivers a classic payoff.

The supporting cast was superb. It wasn’t star-studded, but rather filled with competent character actors who made the story work. The best supporting performance came from Jane Birkin as the wife of the murder victim’s lover.

As for Poirot himself, this was my first time seeing Ustinov as Poirot and I thought that he was okay in the role. He certainly wasn’t as good as David Suchet, and was a little too comical for my liking, but his performance was servicable.

One final note for parents. The movie is rated PG, but this film was relased in 1982 prior to the establishment of the PG13 rating which would have better suited the film due to some adult content.

Rating: 4.25 stars out of 5.0

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Mr. Monks’s Top 20 List: The Honorable Mentions

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Having finished the complete Monk series, the natural thing to do when I have a blog like would be to make a list of my favorites. We’ve done it before with Columbo.

The big question for me was the number. Monk himself would prefer ten or something divisible by it.  I decided on 20, but couldn’t quite narrow it down to that. So, we’ll have 20 and five honorable mentions.:)*

To prepare for this, I went through the entire list of episodes and picked out potential candidates for the list and picked out 35 episodes from which cut.  The first four Seasons of Monk where the source of 24 picks and the last four but eleven. When I winnowed the list down to 20, 15 episodes from Season 1-4 made the list and only 5 from Seasons 5-8.  However, the second half of the series does dominate our Honorable mentions:

Honorable Mentions:

Mr. Monk and Actor (Season 5, Episode 1):   One of Monk’s cases is going to be made into a TV movie and a classic method actor (Stanley Tucci) with a habit for getting too much into character is set to play Monk  in the telefilm. As he follows Monk around Tucci’s character begins to become Monk. The 2nd half of the series featured many episodes in which humor storylines overwhelmed the crime story. This one was different in that it actually worked, thanks to an Emmy-winning performance by Tucci which sells the episode.

Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend (Season 6, Episode 4): Monk suspects the Captain’s girlfriend of murder. The problem is that the murder was so cleverly committed that Monk himself is a witness to her alibi. This episode combines some great elements including some great tension between Monk and the Captain and a clever solution to the problem. Also, it’s somewhat noteworthy as mystery programs rarely make recurring characters as a murderer.

Mr. Monk and the Kid (Season 3, Episode 16): A missing toddler is found carrying a severed human finger. Through a process of deduction, Monk figures out a kidnapping is going on and the finger belongs to the victim of the family. This has a decent mystery plot and a hilarious scene where Monk’s fear of nudity ruins the handover of ransom money. However, the real genius of this is the touching relationship between Monk and the little boy who he takes into temporary custody due to some issues with the boy’s regular foster parents. The presence of the boy awakens long-dormant paternal feelings that has Monk thinking of adopting the boy. Monk, however, must confront what it really means to love in a poignant and moving end to the 3rd season.

Mr. Monk and the Foreign Man (Season 8, Episode 2): Monk is annoyed by a Nigerian man making noise across the street from his apartment, but when he confronts the man he learns that the man is in this country as his wife was struck down by a hit and run driver.  This changes everything and Monk resolves to help the husband, even to the point of tolerating the man’s smoking. (Albeit, Monk impromptu invents the smoking bag and advises the husband that’s how smoking is done in America.) The mystery was good for Season 8, but nowhere close to the show’s zenith. However, the show’s poignant dramatic moments and the comedy made it a keeper.

Mr. Monk and the Candidate (Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2):  Where it all began. This episode does a fabulous job setting the stage for what is to come.  We are given a good mystery in which our hero must prove himself in the beginning of his private consulting career after three years away from the Force after the death of Trudy. This episode, more than any other, has a Monk as a man with something to prove. The story was one of only three two part episodes in Monk history and the writers took excellent advantage of it to give us a good mystery and a solid character sketch of Monk, whose balance of fear and courage and  brilliance and madness were on full display. The episode also shows the strengths and weaknesses of Monk’s first assistant Sharona Flemming. Sharona’s big weakness was her ability to attract the wrong type of men. When Adrian exposes her date as a fraud, her pride makes her temporarily quit before returning to help Monk solve the case and set the stage for dozens of mysteries to come.

Next week: 16-20

*If anyone’s wondering why I only did a top 10 for Columbo, remember our Columbo top 10 list was only of the 40-odd 1970s episodes while Monk had triple that.  

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Box 13, Golden Age Article

Box 13 in the 21st Century

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I recently received a listener question from Kathleeen about Box 13:

I had a thought; what do you think the “Box 13” ad would look like if it were on CraigsList?

The question is easy enough to answer but raises another one that’s a little more complex, How would a modern day Dan Holiday make a Box 13-type scenario work in the 21st Century?

Dan Holiday (played by Hollywood legend Alan Ladd) was a reporter who decided to try his hand at writing mysteries. He had a unique idea to come up with plots for his stories. He put in ad in the Star Times saying, “Adventure Wanted, will go anywhere, will do anything. Write Box 13.” That simple premise made Box 13 one of the greatest radio adventure mystery series ever made and it was actually our first series. (See: Archives.)

In the time of Dan Holiday, newspapers were king. They were the cheapest way to communicate a message to the general public. Not only did Dan Holiday use newspapers, so did George Valentine of Let George Do It, and the legendary Nero Wolfe placed newspaper ads for a variety of purposes. In In the Best Families he announced his retirement with a newspaper ad, and in Might as Well be Dead, he used an ad to search for the missing Paul Harrell.

Newspapers worked for Dan Holiday with his little ad run repeatedly because people saw it over and over again. In fact, in many episodes, the correspondents mentioned that they’d seen the ad several times which gave them the idea to write to Box 13 when they had a need for a freelance adventurer.

The Box 13 situation gave Holiday a suitable cloak of mystery. It allowed him to keep secret the source of his novel ideas and to protect himself from cranks with the notable exception of the adventure, “Find Me, Find Death.”

The 21st Century is different.  The internet has overtaken newspapers  as the top source of news and information. So how would a modern Dan Holiday make this work?

He may be able to get away with newspaper ads for a while. Many of Holiday’s adventures came from letters from older people who would be more likely to still be reading newspapers. But how would Holiday communicate with the Internet generation?

The Craig’s List ad would probably be the same as his newspaper ad with a notable exception (the inclusion of a website):

Box 13-Craig's List

(Note: At the time of writing this post, the domain was not registered by anyone. I’m not responsible what might be there when you’re reading this post.)

Including the website would not be strictly necessary. As readers could respond to the Craig’s list post by clicking on a link in the ad.  The big challenge with something like Craig’s list (other than the fact that I don’t know under what category you’d even advertise as a freelance adventurer) is that there’s no way to stand out the same way Dan Holiday’s repeated newspaper ad did in the original series.

In the 21st Century, Holiday would need to do something else. He’d have to take the Box 13  thing and make it go viral to get the type of response he wanted. His publisher would probably insist on it. Holiday would probably have all the blogging and social networking stuff going and it’d only be a matter of time before he had a legion of followers and fans.

Imagine a guy who could write tweets like:

Good news: got my first response on Box 13. Bad news: She’s trying to frame me for murder.

In Louisiana, fighting alleged voodoo curse.

I don’t think he’d have any problem getting followers.

The BBC Series, Sherlock, which imagines Holmes in the 21st Century makes full use of modern technology including text, email, and the Internet.  These elements don’t make the show successful. Rather, they serve to establish this Holmes firmly in his time. What makes the show work is the strength of the chracters and the stories.

The same thing is true of Box 13. A 21st Century Dan Holiday might carry an Android Phone, but if he’s still a daring adventurer who will charge in where angels dare to tread to help someone, his story would still work if it’s done right.

Ed Note: It should be noted that David Gallaher, a listener to the program, wrote a graphic novel which imagines a 21st Century Dan Holiday. However, Gallaher uses Box 13 in a different way. 

If you have a question about classic radio, television, or movies that you’d like me to write about, I’d welcome your suggestions. You can email them to me on our contact form.

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Golden Age Article

The Amazing Mr. Monk

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“He’s the guy.”

“Here’s what happened.”

These catch phrases were heard constantly throughout the remarkable eight season run of Monk over the USA television network.

Crime television has become grittier and focused on scientific investigations. Monk was a throwback in more than ways than one as a PG detective series where mysteries were solved by magical genius.

Monk performed acts of crime solving prestidigitation through his ability to look at the same evidence and see what other investigators didn’t see and make the most amazing connections. In one case, Monk solved two cases by reading newspaper articles including one about a case in France.

This sort of genius detective had become fashionable with the success of Sherlock Holmes but fell out of favor with the public. Most of these genius detectives have been forgotten and even those who are remembered (Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Father Brown) have detractors who criticize them for being arrogant, too perfect, and not relatable.

Whatever the merits of these criticisms, new detectives have tended to be clever and resourceful rather than super geniuses. As such, the show creators were entering risky territory when they so overtly based Monk on Holmes.

Monk worked in the 21st Century because he was a very real and human character, beset by a variety of phobias and compulsions, and in severe grieving over the death of his late wife.

In the first scene of the Premier episode, “Mr. Monk and the Candidate”, Monk incisively cut through a smokescreen by which a murderer had tried to make their crime look like a burglary gone wrong while at the same time obsessing about touching a lamp and fearing he’d left the gas at his home on.

The scene set the tone for the series. In Monk, was a mixture of brilliance and mental and emotional wounds. Monk’s carrying two conflicting packages allowed the series to be not only a mystery series but a comedy drama with a character that viewers could relate to.

Monk’s struggles gave him an unusual set of challenges. If he was going to make it as a detective, he had to not only find the criminal, but fight back against his inner demons. While few people suffered from the sheer number or power of Monk’s compulsions and phobias, those who suffered from a few could relate and be encouraged by Monk’s triumphs, creating a great human story.

Monk was far from the gold and distant geniuses who have all but vanished from the public memory. As Captain Stottlemeyer observed in Mr. Monk and the End, “I’d always thought that Monk was not all there, like there was something missing, like he was less than human. But he wasn’t missing anything. He was seeing more than anybody. he was feeling more than anybody. That was his problem. He was too human. If we had more like him, we’d be better off.”

The mysteries in the early seasons were great fun with stories like, “Mr. Monk Goes to Mexico,”  in which Monk goes to Mexico to investigate the case of a man who allegedly drowned in midair, “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies” featuring Monk’s smarter brother Ambrose (modeled on Mycroft Holmes.)

Tony Shalhoub netted three Emmys and a Golden Globe in the show’s first four seasons on the air.  Throughout the series, he was backed up by Ted Levine, who played the tough but kind Captain Stottlemeyer and Jason Gray-Stafford who brought more than his share of comedy relief as the eccentric Lt. Randy Disher.

While Shallhoub would remain, the show would go through many changes. In the middle of season Season 3,  Monk’s first assistant Sharona Flemming,(played by Bitty Schram) left the series and was replaced by Natalie Teager (Traylor Howard) a move that some fans (not me) say led to the show jumping the shark. Stanley Kamel, who played Monk’s therapist Dr. Kroger, died after Season 6 and was replaced by Hector Elizondo.

The show did begin to weaken, particularly as far as the mystery plots were concerned, in the second half of the series, but this had little to do with casting changes and more to do with the writing. More and more, the writers resorted to paint by number mysteries where all that was necessary was to remember that everything revealed in the story is a clue and you too would figure out whodunit.  In some cases, this was done because of the limits of writing for 40 minutes of story on television, with a mix of several genres. If it was a choice between losing something, the writers seemed to prefer writing a weak mystery plot.  Towards, the very end, it seemed the writers were just plain running out of ideas with episodes like, “Mr. Monk and the Dog” and “Mr. Monk Goes Camping” both of which used variations on  prior  better episodes.

Yet, despite this, the show remained popular because viewers began to care about the character of Adrian Monk, so much so that the show’s finale made national headlines. And that’s actually when I started watching it. Through DVD’s and later the Netflix Instant Watch, my wife and I watched the whole series. I should add that my wife is not a fan of most mystery shows, but she loved Monk.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll be counting down the top 20 episodes of Monk. The best episodes of Monk put together the elements of drama, comedy, and mystery.  Monk put a 21st Century spin on the classic detective story and created one of television’s most compelling characters in the process.

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