Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: The 49th Man Starring John Ireland

This 1953 espionage drama is a fun and watchable movie. Where else can you see Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall play a gun-toting, nasty bad guy? I'm a big fan of John Ireland who plays the U.S. agent who is charged with tracking down nuclear devices getting smuggled into the U.S. Richard Denning plays his square-jawed boss who is just as determined as Ireland is to stop the bad guys from building of a nuclear bomb to be detonated in a big U.S. city. Their investigation eventually leads Ireland to France where he runs into Marshall and his wife played by Suzanne Dalbert who are "working" in a jazz band. There are a couple of neat twists dropped in as the film closes in San Francisco. Good to see Mike (credited as "Touch") Connors in an early, small role. It isn't a great film, but still offered enough action to hold my attention until the end.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Island of Doomed Men Starring Peter Lorre

This 1940 above-average crime melodrama stars Peter Lorre as the villain, a role he usually relished and performed with panache. However, this film just didn't give him a lot to work with, I'm afraid. The plot is a straightforward if not familiar one. Robert Wilcox stars as Agent 64, a secret operative of Uncle Sam. Wilcox intentionally goes to prison and is later paroled into the care of Lorre who is running a diamond mining operation on a remote, forgotten island found within the United States's jurisdiction (somewhere in Key West?). The trouble is Lorre is actually a slave driver, and nobody can get off his private prison of an island, including his young, attractive wife played by Rochelle Hudson. I have to give Lorre credit for trying to infuse his bad guy character with evil madness. His shooting his wife's pet monkey convinced me he was off his rocker. Perhaps the 68-minute run time could have been extended to work in a couple of more plot twists. Or it may have been the subject of a good horror novel. Interestingly, both Wilcox and Hudson later died prematurely of heart attacks. IMDb.com gives The Island of Doomed Men a 5.9 rating, and that might be a bit low. At least watching Peter Lorre is always a treat.

"Doc Martin" And Me

Last night, I stayed up late to watch another episode of "Doc Martin," a British medical comedy television show starring Martin Clunes as the title character. I've been watching the series out of order, and it's been a challenge to keep up on who is doing what. But that's not what makes the show great fun for me. Doc Martin is a clueless middle-aged curmudgeon who tries to make sense of his world, but it still baffles him. His bedside manner is terrible, but his gruff bluntness always gets the patients's diagnosis right. I get a laugh out of watching him, but I also empathize with his struggles. Martin Clunes makes the doc an interesting fellow. Plus, the setting of the sleepy Cornish village of Portwenn is the type of gorgeous spot where I'd like to spend my vacation. One of these days, I'll sit down and watch the episodes in the right order. Until then, I'll fit them into my writing schedule as time allows. It's a great TV series.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Harry In Your Pocket Starring James Coburn (1973)

I was in the mood to see a James Coburn flick, so I settled on this 1973 crime drama where Coburn/Harry plays a master pickpocket who runs a team and turns a pretty nifty profit. Michael Sarrazin and the foxy Trish Van Devere (actor George C. Scott's wife) play a young couple Harry decides to train in the illegal craft. Walter Pidgeon is a geezer who plays Harry's oily partner, but who also has a bad coke habit. I got to see all sorts of tricks and stunts where the pickpockets make their scores on the different unsuspecting marks. In 1973, there was still enough paper money carried out there to make stealing it a lucrative enterprise. Harry mostly keeps the young couple around so he can get Trish into bed with him. Meantime, Sarrazin believes he is accomplished enough to strike out on his own without Harry's constant oversight. It's debatable if Sarrazin is as good as he thinks he is, but Harry manages to keep him in line for a while anyway. I liked the jargon and techniques, but I had to wonder about the ending. Anyway, a solid film for crime fans.

Shiver Me Timbers!

We got our first blast of Arctic cold temperatures this week. Winter is here. Resistance is futile. Ironically, or perhaps not, I like to work on my novels set in the summertime during the winter. The time slot between the American holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year's Day is a favorite of mine to be writing. Between dodging the Fed Ex delivery vans whipping around the streets in my neighborhood, I'll typically be working on the draft of a new book. This year I have a couple of ideas, and I'll have to decide soon which one I want to tackle. No doubt it will be a cozy mystery title, the next one in one of my two cozy series. I have the drafts of a few crime noirs waiting for me to get back and polish them for publication. I can go between working on my hard-boiled and soft-boiled fiction without too much trouble. My books newsletter will be hitting the streets next month. If you'd like to receive a copy of it, send me your email, and I'll add you to the mailing list. Meantime, throw another log on the fire and stay warm.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Shield For Murder Starring Edmond O'Brien

I was in the mood for watching a gritty film noir, and this 1954 dirty cop drama was spot-on. Based on crime novelist's William P. McGivern's novel of the same name, the fine movie stars O'Brien (who also directed) in a tight, restrained performance as a cynical, crooked police detective. Making a greedy and ill-advised move, he rips off a bag man's 25 grand stake intended to go to the local crime boss, and the trouble begins as O'Brien tries to cover up his crimes, his including murders. There's a surprising amount of rough stuff by 1954's standards. Carolyn Jones (later "Morticia" on The Addams Family) plays a vampy bar floozy who keeps the sweaty O'Brien company for a while. Look for Richard Deacon (later "Mel" on The Dick Van Dyke Show) in a minor and uncredited role. Claude Atkins playing a gun-toting thug has a rousing climatic scene with O'Brien. IMDb.com rates Shield for Murder with 6.8, but I enjoyed it more than their viewers evidently did. Now I'll have to read the William P. McGivern book! He must have liked the crooked cops theme because I read his Rogue Cop similar to this plot.

Peyton Place? Where Is That?

While I was growing up in a small town, I heard it sometimes compared to "Peyton Place," often leaving me to wonder where exactly it was located, and what it represented. I'm not sure how or where along the line I learned about Peyton Place, and it wasn't in complimentary terms either about the small town or its residents. Wikipedia tells me the bestselling novel Peyton Place was published in 1956, making the event before my time, at least my time for remembering it. I've never read the novel, and I probably never will.

Which brings me to the present time as I was revising one of my novels-in-progress. My editor's eye caught my use of "Peyton Place," and I wondered if my readers would know what I was referring to. Given the context, they probably could reasonably guess at the meaning I was trying to convey. Of course, there is always Google easily accessed on web-enabled smart phones to look up Peyton Place. I'm the curious sort who is always looking stuff up online. Anyway, I decided to leave the Peyton Place reference in my novel because my readers group is in the age 50+ category, and they would probably know what it means.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: SHOCK CORRIDOR Directed by Sam Fuller

This harrowing 1963 movie directed and written by Sam Fuller is about an ambitious journalist (Peter Breck) who wants in the worst way to land a Pulitzer Prize and catapult his career into the big leagues. He convinces his reluctant stripper girlfriend (Constance Towers) to pose as his sister and uses their trumped up incestuous relationship as his ticket to get committed to the mental hospital where a lurid murder has occurred. Of course, once he's locked inside the booby hatch, he becomes institutionalized, and things go downhill from that point. I can see how raw the material was in 1963, and even today it's unsettling to watch. Breck does a good job playing the journalist. One of the more unforgettable inmates is James Best, later to become the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the Dukes of Hazzard ("You dipstick!"). But this bleak movie is anything but humorous. Since it was made so late in 1963, I suppose it qualifies as neo-noir. At any rate, IMDb.com rates it 7.6/10.0 which is a high mark, and I'd agree with it.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Blood on the Moon Starring Robert Mitchum

I'm a fan of old Western movies and don't watch them nearly as much as I'd like to do. Tonight I was in the right mood for a good Western, so I settled on this 1948 dandy from RKO featuring one of their star actors, a young-looking Robert Mitchum. The reliable Robert Wise (The Set-Up starring Robert Ryan) directed it, and Luke Short wrote the novel (Gunman's Chance) the film is based on. I have not yet read the novel. Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie), Robert Preston, and Walter Brennan round out the sturdy cast of characters. Brennan is a treat. Mitchum plays Jim Garry, a gunfighter who gets involved with cattle ranchers competing to sell beef to the Indian reservation. Bel Geddes, the love interest, is one of the ranchers's daughters. Mitchum is the typical laconic, rugged cowboy drifter who has a conscience to go with his quick draw. I enjoyed Blood on the Moon, so I'll probably check out some more Westerns this winter. They make a nice change of pace from my steady diet of watching films noir and crime films. 

My Next Cozy Mystery Title Came Back From My Beta Reader!

Over the summer, I was developing a second cozy mystery series to complement my Isabel & Alma Trumbo cozies. As you may or may not know, Isabel & Alma are the senior sisters who live in the small town of Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, a delightful, quaint place to live with the notable exception so many murders occur there. It's no laughing matter, but the fussy, feisty, and funny Trumbo sisters are always on the case. They've been solving all the mysteries they've taken on to investigate, too.

Now, I've created as my protagonists the retired married couple, Piper & Bill Robins, living in the Northern Virginia suburb of Beverly Park. They feel compelled to investigate a close neighbor's homicide, and so the Robinses series starts off.

I finally sent the debut title to my beta reader, and the results came in yesterday. The good news to report is there's nothing really major to fix beyond the usual edits (although quite a few small things were caught). I also got the comment there is a lot more LOL humor found in Piper & Bill's cozies than in Isabel & Alma's cozies. I was heartened to hear that comment because I wrote it to be funny.

I'll blog again as I make progress in putting out Piper & Bill's new cozy mystery. I'm still looking at a December timeframe for publication. Thanks again for your interest!

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Mike Hammer Starring Darren McGavin

Mike Hammer with Darren McGavin starring as the private eye is the first syndicated TV series based on Mickey Spillane's famous hardboiled detective. I watched a half-hour episode titled "A Mugging Evening" which appeared as one of the last shows in 1959 when the series ended after just two seasons. I've always liked McGavin in the other films and TV shows like Kolchak I've watched him in. He plays Hammer with a lot of sly humor and tongue placed firmly in cheek. Spillane was said to have had practically nothing to do with the show's production except to grab the money and run. There is one good fight scene in this episode near the end. Hammer, of course, is romancing the older sister of the murder victim. The older sister is an ice skating instructor in Central Park and wears nice clothes. I guess her job pays well. At any rate, I enjoyed seeing the Hammer episode although I doubt if I watch many others.

Storyboarding My Cozy Mysteries on Pinterest

I've been on the social media platform known as Pinterest for about a year, if memory serves me. It's probably the least used social media platform I'm on. Lately, I changed that level of effort when I began to storyboard my future cozy mystery title "Sweet Betsy" in my Isabel and Alma Trumbo Cozy Mystery Series. The Trumbo sisters, both retired and in their 70s, reside in the fictitious small town of Quiet Anchorage, Virginia. For some quirky reason, Quiet Anchorage has a high incidence of homicide, and they are called upon to do some sleuthing and come up with solving the murder case. The fun I've had is creating a Pinterest board with the different pictures I pinned there of what I envision Quiet Anchorage might appear like. "Sweet Betsy" is still a draft, so I can make any changes I want to it with little pain. I've pinned such places as the town's bakery, florists shop, grocery store, and water tower. I tried to match the descriptions I have in mind to the actual pictures I've pinned with varying degrees of success. Maybe the board will become more useful as I do more pinning. We'll see. Click here to reach my Pinterest storyboard.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Man Bait (Hammer Films)

This 1952 British film noir was released as The Last Page in the UK, but as the more lurid-titled Man Bait in the US. Despite the racy movie poster, it offers a nifty plot with a couple of twists. Hammer Films (better known for their gothic horror pictures up until the 1970s) produced this first movie and the others that followed in Britain, and Lippert Pictures distributed the films to the Yank audiences. George Brent, Marguerite Chapman and Diana Dors (her debut film) star in the picture. The middle-aged Brent plays a bookstore owner who is blackmailed by his gorgeous employee Dors after she kisses him in his office. He balks at paying up, and she turns up the heat with disastrous results. Her sleazy and greedy accomplice, played by Peter Reynolds, provides the muscle. I had to wonder how much longer such an independent bookstore as this one will be around while I watched the movie. The late crime novelist and critic Arthur Lyons (I liked reading his private eye novels) mentions Man Bait in his nonfiction "Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir!" from Da Capo Press. Man Bait isn't a bad way to spend the 84 minutes to watch it.

Just Back from the Farmers's Market

It was pouring down rain this Saturday morning, so we decided to brave the elements and soldier out to our favorite Farmers's Market. (Is it right to spell it as Farmers or Farmers' or Farmers's or even Farmer Market? I've seen so many variations on the spelling. I'm going to use "Farmers's" throughout this blog post). It's so late in the growing season that not much is still left to select from, but we like the different varieties of apples and pears set out by the vendors for display in their bins. Good thing for us shoppers the vendors had put up their canvas canopies to keep the rain out of our faces. It was interesting to see who else was intrepid (is that the right adjective?) enough to schlep out to the Farmers's Market. Even with the foul weather, everybody we saw was in a congenial enough mood. We picked up some Asian pears to eat for breakfast as well as a bag of apples called Crimson Tart. It's a new variety, and we liked the tasty samples left out for the shoppers to try out. We're still waiting for the Gold Rush apples, our favorites, to come into season. We're big apple lovers and eat them throughout the winter. Anyway, there's only a couple of weeks left before the Farmers's Market closes down for the year.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: THE NAKED KISS (Sam Fuller, Director)

This 1964 neo-noir film written and directed by the great Sam Fuller is a strange bird, indeed. Constance Towers plays the hard-edged prostitute Kelly who breaks out of her profession and goes on the lam to escape the wrath of her pimp with his underworld contacts. She ends up getting off the bus in a small town called Grantville which features a children's hospital set up by the wealthy scion of the town's founding family. She has a one-time tryst with the local police captain and then gets hired as a nurse's aid at the hospital where she excels at her job. She falls in love with the scion and seems to have finally hit easy street. Of course, since this is film noir, she runs into a couple of major obstacles. Her past catches up to her, and her love is nothing at all like what he appears. This movie has it all. It's sentimental, lurid, romantic, nostalgic, repulsive, and grotesque. Somehow, Kelly maintains her integrity, and this viewer had to know what became of her. Towers does a first-rate acting job. I saw Fuller's The Big Red One at the cinema back in 1980, but all I can remember was Lee Marvin starred in the war picture. I plan to view Fuller's Shock Corridor (he shamelessly plugs it on the town's movie marquee in The Naked Kiss) one of these weeks. Recommended.

Our First Frost Hit This Morning!

How late in the autumn does your first frost usually come in your locality? This year ours hit earlier than we typically get it. As I walked up the driveway from getting the newspaper this morning, I saw the white frost coating the roof shingles. It surprised me a little. I didn't think it was getting to the freezing temperature mark outdoors at night. Just a few days ago, I had on shorts. I always equate the end of summer to when Jack Frost makes his debut appearance. I know there will be a few more warm, sunny days in October, but those pleasant weather days are numbered. Have you spotted the Halloween regalia on display? This October I've spotted a lot more pumpkins sit out on the neighbors's porches. Maybe there was a bumper crop of pumpkins this summer. The vendors at the Farmers's Market have lots of pumpkins out on sale. Speaking of the Farmers's Market, apples and pears are about the only produce that is good right now to buy. I bought a rotten cantaloupe last week by mistake. You'd think after all these years, I could pick out a ripe one as easy as clicking my fingers. What's the secret tip? Anybody know it? Well, it's back to my writing and editing fiction this morning. Thanks for dropping by for a blog read.

How My New Cozy Mystery Series Is Coming Along

I have posted a few sporadic blogs about my new and second cozy mystery series. It is coming right along now. I've already set aside the Book #1 for a couple of months and moved on to other projects before coming back to it. My latest rounds of edits have sharpened and focused Book #1, so I'm a lot more happier with it.

Earlier this week, I printed out Book #1 in hard copy for the first time. I always find it exciting to hold the physical pages to a new manuscript in my hands. I can actually "see" and "feel" what it is like instead of staring at it on the digital screen of my laptop.

Now come the last stages in the book's production. First, I'll copy edit and proofread the manuscript several times. I'll read the manuscript out loud. After I've finished doing all of that, I'll put in my fixes and print out a second clean hard copy for my beta (first) reader to go through. If it passes muster, then I'll be ready to finalize the book.

I've been going back and forth on the title for my Book #1. Right now, I'm going with THE CORPSE WORE GINGHAM. My problem with my title is it's TOO long. I count up 23 characters long, including the blank spaces. Twitter only allows 140 characters, so I'll be using up a chunk of them with putting in this book title on my tweets.

Oh well, I'll come up with something that is satisfactory, I'm sure. But all that is for later on. I'll post another blog next week about my progress. Thanks for your interest.

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: The Seven-Ups

This 1973 gritty cop movie ran at the theater, but I never got around to watching it for one reason or the other. Flash forward to now, and I finally did see it. I have to go with a big thumbs-up. In his first starring role, Roy Scheider (he played the police chief in the blockbuster hit Jaws) is a maverick NYPD cop who leads an elite undercover detective team called the Seven-Ups because they bust the felons who serve seven and up years of prison time. The director Philip D'Antoni also worked on cop thrillers like Bullitt and The French Connection. There's an exciting car chase that is filmed like the chase scene from The French Connection. The car chase ends with the pursuing car ramming into the rear end of a parked tractor-trailer and peeling off the roof a la Jayne Mansfield. Most of the movie was shot on location in New York City, so the landmarks are probably familiar to a native. The plot is fairly straightforward, and Schneider does a good job as a tough cop who gets the job done, and his bosses like that about him. The Seven-Ups reminds me of Serpico which I did get to see at the cinema when it ran. I liked The Seven-Ups, and Scheider was a solid actor who died in 2008.

My Second Cozy Mystery Series

I've spent a great deal of my summer developing a second cozy mystery series as a complement my Isabel and Alma Trumbo Mystery Series. I've set the new cozy series in the D.C. suburbs, and the protagonists are a retired married couple. Of course, Isabel and Alma are senior sisters who like to do their sleuthing in the small town of Quiet Anchorage, Virginia. The contrast of the suburban and small town settings are quite different in some respects while alike in others. The suburban neighborhood is like a small town with its own stores and businesses. The residents in the neighborhoods shop in the places they are familiar with and prefer like just as the townspeople do. At least that's been my thinking while I wrote the first book. Isabel and Alma aren't going away and will be back with a new book next year. Anyway, I like my new protagonists, and I hope my readers will, as well. I'll blog more about my progress and plans as the autumn unfolds.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Mob Starring Broderick Crawford

This 1951 crime drama stars Broderick Crawford is a precursor to better known On the Waterfront which hit the theaters three years later. This promotional still from the movie shows Crawford and Neville Brand who looks just like a thug in the movies I've watched with him in the cast. Crawford and Brand later get into a good fight scene. The movie takes place in a port city somewhere north of New Orleans. St. Louis, maybe. I didn't catch where if it's given in the movie. Crawford is a burly actor who makes for a good, tough cop (he won his Academy Award for playing Willie Stark in All the Kings Men). I liked him in this role where he goes undercover to investigate the mob involvement along the wharf. Charles Bronson has an uncredited bit part as a longshoreman. Richard Kiley and Ernest Borgnine also play meaty roles. Be sure to check out how the cops run a tail job in the days before the electronic transmitters were used. Even though the dialogue is corny in spots, The Mob is a good, solid film I found entertaining to watch.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Two O'clock Courage Starring Jane Greer

This 1945 film noir from RKO has a lot more comedy than it does noir. I went ahead and watched it anyway. It's an early film directed by Anthony Mann (The Naked Spur, Western I like very much), plus Bettejane Greer stars in it. She'd later be Jane Greer with Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past which ranks in my Top Ten Films Noir. So, those two reasons alone were enough to intrigue me. Tom Conway stars as an amnesia victim who wisecracking cabbie Ann Rutherford picks up and then helps to unravel why he is caught in a murder. Cabbies, then and now, are so helpful at least in the movies, I suppose. Jane Greer plays a boozy chippie and looks like she's having a lot of fun making the picture. Rutherford and Conway play amateur sleuths tracking down the clues and finally exposing the real killer in a rather conventional whodunit. Still, Two O'clock Courage is a C+ 68-minute movie I enjoyed watching.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Turning Point (1952)

This 1952 crime drama, base on a short story by Horace McCoy ( They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) is what you'd expect from a crime movie about the special prosecutor trying to break a midwestern city's crime syndicate. By now, the film noir theme feels like a familiar one to me. So, the film has to have something else going for it, and, fortunately, this film does. What makes it stand out is the sharp acting of a young William Holden as a dogged investigative reporter and Edmond O'Brien as the crusading special prosecutor. As I have said before, O'Brien leaves me hot or cold. This time I like his acting. Alexis Smith in a minor role plays the love interest. Ed Begley plays the ruthless crime kingpin that Holden and O'Brien are struggling to take down. Enjoyable fare.

My Science Fiction Novel: THE QUETZAL MOTEL

I've been getting the rights back on my back list titles and re-releasing them as e-books over the past few months. One such novel is my only science fiction title, The Quetzal Motel. Here is the new front cover art I used. I enjoyed writing the science fiction novel, which also has a mystery/crime subplot to it. When I was writing a lot of short stories, I did quite a few stories in the speculative fiction vein. Most of my fiction output now falls in the mystery/crime genre. Anyway, I might try my hand again at writing another science fiction book, but I don't have any immediate plans to do so. Check out The Quetzal Motel if you like the pulpy sort of science fiction.  

Round Two: Revising My Next Cozy Mystery Series Title

Labor Day marks the end of summer and the start of autumn, although I'm sweating today like it's mid-July. But I have no complaints about the weather. I always feel like I write better fiction when it's summer than during the winter cold blahs.

The kids here started back to school this week, and I pass them grouped on the street corners waiting for their busses during my daily walk. I always enjoyed the beginning of the school year, especially in the lower grades. I had no idea back then I would be writing novels a few decades later. At any rate, it was fun to see old friends and make new ones. Plus, the subjects always interested me with the exception of math which I detested. I still do. Words come easier to me than numbers ever did.

This week I began the second round of revisions to my next cozy mystery series title. I'm calling it SWEET BETSY as the working title that is subject to change at any time. The series protagonists Isabel and Alma Trumbo entertain me with their stories. They're sisters living and sleuthing together in a small town called Quiet Anchorage. It's not found on Google Maps. Right now, it's a little rough going while I'm getting their narrative and plotline straightened out. But once the kinks are worked out, I believe the revising will turn a bit easier and smoother.

I'll be checking in here at my blog more often as the autumn progresses. I've been running my film reviews every Tuesday with the Tuesday's Overlooked Movies gang. It's relaxing to watch a movie than it is to read a book these days while I'm writing my own novels. Thanks for reading my blog postings.

Current Movie Review: Woody Allen's MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

I liked Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris and wasn't so crazy about Blue Jasmine. Magic in the Moonlight probably falls somewhere in the middle. The main stars are Emma Stone and Colin Firth, both who try to lift up the so-so script to offer an entertaining performance. Emma is a mystic and clairvoyant in 1928 France, and Colin, a renowned British magician, sets out to expose her as a charlatan. However, when she gives him choice tidbits about his personal life, he begins to believe maybe she is the real deal. A shifty romance springs up between them, although he seems as clueless about love as Doc Martin is on the TV series I enjoy watching. Magic in the Moonlight has a gorgeous setting, lots of spritely jazz tunes from the time period, and the bright parties never seem to stop. Gatsby and Nick would fit right in here. There is a pacing problem as the large patches of dialogue slow down the action. I have to remind myself of the same thing when I'm revising my novels. When I start checking the luminous dial on my wrist watch as I did while I was seeing Magic in the Moonlight, I know things aren't moving along enough to engage my full interest. Still, it was cute and charming. I found myself rooting for the two protagonists, and I laughed out loud a time or two. Fun stuff, Magic in the Moonlight satisfied my Labor Day cinema fix.