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SLEUTH JOURNAL

Included will be articles, news items, reviews (books/zines/films/websites), interviews with writers & publishers, poetry, fiction, photos and artwork, plus an extensive recommended links list all about the world of mystery films and literature.  We are open to submissions from experienced and talented amateur writers & artists on a regular basis.  For guidelines: zinester@mochamail.com   or   zinester@buzzle.com   or   zinester@zworg.com   Or, request our regular mailing address.  Enclose a S.A.S.E. with all inquiries.

NON-FICTION:

                                               THE SHADOW KNOWS

                                                                 by

                                                                   Howard Hopkins

    Prom a dark, foreboding alleyway came slight scuffling sounds; sounds resembling those of a rat foraging for food in an abandoned cellar.  A human rat.  Lefty Rafell, was hunched in Stygian gloom, seeking the biggest prey of his criminal life.  He had come to destroy the scourge of the underworld --The Shadow!

    A slight sound startled Lefty.  His rodent-like features twisted in terror.  His gnarled fingers tightened upon the cold blue steel of his automatic.  There came a slight rustle of clothing as the darkness seemed suddenly to take on life.  Sentient ebony enveloped the terrified gangster!  Lefty struggled vainly as steel-sinewed hands gripped his wrists.  Fog clutched his horror-filled brain.  Nerveless fingers clenched in desperation.  A snap of thunder, and a shot split the night.  Lefty screamed and slumped to the ground. Blood trickled over faltering hands as he clutched his wound, and it seeped into small cracks in the pavement mixing with the grime of the cold alley floor.

    A mocking laugh whispered out, echoing through the brick buildings and finally fading into ethereal infinity like flickering starlight obscured by a dark cloud.

    The Master of Darkness had come and gone, leaving gangdom with one less grimy member to rely upon...

THE DARK EAGLE

    Few mystery/adventure characters have etched their mark in American fiction quite as magnificently as The Shadow, the slouch--hatted black-cloaked master of the night.  Even today, in a world filled with anti-heroes and Star Wars, few persons can resist uttering his name when the foreboding phrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men," is spoken.  He is a lasting, timeless creation, a figure of mist as nebulous as a memory.  Only his mocking, mirthless laugh, floating like a dark wind, remains with us as he merges with the night.  He is a ghostly, superhuman figure, an avenging phantom.

    His illustrious career began, quite as a fluke, in the early 1930s as a disembodied voice on the radio, advertising "The Detective Story Hour," which was an adaptation of some short story that would be on sale the next day in one of Ace Publishing Company's Street and Smith's monthly pulp magazines.  The voice of The Shadow (played by James LaCurto) was merely intended to be a gimmick to get people to buy the magazine, but the plan, at first, backfired.  Though The Shadow was only the announcer, people began to ask for The Shadow magazine, which at the time did not yet exist.  When word reached Henry W. Ralston, general manager of Street and Smith, he was quick) to see the opportunity.  Besides, if Street and Smith didn't jump on the character, surely some rival publication would.  Ralston even offered a contest with a $500 prize for the listener who could, through a series of clues, describe The Shadow and some of his background.  The Shadow also offered Street and Smith a chance to revive the lagging character field in the pulps.  Until this time, the mainstay had been gangster stories, but the public seemed to be tiring of such fare.  They needed a hero, a figure who blasted out justice.

    Ralston then set upon the task of finding an idea for his new character.  He also sought an author who could turn out a quick story; Walter 8. Gibson, a crime reporter in Philadelphia and a writer for the Philadelphia Ledger Syndicate, seemed to fit the bill.  Gibson had created a host of features and articles on magic, intelligence puzzles and word games for the tabloid, and later moved on to True Strange Stories and True Detective, two other pulp magazines, with which he did some editing as well as writing.  He ghosted numerous pieces for professional magicians, including Houdini and Blackstone.  Gibson, writing under the house name of Maxwell Grant, seemed perfect for the job, that of developing a character who relied upon misdirection, (The house name was a peculiarity of the pulps, masking true authorship in case the writer should quit or become too ill to continue the series.  Many authors could fill in without awakening the readers' suspicions.  This practice created a sense of unity under one author.)

    Gibson already had an idea for the character, something he had nurtured in his mind for a long time.  The classic Shadow tale, "The Living Shadow" (which was put together so fast the company reused an old Thrill Book cover), utilized this idea concerning a cloaked figure emerging from the foggy night to rescue a young man bent on suicide by throwing himself over a bridge.  In return, this figure of the night demanded total allegiance, total trust.  The young man, Harry Vincent, who would be The Shadow's chief aide until the radio show forced Gibson to include Margo Lane, was not sure if his new master was a figure of justice or a crook; neither were the readers.  But Harry did not really care at first. The Shadow offered him life money, and a purpose.  Harry's life was over just as sure as if he had flung himself over that bridge, but through his new alliance there would come adventure and intrigue.

    Gibson's idea followed Ralston's conception beautifully and the first issue of the new magazine was a complete sellout.  The story, involving jewel thieves takes place in a Chinese setting which would become the most popular theme in the series.  But even by the end of the first story.  The Shadow is still a mystery.

    The magazine originally was intended as a one-shot deal, but soon after was put on a quarterly schedule. Then it became bi-monthly and then monthly.  But even as Gibson churned out one 60,000 word story each month.  Street and Smith still could not keep up with the demand.  Gibson, a speedy and prolific writer, was approached to write the magazine on a twice monthly schedule, after he would handle for most of the magazine's 325 issues.  Gibson was able to work certain formulas into the magazine, which helped him tremendously in the effort to keep it on schedule.  As stated, the most popular was the Chinese setting, but other settings moved The Shadow away from his New York base to battle crime in foreign locales like London in "The London Crimes' and "Castle Of Doom" and to New Orleans for "The Mardi Gras Mystery," or even Paris for "Zemba" (considered to be the best Shadow yarn).  One thing the readers could count on was that the setting would be moody and unique.

    The Shadow was a hit and in the biggest sense.  It did what it was intended for, to revive the character line.  Street and Smith entered the field with a bang and shortly thereafter brought out another extraordinary hero, Doc Savage.  A host of imitators were spawned from other publishers, including The Spider, The Phantom Detective, Operator 5, Secret Agent X, and many, many more.

    Gibson crafted 283 adventures (one with Doc Savage author Lester Dent) over a nineteen year period, plus wrote Shadow comics and numerous books on magic as well.  The Shadow became a household word, but to many, including his avid readers, he was still an enigma, a nearly supernatural figure.

    During the early issues, many clues were dropped in the story line to point to The Shadow's identity.  Some of them were utilized in a 1937 story, "The Shadow Unmasks."  This long-awaited yarn revealed the true identity of the mysterious crime avenger.  Until that time, readers really did not know who The Shadow was.  He had appeared in many guises over a hundred stories.  His most popular conception was that of wealthy millionaire' Lament Cranston, a name used by the radio dramas and this made many people believe this was actually The Shadow's real identity; never mind the fact that the real Cranston had actually met The Shadow in "Eyes Of The Shadow."  He went by other names, however, such as Henry Arnaud and Phineas Twambly.  Nobody knew what his real face looked like, though it is glimpsed at on two occasions, by criminals, and what they see leaves them terror-stricken.  Felix Zubian in "The Shadow's Shadow" recoils in horror when The Shadow shows him his face.  Some claimed he had no lower face, that it had at one time been disfigured (Gibson dropped this ploy later on, thinking it too grotesque and morbid), but The Shadow's burning eyes and hawk-like nose were charactertags that would appear from beneath a slouch hat and cloak on the covers of the magazine for the series' entire run.  These rarely gave an indication of his lower face, but sometimes it does appear and it is normal.  In some of the early covers.   The Shadow is portrayed as a cowled figure ("Mobs men On The Spot") and his lower visage is visible, completely discrediting the disfigurement theory although it may well have been a disguise.

    Allusions are made to The Shadow's mysterious past throughout the early stories until "The Shadow Unmasks."  Here he was a spy in the first World War called The Dark Eagle, belonging to Russian hierarchy (from whence he got his famed girasol, or fire opal ring with swirling colors that seemed to possess hypnotic qualities.)  Many Shadow covers show only his hand and this ring.  His secret was finally revealed in 1937, six years after the series started.

    By now, certain tags had been attached to him: the eerie, mocking laugh, his uncanny ability to fade into the shadows, his super detection qualities, and an inhuman instinct for being always in the right place at the right time (the only time he was not one of his aides was killed).

    As mentioned, by the time of "The Shadow Unmasks," many people believe that The Shadow was actually playboy Lament Cranston (The Shadow had given the real Cranston some cryptic instructions about going along with this arrangement).  When his true identity was revealed, it was a shocker.

    The novel opens with an urgent news flash that Lament Cranston has been injured in a plane crash in England, just as The Shadow, disguised as Cranston, is about to meet with the Commissioner of Police.   The time has come for the real Shadow to emerge (though even after this tale he would still appear as Cranston for the remainder of the series).

    Word comes from the Yucatan that a noted World War I aviator, I Kent Allard, supposed dead for years, has been found alive in a I coastal town (The Shadow did some fancy flying to pull off this ruse).  Kent Allard, The Dark Eagle of World War I, is The Shadow, not Lamont Cranston.  It was quite a shock to a number of dedicated readers, especially the radio fans (who simply ignored it).

    The Shadow would appear as Allard much more now.  But for a tin with the radio show's popularity increasing, he would tend to slip back into the Cranston guise.  The Shadow would not be quite as nebulous as before, but just as compelling.

    Over the years, many devices were used to keep the character fresh.  New and more powerful villains would appear to challenge the Master of Darkness:  Mox, The Voodoo Master, Lingo, The Salamanders, and finally the most deadly of his foes.  The Golden Master, Shiwan Kahn.  Kahn was the only villain capable of matching The Shadow's incredible hypnotic power and one of the few to make a return engagement (four stories).  He very nearly defeats The Shadow and seems equal in almost every respect, like an evil mirror image, showing the readers what The Shadow could have been like if he had used his powers for evil instead of good.  But, like a dark knight on a steed.  The Shadow would triumph; he was incorruptible, this figure of darkness.

    The Shadow stories, as a whole, were good quality pulp fiction (like Doc Savage).  The plots Gibson poured into each molded story were superb, tight and masterfully constructed.  He used a somewhat old-fashioned writing style, heavy with mood and atmosphere and not especially dependent on characterization (except for The Shadow who possessed a life of his own).  The action was fast and intense, and the plots were woven tightly.  Gibson was a magician at heart and his stories are sometimes glorious acts of misdirection.  His mysteries equal those of the legendary Sherlock Holmes, but with blazing action. The Shadow was a violent crime figure, dealing out justice with two flaming .458 (though he was not as violent as one of his imitators, The Spider, whose motto seemed to be "the only good criminal was one shot full of holes").  But the criminals he killed always deserved it.  The Shadow's personality was perplexing at best.  At times he would appear calm and lazy as Cranston at the Cobalt Club, seemingly out for the pleasures life could give him.  At other times he would be seen in his blue-lit sanctum where he would sift through clues gathered by his agents and plan his campaigns on gangland.  He would laugh in the face of death, cheating the Reaper time and time again.  Sometimes that laugh would come as a beacon of hope to the troubled; sometimes it would serve as a warning, striking terror into an impure heart, or signaling the end of yet another minion of the underworld.  He was an entity, a god of the night, floating, blending, like some phantasm of the beyond.  He would come with the mist and then Cade like the echo of his terrible laugh.  He was The Shadow!

THE SHADOW'S AIDES

    During the course of his 325-issue run.  The Shadow acquired many more aides besides Harry Vincent, the suicidal young man swept from the brink of death in "The Living Shadow."

    One aide from the beginning was the elusive Burbank, The Shadow's contact man.  Burbank was rarely seen but served as a relay for vital information to The Shadow's other agents.  He was known only by his hunched figure sitting over a radio in almost total darkness.  He received little reward, but he was the master link in The Shadow's organizational chain.

    Claude Fellows seems to have been the first Shadow aide, even before Vincent.  He was the only agent to be killed in the series, shot down by criminals in the streets of Chicago in "Gangdom's Doom."  He dies an arms-length away from The Shadow, who vows revenge.  He tears the city apart annihilating the ones responsible.  It was one of the few times in his career that he was not on time to save someone, and the results were tragic.

    Fellows was replaced by Rut ledge Mann, an investment broker whose function was the same.  Before The Shadow told his agents, in a coded letter, to see Fellows (C. Fellows); he now instructed the to contact "our man," (R. Mann).

    Clyde Burke, ace reporter, was another valuable aide to the mysterious Master of the Night.  His clipping bureau provided The Shadow with many useful bits of information necessary to crime-fighting.

    Cliff Marsland and Tapper were two of The Shadow's aides who were at one time criminals.  Both would come in handy when the Dark Avenger needed underworld information.  Cliff was able to infiltrate criminal gangs, while Tapper was an expert safe-cracker.  Another aide also connected with criminal activity, before reforming under The Shadow's hand, was Hawkeye, whose extraordinary ability to track criminals helped The Dark Eagle keep an eye on more than one criminal at a time.

    One of the later members of The Shadow's organization, Margo Lane, was added because listeners of the radio show wanted her in the stories.  Gibson did not, but gave in under editorial pressure.  Margo was supposed to provide some romantic interest for the master sleuth, but little of this was ever hinted at in the stories, unlike the radio show which tooted her as "Cranston's friend and companion."  Readers were split when she suddenly appeared; some hated her, others loved her.  The clamor over it never ceased.

    There were many other aides in The Shadow's band:  Pietro, Shrevvy (his cab driver and one of the few characters to make the jump to the radio show).  Doctor Roy Tarn in Chinatown, and his relief pilot, Miles Crofton. Some of his aides did not know they were aides.  The Shadow manipulated them into giving him information or helping out when necessary and left them thinking it had been their idea in the first place. Usually, they belonged to the police department, such as Joe Cardona (one of the few police inspectors to acknowledge to the existence of The Shadow), Commissioner Weston (another of the few characters to make it to radio), and Inspector Klein (a veteran on the police force).  The Shadow did not stop with local police either; he included Vie Marquette of the Secret Service and Eric Delka of Scotland Yard.  The Master of The Night was a master of men.  He would move them like chess pieces until some criminal mastermind was in checkmate, giving all credit to those he had positioned for the final showdown.

SHADOWED VOICES

    Few fictional characters have so successfully transcended the medium in which they were created as have The Shadow.  He was a legend in the pulp magazine field, but it is the radio version everybody remembers; the eerie laugh, the hypnotic ability to cloud men's minds.

    "The Shadow" radio program hit the air in 1937 and starred Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead as Lament Cranston and Margo Lane,  Later, Bill Johnstone and Brett Morrison would step into The Shadow's invisible shoes and a host of actresses would portray the lovely Miss Lane.  It aired every Sunday afternoon at 5:30 and was so successful that it placed the Mutual Broadcasting System's ratings above all others when it was first broadcasted.  Who does not remember "the weed of crime bears bitter fruit" or "who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"  These phrases are a part of American pop culture, let alone cult favorites.

    The early radio dramas were loosely based on the stories by Gibson, but as the series progressed, the plots relied more and more on formula; they were exciting and fast-paced though not as supernaturally charged as the early episodes.

    Most collectors link Orson Welles with the best interpretation of the invisible Shadow.  Some of his shows are exceptional but the voice is not.  He showed little excitement in his portrayal, lacking that sharp, ghostly quality.

    The Second Shadow, Bill Johnstone, was probably the best.  His deep, resonant voice was eerie to listen to, his laugh foreboding, ominous.

    The third Shadow, Brett Morrison, was probably the most loved Shadow and is the one most fans will remember.  He was also perfect for the part.  Few other radio shows could find one actor perfect for the character they were trying to envision, but in Morrison and Johnstone they were fortunate indeed.

    Many of the early episodes dealt with supernatural overtones, monsters, werewolves, and a host of maniacal killers.  Titles like "The Werewolf Of Hamilton Mansion," "The Temple Bells." "The Ghost Of Captain Bayloe," "The Unburied Dead," "The Pace and The Isle Of The Living Dead," staggered the imagination.  With the best writers in the field at the helm, the show was unsurpassed in content.  Some were great mysteries, others were gruesome horror stories.  One show in particular, "The Face," about an actor whose face is hideously deformed and kills off people he does not care for, would be equally at home on "The Twilight Zone."

    The Shadow left the air in December of 1954 after eighteen long years of fantastic listening.  Along with "The Green Hornet" and "The Lone Ranger," "The Shadow" formed a triumvirate of suspense.

    This is not the same Shadow as the stories.  He has the power to turn invisible by clouding men's minds, he has a girl friend, and he is far less violent.  A major difference in the character is that he is actually Lament Cranston instead of Kent Allard. This would create quite a bit of confusion (and argument) among fans from each area of The Shadow's fandom.

    The show was rebroadcasted in the late 1960s and 70s (where I heard it for the first time).  Many episodes are available today on records and cassettes and can be bought through specialty catalogs, Murray Hill Records in Publishers Central, and at local bookstores.  If you have never heard any of these, you are in for a treat; if you have, sit back and let your imagination run through the streets of New York as the invisible Shadow pronounces the words, "the weed of crime bears bitter fruit . . . Crime does not pay . . . The Shadow knows . . .

THE SILVER SHADOW

    The Shadow began his movie career in 1937, striking an ominous pose in "The Shadow Strikes."  The lead role featured silent screen star Rod LaRocque as Lament Cranston and The Shadow.  The screenplay was loosely based on one of Gibson's early stories but was slow-moving, confusing, and with little action in it for The Shadow The Shadow's aides were also among the missing in this picture which did little justice to the Master of The Night.

    LaRocque returned as The Shadow in 1938 for "International Crime" (loosely based on The Shadow story "Foxhound"), The picture was again a poor tribute to the crime avenger.  But better days were ahead.

    In 1940, Columbia tried their hand at The Shadow (the former two were from Grand National Pictures) in a fifteen part serial, "The Shadow," starring Victor Jory in the lead role.  Jory finally brought the character to film life, portraying The Shadow as closely to the pulps as possible.  The Shadow, in this movie, is pitted against The Black Tiger who is busy destroying factories, railroads, and planes all over the city.  The Shadow, as with any great serial character of the day, is in deadly peril at the end of each chapter collapsing ceilings, bomb blasts, deadly X-rays, and any of a hundred other death traps employed to finish off the cloaked hero (and bring the fans back week after week).

    There were a few other Shadow screen appearances ("The Shadow Returns" from Monogram Pictures and "Invisible Avenger" from Republic to name two), but none surpassed the Jory version.  And though these films were made many years ago, they are still highly entertaining if you can sit through fifteen episodes.  There is talk of a new Shadow flick, and a script has already been completed.  So it is possible we may see The Dark Eagle on the silver screen again in the very near future . . .

SHADOWED MEDIA

    The Shadow was successful in a few other mediums besides radio and film, mainly, the comics.  In the 1940s, Gibson wrote Shadow comic strips and comic books.  Over a six year period, Gibson wrote them for Street and Smith, which were their first entry into the comic field.  The Shadow comics also featured adaptations of Doc Savage and some of the other great pulp heroes.  These comics sported terrific covers though the interior artwork was not as good.

    In the mid 1970s, DC Comics tried to bring The Shadow back to colorful comic life and put out their version of the Master of Darkness which remained fairly close to the pulp format.  The artwork was generally good, but the comic only lasted twelve issues.  DC had a similar failure with another pulp hero. The Avenger (which lasted but four issues) and at the same time.  Marvel Comics tried to do it twice with The Shadow's brother pulp hero.  Doc Savage, each lasting eight issues.

    There were also big little books. Shadow games and puzzles, and various other Shadow toys and collectibles.  Along with Sherlock Holmes, he is probably one of the most enduring of all detective figures. Out The Shadow has something Holmes does not; he has a certain duende, a spiritual quality.  He is like time, flowing, everlasting.  He has had two resurgences, in his native thirties and forties, and again in the sixties and seventies.  Perhaps it is time for The Shadow to reemerge and take his rightful place among the great heroes of the century . . .

This piece is respectfully dedicated to Walter U. Gibson, who passed away December 6. 1985 at the age of 88.

Recommended reading:  For those interested in learning more about The Shadow, The Duende History Of The Shadow by Will Murray is a good study of the character and Gangland's Doom BY Frank Eisgruber, Jr. is another fine work.  Both are highly recommended.  Also, many of the original pulp adventures were reprinted in paperback and can be found in most used book stores or through mail order catalogs. Pulp dealers usually carry hundreds of the original pulps, but prices are rather high.

Duende History Of The Shadow

From:  Odyssey Publications

             P.O. Box G-148

            Greenwood, MA 01880 for $10.70, post paid

Gangland's Doom

From:  Bob Wienberg Books

            15145 Oxford Drive

            Oak Forest, IL 60452 for $11.45. post paid

                                                            THE ORIENTAL SLEUTH

by John Dinan

    Most detective fiction buffs will agree that the modern detective story got its start with Poe's "The Murders in The Rue Morgue" (1841).  This story introduced Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin, and its popular success resulted in Poe doing five more Dupin stories.  These six detective yarns have been credited with forming the basis for 95% of all subsequent detective fiction.

    More important, perhaps, Poe modernized the role of the detective, there were earlier models, the earliest of which were Chinese.  Too long-winded for modern tastes and suffering from other flaws (deductions based on guesswork and reader knowledge of the criminal from the start), the Judge Dee's detective stories date from the Sung Dynasty (960-1279).  These stories were concerned with crime and its detection.  However, the detective was not a police official, but a member of the judiciary, and would try and sentence the criminals he apprehended.  Another fictional Chinese detective, Judge Pao, was popular through the seventeenth century and still later the form was imitated by the Japanese.

    In spite of these extremely early origins, the oriental sleuth has not been a popular character over the long history of crime fiction, with one notable exception.  During the 1930's and 40's, the oriental villain achieved a popularity, of sorts, largely because of a national fear of "the yellow menace."  This fear was based on the Caucasian fear of the oriental and his "ways," in general, and Japanese expansionist politics in particular, similar to the "red" scare of the 1950's.

    Along with the public concern with the realities of geopolitics in the Pacific, the pulp magazines were successfully exploiting the situation with the likes of FuManchu, Dr. Yen Sin, Yu Fong, and so forth, all very sinister oriental villains.  And all very successful on the newsstand!  Even today the most expensive of all the old pulp magazines are those that feature oriental villains.

    During the same twenty-year period, the oriental sleuth enjoyed his brief popularity.  Not only was his popular run a brief one, considering his deep roots in oriental culture, but it was a restricted one.  There were no oriental detectives of any note in the popular literature of the day, and only three oriental sleuths made it to Hollywood:  Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Mr. Wrong, the most popular being, of course, Charlie Chan.

    Chan was the Chinese-Hawaiian-American creation of Earl Der Biggers.  While Der Biggers created only four novels:  The House Without a Key (1925), The Black Camel (1929), Charlie Chan Carries On (1930) and Keeper of the Keyes (1932), more than fifty Chan movies were made between the first silent flick "House Without a Key" in 1926 and the last in 1949, "Sky Dragon."

    Chan was easily the most popular of the three oriental sleuths.  Not only was he a wholesome family-man character, he was a man of wisdom and compassion.  The movies were "family" films with little violence, no sex, and generally plot presentations.  Chan's popularity on film was enhanced by a number of character flourishes, not the least of which was his propensity to spew out the terse simile with overtones of Confucianism:  "If strength were all, tiger would not fear scorpion."  These were usually delivered to one of the suspects or his Americanized Number One son in the manner in which a guru addresses his students.

    There were three Chans of note over the years.  The first twenty-seven Chan films by Fox featured Warner Oland.  Oland was a Swede, born in Umea, Sweden, in 1880.  The next twenty-two films were by Monogram and featuring Sidney Toler.  Toler was a native American who was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, in 1875.  The last Chan was Roland Winters, who starred in six Chan films, also produced by Monogram.  Winters was also a native American, born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, in 1904.  None of these gentlemen had an oriental ancestry.

    In 1932 Charlie Chan started what was to be a long and successful run on radio.  The series lasted into the early 1950's, and Chan was played (or read) by the great actor Ed Begley.  The Chan character had a brief run on tv ("New Adventures of Charlie Chan") with J. Carrol Nash as the popular oriental sleuth.
The last we saw of Charlie in the popular media was in 1972, when "The Amazing Charlie Chan" made its appearance in one half-hour cartoon with Key Luke doing the voice of Charlie Chan.

    The old Charlie Chan films still run on tv today, but one was to be a nighthawk (or unemployed) to see them.

    Key Luke was one of the two Mr. Wongs.  The first five Wong films featured Boris Karloff as the tall, lean, mandarin-thin sleuth.  Usually dressed in a severe black suit, Wong operated out of his curio-filled Chinatown studio.  When in his studio, he dressed in flowing oriental robes.

    The Wong series was written, originally, for Colliers Magazine, by Hugh Wiley.  Interestingly, Karloff, who was born in Dulwich, England, did the Mr. Wong role without makeup.  While he was quite successful in this role, Karloff did not care much for these films.

    The final Wong film used Key Luke as a younger Mr. Wong (Jimmy Wong instead of the Mysterious Mr. Wong).  All the Wong films were done by Monogram:  "Mr. Wong Detective" (1939), "The Mystery of Mr. Wong" (1939), "Mr. Wong in Chinatown" (1939), "Doomed To Die" (1940), "The Fatal Hour" (1940), "Phantom of Chinatown" (1940).

    Our final oriental sleuth was also played by a non-oriental.  Peter Lorre, who was Hungarian-born (1904), played the Japanese Mr. Moto in each of the eight films that were based on the character created by John Marquand.  Both Biggers, the creator of Charlie Chan, and Marquand were Harvard grads and both had published extensively in The Saturday Evening Post.  The first Moto novel was published as Mr. Moto Takes a Hand.  There were five other Marquand Moto novels, the most popular of which was the last, Stopover Tokyo (1957).  The Moto films all ran in three years, 1937, 1938, and 1939.

    Lorre was always a popular film character and overshadowed the Mr. Moto character.  While people went to the theater to see Charlie Chan, they did not go to see Mr. Moto -- they went to see Lorre.

    Before coming to this country, Lorre played a child murderer in the German film "M." From Germany he went to England to appear in the Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934).

    In 1965, five years after the death of Marquand, "The Return of Mr. Moto" was released by Fox, with Henry Silva as Mr. Moto.  It did not work and there were no further Moto films.  The reason for it not working had something to do with it being based largely on the James Bond character, instead of the Moto as styled by Marquand.

    While the films are certainly dated and the dialogue highly characteristic of the times such as the dialogue of the male lead in "Think Fast Mr. Moto":  "Chop, chop and drive muchee careful," they managed to do a good job of putting the mystery story on film, if you can overlook the obvious faults.

    In recent years we have seen some interest in a periodic revival of the oriental sleuth.  The film, "Return of Mr. Moto" (1966), the 1974 novel, Charlie Chan Returns, by Dennis Lynds, and the tv Charlie Chan series, to name a few, are examples of this.  The most popular of all the "Hawaii Five-O" series were those that featured the sinister Wu-Fat, and before his death, Peter Sellers completed his Fu Manchu film, which received good reviews.

    There was some attempt at reviving the Charlie Chan character for a major film, much in the manner of the Superman film, with a big budget and so-called "stars."  The Chinese-American community raised a number of loud objections, which seem to boil down to the fact that the Chan character is the yellow Uncle Tom, too obsequious and a harmful stereotype.  To this I say:  "bunk"!  Chan was anything but a harmful stereotype.  To all of this I think Chan might say:  "Opinion is like tea leaf in hot water; both need time for brewing."

                                                            THE CAPER

                                                                           by John Dinan

    The caper mystery story is perhaps the oldest and most enduring form of mystery fiction, having run with few stylistic changes from the 1800s into the 1980s.

    While the early caper mysteries were characterized by the gentlemen thief, the modern form is characterized by "the big score."  The early caper mysteries were one or two-man crimes while the big score mysteries are anything from one-man operations to a crowd, as in Boston's Brink's job.  The caper loot was relatively meager while the big score is just that; an operation that will leave its executors financially secure for their remaining years.

    The caper mystery and the big score mystery are stories of crimes of precision and daring execution and, according to those who study mystery fiction, are most likely fictional crimes to be imitated by the real world criminal elements.  Sometimes the reverse is true.  Fiction based on England's Great Train Robbery, the Murf The Surf jewel heists, and the fabulous Brink's robbery have been eagerly devoured by the public at large, not just the mystery-reading public.  But in its pure form, the classic caper novel is and will continue to be fiction.

    Guy Boothby's creation Simon Carne in A Prince Of Swindlers (1897) marked the first appearance of what would come to be known as the caper novel.  Carne was not a popular character and it remained for E. W. Hornung, Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, to capture the public's fancy with his fictional creation Raffles. Raffles was patterned in part after Holmes but was on the other side of the law and relied on his daring and upper-class sophistication to execute difficult burglaries.  Raffles appeared in only three books:  Amateur Cracksman (1899), Raffles (1901) and A Thief  In The Night ( 1905).

    Raffles was a popular if short-lived character and was played on film by John Barrymore (1917), Ronald Coleman (1930) and David Niven (1939).

    As the world worked its way into world-wide economic depression, it found little in common with a fictional character with upper-class roots whose sole pastime was cricket.

    Maurice Leblanc's less popular creation, Arsene Lupin, carried the caper novel from 1906 into the 1930s where, again, economic depression put an end to public interest in the sophisticated  criminal character. Lupin was called "The gentlemen crook" and was| the brains behind a long series of robberies which had the police completely baffled.

    The caper novel would not evolve into its top form until the 1950s and 1960s by British thriller writer James Hadley Chase and the 1960s and 1970s novels by Donald Westlake, writing under the pseudonym Richard Start, but the year 1960 produced the best single caper novel ever written; John Trinian's The Big Grab.  It tells how aging ex-convict Karl Heisler plots and executes his last big caper.  An even older ex-cellmate reminds Heisler of past glories and future risks:

    "'Weintzer was a good one,' Walter admitted.  'But those kind of jobs don't grow on trees.  Companies pay off with checks and everybody carries credit cards.  Cash isn't floating around anymore these days. The only cash in large enough amounts to attract a good professional is registered by serial numbers.'  He shook his head sadly.  'You have to face it, Karl. The big company payrolls like the Weintzer jobs are gone. Cash money has gone out of style.  Like the name Myrtle.  Lots of things go out of style.  Karl.  And, I've been thinking that maybe the old ones like you and me. maybe we've kind of gone out of style, too. '"

    Karl returns to his home.  His wife and son are there waiting.  Both love Karl deeply.  But love is not enough.  She kissed him, still on the side of his voice, and left the porch.  He sat and watched her bare feet moving in the kitchen darkness.  He thought of the warm bed two rooms away from his wicker chair on the porch, but he did not stir.  His thoughts were still feverish with the dream of Toschi and a quarter of one million dollars.

    Leon Bertuzzi, a psychotic Mafia stooge, runs a suburban San Francisco road house that specializes in illegal gambling.  Bad night's take is packaged and dropped down a steel corkscrew-shape) shaft set in three feet of concrete, landing in a catch in the belly of a big safe.  The combination is held by a Mafia accountant' and the only entrance to the room holding the safe is via an elevator.  There is an alarm system that can be touched off by a mosquito and now the challenge seems an impossible one, but Karl is not deterred.

    Karl enlists a younger ex-cellmate as a partner, Frank Toschi and Frank lines up his brother-in-law as the driver.

    Frank's admiration for Karl is that of the apprentice for the master:

    "Frank had to admire old Heisler.  Who would ever think a quiet old guy like that would go for a big payroll all by himself and nearly pull it off?  It was an admirable thing.  Not necessarily a good thing, but yet it was an admirable thing.  Heisler look like a tough old Prussian soldier, the kind that would have told Hitler to go pee up a rope and get shot for it."

    The successful execution of the caper is complicated by the fact that Bertuzzi has just returned from Vegas where he was given the "OK" to terminate an underling that has been messing with his wife, an underling Bertizzi previously thought was well-connected.

    In spite of complications arising out of this, the caper is successful and the three perpetrators head for the next county with three bags of Mafia money, safe in the knowledge that the police will not be called in. As they wind their way down a back road past some construction activity, a big dozer gets between them and any possible pursuers, virtually ensuring their success.

    Toschi has a bottle of brandy he grabbed along with the loot and suggests a small celebration.  Heisler says:  "Not right now, we're almost there."

    The story ends back at the road house where Bertuzzi is looking for a bottle of poisoned brandy he plans to use to do away with his wife's lover!

    The film version, "Any Number Can Win,"(1962),of The Big Grab featured Jean Gabin as Karl and Alain Delon as Toschi and a more visually dramatic ending.  This time the police are in pursuit and the partners are sitting on opposite sides of a swimming pool where the money bags have been sunk to keep them out of sight.  Each sits behind dark glasses pretending not to know the other in the hope that the police will pass by.  As the police converge, the water has eroded the bags and banknotes float upward until the entire surface of the pool is carpeted with evidence of the crime.

    James Hadley Chase's caper novels usually begin with a gang planning a "big score" and end with the perfect robbery gone wrong.  The household triangle, usually involving husband, wife and a servant is also a common element in Chase's caper novels.

    Chase's novels are one of only two caper series produced in this genre, and start with a familiar title:

1939   No Orchards For Miss Blandish

1953   The Things Men Do

1955   You've Got It Coming

1959   The World In My Pocket

1962   I Would Rather Stay Poor

1965   The Way The Cookie Crumbles

1967   Well Now, My Pretty

1968   An Ear To The Ground

1969   The Vulture Is A Patient Bird

1972   You're Dead Without Money

1973   Knock, Knock, Who's There?

1973   Have A Change Of Scene

1974   What Happens To Me?

    The only other caper novel series, and probably the best, is the popular Richard Stark stories by Donald Westlake.  Again, the formula is honed to perfection, the perfect crime gone wrong, in each of sixteen novels featuring Parker (No first name):

1962   The Hunter

1963   Man With The Getaway Face

1963   The Outfit

1963   The Mourner

1964   The Score

1965   The Jugger

1966   The Handle

1966   The Seventh

1967   The Rare Coin Score

1968   The Black Ice Score

1969   The Sour Lemon Score

1971   Slayground

1972   Plunder Squad

1974   Butcher's Moon

   In a recent interview, Westlake seems to agree with Karl Heisler of John Trinian's The Big Score, claiming that the time for professional thieves like Parker are over because of plastic money and computerized banking systems.  Apparently, he believes this because there has not been a Parker novel since 1974.

    It appears that the caper novel is now a defunct part of the larger body of mystery fiction.

                                THE CEREBRAL SLEUTH ELLERY QUEEN

                                                         by John Dinan

    If I had to predict the survivability of America's cerebral sleuths, (the Philo Vances, the Nero Wolfes), I would answer without hesitation that Ellery Queen will still, be around when we are colonizing the planets.  I do not know if it's his charm, his style of sleuthing or his wit, or perhaps the way his name trips lightly off the lip . . . Ell . . . ery . . . Queen, It does have a nice ring.  Perhaps it's a combination of things, but whatever the attraction, the Queen mysteries remain perennial favorites.  Even people who do not like the whodunit format seem to like the Ellery Queen stories.  For an adult male who lives at home with his father and bears the burden of the name Ellery, this is even more of an achievement.

    The Queen mysteries are classical whodunits, or, to put it more elegantly:  tales of ratiocination (the science of exact thinking).  A typical story begins with Ellery being invited to the home of a friend (all of Ellery's friends seem to be wealthy) where the principle characters are introduced and the groundwork is laid for the crime (almost always murder).  A series of clues is presented to the reader and tradition and fair play insists that the reader be given a fair shot, that he not be tricked with the had-I-but-known type of clue from left field.  At this point, Ellery takes over and precedes to ratiocinate; to unravel the clues and deduce the identity of the murderer.  At this point in the proceedings on the old Ellery Queen radio show that ran from 1939-48, a celebrity guest sleuth was given the challenge of matching wits with Ellery and solving the crime.  Few were successful!

    There la no blood and guts in all of this and few if any variations in the basic formula.  Queen mysteries are puzzles and as long as detective fiction addicts like to solve puzzles, the Queen mysteries will survive.

    Ellery Queen is the pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee.  Lee was born in Brooklyn, read Sherlock Holmes as a boy and harbored a desire to be a twentieth-century Shakespeare. The cousins collaborated on their first Ellery Queen story in 1928 when they produced The Roman Hat Mystery and submitted it to McClures Magazine for a mystery-novel contest prize of $7500.  The novel lost the contest but it was published the following year.  It enjoyed immediate success.

    In a TV Guide article,  Rand Lee, one of Manfred Lee's children, revealed how Dannay and Lee collaborated:  "It amazes me now that Dad and cousin Fred could have produced so many Queen works. Their writing methods were unorthodox.  Cousin Fred plotted all the novels and short stories, creating the characters and providing Dad with detailed skeletons that Dad fleshed out.  Their talents determined this arrangement.  I'm sure that Dad could never come up with the sort of plots that Fred did.  Dad's and Fred's differences were not only professional.  Often I would pick up the phone, hoping the line was free, and put down the receiver moments later with Dad's and Fred's arguing voices still ringing in my ears.  On one occasion, Dad threw down a plot outline and exclaimed, 'He gives me the most ridiculous plots to work with and expects me to make them realistic.'  Cousin Fred probably felt the same frustration sometimes with Dad's treatment of his plots."

    In the fall of 1941, Dannay, long a collector of mystery fiction, teamed with Lee to convince Lawrence Spivak of Mercury Press that the world was ready for a quality mystery fiction magazine.  The first issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine was published in 1941 and is still being published today.  This is surely an unequaled success story for a business that sees new magazines come and go in a matter of months or sometimes weeks.  Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (or as it is referred to by readers "EQMM")has been a significant event in the early careers of many aspiring mystery writers and regularly features a "first story" entry that has been the starting block off which many mystery writing careers have been 1aunched.

    Queen mysteries in novel-length books number thirty-nine and countless short stories have been produced in EQMM, which has resulted in at least seven collections of Queen short stories.

    Mystery fiction reviewer Howard Haycraft calls the Queen mysteries:  ". . . An adroit blending of the intellectual and dramatic aspects of the genre, of meticulous plot-work, lively narration, easy unforced humor, and entertaining personae, as can be found in the modern detective novel.  They represent the detective romance at its present-day skillful best."

    The Ellery Queen movies were of "B" quality in spite of some fairly heavy Hollywood casting in the ten films that appeared between 1935-72.  The first Queen film "The Spanish Cape Mystery," made in 1935 with Donald Cook as Queen, had a novel twist; Ellery does not solve the crime!  Eddie Quillan, a character actor, was the second (and worst) Queen in Repuplic Studio's "The Mandarin Mystery," (1937), Neither of these films did much for the Queen image.  When Columbia cast Ralph Bellamy as Queen in four films: "Ellery Queen, Master Detective, (1940),  "Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery," (1941), "Ellery Queen and The Murder Ring," (1941), and "Ellery Queen and The Perfect Crime," (1941), the Queen stock rose significantly as Bellamy was a reasonable approximation of the Queen persona.  William Gargan made the next three Queen films for Columbia:  "A Close Call For Ellery Queen," (1942), "A Desperate Chance For Ellery Queen," (1942), and "Enemy Agents Meet Ellery Queen," (1942).  While Gargan had considerable screen experience playing cops and private eyes, his Queen portrayals never achieved the success of his Martin Kane private eye television series.  The last Queen film was "Ten Day's Wonder" (1972), with Orson Wells as Queen, an artistic and financial failure.

    The radio Queen was played by Hugh Marlowe, Tarry Dobkin, Carlton Young and Sidney Smith over that program's nine-year life, Queen has also been interpreted on television over the years in 1950, 1971, and in, 1975 when Jim Hutton portrayed Ellery and David Wayne his father, the inspector.  This series is the best of the TV fare and Jim Hutton is the best Queen.  This series was based on the novel, The Fourth Side Of The Triangle, a 1965 novel.

                                              THE GREAT NERO WOLFE

                                                           by John Dinan

    Nero Wolfe is America's largest private detective and by virtue of his strange habits, unique.  He is a victim of his passions (books, food, and orchids), remaining in his brownstone apartment on New York's West Thirty-Fifth Street, refusing to leave the comfort of these quarters except for what he classes as "personal contingencies," such as attending an annual Metropolitan Orchid Show or making an unannounced visit to Rusterman's Restaurant (Wolfe was made executor of the restaurant owner's estate, charged with seeing to it that the restaurant's standards for high-quality fare were maintained).

    Wolfe's isolation from the world outside his apartment would be complete were it not for his assistants, chief of whom is Archie Goodwin, himself a private detective.  Wolfe's Archie is a man of action whose function is described in The Red Box (1937):

    "Aside from my primary function as the thorn in the seat of Wolfe's chair to keep him from going to sleep and waking up only for meals, I'm chiefly cut out for two things:  to jump up and grab something before the other guy gets his paws on it, and to collect pieces of the puzzle for Wolfe to work on."

    Wolfe's other aides include Fritz, who attends to the kitchen.  Theodore Horstmann, who attends to Wolfe's prize orchids, and a number of private investigators when the plot requires the same (Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Cather).

    As for Wolfe, he is enormous, weighing between 250 lbs. and a ton (according to Archie:  Too Many Crooks, 1938) as the result of his eating habits and inactivity.  His sole exercise is throwing darts. Wolfe finds work detestable and wastes none of his precious time in its pursuit.  Rather, he does what the genius does best; he analyzes Archie's reports (Archie has a photographic memory) as he sits in his favorite chair (an enormous thing made of Brazilian Mauro and upholstered in brown leather), sloshing beer.  Meanwhile, Archie goes on with his report, reporting verbatim accounts of five-way conversations.

    Having a deep respect for facts and three qualities he ascribes to himself, thoroughness, perseverance, and patience, he eventually achieves a proper conclusion that evolves out of his deductive reasoning processes.

    The creator of the forty-odd Nero Wolfe books is about as unlike his creation as one could be.  Rex Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana in 1886, one of nine children.  A child prodigy, he read the bible cover to cover by age three.  At age thirteen, he was the state's champion speller.  At eighteen, he joined the Navy, serving as a yeoman aboard Teddy Roosevelt's yacht, Mayflower.

    Stout's writing started in 1912 with a few articles for Munsey's and other popular magazines of the era. Stout created the school banking system from which he drew enough profit to support a lot of traveling and fishing retreats in the Rockies, European tours, and other demanding retreats like the 180-mile walk to see Thermopylae (a narrow pass where the Greeks held off an army of Persians).  In 1929, he published his first novel, How Like A God, soon to be followed by four more non-mystery novels.  Stout says that while they were well-received, he discovered two things about himself:  that he was a good story-teller and that he would never be a great writer.

    His first Nero Wolfe story, "Fer-de-Lance" (1934), was a great success and the beginning of a successful mystery fiction career.  Stout's long-time admiration for the works of Conan Doyle is reflected in his fictional creation and may be the basis for the wide popularity of the series among the mystery-reading public and mystery writers themselves.  The Armchair Detective carries a Rex Stout feature in each of its issues; no other mystery writer has been so honored.

    While not a smashing success on film, Wolfe has been portrayed by some fine actors over the years. Edward Arnold ("Meet Nero Wolfe," 1936 and "The League Of Frightened Men," 1937, Walter Connolly) starred as the film character.  Sidney Greenstreet did a radioversion in the early 1940s, Thayer David played Wolfe in a TV-movie made in 1979 and William Conrad played the character on a TV series in 1981.

    Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of the character of Nero Wolfe is his incisive humor. Stout, himself a great admirer of the human race, has little tolerance for the vain and the phony and his books reflect this in Wolfe's ridicule and in his humor.

MORE TO COME!