Pulp Gallery: DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY

1938

1938

1936

1940

1930

Pulp Gallery: DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY

1937

1938

1940

1940

1939

Forgotten Stories: "Silver Saddle" by Frank Gruber (1937)

Here's a piece of illustrated fiction by pulp writer (and later Western and mystery author) Frank Gruber. At the time this story appeared in Star Ranger #1 (Feb. 1937), his Oliver Quade, Human Encylopedia stories were about to make the jump from Thrilling Detective to Black Mask. Found on comicbookplus courtesy of Yoc. 

WATCH IT HERE! Forgotten Books on Film: THE FRENCH KEY by Frank Gruber (1946)

I've read this book a few times, and rapped about it HERE. Can't say it's one of my favorites, but it's still fun. As a writer, I'd put Gruber in a class with Erle Stanley Gardner. Perfectly competent and always entertaining, but stylistically unremarkable. 

The movie, I'm said to say, is even more unremarkable. Can't blame that on Gruber, though. He wrote the screenplay, and did a fine job of translating the story to the screen. The fault lies with the casting director who chose Albert Dekker to play Johnny Fletcher. The Johnny of the book (and the thirteen novels that followed), had loads of personality. Dekker has none. 

Jimmy Cagney or Warren William would have been good, but both were too old by 1946.  Too bad they couldn't get Bob Hope. He'd have pulled off all Johnny's smirks, expressions and general lackadaisical manner, and delivered the jokes, too. Dekker just falls flat, on all counts.

The saving grace of the film is Mike Mazurki (Moose Malloy from "Murder, My Sweet"), who makes a fine Sam Cragg. And I never thought I'd appreciate Joe DeRita (Curly's disappointing replacement in the full-length Stooges films), but he supplies a little much-needed comic relief.

The book, as you may know, took place in New York City. At the time it was written, Gruber lived in the Westchester Hills of nearby White Plains, and makes frequent mention of those locales in the novel. Six years later, he wrote the screenplay, Gruber was living in Los Angeles, and that's where he set the movie. So instead of spending a night sleeping on the cheap in Grand Central Station, we see Johnny and Sam in L.A.'s Union Station. And because we're in Hollywood, we're treated to a very brief cameo by Richard Arlen, who starred in "The Accomplice" (based on Gruber's Simon Lash, Private Detective), released by Republic that same year. 

To help the story move faster, Gruber used the framing device of Sam Cragg telling the story to a friend. He also cut corners by deleting the role of private detective Jefferson Todd. This gave the detective role to Johnny (as noted on the one-sheet poster above), but lost the banter between Johnny and Todd, the source of much fun the book. Another small corner was cut by changing Janet from a Broadway actress to a nightclub singer.

Johnny's role as the self-proclaimed World's Best Book Salesman is barely mentioned in the film, but Gruber makes sure we see the book he sells, Every Man a Sampson, in a scene near the end. It's a good thing Dekker didn't attempt Johnny's snake-oil salesman spiel, because he'd have been lousy at it. I also missed the bit in the book where Johnny says he and Sam took in a triple-bill: "Sign of the Cross," "Lost Patrol," "The Old Dark House" and the cartoon short "Mickey's Trailer." Here, he simply says they went to a triple-feature. 

On with the show . . .

My apologies to loyal Almanack reader Mike Britt, who kindly provided pics of the lobby card set from his vast collection of cool stuff. Technical difficulties prevented their appearance here, but I hope to feature them in a post of their own at a later date!

Forgotten Books: TALES OF WELLS FARGO by Frank Gruber (1958)

If I'd know this book would be so enjoyable, I'd have read it thirty-some years ago. It's been sitting on my shelf at least that long. But hey, it was worth the wait, and I got my money's worth, which was probably close to the cover price.

The eight stories here were adapted from screenplays for the TV series. Four of those original screenplays were by Gruber himself, three by Steve Fisher, and one by some other guy.

I don't remember watching the show as a kid. I figured that must be because it was on against something I liked better, so I checked. Nope. Mostly, it was pitted against Father Knows Best (maybe my dad insisted on that one), and in the final year against Perry Mason. What was I doing at the time? Maybe playing with my cap guns. 

Frank Gruber knew his beans when it came to Old West history, as he showed in his Simon Lash mysteries (reviewed HERE). So it was no surprise to see him bringing historical figures into the series.

In the tales based on his original screenplays, Wells Fargo agent Jim Hardie meets Billy the Kid, Lew Wallace, Belle Starr, and the Cherokee outlaw Blue Duck, while Hanging Judge Isaac Parker looms nearby. Other stories feature the Sundance Kid (though apparently not the same Kid who died in Bolivia), Captain McNelly of the Texas Rangers and John Wesley Hardin. That's a lot of history for 122 pages. 

And the stories are good. Hardie proves himself a good with his fists, his gun and his brain. He's tough minded, too. In one Gruber tale, a group of Virginia City vigilantes intend to hang a gang of outlaws. Most TV heroes would have a problem with that. Not Hardie. Though the story ends before the nooses come out, he clearly supports the plan. 

Curious, I did a little googling to see who played some of the famous folk. Robert Vaughn was Billy the Kid. Jeanne Cooper was Belle Starr. Chuck Connors was Sam Bass, and Lyle Bettger was John Wesley Hardin. Appears a lot of episodes are now on YouTube. I might have to check them out.  

WANTED: Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia

THE GOOD NEWS: Keith Alan Deutsch is editing a new collection of stories featuring Frank Gruber's Oliver Quade, "The Human Encyclopedia.

THE BAD NEWS: He's still missing four stories. Can you help?

Here's the list of missing adventures:
"Brass Knuckles" (November 1936, Thrilling Detective)
"Murder on the Midway" (January 1937, Thrilling Detective)
"Pictures of Death" (February 1937, Thrilling Detective)
"Trailer Town" (August 1937, Thrilling Detective)

As I mentioned in my review of the 1966 Sherbourne Press collection, Brass Knuckles (that's HERE), Quade was the precursor of Gruber's most famous character, Johnny Fletcher. Like Johnny, Quade is a booksalesman, and like Johnny, has a slightly dimwitted pal/assistant. If you like the Fletcher books, you're sure to like the Quade stories too. My review of the first in the Fletcher series, The French Key, is HERE.

Nine of the ten tales in Brass Knuckles originally appeared in Black Mask, and one of those, "Dog Show Murder," was released as a film in 1939. My review of this one and only Oliver Quade movie is HERE.

I'm hoping Keith finds those Thrilling Detective tales, because I want read them.

Forgotten Books: TV Tie-Ins - A Bibliography of American TV Tie-In Paperbacks

If your name is Randy Johnson, you probably have this book and know all this stuff.
But for the rest of us - including me - it’s packed with surprises.

TV Tie-Ins (1997, 1999) by Kurt Peer leads off with an A-Z listing of shows and all associated publications. And though the title says paperbacks, the lists include many hardcovers too.

Just looking at the A section . . .
     Did you know there were six A-Team books, five featuring novelizations of TV episodes, and one an original story? And that’s not counting two plot-it-yourself books and one by and about Mr. T.
     I was surprised by this: Black Mask writer W.T. Ballard (as Brian Fox) wrote two novels based on Alias Smith and Jones.
     There were nine novels based on The Avengers (no, not the Marvel gang), including three by Keith Laumer and two by Norman A. Daniels.
     There were fourteen books novelizing episodes of As the World Turns. Yikes.
    And do you have these?: The Wit and Wisdom of Archie Bunker, Edith Bunker’s All in the Family Cookbook and Archie Bunker’s Family Album.

Most interesting to me is the Index by Author, where I gleaned such amazing facts as:
     Edward S. Aarons wrote a novel based on The Defenders.

     Michael Avallone’s tie-ins included The Doctors, Felony Squad, The Girl (and the Man) from U.N.C.L.E., Hawaii Five-O, Mannix and The Partridge Family.
     Lawrence Block wrote a Markham book.
     Pulp writer Robert Sidney Bower wrote a Hawaii Five-O novel.

     Gil Brewer wrote three novels based on It Takes a Thief.
     Along with the previously mentioned Avengers books, Norman A. Daniels did (among others) Arrest and Trial, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and Rat Patrol.
     Richard Deming’s list includes Dragnet, The Mod Squad, Charlie’s Angels, and Starsky and Hutch.
     George Alec Effinger wrote four Planet of the Apes novels.
     Harlan Ellison (along with Edward Bryant) is credited with a Starlost novel. (Dang, I even have that one.)
     Nora Ephron wrote The Tonight Show: and now . . . Here’s Johnny!
     Richard Wormser did one each for The Wild Wild West, The Green Hornet and The High Chaparral.
     Ron Goulart’s list includes Battlestar Galactica, Kung Fu, and Laverne and Shirley.
     Frank Gruber did one called Tales of Wells Fargo. (Got that too.)
     Bayard Kendrick wrote five Longstreet books.
     Richard S. Prather wrote a Dragnet book.
     Along with The Avengers, Keith Laumer did two Invaders novels.
     Murray Leinster’s list includes Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel.

     Peter Rabe wrote four Mannix books.
     Barry Malzburg wrote a Kung Fu novel.
     Western writer Dean Owen did two Bonanzas, a Hec Ramsey and one Men from Shiloh (The Virginian).
     Talmage Powell wrote two Mission: Impossible novels.
     Richard Lupoff did two Buck Rogers books.
     Theodore Sturgeon wrote a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea novel.
     Jim Thompson wrote an Ironside book.
     Harry Whittington did a Bonanza and a Man from U.N.C.L.E.
     Collin Wilcox wrote two McCloud novels.

This section also clues you in to such treasures as Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints and Phyllis Diller’s Marriage Manual. And it’s followed by an Index by Publisher, a list of actors pictured on covers, and a list of novelized episodes. Admit it. You want it.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase (I think).

Forgotten Books: Murder '97 by Frank Gruber

This is the third and last book in my favorite Gruber series - the adventures of Simon Lash. Why is it my favorite? Because Lash is not only a hardboiled detective - he's a book collector. (Simon Lash, Private Detective is reviewed HERE, and The Buffalo Box is HERE)

The first book, you may recall, had an Old West theme, and the second revolved around the history of the Donnor Party. This time, the focus is on Horatio Alger. Lash is hired to track down the original owner of an Alger book, and follows the trail from book dealer to book scout to junk store, uncovering evil doings dating back to 1897.

It's noted several times that at the time of this story, 1948, no one reads Alger anymore. The characters who read him as kids are now in their 60s. But the books have become collectible, and a first edition of Ralph Raymond's Heir, the book at the center of this case, is so rare that a book dealer apologizes for charging $20 for it. Jeez, wouldn't it be great if rare books today sold for twenty bucks, and dealers would apologize for charging that much?

Curious what that book would sell for now, I tried to find a copy. There were none offered on ABE or Bookfinder, but a dealer on eBay is asking $200 for what he claims is a first. BUT, the binding is orange, and no date is mentioned, while the binding of an 1892 first shown on an authoritative Alger site is blue. So I'm suspicious.

Like most folks, I've never read an Alger book. Closest I came was Frank Merriwell's Schooldays by Burt L. Standish, published in 1901. I wanted to see the origin of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman character. I found the book relatively painless, but have no desire to read more.

Anyway, Murder '97 is typical Gruber mystery. It's short and breezy with just enough comic relief. I wish he'd written a few more Lash books, and few less Johnny Fletchers.

The ugly green cover above is the hardcover first. Both the good-looking Reader's Choice Library edition (at top) and the even uglier green and yellow Jonathan Press digest claim to be complete and unabridged. Why the Jonathan Press edition was retitled The Long Arm of Murder is a mystery that would baffle even Simon Lash.

Forgotten Books: The Honest Dealer by Frank Gruber (Illustrated)

 

 1946

Mr. Ed Gorman featured this Johnny Fletcher adventure as his Forgotten Book of the week (that's HERE), and as there are several editions of this classic here in the Lewis library, it seems a good time to trot them out for your viewing pleasure. 

1947

1949

1972

MORE Forgotten Books at pattinase!

Forgotten Books: The French Key by Frank Gruber

When I started reading this book I had a headache. But after a few breezy chapters, the headache was gone. Such is the power of easy reading.

Reading Frank Gruber is sort of like watching Bones. You turn your mind off and let the story wash over you, and when it's over you feel mildly satisfied and mildly refreshed.

The French Key introduced Gruber’s two most famous characters, Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg. But as I mentioned some months back in a review of the short story collection Brass Knuckles, Fletcher and Cragg were actually just re-envisioned versions of two earlier characters, Oliver Quade the Human Encylopedia and his assistant Charlie Boston.

Both Fletcher and Quade are mobile-mouthed book salesmen, and Cragg is basically Charlie Boston with muscles. In both series, our heroes are perpetually broke and one step ahead of the law, but somehow find time to chase women and solve murders. It’s all good clean fun.

As with all Gruber mysteries, this one revolves around a field the author found interesting. In this case, it’s coin collecting. The mystery has nothing with a French key (which, we learn, is a what vindictive hotel managers use to shut deadbeats out of their rooms), but concerns an 1822 five-dollar gold piece, considered the rarest of all American coins.

When The French Key was published in 1939, the coin was worth about $10,000. So how about today? An Internet source says there are only three known survivors, and two are in the Smithsonian. The one in private hands sold for $687,500 back in 1982, and is now valued at five million. Not bad. How much of that is due to inflation, and how much to collector mania? Elsewhere in The French Key, we learn that a New York eatery sells hamburgers for a nickel. I’ll let someone else do the math.

Republic released a film version in 1946. I haven't seen it, but Gruber wrote the screenplay himself, so it's probably not all bad. And Mike Mazurki (whom I remember best as Moose Malloy to Dick Powell's Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet) played Sam Cragg. According to IMDb, Johnny was supposed to be a private detective. Republic probably figured it would be hard to sell a book salesman hero to movie goers. If there was ever another movie based on this series, I'm  not aware of it.

FORGOTTEN BOOKS are hosted this week at pattinase (I think).

Forgotten Books: THE BUFFALO BOX by Frank Gruber

Here’s another adventure of my favorite Gruber character, Simon Lash.

The Buffalo Box (1942) is the second of three novels in the series. I reviewed the first, Simon Lash - Private Detective, last year.

One reason I prefer Lash to Gruber heroes like Johnny Fletcher and The Human Encyclopedia is that like me, Lash is a book collector - and like Gruber, he’s a student of Western history. I have the feeling Gruber identified more with Lash than with his other series characters.

The first Simon Lash book, you may recall, made reference to many works of Old West Americana, and ended with Lash visiting a outlaw hideout run by the son of Billy the Kid.

In The Buffalo Box, Simon Lash concentrates on just one old book, and one just one famous incident. But it’s one of enduring interest - the Donner Party Expedition.

The story kicks off when a bewhiskered old gent in prospector’s garb rides up to Lash’s door and claims to be Lansford Hastings, author of The Emigrant’s Route to Oregon and California, the book that guided the Donner Party to their doom. Trouble is, that book was published in 1845, and the author died in 1870.

But the guy shows Lash a box adorned with carved buffaloes - a box we later learn was carved by a wealthy member of the Donner Party. From that point on, descendants of Donner Party folks come popping out of the woodwork, and they all seem to be after a treasure buried back at the pass. Like all of Gruber’s mysteries, this one’s peopled with quirky characters and packed with plot twists, but has the added attraction of being peppered with Donner trivia.

And you’ll be pleased to know: No people are eaten in the course of the story.

Visit pattinase for the line-up of all of this week’s Forgotten Books!

Frank Gruber's Human Encyclopedia goes to Hollywood: "Death of a Champion" (1939)

This post winds up our Frank Gruber weekend extravanganza. On Friday we had a review of Brass Knuckles: The Oliver Quade Human Encylopedia Stories, yesterday we looked at Gruber's 11-point Mystery Story Formula, and today we go to the movies.

In the intro to Brass Knuckles, Gruber makes several references to Hollywood's interest in the Human Encyclopedia series. In 1936, when the series was still appearing in Thrilling Detective, he got offers from both David O. Selznick and Sam Goldwyn. Excited, Gruber signed a deal with Selznick that turned out to be a 30-day option for $200. When the option was not excercised, other studios lost interest until the radio show Information Please went on the air, and once again Gruber appeared to have a hot property. His agent was tossing around numbers like $75,000 from MGM and $100,000 from Warner Brothers, but those deals too failed to materialize.

Eventually Gruber got a Hollywood agent, who made something real happen: he sold the stories to Paramount for $2500. The result was Death of a Champion, released in 1939 and based on the Black Mask story "Dog Show Murder." Paramount apparently had plans for a series, but - most likely due to poor casting - this was the only film produced. 

As a mystery film, it's not too bad. It's definitely a B movie, but Paramount put enough into it to produce a film on a par with most of the Charlie Chans. But they really took very little from Gruber's work. They used the name and concept of Oliver Quade the Human Encylopedia. They used the dog show setting. They used the names of two supporting characters, though their roles in the film bear little resemblance to those in the short story. And they used a scene where Quade is trapped in a locked room and uses his encyclopedic knowledge to create Greek Fire and escape. That's it. Everything else was invented by the screenwriters.

The film follows the tried and true formula of so many Chan and Thin Man movies, where the suspects are assembled in one room and the detective tricks the killer into revealing himself. And that works okay. The main problem, as I see it, was the casting of Lynne Overman as Quade. In the pulp stories, Quade is a young and dynamic con-man type. Overman was over 50, with a squeaky voice and a mild demeanor. And despite the fact that he looks like Red Skelton, viewers were expected to believe he was a babe magnet. (Contrary to the image on the poster above, Overman does not wear a deerstalker or use a magnifying glass.)

Lynne Overman and Donald O'Connor

Quade's assistant Charlie Boston (a Sam Cragg type) is not here at all. Instead, Quade's partner is 14-year old Donald O'Connor, known in the film only as Small Fry. O'Connor gives the best performance of the movie (reminding me of a teenaged Christian Slater), and does most of the detecting. Though he's supposed to be a Human Encyclopedia-in-training, he's more interested in reading a pulp mag called Detective Horror. 

The action starts with the murder of a Great Dane, resulting in the murder of three humans, veering far afield from the doings in "Dog Show Murder." The acting is okay, and the script a few good one-liners, so I did enjoy the movie, even though it didn't merit a sequel.

A special tip of the coonskin cap goes out to the Almanack follower known as Rittster. When I reviewed Gruber's Simon Lash - Private Detective back in January, I whined about the fact I had not seen the film version, called Accomplice. Rittster was kind enough to send me a DVD featuring a double feature. Accomplice - and Death of a Champion. Thanks again, guy!

Frank Gruber's 11-Point "Can't Miss" Mystery Story Formula

Here's the Gruber recipe for surefire mystery story sales, as presented in his memoir "The Life and Times of the Pulp Story." That piece appeared in Brass Knuckles: The Oliver Quade Human Encyclopedia Stories (1966), reviewed here yesterday.  I suspect the same formula appeared in his 1967 book The Pulp Jungle, but I can't lay hands on any of my three copies at this moment to check.

Enough from me. Take it away, Mr. G . . .

I used to analyze stories. What elements were required? After a period of time I evolved a formula for mystery short stories. It consisted of eleven elements. With those eleven elements in a mystery plot, I could not miss. I used to work out each element at a time, concentrating on one until I had it licked, the going on to the next. Most writers of mysteries inject the eleven elements into their stories anyway, but by putting them down one at a time I became conscious of them. Once I had worked out these eleven elements, the job of coming up with plots for mystery stories was greatly simplified.

I did not create this 11-point formula at one time. I evolved it over a period of about two years beginning back in 1934. I had perfected it by about the middle of 1936.

To this day I claim that this plot formula is foolproof. You can write a perfectly salable mystery story with perhaps only seven or eight of these elements, but get them all into a story and you cannot miss. Here are the eleven elements:

1. THE HERO. A hero must be colorful. He must have an occupation that is colorful or he must be a colorful person. In general, I have followed the theory that a regular policeman or detective is not colorful. Just think a moment about the greatest detective in all detective fiction - Sherlock Holmes - and you will quickly grasp what I mean by colorful.

2. THEME. This, to me, is the most important element of any mystery story plot. By theme I mean subject matter, what the story is about in addition to, over and above, the ACTUAL MURDER plot. To illustrate:
     "Death and the Main" is about fighting cocks. I give a reasonably inside account of how gamecocks are raised, how they are fought, etc. This is knowledge not possessed by the average reader and believe me, I did not know it until I read up on the subject, for the purpose of this story.
    My book, The Lock & the Key was about locksmiths. A liberal education in making locks and keys was thrown into the murder plot. I knew absolutely nothing about locks and keys until I did research on the subject. I know no more than is in the book.
     If you have ever read Dorothy Sayres’ excellent English mysteries, you will find that THEME figures superbly. In The Nine Tailors, the reader earns all about church bells, the art of bell-ringing, etc. In Murder Must Advertise, Miss Sayres discusses advertising in all its phases.
     HOWEVER . . . knowledge of a subject should be used sparingly. The mystery reader may not be as interested in the subject as you are.

3. VILLAIN. Let’s face it, the hero of detective fiction is a Superman. The villain must therefore be a super-Superman or have plenty of assistants. The odds must ALWAYS be against the hero.

4. BACKGROUND. The story must be played against a colorful or unusual background. The streets of a big city are not necessarily colorful. If they’re not, make them so.

5. MURDER METHOD. Here again, the “unusual” should be considered. Shooting, stabbing, etc. are acceptable, but the circumstances surrounding them should be “unusual.”

6. MOTIVE. Actually, there are only two reasons for murder - hate and greed, but there are many subdivisions of these and the “motive” should be as unusual as possible.

7. CLUE. Somewhere in the story, there must be a clue for the alert reader. Sure, try to fool the reader, but the clue must be there if the reader should want to check back on you, after the story is over.

8. TRICK. In the grand finale, when all seems lost, when the hero cannot possibly win out, he must snatch victory from apparent defeat. By a trick . . . and here the word “unusual” applies.

9. ACTION. The story must have pace and movement. It must not consist of talk, talk, talk, about the missing button, etc.

10. CLIMAX. A grand, smashing climax is necessary. Unusual.

11. EMOTION. The hero should be personally involved in some manner. He should be doing this, over and beyond the call of duty. Or, beyond the money paid him for doing it.

Tomorrow: A look at Death of a Champion, the 1939 movie based on Gruber's Human Encyclopedia story "Dog Show Murder."