YouTube Theater: Flashgun Tracy in WOMEN ARE TROUBLE (1936)

Presenting . . . the 1936 movie based on the 1935 Flash Casey Black Mask story by George Harmon Coxe. 

Forgotten Books: Flash Casey 519, Sam Spade 230 -or- "Silent Are the Dead" by George Harmon Coxe

Flash (short for Flashgun) Casey, tough-guy photographer for the Boston Express, was born in Black Mask in 1934, and went on to make more appearances in other media than any other graduate of the magazine, including the runner-up, Sam Spade.

Here's the scorecard.
Pulp magazine stories: Casey 21, plus two serialized novels. Spade appeared in one serialized novel.
Slick magazine stories: Casey 0. Spade 3.
Paperback collections: Casey 1. Spade 1.
Hardcover novels:  Casey 5 (plus one written under a pseudonym by Edward S. Aarons). Spade 1.
Movies: Casey 2. Spade 2.
Radio shows: Casey 444. Spade 221.
Television episodes: Casey 40. Spade 0.
Comic books: Casey 4. Spade 1.

In terms of volume, Casey smoked him. But these days, while Spade is an Icon and Hammett almost a god, Casey is a Forgotten Character, and George Harmon Coxe is rarely read. Tsk, tsk.

Still, posterity got it right. That one Spade novel is better than all the Casey stories and novels put together, both Spade films are by all accounts far superior to the Casey flicks, the Spade radio show was a lot more fun than Casey's, and even the single comic book (an adaptation of The Maltese Falcon) was better than the Casey series. The only place I'd give Flash the edge is in the story category, because the Spade tales from the slicks are pretty lame.

Silent Are the Dead (1942), the first Casey novel, was serialized in Black Mask between September and November 1941. Sad to say, Casey is not quite as tough as he was during his years with Joe Shaw (1934-1936). This, I suspect, was because Coxe had put Casey on the back burner, devoting most of his time to a kinder, gentler Boston news photographer named Kent Murdock. By the time Silent Are the Dead appeared in hardcover, Coxe already had nine Murdock novels under his belt.

Silent Are the Dead is still a pretty good read, but if you're new to Flash Casey, I'd suggest you read a couple of the pulp stories first. You'll find "Murder Mixup" in Shaw's Hard-Boiled Omnibus. "Murder Picture" was reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, and "Fall Guy" in The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories. And the vintage paperback collection Flash Casey - Detective (reviewed HERE) is not impossible to come by.

More Forgotten Books at pattinase.

Attention Nick Graniero: I have your book, and I'm keeping it.

When I pulled the Flash Casey novel Silent Are the Dead (1942) off my shelf to begin reading it, I came across this cool bookplate. Just wanted you to know, Nick, it's MINE now, and if my name rhymed with "zero" I'd scratch yours out and write mine in.

You are, however, invited to tune into Forgotten Books this Friday and read my comments. Cheers!

Forgotten Books: Flash Casey by George Harmon Coxe

Yikes! Got busy this week and Friday crept up on me. So this one's a recycyled review. Something new next week, I promise!

Flash Casey wasn't really a detective, of course. He was a newspaper photographer who acted like a detective.  But I suppose Avon Books can be excused, because one of the stories in this collection is actually titled "Casey - Detective".

George Harmon Coxe was one of "Cap" Shaw's second tier of stalwarts during the glory days of Black Mask. Shaw made no bones about the fact he wanted his writers to emulate Hammett's style, and Coxe does a creditable job. You can enlarge the title spread (below) from "Women are Trouble" and see what I mean.

Three of the tales in this collection, first published in 1946 as an Avon digest, were from the Shaw years. The fourth also appeared in Black Mask, but not until 1941, five years after Shaw's departure. Coxe sold Flash Casey stories to the magazine until 1943, among them two serialized novels later published in book form as Silent Are the Dead (1942) and Murder For Two (1943).

Coxe devoted most of his time (21 novels) to another photographer hero named Kent Murdock. Since Casey made his debut in 1934, and the first Murdock book was published in 1935, I have to wonder which character Coxe created first. Was Murdock a cleaned-up, married and respectable version of Casey, or was Casey a rough-and-tumble version of Murdock? Any Coxe scholars out there?

Meanwhile, Casey carried on a life of his own in the radio series Casey, Crime Photographer, got his own Marvel comic book, and appeared in two movies. There was also a TV series on CBS in 1951-52. Richard Carlyle began in the leading role, which passed to Darren McGavin and then two others before all 40 live episodes had aired.

Coxe returned to the character in the 60s, writing three more novels, the last published in 1964. This span of 31 years means Flash Casey may have had the second longest literary life of any of Shaw's Black Mask characters. W.T. Ballard's Bill Lennox debuted in 1934 (I think) and appeared in his last novel in 1960. The champ, Carroll John Daly's Race Williams, was in business from 1923 to 1955.

"Women Are Trouble" is the first (and longest) story in this collection. My copy of the April 1935 Black Mask featuring that story is the rattiest mag I own that still has the cover somewhat attached. (Be interesting to know how it got this scuffed up and remained intact.) The story was also the basis of the first Flash Casey film (still another movie I've never seen), a 1936 MGM production starring Stuart Erwin.

(click to enlarge)

Like Forgotten Books? Find more at pattinase.

Just Looking: Murder for Two by George Harmon Coxe

Behind the BLACK MASK with Whitfield, Gardner, Torrey & Coxe

Ever wonder what Raoul Whitlfield, Erle Stanley Gardner, Roger Torrey and George Harmon Coxe were up to back in September 1934? Well, wonder no more, because here's the scoop from that month's issue of Black Mask. (My copy is coverless, so I borrowed the pic above from Galactic Central.)

(click to enlarge)