SHERLOCK, JR.: A New Taint on the Archive

As part of his SHERLOCK HOLMES WEEKEND, Gary Dobbs has done me the honor of posting a piece I wrote on the 1924 Buster Keaton film Sherlock, Jr. You can find it right here. The good news for you is, you don't even have to read it - you can just click PLAY and watch the entire 45-minute masterpiece right there on the ARCHIVE. Check it out, and enjoy the amazing array of Sherlockiana Gary will be presenting all weekend.

FORGOTTEN BOOKS: Six Deadly Dames by Frederick Nebel

I’ve been enjoying the Friday’s Forgotten Books posts on the blogs of Richard Robinson, James Reasoner, Steve Lewis, Randy Johnson, George Kelley, Richard Prosch, Ed Gorman, Paul Brazill, Gary Dobbs, Paul Bishop and others for sometime, and only recently realized the mastermind behind it is Patti Abbott, who graciously compiles a list each week.

Well, heck, I figure I’ve forgotten as many books as almost anyone - except possibly Bill Crider, who excels in all things - so I decided to post one too. This is it.

Frederick Nebel, in my estimation, has never received the credit due him. He was one of the major contributors to Black Mask during the glory years under editor “Cap” Shaw. Between 1926 and 1951 he contributed more than 50 stories to the magazine. His writing was lean, hard and unsentimental, making him one of Shaw’s favorites.

It’s a shame so little of his work has been reprinted. Six Deadly Dames, published by Avon in 1950, is one of only two collections of his short stories.  The other, The Adventures of Cardigan, featuring a very similar character, was issued by Mysterious Press in 1988. Last year, The Big Book of Pulps (remembered this week by Ray Foster), scored a major coup by including a novel-length sequence of the first five stories in Nebel’s other major Black Mask series, featuring Kennedy (the reporter) & MacBride (the police captain).

Six Deadly Dames contains 6 of the 15 Donahue stories. (The page below is from one of those still uncollected, from Black Mask Sept, 1932.)  Like the Continental Op, Donahue is an operative for an interstate detective agency. Like Sam Spade, he's slightly tarnished, brutal when he has to be, and twists the law when necessary. The Cardigan book also collected 6 stories, these originally from Dime Detective, but 37 more are wasting away, as are over 30 Kennedy & MacBride stories.

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Corresponding with Mrs. Nebel some years back, I asked if her husband had made an effort to get his stories published in books - particularly the first five Kennedy & MacBride tales, which seemed designed for just that purpose. She said he didn’t think much of his pulp work. He considered it dated and didn’t believe it merited collection. What he really wanted was to be a novelist, not a crime writer. To this end he produced three books, Sleepers East, But Not the End, and Fifty Roads to Town, all well received but today even more forgotten than Six Deadly Dames.

Another “Tough Dick” Donahue collection is long overdue. But it arrives, Six Deadly Dames will do. It’s a gem.

Buck Jones Rides Again

Now that James Reasoner has made Buck Jones cool again (in his outstanding Beat to a Pulp story "One Night Near Hangtown"), I figured it was time to pay tribute to Buck, who was featured on some of the finest western movie posters of all time. Here are three of my favorites.

1936

1936

1937

Alfred Hitchcock Presents... A Swingin' Tune

...for swingin' by your neck, that is. Ralph Marterie and his Marlboro Men, who did Perry Mason for us a while back, return with their hip rendition of The Alfred Hitchcock Theme, also known as "Funeral March of a Marionette". Hit it, Ralph...

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" 
by Ralph Marterie and his Marlboro Men

The Story With No Name Part 14 by Yours Truly

The No Name Wonder marches on, this time through the desert.
Parts 1-10 await you at The Culbin Trail.
Part 11 is at Open Range.
Part 12 at Charlie's Tokyo West Blog.
Part 13 at Broken Trails.

We're now three deep into Round 2, though new scribes are always welcome. Care to join in?

Part 14 by Evan Lewis

Walt Arnside had died and gone to Hell.

Or so it seemed, as the Yuma Desert pitched and rolled like a stormy sea.

What madness had put him astride a camel? True, he’d served in the U.S. Camel Corps, but that was ancient history. Before the war, before the gambling, before the marshaling. He’d been young then, young and stupid. And even then, he’d ridden the beasts only as a lark. The Corps had used them as pack animals, not mounts.

Walt’s clothing was stiff with sweat, his eyes poached, his throat ravaged from breathing sand. He'd forgotten the camels’ least endearing quality: an odor like curdled milk, piss, decayed flesh and pigshit - all rolled into one.

To make matters worse, Zack Roden was clearly enjoying himself. He perched atop the high saddle like a rooster, regaling Lola with tales of his none-too-savory past.

Lola, too, was remarkably at ease. She sat side-saddle on her camel’s hump, lovely legs curled against the beast’s flank. She glowed like a child on her first pony ride.

Walt’s only consolation was that Silas was at least as miserable as he. Having long since lost his breakfast, Silas sagged forward, bracing hands on the camel’s neck.

The handler Hassan rode rings around them all. Scorning a saddle, he’d straddled his mount behind the hump, leaning back with legs outstretched, and fairly flew across the sands.

Walt cursed himself for joining this mad quest. A ship in the desert. A treasure in Spanish doubloons. A Secret Society of guardians. It was the stuff of an opium dream.

Then there were his allies - two men who had once been friends, a woman he’d once loved. All had betrayed him at one time or another, and one was betraying him now - to a human scorpion called Vic Sawtell. But which? The question clogged his throat with bile.

A jolt nearly toppled him from the saddle. The camel, of its own volition, had begun to gallop. The others were running too. Hassan steered his mount between them, barking orders in his strange tongue, but to no avail.

“They smell water!” He shouted. “And will not be denied!”

All the riders could do was hold tight as the camels charged pell-mell across the desert.

The beasts did not slow until they reached a small stream, where they thrust their heads into the water and slurped noisily.

Roden’s face was a mask of fury. Jumping to the ground, he buried the sharp toe of his boot in his mount’s underbelly. The beast squalled, whipping its head about. Flashing teeth bit deep into Roden’s thigh. Roden howled, jerked the Navy Colt from its holster.

Walt leapt headfirst from his saddle, still flying as his fist crashed against Roden’s jaw. Roden’s head snapped full around before his body struck the earth.

Lola squealed, but for whom?

Roden’s camel arched its neck and spat. Its foul-smelling cud smacked against Roden’s cheek, dribbling ooze between his lips. Roden sputtered, shook his head and groped blindly for his gun.

Walt tensed, ready for whatever came. But a sharp cry from Hassan spun his head around.

“Look!” The handler aimed his riding crop toward the West.

Atop a distant ridge, two dark figures sat their horses. Watching.

Walt strode to his camel, drew the Winchester from its scabbard.

Lola clutched his arm. "Who are they?"

Walt levered a shell into the chamber, spat onto the sand.

"Apaches."

A Bump in the NaNoWriMo Road

After 4000 words in two days, I had to pause for plotting and didn't chalk up a single word that counts. The Story With No Name didn't help either, as it forced me to google up oodles of camel lore. But the road ahead looks clearer now, and I expect to get back on track tomorrow. I'm enjoying the pressure. If any of you others are NaNo-ing, give a shout.

Murder Wears a Halo by John Evans

I was surprised to find this pulp 20-odd years ago, and surprised again when I found it in a box the other day. John Evans (aka Howard Browne) is the still-respected author of four Chandleresque novels featuring private detective Paul Pine. Those novels are Halo in Blood (1946), Halo for Satan (1948), Halo in Brass (1949), and The Taste of Ashes (1957).

But here's John Evans, in the February 1944 issue of Mammoth Detective, with an even earlier Halo title. I first assumed it was a pulp version of one of the Pine titles. But nope, it's a whole 'nother novel. And instead of featuring Paul Pine, the first-person narrator of this one is a pulp writer named Don Hearn.

"72000 Word Book-length Novel" the cover says, and that's no lie. The story fills 125 pages of this massive mag. Interesting that Evans/Browne was using Halo titles even before the Pine books came along. I have a 1945 issue of the same magazine with a 40,000 word novelette called "Halo Round My Head". It features still another first person narrator.

I've yet to read this one, but it's definitely on my list, and I'll have more to say when I finish. For now, I'll let you peruse the prose from the title spread on your own. A bit of googling informed me this novel was finally published in book form in 1997 by Brooklyn Gryphon.

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Wild West Monday Petition

Do you like western fiction? James Reasoner? Ed Gorman? Joseph A. West? James J. Griffin? The Black Horse gang? Want to see their stuff carried by more bookstores? Of course you do.

Well, here's your chance to do something about it. Click on this link pronto and sign the petition. It will be sent to booksellers and libraries everywhere to show them there's an eager western fan base.

Thanks to Gary Dobbs and THE TAINTED ARCHIVE for trumpeting this cause.