Between this blog and my previous one, Professor Damian’s Public Domain Treasure Chest, I’ve been writing about movies for quite a while now. Because of that, there are a lot of posts that have simply gotten lost to the mists of time. So, I figured I’d use the idea of “Throwback Thursday” to spotlight some of those older posts, re-presenting them pretty much exactly as they first appeared except for updating links where necessary or possible, and doing just a bit of re-formatting to help them fit better into the style of this blog. Hope you enjoy these looks back.
A while back I started writing about my favorite detective, but for various reasons I never got around to posting part two of this, something I intend to correct soon. Last week for Throwback Thursday I reposted that original post, so I thought this week I’d use this space to post my original follow-up to that, dealing with one of the novels that I had just finished reading.
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My Favorite Detective: A Novel Interlude – A Family Affair
Back before Christmas I posted an article about Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe introducing the character and talking about the concept of the armchair detective. In that article (which focused mostly on the radio adventures of the character) I noted that while I could probably find all of the original novels and short stories online either through Amazon or Ebay or downloading them as e-books or whatever, I’m just old school enough that I enjoy having the print editions (yep, there are some things that I just enjoy having hands-on copies of) and tracking them down individually either through going to old booksellers or getting them as gifts. Well, thanks to my mom, I received a 1st edition hardback copy of Stout’s last Wolfe book, A Family Affair.
One of the things that I noted about Stout’s Wolfe stories that I really like is that though he first introduced Wolfe and his associates and various supporting characters in 1934 in a novel entitled Fer-de-Lance, and wrote them to be contemporaneous with society then. as the years passed, though the characters never actually aged and their basic relationships didn’t change, the world around them did, and that was something that Stout acknowledged in his stories. For instance, when America entered World War II, Wolfe became an occasional consultant for the War Department. During the 50s and 60s, Wolfe noted and commented upon the civil rights movement, and some of his cases sprang from that, and so on. As a matte of fact, Stout stated to his biographer John McAleer
“Those stories have ignored time for thirty-nine years. Any reader who can’t or won’t do the same should skip them. I didn’t age the characters because I didn’t want to. That would have made it cumbersome and would seem to have centered attention on the characters rather than the stories.”
That particular aspect of the stories was never more in evidence than they are in A Family Affair which was first published in 1974 and deals heavily with Wolfe’s reaction to the Watergate scandal which was engulfing the nation at the time. As a matter of fact, a central part of the mystery has to do with if, and if so how, the events that take place might be related to that ongoing scandal.
Another theme of the novel, and the part that gives it its title, has to do with just who constitutes one’s “family”. Is family merely a relationship of blood, or are there other relationships that can also be considered family? This is especially called into question when a character who has been peripherally seen before in the Wolfe stories is killed in a rather gruesome manner under Wolfe’s own roof, which is the event which sets the rest of the story in motion.
I’m not going to give much more of the plot away here, as to do so would deprive the potential reader the fun of following the twists and turns which it takes, except to say that for those who have read previous stories and have come to know and love these characters over the years, the climax does come as something of a gut-punch.
A Family Affair is also one of those stories in which Wolfe breaks, as happens from time to time, some of the established rules that he has set up for himself, and which define him as unique from other characters in the genre, but there is always a good reason for that when it occurs, and that is true here.
I have to say that I don’t recommend A Family Affair as an introduction to Wolfe’s world. There are many other stories and books that would serve that purpose better. On the other hand, though I wish that Stout, who passed away in 1975, not long after the publication of the novel, had been able to write many more stories, if there does have to be a last Wolfe novel it is fitting that this is it.
And fortunately for me, since I’ve made no strict rules about the order I’m reading the stories in, simply devouring each one as I find it, there are still some new adventures out there for me to find, and that is something that makes me very happy. And anxious to head out and see if I can find any more today.
(I’ll also be back soon with the “official” part two of this series, in which I’ll write more about Wolfe himself, and my favorite television adaptation of the character.)
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Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past.
Yep, it’s that time of year again – San Diego Comic-Con, when all of the studios are fighting to get new trailers and previews to an appreciative audience in order to generate some positive buzz about all of the genre-related (and not just comic-book) films and TV shows they have coming out.
Though I am, like most mystery lovers, a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, there has always been one character in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories who has actually fascinated me more than the famed detective himself. No, I’m not talking about his famed arch-rival Moriarty, though he is also a very intriguing figure, especially when one considers his actual “screen time” in the canon stories is so short.
Of course, Mycroft is not the first armchair detective in mystery fiction. That distinction probably goes to C. Auguste Dupin who was the creation of the man who is responsible for innovating so much of what are now considered standard detective mystery tropes, Edgar Allan Poe.
Ah, yes, Archie Goodwin. Some people would likely say that Archie is the true protagonist of Stout’s stories, and while I won’t go that far, I will say that it is Archie’s unique voice which truly brings Wolfe to life. Goodwin acts as the narrator of Wolfe’s adventures, acting in much the same role that Dr. Watson plays in the Sherlock Holmes stories. He is the person who acts as the reader’s stand-in in the stories, though considering the sedentary nature of Wolfe – remember, he is an armchair detective – Archie is arguably more valuable to Wolfe than Watson is to Holmes. As a matter of fact, in their preface to a reprint of Stout’s book Too Many Cooks, mystery scholars Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor describe the relationship between Nero and Archie thusly:
Okay, for now I’m going to stop there, before actually getting into the character of Nero Wolfe and the things that make him a truly unique character even when compared to other armchair detectives. Instead, I want to take a moment to focus on one of my favorite adaptations of Rex Stout’s stories.
There are only two problems that I have with this series, and they are easily overcome by the love that I have for Greenstreet’s Wolfe. The first is that the series had no consistent actor to play the part of Archie Goodwin. Over the course of the twenty-six episodes which make up the series, the voice of Archie was played by actors such as Gerald Mohr, Herb Ellis, Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell, Lamont Johnson, and Wally Maher. The other problem is that the series consisted of original stories rather than adaptations of Stout’s writings, though that’s actually understandable and forgivable considering the complexity of Stout’s plots. They would have been nearly impossible to shoehorn into an thirty minute radio time slot, so it’s for the best that the producers didn’t even try. Instead, the producers opted to emphasize characterization over plot, and while one could perhaps nitpick bits of that, the truth is they did a pretty good job. Again, I’d say as well as could be done in a 30 minute time slot.
I’m not sure exactly why I decided last night’s movie would be 1974’s The Parallax View, or even when I put it in my Netflix queue. Still, there it was, and since I was in a kind of “what the heck” mood, I decided to give it a go.
And perhaps that’s the problem with the entire film, and why it was less well received and remains much less well remembered than Pakula’s two other films in this “trilogy”. It simply never manages to convey any real sense of intensity or immediacy. Under Pakula’s direction, scenes such as the opening fight on the top of Seattle’s Space Needle, which could have provided great tension seem much too removed and foreshortened to truly give it any sense of what is at stake, and that is something that carries through the length of the movie, making it seem rather disjointed and – while it’s not particularly hard to follow – jumpy, as Frady moves from point to point in following the conspiracy depending far too much on what seems coincidence.
As far as the acting goes, Beatty, whose talent onscreen was unfortunately for most of his career overshadowed by his offscreen reputation turns in his usual engaging performance. He is very ably backed by a supporting cast which includes Hume Cronyn, William Daniels and Paula Prentiss, all of whom are good here, but never seem as engaged as they would be in other roles.
It’s hard to believe it’s been thirty years since we first got into trouble with Jack Burton, but it’s true.
I suppose a sufficient indication of my excitement and anticipation for this movie is the fact that I’m just now getting around to seeing it.
Instead I’ll simply say that I’m rather hoping that the resulting box office for this movie is such that it hastens the day that Fox decides the franchise isn’t lucrative enough for them and either lets the rights revert back to Marvel or the two studios manage to strike up some sort of deal that lets the characters revert back to their home studio, not only so that we can get better X-Men movies, but also so that they (the characters that make up the X-Men universe) can be more fully integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
One of the things that I’ve decided recently is that I need to spend more time catching up with early Alfred Hitchcock movies, especially those that he made before leaving England for Hollywood. Thus, The 39 Steps which he directed in 1935.
Second, and especially of note in this day when gender-and race- swapping are controversial issues which receive a lot of attention, We have the introduction of “Annabella Smith” (an admitted alias) as the character who brings Hannay into the plot after a show at a London music hall is disrupted by gunfire. What makes this interesting is that on the novel, the person who draws Hannay into the story is an American man named Franklin P. Scudder. By turning Scudder into a woman of unknown national origin, Hitchcock not only raises a question of sexual tension that would not be a part of Buchan’s story, but also in his casting of Lucie Mannheim as Smith, he reinforces the idea of the “Hitchcock blond” which would become a staple of the master’s movies.
Also, by recasting the character as female, Hitchcock provides an early take on an idea which would have a later echo in the director’s 1960 film Psycho when she is suddenly and unexpectedly stabbed and killed very early in the film, thus leaving Hannay with only the slightest of clues as to the actual mystery that is surrounding him, and changing the focus and perspective of the film from what seems like it will be a chase of both Hannay and Smith as they try to intercept and deter the spy ring to more of a man on the run film as Hannay must not only attempt to figure out the secret that she was trying to protect, but must also stay one step ahead of Scotland Yard who believe that he is the one who murdered her.
Finally, I think it should be noted that even though The 39 Steps may seem to be, as noted above an “early” Hitchcock film, he already had quite a few directing credits to his name before this (the number is kind of inexact depending on the sources you check and just how much involvement you give credit to on some of the earliest films, but it already shows the assured hand of someone who knows just what he wants from both those behind and in front of the camera and how to get what he wants. It may be early Hitchcock, but it isn’t minor Hitchcock. Also, it was considered a major film by production company Gaumont-British which was not only willing to give Hitch a very free hand with the adaptation, but was also willing to spend what was then considered a major-league budget to make it, including spending the money to bring in two stars who at the time were well known American actors in an attempt to make a splash not only in England but also in America, and that investment paid off greatly, not only at the box office, but with critics and audiences.
According to 
This is not exactly new news, but we do have a few more details about the upcoming series which I’ll get to in a moment.
Which is okay, and is possibly more suited for today’s audience, but at the same time seems the kind of move that will make it just another space adventure show and not the kind of thing that will be must see and inspiring viewing for those budding young minds looking for something which will attract them into a science fiction fandom that they may not even know exists the way the original did with my generation.
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