Bullet Points: Bursting at the Seams Edition

• In the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio blog, Adam Graham counts down what he thinks are the best and worst of the old Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films. Part I is here, Part II is here, and click here for Part III. It’s been years since I last saw those pictures, but Graham’s series makes me want to rent a few.

• Among this week’s many “forgotten books” suggestions were a number of crime-related works, including: Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy, by W.J. Burley; Sinners and Shrouds, by Jonathan Latimer; Episode of the Wandering Knife, by Mary Roberts Rinehart; The Case of the Vanishing Beauty, by Richard S. Prather; Girl Possessed, by Dean Owen; The Poisoned Chocolates Case, by Anthony Berkeley; and White Shadow, by Ace Atkins. A complete list of contributions can be found in Todd Mason’s Sweet Freedom blog.

• R.I.P., Geraldine Ferraro, the former New York Democratic congresswoman who became the first woman ever nominated to become the vice president of the United States. Salon offers two terrific pieces about Ferraro’s place in history, here and here.

• I’d forgotten that Martin Cruz Smith wrote Nick Carter thrillers.

• While you await HBO-TV’s airing of its multipart adaptation of Mildred Pierce, beginning tomorrow night and starring Kate Winslet, head over to the Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog for a refresher on James M. Cain’s original, 1941 novel.

• I have added two new blogs to The Rap Sheet’s lengthy list: The Abbott Gran Old Tyme Medicine Show, written by novelists Megan Abbott (an all-too-occasional contributor to this page) and Sara Gran; and The House of Crime and Mystery, by Montreal’s Jacques Filippi. Give them both a visit, when you have a chance.

• I’m going to have to find some Jonathan Craig novels for myself.

• Do we really need a remake of The Thin Man?

• Happy Birthday, Leonard Nimoy! Although best known for playing Commander Spock on the original Star Trek series, Nimoy also starred for a time in Mission: Impossible and did guest turns in everything from Highway Patrol and 87 Precinct to Perry Mason, The Lieutenant, and Columbo. He turned 80 today, less than a week after fellow Trek star William Shatner hit that same mark.

• Mystery*File’s Steve Lewis features the results of a 1994 survey by The Armchair Detective magazine (now, regrettably, defunct). While a similar poll taken today might bring a like list of “All-Time Favorite Authors,” it would be interesting to know who would appear under “Favorite Currently Active Mystery Writers.” For one thing, four of the 10 novelists mentioned in 1994 have since died.

• New seasons of the USA Network series White Collar and Covert Affairs are set to start on June 7. Meanwhile, Sunday, May 1, will bring the season premieres of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (with Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe once more occupying their starring roles) and In Plain Sight. I don’t yet see information about a return date for Burn Notice, but it will evidently come sometime after the showing of the Burn Notice prequel movie, The Fall of Sam Axe, on Sunday, April 17.

• Congratulations to TV Squad. That blog turns six this month.

• Russel D. McLean (The Lost Sister) picks his 10 favorite crime movies. This follows his list of 10 favorite crime novels. McLean suddenly seems ubiquitous. Oh, yeah, he’s here as well.

• Yikes! Detroit, Michigan--once among the fastest-growing cities in the United States--has lost a quarter of its population in just the last decade. It’s part of a larger migratory trend: Americans are leaving the Midwest to settle in the West and South. The largely conservative “heartland” already enjoys political sway in Washington, D.C., disproportionate to its population. These changes will only exacerbate that problem.

• The latest two short-story offerings in Beat to a Pulp are “Old Wives’ Tales,” by Dave Zeltserman, and “Big Cat,” by Jim Wilsky.

• A most unhappy anniversary.

• Maxim Jakubowski has an interesting piece in the Mulholland Books blog about “science-fiction noir.” He writes: “As strange as it may initially appear, SF is fertile ground for harvesting the tropes of noir, and the disconnect between everyday reality and the fully imagined alien environment the speculative genre offers is an ideal breeding ground for all that is best about noir.” Read more here.

• This just goes to show how out of touch today’s Republican Party is from the American values of racial and religious equality. Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, currently auditioning to become the GOP’s presidential candidate for 2012, tells the blog Think Progress that he wouldn’t hire any Muslims into his administration.

• Left Coast Crime 2011 in Santa Fe isn’t even over yet, but already there’s publicity regarding next year’s LCC event in Sacramento.

• Finally, I agree with Dan Fleming: Henry’s Crime shows promise.