Hitchcock Gets a Makeover

Just when you thought there was no new way to celebrate Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, suspenseful motion pictures, along comes Mondo (a U.S. company “known for releasing limited-edition screen-printed posters for films, television shows, and comics”) with fresh imagery promoting his best-known movies.

Bullet Points: Discoveries and Losses Edition

• The next few days will bring plenty of welcome excitement to the American crime-fiction community. Tonight we can expect to hear which books and fortunate authors have won the 2016 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America (the list of nominees is here). And then, as Les Blatt reminds me, tomorrow begins this year’s Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland, during which the latest batch of Agatha Awards is to be handed ’round (click here to be reminded of the contenders). I’ll post the winners in both contests as soon as I receive the results.

• In Reference to Murder reports that “Harper Lee’s biographer, Charles J Shields, believes he’s found a new, previously unknown Harper Lee text, a feature article written for the March 1960 issue of the Grapevine, a magazine for FBI professionals. The article focused on the gruesome [1959] murders of Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, at their farmhouse in Kansas, the subject of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Lee accompanied Capote, her childhood friend, on his assignment for The New Yorker, reporting on how the community was reacting to the brutal murders.”

• This Sunday, May 1, will bring the sixth and last episode of Grantchester, Season 2, a PBS-TV Masterpiece offering based on James Runcie’s Grantchester Mysteries. (A third season has already been ordered. You will find recaps of the second-season eps here.) Beginning on Sunday, May 8, Masterpiece will begin hosting the final, three-episode run of Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander. Omnimystery News has a brief synopsis of the show; a preview clip is below.



• Here’s something I haven’t seen in, oh, four decades, and might not have spotted even now had it not been for a tip from author-publisher Lee Goldberg. As you may know or perhaps remember, from the fall of 1975 through most of 1978, Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert starred in a CBS-TV detective drama titled Switch. They portrayed Los Angeles private-eye partners, Wagner’s Peterson T. Ryan being an erstwhile con man, while Albert played retired bunco cop Frank McBride. A few years ago, I managed to purchase a bootleg copy of the Season 1 episodes of Switch (the show’s best year, from what I recall), but the guy who sold it to me didn’t also have available the series’ 90-minute pilot film, Las Vegas Roundabout (originally shown on March 21, 1975). Ever since, I’ve been on the lookout for that pilot—and thanks to Goldberg, I finally found it! Click here to watch the movie for yourself. It co-stars Sharon Gless, Charlie Callas, Charles Durning, Jaclyn Smith, and Ken Swofford.

• In addition to carrying early reviews of Shaft: Imitation of Life, Part 3, the latest graphic-novel collaboration between by David F. Walker and artist Dietrich Smith, Steve Aldous—author of The World of Shaft—has posted in his blog Dynamite Entertainment’s Robert Hack-painted cover for the paperback reprint of Ernest Tidyman’s original, 1970 novel, Shaft, due out in August.

• Vince Keenan has a splendid piece in his blog about screenwriter and novelist Roy Huggins (1914-2002), who’s best known for creating TV series such as Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, and The Rockford Files, but who also scripted the 1949 noir film Too Late for Tears.

• Critic-anthologist Sarah Weinman notes, in the latest edition of her newsletter, The Crime Lady, that

Masako Togawa, icon of Japanese cabaret and of crime fiction, died earlier this week in her mid-80s (I’ve seen reports of her being 83 and 85). Her work was woefully under-translated into English; just four of dozens of novels, and a single short story that [Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine] published in the late 1970s. My own favorites are The Master Key and Lady Killer, dark, psycho-sexual examinations of femaleness and oppression that were weird and prescient, and both fit well within American and UK domestic suspense and also blasted right past. I also wish I could have seen the TV show she starred in and produced, Playgirl, which essentially predicted Charlie’s Angels but without the overseeing male specter; it was all badass women. It’s sad to think Togawa’s death might spur some enterprising publisher to translate and issue her work in a proper manner, but if that’s what it takes, then somebody do that. (Also see Jiro Kimura’s short obit and reminiscence.)

• My favorite cover of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man.

• Congratulations to Linda Boa and her crime fiction-oriented blog Crimeworm, which today turns two years old.

• Let’s also hear a hearty round of applause for Patricia Abbott’s weekly “forgotten books” series, which celebrated its eighth anniversary a few days ago. The Rap Sheet’s many contributions to that series can be enjoyed here.

• I noted earlier this month that Ian Fleming’s onetime literary agent, Peter Janson-Smith, had passed away at age 93. But now author Raymond Benson, who revived Fleming’s James Bond series long after the creator’s death, offers up a short tribute in CinemaRetro.

• Since I recently interviewed Con Lehane, author of the April series opener Murder at the 42nd Street Library, I was very interested to read his summation of that particular New York City library’s abundant “wonders,” posted in Criminal Element.

• Yeah, yeah, it’s only the end of April. But Bill Ott, who reviews crime, mystery, and thriller fiction for the American Library Association’s Booklist, has already selected what he says are the best crime novels of 2016 (as reviewed in Booklist from May 1, 2015, through April 15, 2016). Included among his picks: Don Winslow’s The Cartel, Bill Beverly’s Dodgers, Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele, and Lori Rader-Day’s Pretty Little Things. In addition, Ott chooses—at the same link—a number of standout crime-fiction debuts, among them Nicholas Seeley’s Cambodia Noir, L. S. Hilton’s Maestra, and Scott Frank’s Shaker. This is certainly a thoughtful rundown of recent genre releases, but I think I’ll wait until December to assemble my own subjective tally of the year’s “bests.” (Hat tip to Randal S. Brandt)

• Registration is now open for NoirCon 2016, which is set to take place in Philadelphia, October 26-30. If you wish to attend but haven’t yet registered, you can do so either online or via snail-mail.

• R.I.P., James Bond film director Guy Hamilton.

• Republican former House Speaker John Boehner’s recent remarks about underdog GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz being “Lucifer in the flesh … I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life,” inevitably reminded me of a post I composed last November for my Killer Covers blog.

• Alex Segura, author of the recent Miami-set novel, Down the Darkest Street, has put together a list, for Mental Floss, of his eight favorite Florida crime-fiction characters.

• Here’s a perfect gift for fans of historical true crime.

• While we’re on the subject of weird history, consider this tale from The Lineup about a husband who had so much trouble being parted from his deceased wife, that he eventually moved right into her mausoleum at Brooklyn, New York’s Evergreen Cemetery.

• Wow, the roster of guest performers scheduled to appear in the coming Twin Peaks revival (set to air on Showtime at some as-yet-undecided date in 2017) has grown immensely.

• Meanwhile, the first trailer is available for the film adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train (which was one of my favorite crime novels of 2015). The action has apparently been moved from London to New York City, but the trailer suggests that most of Hawkins’ original intent has been maintained on screen. This film, which is due for release in early October, stars Emily Blunt as Rachel Watson, “a heavy-drinker who develops an obsession with a couple she regularly sees while on her commute to work,” explains The Guardian. “After the woman disappears, Rachel becomes entangled in the investigation.” Watch the trailer for yourself here.

• From Mystery Fanfare: “Dean Street Press announces the first 10 Patricia Wentworth novel reissues will be out on May 2. This is part of a major project to republish all 33 of her non-Miss Silver mysteries, some of which haven’t been in print or available for many decades. The remaining 23 will be published in a further two batches in June and July. The first 10 include the four Benbow Smith mysteries, featuring the eminence grise Benbow Smith, and his loquacious parrot Ananias. The first batch also includes Silence in Court from 1945, which is an exceptional courtroom mystery.”

• Although he wasn’t technically invited to contribute to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s “John D. and Me” series of posts, all celebrating the coming July 24 centennial of John D. MacDonald’s birth, educator-turned-novelist Bill Crider decided to post his own remembrance of MacDonald’s influence on his reading and writing life.

• The next time I read a new work described as a “fiction novel,” I’m going to haul my sorry ass out to some secluded spot and scream at the top of my lungs. Pay attention, people! Think before you write!

• Tipping My Fedora blogger Sergio Angelini decided to poll his readers on the subject of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films from each decade of the director’s career. He wound up with 11 selections, including Blackmail (1929), The Lady Vanishes (1938), The Birds (1963), Psycho (1960), and Rear Window (1954). You’ll have to click here to see which production won the most votes.

• Jordan Foster, formerly an editor at The Life Sentence, chooses 10 of her favorite police-procedural writers for Library Journal. I’m pleased to see both John Ball (author of the Virgil Tibbs novels) and Elizabeth Linington (aka Dell Shannon, creator of the Lieutenant Luis Mendoza series) make the cut.

•  A few interviews worth checking out: Laura Lippman talks with Baltimore magazine about her brand-new standalone thriller, Wilde Lake; Dan Fesperman gives Speaking of Mystery’s Nancie Clare the lowdown on his new historical mystery, The Letter Writer; Allison Brennan talks with Crimespree’s Elise Cooper about her psychologically intense new tale, Poisonous; and Chet Williamson addresses questions from Crime Fiction Lover about Robert Bloch’s Psycho: Sanitarium, his follow-up to Bloch’s 1959 novel.

• And it’s quite pleasing to see another reader fall for the multiple delights of Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series (The Other Side of Silence). “I think there are three elements that make the books so fascinating,” David Edgerley Gates writes in SleuthSayers. “The first is historical irony. In more than one novel, actually, the story’s framed with a look back, from the later 1940s or the early 1950s. Secondly, there’s a constant sense of threat, the Nazi regime [being] a bunch of backstabbers ... One dangerous patron is Reinhard Heydrich, a chilly bastard who meets an appropriate end. And thirdly, Bernie is really trying to be a moral person, against all odds. You go along to get along, to simply survive, in a nest of vipers, and hope it doesn’t rub off on you. After seeing the Special Action Groups at work in Russia, and himself participating, Bernie is sickened by the whole enterprise. He suspects, too, that the handwriting’s on the wall.”

A Classic Takes Wing

It was 50 years ago today that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 suspense/horror film, The Birds, premiered in New York City. The screenplay was written by Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain. Modern filmmakers comment on the picture’s enduring significance here.

READ MORE: “The Birds: 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Alfred Hitchcock’s Terrifying Classic,” by Gary Susman (Moviefone).

“The Late Alfred Hitchcock Presents”

Gary Dobbs of The Tainted Archive reports that Britain’s BBC Radio 7 is “producing stories originally intended for the Alfred Hitchcock television series but rejected because of their rather gruesome nature. Actor Michael Roberts does a great impression of the later master director for the introduction to each story.”

Click here to find this series’ 15-minute opening episode, “The Waxwork,” by A.M. Burrage. It will remain available for your listening pleasure over the next week.

“It’s Not As If She Were ... a Maniac”

I’m not old enough to have seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho on my own when it was first released in theaters, 50 years ago today. And there’s no way my protective mother would’ve allowed me to watch it before puberty. In fact, the first time I remember seeing Psycho was as an adult, sometime after graduating from college.

Since then, I’ve watched the film several more times. And on each occasion, I have tried to imagine the shock Psycho’s original viewers must’ve felt when, in the midst of the Cold War, they sat through this black-and-white suspenser based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of the same name (which was, apparently, inspired by the true story of a mid-20th-century serial killer in Wisconsin). Even after wheeling by the infamous Bates Motel on the guided Universal Studios Tour in Los Angeles, and seeing for myself that it’s just a cinematic set, nothing more, I still get goosebumps whenever I watch Janet Leigh arrive at that hostelry in the movie. And though I generally find showers refreshing, the picture’s deadly shower sequence makes me think every time about converting to baths.

Even at age 50, Psycho remains as seductive--and scary--as ever.

READ MORE: “50 Years Later, We’re Still Psycho for Psycho,” by Chris Epting (AOL News); “Hitchcock’s Psycho Premiered 50 Years Ago” (Television Obscurities); “The Secrets of Psycho’s Shower Scene,” by Steve North (Salon); “The Murder that Changed the Movies,” by Dick Polman (Obit).

And There’s the Hitch

Acclaimed 20th-century film director Alfred Hitchcock plotted many a murder for the silver screen, but was he himself a killer? That’s the question to be asked in a forthcoming film titled Number 13. According to blogger and Shots editor Mike Stotter, the story will be set in 1922, when Hitch was making his own flick called Number 13, “a rare film in that he did not complete it.” (In fact, all footage from that movie has reportedly been lost.) Of the film still in the works, Stotter explains:

First-time feature filmmaker Chase Palmer, who also penned the script, gathers an impressive cast including Dan Fogler, Ewan McGregor, Ben Kingsley, and Emily Mortimer for this fictional thriller about a torrid murder mystery in which the prime suspect is director Alfred Hitchcock (Fogler).

As Hitchcock struggles to keep the production on his latest film, “Number Thirteen,” afloat, he becomes inexorably involved in a love triangle involving two key crew members. When the male lead of the film turns up dead and the editor suspects that the director was involved in the murder, the race is on to solve the crime before the killer can strike again.

Palmer’s Number 13 is scheduled to begin filming next month, with a release date in 2008.

It’s a wonder that Hitchcock, who liked to make cameo appearances in his own films, has not been portrayed by actors in other movies since he died 1980. However, he has appeared in a detective’s role in at least one novel that I know of: The Vertigo Murders, by J. Madison Davis (2000).

Happy Birthday, Hitch

Alfred Hitchcock, the unsurpassed Master of Suspense, would have turned 107 today. A director and producer of more than 50 films, his career began in the 1920s with silent motion pictures and culminated with Family Plot in 1976.

Born in England, Hitchcock came to the United States in the late 1930s. His signature was the use of fear and ambiguity to thrill his audiences. Unlike directors of today who claim to revere him, Hitchcock declined to use graphic violence in his films, preferring the power of suggestion. You think you see Mother Bates stabbing Janet Leigh in the shower in Psycho. Actually, you see the knife, you see Leigh screaming, you see the shower curtain being pulled off the rod (one ring at a time) and you see (black and white) blood circling the drain. The jump cuts and shrieking violins distract you into thinking that you’ve seen more than you actually have. And, no, I’m not going to reveal anything about Mother Bates. If you don’t know what I mean, rent the movie tonight. Psycho was remade by Gus Van Sant in 1998.

The list of classic Hitchcock films includes North by Northwest (featuring the climax atop Mount Rushmore), Rear Window, The Birds, Strangers on a Train (an early draft of the screenplay for that film was written by Raymond Chandler, who did not get along with Hitchcock), and Vertigo.

Hitchcock was famously quoted as saying that actors “are cattle.” He later clarified that statement, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, saying that what he meant was, they “should be treated like cattle.” While it’s true that Academy Award-winning performances did not come from his films, I find that attribution hard to take seriously. After all, some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, and James Stewart worked with Hitchcock again and again. All three were certainly well beyond needing to work with a director they did not respect.

Hitchcock was also widely known for the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran for 10 years starting in 1955. He was among the first film directors to understand the potential power of television. It also enhanced his personal celebrity, as Hitchcock introduced each episode of the series in his trademark black suit, white shirt, and black tie. His voice, while thick and easy to parody, nevertheless boasted a flawless diction. A sound clip of Hitchcock’s voice, taken from an album promotion, can be found here (scroll down to the bottom of the page). And here is a clip of his TV theme, “Funeral March of a Marionette,” by Charles-Francois Gounod. Also during the ’50s, he became associated with Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, which is published monthly to this day, offering some of the finest mystery short stories anywhere.

Hitchcock frequently made cameo appearances in his own films, usually in the first reel (it didn’t take him long to realize that audiences were looking for him so intently, they weren’t paying full attention to the stories he was trying to tell). My personal favorite cameo is in Psycho, in which the director can be spotted through Janet Leigh’s office window, inexplicably wearing a cowboy hat.

Hitchcock’s contributions to film technique are still widely studied and used. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then there can be no higher compliment than Mel Brooks’ 1977 tribute to Hitchcock, High Anxiety (which The Master reportedly loved). Many Hitchcock films and sequences are referenced in High Anxiety, the most memorable being a shot-by-shot re-creation of the Psycho scene, in which Brooks is attacked in his shower with a rolled-up newspaper wielded by a young Barry Levinson.

Hitchcock died in April 1980.