THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: DR. WATSON MEETS SHERLOCK HOLMES (1954)

 Come back to the beginning.  The game is afoot!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was a 1954-54 joint British and American venture starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Dr. John Watson.  This episode was the first of sixteen produced, although only twelve were aired in England; the show was aired in the UK on the BBC Light Programme, and in the United States on the ABC network.

The series was produced by Harry Alan Towers and was directed by Val Gielgud, Sir John's brother; Val Gielgud would occasionally be featured on the series as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft.  The series was scripted by John Keir Cross.

This first episode, depicting the meeting between Holmes and Watson, was based on the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, and on the first Holmes short story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (also known as "Charles Augustus Milverton," "The Blackmailer," and "The First Case").  It first aired in the UK on October 5, 1954, and in the United States on January 2, 1955.  (Sir Arthir Conan Doyle based the short story on the real-life villain Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer who preyed on many, including famous artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Howell died in 1880, his throat slit posthumously and a coin inserted in his mouth -- he may or may not have been still alive when his body was found, accounts differ.  Officially, the police concluded that he died of "pneumonic phthisis," which determination avoided a public inquiry; the circumstances of his death have never been satisfactorily explained.  According to scholar Richard Lancelyn Green, Doyl's short story was also inspired by the A. J. Raffles short story "Willful Murder" by Doyle's brother-in-law, E. J. Hornung.)

Also featured in the cast were Philip Leaver as Middleton, John Cazabon as Inspector Lestrade, Norman Claridge as Stamford, and Monica Gray as "the woman" -- not, mind you, The Woman, whom as we all know was Irene Adler; her appearance was to wait until the next episode of the series, "A Scandal in Bohemia," in which she was played by Margaret Ward; I'll try to bring you that episode shortly.

In the meantime, enjoy this bit of Holmesian history, mystery, and deduction:

(2739) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson meets Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud - 1954 - YouTube

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE LADY FROM YESTERDAY

"The Lady from Yesterday" by Jeremiah Healy  (published in the MWA anthology Blood on their Hands, edited by Lawrence Block, 2003)

Jeremiah Healy (1948-2014) was a lawyer, academic, and crime novelist best known for his character John Francis Cuddy, a Boston private investigator.  As "Terry Devane," he also penned three legal thrillers and one short story featuring defense attorney Mairead O'Clair.  "The Lady from Yesterday" is one of at least three short stories to feature Lauderdale "tennis bum" and private eye Rory Calhoun, (whose mother had a thing for the mid-20th century actor).

Calhoun is approached at the Lauderdale Tennis Club by Monica Lewis, an veteran exotic dancer whose career is on the downswing due to age and gravity.  Monica is the primary suspect in the murder of Tara "T.N.T." Tate, an up-and-coming dancer at the Cottontails, the "gentleman's club" where both worked.  The night before Tara was killed, she and Monica had gotten into an argument, during which Tara had scratched Monica on the arm, leaving Monica's DNA under her fingernails.  That, plus the fact that Tara was bucking for the top spot at the club, replacing Monica, provided enough  motive to convince the incompetent detective in charge of the case that Monica was guilty.  Monica wanted Rory to investigate and prove that she did not murder Tara.  Rory felt uneasy because it was still an open case with the police and turned Monica down.

The following day, the newspaper headline read SECOND DANCER'S DEATH SOLVES FIRST.  Monica was presumed to have hung herself either out of guilt, or because the police were closing in.  Rory went to see the cop in charge, who was all too willing to have everything tied up in a nice, neat package.  Because of his own feeling of guilt, Rory decides to investigate.

After talking with Rocky, the hard-shelled female owner/manager of Cottontails, Rory up with three people he wanted to talk to:  "The Professor," a steady customer who would come not just to ogle, but to stare at Tara; Lacey Peevers, another dancer at the club, who would most likely taken over Monica's spot if Tara had not arrived on the scene; and Tara's husband, Barry Cardiff, who did not want Tara dancing at all, resented when she went on tour throughout the South, and had to stay at home taking care of his invalid mother while Tara was off shaking her booty.  Rocky also told Rory that Tara was saving every bit of money she could to build a nest egg and retire from the business and that Tare had told she had almost accrued enough money for that purpose.

The Professor turned out to be Jason Nolan, an English teacher at the local college, and who claimed to appreciate exotic dance as an art form and quoted various works of literature to prove his point.  He told Rory that he suspected Tara's murderer was actually Lacey Peevers.

Lacy Peevers turned out to be a young mother devoted more to her infant son than to her dance career.  She suspected the Professor.

Barry Cardiff was a man who, despite everything, still loved his wife.  He suspected that Tara was having affairs while she was on the road -- sometimes for a month or more -- and that he had recently learned that Tara was turning tricks and filming herself with unsuspecting men for blackmail; he gave Rory a recording marked TARA DOES FRANK that he had found hidden in her bureau after she had been killed.  Cardiff also resented that Tara refused to help him care for his mother, who was basically a vegetable for the past two and a half years but showed no sign of dying.  But Cardiff had loved Tara deeply.  He thought Monica was the person who had killed her.

The case seemed to be leading nowhere, and Rory's obsession with it was affecting his concentration on his tennis game.  While Rory was trying to limber up, Don Floyd, an eighty-year-old tennis pro, noted that Rory was concentrating too hard on his first serve.  He said, "Rory, when I can't ever get the first one in, I generally try to focus on the second service."

Bingo!  The second service!  Rory suddenly knew which of his three suspects was guilty...

An interesting story, but very flawed.  First, we have to accept that the murderer was one of the three suspects, leaving out anyone else Tara might have met or blackmailed while building up her cash reserve, and that includes the anonymous "Frank" from the porno tape.  Also, Monica was a heavy drug user, with track marks on her arms.  She had worn a long-sleeved blouse when Rory had met her, so he didn't notice, but I find it hard to picture a stripper being able hide such track marks while performing.  And, Rory's solution to the puzzle was just a guess, nothing more.  He had to set a trap to be sure.  And the denouement to the story was very unsatisfying, leaving Monica as the murderer in the eyes of the public, and not clearing her name -- which is what she had wanted Rory to do.

Basically, a by-the-numbers story that clearly shows that Healy expended his energy and talent far more his stories about John Francis Cuddy that Rory Calhoun.  Is it still worth reading?  Yeah, I think so, but just don't expect a Cuddy-like plot or experience.

Jeremiah Healey was an interesting character.  He approached his writing career much like the lawyer he was, examining pros and cons and building a case from the ground up.  He had researched the novel market and learned that some 70% of novels at the tine were bought by women so he deliberately shaped the Cuddy character to appeal to that market, while retaining many of the private eye tropes that have made the genre so popular.  He attacked issues of the day,  but not in a hardboiled manner -- more like soft-boiled with a hard edge.  During interviews, he laid his many books in front of him, using them as props and evidence, picking each on up as he pointed out plots and themes in each; the attorney in him was selling his entire career and not just his latest release.  As a law professor at the New England School of Law, he prided himself on being a hard-ass, wanting to push his students to be the very best they could be.  Healy was personable, generous, and had a great sense of humor.  I remember him taking newly published, first-time author Brendan DuBois aside and giving him useful career tips (DuBois, who was a talented writer from the start, went on to have a long career, publishing 29 novels, until his own personal demons derailed it in 2024); Healy also gave his time, support, and knowing advice to many other writers.  He served as president of the Private Eye Writers of America  (travelling the roads in his Volkswagon, dubbed "PWI-One") and the International Association of Crime Writers.  I did not know him very well, but I liked him a lot.  He survived a bout of prostate cancer in 2003 (about the time of the writing of "The Lady from Yesterday," which may have affected the quality of the story -- my speculation only).  I was surprised and saddened when I learned that he had committed suicide at age 66 in 2014.  He had evidently been suffering from depression, a disease that can destroy the best of us.

OVERLOOKED FILM: KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)

Let's close out the month with a zombie spy comedy flick.

A transport lane has engine trouble and is forced to land on a mysterious Caribbean island.  the passengers take refuge in a mansion run by the evil Dr. Mikos Sangre (Henry Victor, Freaks, To Be or Not To Be, Tiger Bay; the role was originally designed  for Bela Lugosi, then Peter Lorre, Victor was the third choice), who controls a host of zombies through voodoo.  Sangre is a German spy who had previously captured a US Admiral (Guy Usher, The Penguin Pool Murder, Charlie Chan at the Opera, Bells of Capistrano) and was trying to pry military secrets out of him.  The pilot of the downed plane was James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell, Captain America, The Bank Dick, The Case of the Velvet Claws; he died of a heart attack at age 39, and at least one film historian has suggested that the strain of filming Captain America was too much for his heart).  Also on the plane were passenger Bill Summers (John Archer, Guadalcanal Diary, White Heat, Destination Moon), and his valet, Jefferson Jackson (Mantan Moreland, perhaps best recognized as Birmingham  Brown in the Charlie Chan films, also a veteran of vaudeville and "race" movies, Moreland appeared in Spider Baby, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery, and Mr. Washington Goes to Town, among many others).  Moreland deservedly got third billing in King of the Zombies, right behind Dick Purcell and eye candy Joan Woodbury (Charlie Chan on Broadway, Brenda Starr, Reporter, The Ten Commandments);  Moreland's third billing was a testament to his popularity during the often close-minded 1940s.  Also in the cast were cute as a button Marguerite Whitten (the movie's Afrro-American eye candy, if you will), Leigh Whipper, Madame Sul-te-Wan*, Laurence Criner, Patricia Stacey, and James Davis.

SPOILER ALERT:  The villainous Dr. Sangre gets his comeuppance at the end of the film...but you have probably figured that out already,

Directed by Jean Yarbrough, who helmed five Abbott and Costello films and the Abbott and Costello television show, five Bowery Boys films, and a number of classic B-horror films, including The Devil Bat, She-Wolf of London, and House of Horror.  The film was scripted by Edmond Kelso (Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts, The Mystery of the Hooded Horseman, Revenge of the Zombies).

A fun flick for its time, but not suited for one with high PC standards.  Watch it for Mantan Moreland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvtb_JNH5U

* the "T" is capitalized on her IMDb listing, but is lower case on the film credits

TODAY'S UNFINISHED POEM

a Choose Your Adventure poem...sort of 

STRAIT TALK

Pass me the booze,

Please pass me that booze;

I'm having a hard time with the Strait of Warm Ooze.

Have you heard the news?

It's not 'Merican Flag Blues;

It's green and it's slimy, that Strait of Warm Ooze

The choice he did choose

Allowed kismet to come throughs;

An ill-gotten plan was the strait of Warm Ooze.

Narcissus had an ego as big as his shoes.

A look in the pool paid the poor guy his dues.

It suspiciously sounds like...the Strait of Warm Ooze.

His cankle do swell and his hands they do bruise

With discoloration and unnatural hues,

But they can't hold a candle to Donny's Strait of Warm Ooze.

[You can complete the final verse yourself using any three of the following words:

Fool, Ghoul, Pool, Stool, Tool, Uncool.

Have fun!]

HYMN TIME

From 1951, Clara Ward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRiikf8Cvg

UNCLE SAM QUARTERLY #5 (WINTER 1942)

America's 250th anniversary is coming up and there are many ways -- both appropriate and non-appropriate -- one can celebrate.  You could take a trip to the Reflecting Pool and count the dead ducks, but that's not appropriate at all, in addition to being very sad.  Or, could read this comic book featuring "The World's Greatest Hero,": Uncle Sam!  Uncle Sam was a superhero created by the great Will Eisner; he made his debut in Quality Comics' National Comics #1 (July 1940), and continued to 1944.  Uncle Sam was the spirit of a slain patriotic soldier from the American Revolutionary War; and would appear whenever the country needed him -- and the country needed him in the early Forties.  His sidekick is Buddy Smith.  Uncle Sam's mystical powers included superhuman strength, speed, invulnerability, some ESP, and the ability to change his size and also to transport himself and others to "the Heartland"  His powers were dependent on America's patriotism; if America loses its sense of patriotism, then...poof!

The character came under the aegis of DC comics in the 1950s and has been used sporadically in different guises and with different backstories. 

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine) "are once  more loosed upon the land!!!  The thunder of their hoofbeats is the roar of the cannon --- their mad laughter is the roar of falling bombs!!  Who can challenge their triumph?  Who -- but Uncle Sam!  The spirit of a people who will never be conquered!!"  Heeding the call, Uncle Sam and Buddy head out in their private plain to Lua Island kin the South Pacific, where a small company of marines have been holding out against a terrible force.  Uncle Sam uses his skills and ingenuity to defeat a Japanese invasion and send whatever enemies he and buddy have not killed back to Japan.  The Four Horsemen are in retreat from Uncle Sam!

"Murder!"  Uncle Sam and Buddy pit themselves aginst the fiendish "Dart Killer."  No one knows who he is or why he kills.  "Uncle Sam gives warning...clues will be many and suspects will be numerous...but think...before you name the villain!"

Now let's take a brief break from Uncle Sam's adventures for "Heroic Exploits of the War:  Attack on Dieppe," a true war story.  For six pages, British, Canadian, and American troops give what for to the Nazis.  Yay, us!

"Pottsy McGraw and Cloutin' Clammy" are two bootlegging thieves who have stolen almost all the rubber tires in the city and are expecting a jackpot price.  Of course tires are not just tiers; they are a vital part of the country's war products.  As such, Uncle Sam is determined to stop the bootleggers.  Cloutin' Clammy is a strong as a gorilla and he soon makes mince meat of a  barrage of cops and guards trying to stop the pair.  Uncle Sam knocks him out with one punch, b ut as he's doing so, Pottsy McGraw is aiming a machine gun at him.  But wait!  Buddy leaps onto Pottsy's back to spoil his aim, but a bullet hits Buddy instead.  Uncle Sam picks up Buddy's body and races him to a hospital, leaving the two villains to get away with a large supply of tires.  With Buddy recovering, Uncle Sam is back on the chase.  Pottsy and Cloutin' Clammy are selling the tires to a low-down, dirty Nazi scum hen Uncle Sam comes in with fists a-blazing.  Uncle Sam knocks out seven (by my count) Nazis, as well as Cloutin' Clammy, while Buddy (who left his hospital bed to get in on the action) clonks Pottsy of the head.  Pottsy realizes that he was a foo to fight against Uncle Sam -- no one can beat him; Pottsy decides to join the army when he gets out.

"Iron" is a brief text story in which Nazis, as usual, get the short end of the stick.

"The Secret of the Wax Museum"  Dastardly villains are out to kill and maim our troops during war games.  Japanese spies and agents have infiltrated the war games and are using our weapons against our troops.  Who is the Japanese mastermind behind this plot?  And why does Chiang Chan, special war observer for the Chinese government, look so suspicious?

A gung-ho, patriotic issue with some interesting artwork by Al Gabriele, who manages to make a caricature out of all the villains.

So celebrate our 250th with this comic book (and, perhaps, a healthy dose of Reflecting Pool memes).

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102129&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: TRUCKERS

Truckers by Terry Pratchett (first published in 1989; included in the 1993 omnibus The Bromeliad)

This is one of those young adult novels that could, and should be, enjoyed by everyone.

Nomes are a race of tiny four-inch tall creatures who resemble humans.  They are short-lived -- about ten years,  but don't tell them that; for nomes, their lifespans seem perfectly normal.

Masklin is a young nome who lives in the Outside where life can be dangerous.  There, no one ever heard of a nome dying of old age; nomes either wandered off on hunting trips and were never seen again, or, they were seen as they were eaten by predators -- usually foxes.  The rigors of life on the outside are taking a toll on Maskin's tribe.  In fact, the only young people remaining in the tribe are Masklin and the female Grimma; the few remaining members are elderly, including old Torrit (the ineffectual leader merely because he was, at ten, the oldest, and Granny Morkle, a tough old bird who is nearly as old as Torrit, and who reminds me of Abner's Mammy Yokum.  The rest of the elderly are even more  quarrelsome and demanding than these two.  Masklin is the only hunter in the group and his usual prey are rats, which are torn apart and eaten raw once Masklin is able to drag the large bodies home.

Things cannot go on are they are, so Masklin decides to move the entire tribe to someplace -- any place safer -- where food may be more abundant.  Humans are the big and rather dumb people who also inhabit this world, although whatever they do makes little sense to the nomes.  Masklin manages to get his entire tribe loaded into the back of a delivery truck, destination unknown.  It's a frightening journey for the tiny nomes, and it ends at the garage of a large department store.  The  nomes have no idea what a department store is, or how they will survive there.  They are surprised by the appearance of strange nome, Angalo, and his pet rat on a leash.

It seems there are nomes living in the department store, under the floorboard and in hidden areas...quite a lot of nomes...nomes who know of nothing other than the store, Arnold Bros. (est. 1905).  To these nomes the Outside is just a terrible myth.  The nomes at Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) are divided kinto many quarrelsome tribes, depending on where they are located.  Tribes include the Ironmongri, the Corsetri, Modes, the Millineri, the Haberdasheri, the Young Fashions, the Del Icatesson, the Stationari, and others -- all with their particular talents and odd beliefs.  The Stationari include a few nomes who are able to read (badly) and can interpret the signs throughout the store (badly).  The store itself was created and ruled  by the god-like Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), whom no one have ever seen  but know that he exists because it is his store.  Life is pretty regular at the store.  There are definite season, such as Christmas Fayre, January Sales, Back to School Week, Spring into Spring Fashions, Summer Bargains, and so on.  the store nomes know these are seasons  blessed by Arnold Bros. (est. 1905)because there are signs.  the religion of these nomes includes the acknowledgment of the blessed Bargains Galore and the evil (and totally scary) Prices Slashed!.  Lately there have been confusing signs that the nomes cannot understand:  Closure Sale, and Everything Must Go.

Old Torrit has a precious possession, the Thing -- a black rectangle that seems to do nothing that has been handed down from leader to leader over the centuries.  At one time, the Thing had helped the nomes and advised them but now it is silent.  Torri, whenever he needed to dispense some advice, would look at the blank Thing and make up whatever felt best to tell the tribe.  but  now the blank thing was beginning to light up and started speaking.  The Thing was the Flight Recording and Navigational Computer of a starship.

It seems the nomes were the survivors of a racr that once conquered the stars, or at least 94,563 that have been explored by nomes.  Some fifteen thousand years ago, the starship sent an exploratory ship out which crashed on Earth.  the surviving nomes gathered and began teaching  human about such things as metallurgy and agriculture. while they themselves slowly slipped into barbarism and ignorance.  The Thing began to be low on its power reserve and shut itself down until it could recharge.  The proximity of the store and its electrical grid allowed it to do so.  the thing was also able to access the stores computers and had some devasting news.  the store was due to be demolished kin twenty-six days to make way for luxury apartments.

The store nomes refused to believe this.  The store was their universe.  Their forever universe.  Surely Arnold Bros. (est.1905) in his benevolence would not allow the universe to be destroyed.  Besides, there was nothing outside of the store except the fabled and surely mythical Outside.

It's up to Masklin to rally the thousands of store nomes and lead them to safety.  But how?  And where?  The answer includes a wild ride in a stolen delivery truck, driven by dozens of tiny nomes who do not know what they are doing, using sticks, strings, and semaphors...and the store itself is not destroyed by Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) but by the nomes themselves who accidently blow it up, not with a loud Bang  but with a much quieter whoosh!  There is even a wild chase by a police car

Rest assured things work out, kind of.  They have to, because there were two sequels, Diggers (1989) and Wings (1990).  I'll get to them when I have a chance.

Truckers is a funny and sly satirical take on the way we think and react to the things around us when perception may not be our best ally.  I recommend the book most heartily.

Pratchett (1948-2015), of course, was the author of the popular Discworld series of fantasy novels.  For any who enjoy the skewed logic of that series, Truckers is a must.