OVERLOOKED FILM: THE UNEXPECTED MRS. POLLIFAX (1999)

 Emily Pollifax, widow and senior citizen, decides to leave her comfortable and predictable life and joins the CIA.  Through a misunderstanding, a simple courier assignment leads to an adventurous career in espionage and spycraft.  Her adventures are detailed in a series of fourteen novels from 1966 through 2000 by MWA Grandmaster Dorothy Gilman (1923-2012).  Gilman also wrote twelve young adult and one children's book under her then-married name Dorothy Gilman Butters before embarking on Mrs. Pollifax's adventures; she also published ten standalone novels -- including the well-regarded Clairvoyant Countess, A Nun on the Closet and The Tightrope Walker -- from 1967 to 2002.

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, the first book in the series, was filmed twice.  First in 1970 as Mrs. Pollifax - Spy, starring Rosalind Russell in the title role (her last theatrically released film; Russell also wrote the script), and featuring Darrin McGavin, Nehemiah Persoff, and Harold Gould, and directed  by Leslie H. Martinson, who also helmed PT 109, Batman (1966), and Rescue from Gilligan's Island.

The second film, a CBS television movie, linked below, starred Angela Lansbury in a role somewhat reminiscent of Jessica Fletcher.  Also in the cast were Thomas Ian Griffith and Ed /Bishop.  Look closely and you may spot John Light, who plays Hercule Flambeau in television's Father Brown.  Directed by Anthony Pullen Shaw, who helmed 44 episodes of Murder She Wrote, as well as four follow-up films to that series; Shaw also directed Lansbury in 1992's Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris.  The film was scripted by Robert T. Megginson (F/X, Code Name:  Wolverine).

Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Pollifax is advised by her doctor to expand her interests.  Mrs. Pollifax has always dreamed of being a spy, so she contacts the CIA.  Through a mix-up, the agency believes her to be an experienced spy and sends her on a mission to Morocco.  There she teams up with fellow agent Jack Farrow (Griffith), but the two are kidnapped by a terrorist group.  The poor terrorists don't know what they are in for -- because Mrs. Pollifax may be elderly, but she is also brave...and smart.

A fun way to spend an hour and a half.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4EPG9eNsfM&list=PLwF4_8gI8X-z1ICGAxgJSMe2_Nj9ra-8h&index=9

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY TRAVERS!

I am a child of the Sixties.  Little wonder that my idols are those show compassion, kindness, empathy, and common sense.  Mary Travers (1936-2009) has been one of those idols.

Before there Peter, Paul and Mary there was The Song Swappers, a group of (mainly) high school friends who sang backup for Pete Seeger on several Folkways records.  By the time they recorded this song in 1955, Mary Travers was in her late teens and working as a dental technician, regarding her singing as merely a hobby.  Little did she know.

"Solidarity Forever" - Pete Seeger with the Almanac Singers and The Song Swappers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUwcL5H2Im0

Travers then made it ever so briefly (it closed after thirteen performances) to Broadway in the musical The Next President in 1958.

Then, in 1961, she joined Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey to form Peter, Paul and Mary to instant success.  The group became a leading voice in the folk and pop music fields and acted as a conscience for a generation.   The trio dissolved in 1970, reforming in 1978 until Mary Traver's death.  Travers also released five solo albums.  Here's a small sample of the woman with the strong voice -- and the conscience -- of an angel.

"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" - with The Kingston Trio

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

"I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado"

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

I Shall Be Released" - with Mama Cass Elliott and Joni Mitchell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEZFt5ZZj9s

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6x3mRbZo3k

"There Is a Ship"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTEdhMwXiM4

"Early Morning Rain"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OCnHNk2Hac

"Follow Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXBvN50XH58

"Lonesome Valley" - with Joan Baez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt64OQETmO0

"Finlandia (A Song of Peace)"

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

"The Conscientious Objector"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iiRU0vt1xE

"Blowing in the Wind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld6fAO4idaI

"Home Is Where the Heart Is" - with Holly Near

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

"The Times They Are Changing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSOoJiKbpWs&list=PLFaKjSxM-zLgrOSq-wUQASkaLukDyV5i0&index=19

"House of the Rising Sun" - with BB King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5LCW74lNp4&list=PLFaKjSxM-zLgrOSq-wUQASkaLukDyV5i0&index=15

"For Baby (For Bobbie)" -- the  most powerful version of this song EVER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7NE1CpeA4&list=RDIW7NE1CpeA4&start_radio=1

HYMN TIME

 Aretha Franklin & Mavis Staples -- what a combination!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdCWR-XpGxI

GREEN HORNET COMICS #7 (JUNE 1942)

If you are a certain age, you cannot listen to Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee without thinking of the Green Hornet.

The Green Hornet debuted on January 31, 1936 on Detroit radio station WXYZ -- the same station that had debuted The Lone Ranger.  It was created  by writer Fran Striker and station co-owner George Trendle; Striker had previously created The Lone Ranger while working for Trendle; Striker would go on to create Challenge of the Yukon, aka Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, for WXYZ in 1939.  The Green Hornet was the crime-fighting alter ego of Britt Reid, a young crusading newspaper publisher.  The conceit of the series was that Britt Reid was the son of Dan Reid, Jr., the nephew of the Lone Ranger.  Reid is aided in his battles against crime and corruption by his valet, Kato.

The Green Hornet very popular and soon moved to, first, the Mutual Broadcasting Network, then to NBC Blue, the Blue Network, and ABC Radio, ending its run in 1950, then returning briefly for a near-three-month run in 1952.  It spawned two movie serials, a short French film, and a 2011 film.  A reboot has apparently been in development hell since 2016.  Van Williams and Bruce Lee starred in The Green Hornet television series in 1966-67.   A proposed animated, updated series has been in development since 2020.  The character also appeared in three Big Little Books (1940-1942) and in two television tie-in novels (1966); in addition, the character has appeared in at least three Green Hornet anthologies from Moonstone Press since 2009.

Two early proposed comic strips were rejected by Trendel, who finally approved a comic book line from Helnit Comics.  Green Hornet Comics ran for six issues beginning in December 1940.  The Helnit comics adapted storylines from the radio shows.  The comic book was taken over by Harvey Comics with issue #7.  Harvey's Green Hornet Comics were anthologies, and included stories about other characters, rather than focusing strictly on the Green Hornet as the Helnit comics had.  The Harvey series lasted until 1949 with issue #47.  The Green Hornet also made guest appearances kin several of Harvey's other comic books.  Dell Comics published a one-shot issue about the character (Four Color #496) in 1953, and Gold Key put out three issues tied to the television series in 1957.  NOW Comics began a line of Green Hornet comics in 1989. and Dynamite Entertainment acquired the comic book license to the character in 2009; several of their comics featured the son of Britt Reid as the new Green Hornet, aided by Mulan Kato, the daughter of the original Kato -- who would become the Green hornet herself after Britt Reid, Jr. disappeared.

There has also been a Green Hornet video game and numerous merchandising toys and collectables.

The influence of the Green Hornet on popular culture has remained with us for ninety years now.

Back to Harvey Comics:

Issue #7 featured to original Green Hornet stories, plus a three-page text story about the character.  "The Case of the Murdering Clown" pits the Hornet against the villainous Clown, who manages to escape the electric chair and vows his revenge.  "Case of the Museum Mummy" has the discoverer of the mummy dying at the opening of the Tutenkiem exhibit.  The text story details how the Green Hornet first defeated the murderous Clown.

Also included in this issue are adventures of the Spirit of '76 (Gary Blakely, the great grandson of George Washington's aide-de-camp, dons his ancestor's uniform to battle Nazis), Robin Hood (Dr. Fairbanks fights crime by dressing up as Robin Hood and assembling his own band of Merry Men; here he goes after a protection racket against truck drivers), the Mighty Midgets (Foxy, Goofy, Nosey, Smarty, Skinny, Fatty, and Sour-Puss join the Army with Sergeant Goliath and meet two Axis spies), the Zebra (John Doyle, sentence to death for a crime he did not commit, escapes from prison and uses his prison uniform to become the Zebra, as he attempts to solve the crime he was accused of and to rescue his from a powerful political boss), and The Blonde Bomber (Honey Blake, ace news cameramanwoman in her first -- of 21 -- public domain appearance, tries to save a friend from killing herself; the character was created by Barbara Hall, who had an impressive five-year career in comics before marrying and starting what some consider to be the first hippie commune in America in 1946).  Also included are a number of gag comic pages (including Art Helfant's Daffy Drafty from Army and Navy Fun Parade), and two pages of puzzles presented by the Green Hornet.

Check it out.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=31005

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE COBRA

The Cobra by "Maxwell Grant" (Walter B. Gibson)  (from The Shadow Magazine, April 1934; reprinted in The Shadow #7:  "The Cobra" & "The Third Shadow" from Nostalgic Ventures, May 2007)

The Shadow has some competition!  A rival crime fighter, the costumed vigilante known as The Cobra, has been going after the criminal gangs of New York.  The Cobra appears to be far better -- and far deadlier -- than The Shadow in fighting crime, and The Shadow's reputation is taking a hit.  Who is this newcomer who appears out of nowhere and shoots to kill without hesitation?

As The Shadow investigates, he must also deal with both the criminal gangs and the police who are after him.  Also out to put paid to The Shadow's career is The Cobra himself.

The action is fast and furious, the guns blazing.

This is one of the stories in which The Shadow is just The Shadow; his various alter egos -- Kent Allard, Lamont Cranston -- do not appear, nor do his various assistants.  It's just The Shadow versus his various foes, although Commissioner Weston and Detective Cardona are in the background hoping The Shadow will prevail.

I'm a fan of the pulp character, although I much prefer other pulp heroes such as Doc Savage or The Spider.  At times, Gibson's writing style can be too plodding for my taste, but in this tale, he's hitting on all  cylinders.  It's the best Shadow story I've read in some time.

P.S.  For those who are counting, there were 325 Shadow novels published in the pulps, almost all by Gibson, between April 1931 and Summer 1949.  This was #51.

OVERLOOKED BUT NOT QUITE LOST MELODRAMA: THE CAT CREEPS (1930)

The Cat Creeps is a sound remake by Rupert Julian (Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera, Three Faces East, and 1918's The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, in which he also took the title role because of his remarkable resemblance to Kaiser Wilhelm) for Universal Pictures of the 1927 flick The Cat and the Canary, which, in turn, was based on the popular 1922 play of the same name by John Willard.  Universal  had hoped to have Laura La Plante (a silent film star who was later considered as a possible replacement for Myna Loy when Loy briefly considered leaving the Thin Man series) reprise her role of Annabelle West from the 1922 film, (The Grand Parade, The Painted Desert, The Spanish Cape Mystery) but she was unavailable so they cast Helen Twelvetrees in the role and retitled the film.  The Cat and the Canary has been filmed under various titles at least five time, most notably in the 1939 Bob Hope-Paulette Goddard vehicle.  (Another Universal film titled The Cat Creeps (1946) has no relation to this film and was based on the 1940 film Horror Island.)

For years the film was considered lost, with only two minutes of footage surviving.  Actually, it is still lost, but additional footage was found in 2025.  Using the original sound recording of the film, with existing film fragments, synchronized dialogue cards, and film stills, a "full reconstruction" was made this year.

A notable entrant in "the old dark house school" of melodramatic films, it concerns a young woman (Annabelle), who with Paul Jones (Raymond Hackett, The Trial of Mary Dugan, Madame X, The Sea Wolf), Charles Wilder (Neil Hamilton, Jane's original fiance in in 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, Which Way to the Front?, and Commissioner Gordon and the television series Batman), and other relatives are summoned to the estate of their late uncle Cyrus West.  Annabelle, it seems, is to inherit her uncle's fortune, but first she must be judged sane by a doctor; if she is not found to be sane, the fortune passes to another relative.  So, yeah, your typical inheritance tale.

But, wait!  There also happens to be an escaped lunatic hiding on the grounds or, perhaps (oh, the horror), in the mansion itself!  The lunatic's insanity takes the form of believing he is a cat, and he rends his victims to death as if they were canaries...

The tag line for the film states it is a "Thrilling, Chilling, Spooky Melodrama!," leading one to believe there is not  much mellow in this drama.

Also featuring Lilyan Tashman (Whispering Smith, Lady Raffles, Bulldog Drummond), Jean Hersholt (Shirley Temple's grandfather in Heidi, Don Q, Son of Zorro, and the title character in radio, television, and film series about Dr. Christian), Montagu Love (Limehouse Blues, The Prince and the Pauper, The Mark of Zorro), Lawrence Grant (The Canary Murder Case, The Mark of Fu Manchu, werewolf of London), Theodore von Eltz (The Westland Case, Dr. Erhlich's Magic Bullet, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery), Blanche Friderici (A Farewell to Arms, Flying Down to Rio, It Happened One Night), and Elizabeth Patterson (Aunt Blanche Clavering in the Bulldog Drummond films, I Married a Witch, and the Ricardo's elderly neighbor in ten episodes of I Love Lucy).

The various versions of The Cat and the Canary helped set the template for later movies such as The House on Haunted Hill and the monster films of Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy.

Enjoy this quirky restoration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZhrYU9uUPc

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: PARLOUR TRICKS

"Parlour Tricks" by Ralph Plummer  (first published in the Passing Show Christmas Holiday Annual, 1930; reprinted in Silent Nights:  Christmas Mysteries, edited by Martin Edwards, 2015)

Not much is known about Ralph Plummer, who was most likely a  British writer.  He has 69 stories from 1926 to 1932 to his credit listed in the FictionMags Index -- 49 of them published in The 20-Story Magazine, a monthly publication from London's Odhams Press.  The 20-Story Magazine emphasized adventure and mystery fiction, and later added romance stories to its mix.  "Parlour Tricks" appears to be the only story by Plummer to be reprinted.  Martin Edwards (who in addition to being a talented author and editor, is also a noted historian of the mystery genre) only became aware of it when Robert Adey, noted mystery fiction scholar, recommended the story.

It is a slight story, somewhat in the vein of the "stranded travelers during Christmas" motif.  A diverse group of people -- including "a bevy of old ladies, a stern-looking man with side-whiskers, and a retired colonel who divided his time between staring fiercely into space, twisting his moustache, and emptying glasses of port.  Also in the group are Eric Glover, a young man who entertains the group with his humorous stories and parlour tricks, and Peter Mullinger, our point-of-view character.  The people are at the Grand Private Hotel and, for reasons yet to be explained, are not allowed to leave by order of the hotel management; they have been confined for days -- a stay made somewhat lighter by Eric Glover's amusing stories and antics.  It's Christmas time, and most of the guests are happy with Glover's constant and pleasant patter; the colonel is happy because there has been no cessation in the port.

Glover says he has what some might call a magic trick.  He said he could leave a full glass of water on a table, leave the room, and when he next walked back into the room the glass would be empty -- while the glass remained in full view of everyone present.  This resulted in a minor wager with Mullinger, which Glover accepted.  a glass was filled with water, placed on the table, and Glover left the room while everyone else kept a close watch on the glass.  One minute later, Glover returned -- on his hands and knees -- and crawled to the table, drank the glass of water, then crawled back out.  a few minutes later, Glover walked back into the room, pointed to the empty glass, and accepted his wager.

This led Mullinger to propose another wager.  He, Mullinger, would be blindfolded while the rest of the group placed an unknown object somewhere in the room.  Mullinger would be turned around a number of times while still blindfolded, and would then be led around the room where he would stop at the point where the object was hidden.  He stopped exactly where the group had place the object -- an orange.  Less the group think he had cheated somehow, he offered to do it once again; this time, blindfolded, he would find a sum of money...

It  turns out that the hotel safe had been robbed in the early hours of Christmas Eve morning.  The thief had not been able to leave the hotel, so the money was hidden until it could be safely retrieved.  How Mullinger was able to located the stolen money and identify the thief is explained in the last few paragraphs.  

The solution turns out to be somewhat commonplace for the modern reader, but the elaborate preparation for this "parlour trick" is kind of neat.

The story is one of fifteen mysteries included in Edwards' anthology; well-known writers include Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Nicholas Blake, and Edmund Crispin; less familiar stories are from Edgar Wallace, Leo Bruce, Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long ( both as "Marjorie Bowen" and as "Joseph Shearing"), Ethel Lina White, J. Jefferson Farjeon, Raymund Allen, and -- of course -- Ralph Plummer.  As with all of Martin Edwards' anthologies, Silent Nights is a pleasing and varied mix of great stories and is highly recommended.