OREOS

Today is the one hundreth birthday of the Oreo cookie.  What a great opportunity to link to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHr7xGvDBmY

OVERLOOKED FILM: FEAR IN THE NIGHT

This 1947 film was based on a William Irish story, "Nightmare".  Irish, of course, was a pen name of Cornell Woolrich, the noir master.  DeForest ("It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim!") Kelley -- in his first feature role -- plays bank employee Vince Grayson, who wakes up from a nightmare with bruises from his "dream" -- a dream in which he murdered a man.  Slowly Vince begins to fear that his dream was reality.

     Also featured in the film was Paul Kelly as Vince's policeman brother-in-law Cliff Herlihy and Ann Doran as Lil Herlihy.  Paul Kelly began his film career at age twelve in 1911, the same year Ann Doran was born.  Ann Doran began her career at age four and appeared in over 500 films and was probably best known for her roles in the television series National Velvet and Longstreet.

     Fear In the Night was directed and scripted by pulpster Maxwell Shane, who revisited (again as director and writer) the story for 1956's Nightmare.  Shane went on to produce and (sometimes write) television's M Squad.

     Reaction to this film is mixed.  Is it a hokey, implausible mess, or is it a dark atmospheric exercise?  You decide.

http://www.archive.org/details/FearInTheNight

     For more Overlooked Films and Television, see Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom.

INCOMING

Another week, another list.  All the e-books were freebies.

•  Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March, July/August, September, and October 2004 issues.
• Kelley Armstrong, Bitten.  Horror.  Book 1 of the Women of the Otherworld series.
• Barrington J. Bayley, The Zen Gun.  SF.
• David Clement-Davies, The Sight.  Horror.
• Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, editors, Beyond Singularity.  SF anthology with 14 stories.
• Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio, Agatha H and the Airship City,  E-book.  Steampunk!
• Joel Goldman, Die, Lover, Die!  E-book.  Mystery.
• Terry Goodkind, Phantom.  Fantasy.
• Heather Graham, DeadlyNight (Paranormal, first in the Flynn Brothers Trilogy) and Dust tp Dust (Paranormal, Book 1 in The Prophecy).
• Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Dune:  House Harkonnen.  SF.  One of umpty-ump books based on Frank Herbert's world.
• L. Ron Hubbard, Buckskin Brigades.  Western.
• Joseph Kanon, Alibi.  Mystery.
• Richard Laymon, To Wake the Dead.  Horror.
• "A. J. Matthews" [Rick Hautala], Looking Glass.  Another one from Maine's Greatest Other Horror Writer.
• Tom Piccirelli, Clown in the Moonlight.   E-book.  Horror.
• J. D. Rhoades, Gallows Pole.  E- book.  Mystery.
• Suzanne Robb, Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!  E-book.  Horror collection with three stories.
• Keith Roberts, Kiteworld.  SF.
• James Rollins, Black Order.  Thriller.
• Tom Savage, The Inheritance.  Thriller.
• Norman Spinrad, Bug Jack Barron.  E-book.  SF filmscript.
• [Top Suspense Group], Top Suspense:  13 Classic Stories.  E-book.  Anthology with 13 suspense stories.  Go figure.
• Steven Torres, Lucy Cruz and the Chupacabra Kill.  E-book.  Mystery.
• L. J. Washburn, Hallam.  E-book.  Collection of four mystery stories featuring cowboy Luca Hallam.
• Dave White, Witness to Death.  E-book.  Mystery.
• Dave Zeltserman, Bad Thoughts.  E-book.  Mystery.

HYMN TIME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlgLRIvJkhE

BLAME PATTI (SEE COMMENT BELOW)

One day at the zoo
I was looking for you
Then you strolled by
With some other guy
I flew into such a rage
But...
They wouldn't me out of my cage!

WHY I WILL NEVER BE NAMED POET LAUREATE

Aloysius
The Vicious
Was quite capricious.
He spied a young lass whom he thought delicious
He died of exhaustion and was fed to the fishes.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: NECROPOLIS

Necropolis by Basil Copper (1980)

I did not read any "forgtten" books this week, concentrating instead on on recent books by favorite writers.  So let me just mention briefly a wonderful book I read (mumble mumblety) years ago -- Necropolis, a 1980 gothic mystery by Basil Copper.  Copper, who just turned 88 this month, is best known in America for his horror short stories and his continuing the Solar Pons series about Solar Pons, who was created by August Deleth as an homage to Sherlock Holmes.  (Necropolis was first published by Arkhan House, the venerable firm founded by Derleth and Donald Wandrei.)  In England, Copper is also known for his series of fifty-plus books about LA tough guy P.I. Mike Faraday.

     Necropolis is set in the gas-lit London of Sherlock Holmes' time and even includes some characters from the Canon.  Detective Clyde Beatty (no relation to the circus animal trainer of a later generation) investigates the death of wealthy Tredegar Meredith and encounters an evil doctor, a rash of robberies, and Brookwood, London's largest cemetery.  Necropolis is a rich and atmospheric trip to a fog-shrouded time of danger, deception, and duplicity.