A man convicted of his wife's murder must enlist a friend to help him find his only alibi witness, the woman he randomly picked up in a bar that night after a fight with his wife. Problem is, he never got her name and no one, starting with the bartender, remembers seeing her with him. The stakes in this race-against-time story are made plain at the starting gate: Chapter 1 is titled, "The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution." Not made plain is Woolrich's willingness to fiddle with our perspective in order to preserve the mystery, nor the extent to which he will strain our credulity in solving it -- to say his plot is far-fetched is to assume that it is within throwing distance in the first place. But there are other reasons to read a Woolrich novel, even a pseudononymous one. His penchant for the bizarre, for one, most evident here in a vignette about a man being tortured simply by being looked at, constantly, hour after hour. Also his hard-driving prose, though that is muted somewhat for being too thinly spread. Turns out the friend isn't his only helper, he's got another woman on his side, as well, and a cop who isn't sorry he busted him but who has come to believe he's innocent just the same. The shifts back and forth between them break the tension. Made into a movie in 1944.
++1/2
A man convicted of his wife's murder must enlist a friend to help him find his only alibi witness, the woman he randomly picked up in a bar that night after a fight with his wife. Problem is, he never got her name and no one, starting with the bartender, remembers seeing her with him. The stakes in this race-against-time story are made plain at the starting gate: Chapter 1 is titled, "The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution." Not made plain is Woolrich's willingness to fiddle with our perspective in order to preserve the mystery, nor the extent to which he will strain our credulity in solving it -- to say his plot is far-fetched is to assume that it is within throwing distance in the first place. But there are other reasons to read a Woolrich novel, even a pseudononymous one. His penchant for the bizarre, for one, most evident here in a vignette about a man being tortured simply by being looked at, constantly, hour after hour. Also his hard-driving prose, though that is muted somewhat for being too thinly spread. Turns out the friend isn't his only helper, he's got another woman on his side, as well, and a cop who isn't sorry he busted him but who has come to believe he's innocent just the same. The shifts back and forth between them break the tension. Made into a movie in 1944.
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++++ The first suspense novel in Woolrich's "Black Series" is a cunningly conceived tale of revenge and rough justice. The opening quotation from Guy de Maupassant has us rooting for the murderess before we've even met her. Then we meet her, and she's so beautiful, so clever and efficient -- so deliciously dark -- that our admiration and affection for her grow, even as she takes out one seemingly average man after another. We trust her. Julie Bailey is one of the great women of suspense fiction, a woman who has only one thing for the five men who killed her husband and got away with it: a violent death. It all works so well because Woolrich takes the time to introduce us to each of the victims, while showing us how Julie gets close enough to them to make the killings personal. Superior noir, but not without a touch of levity: Woolrich closes out each section with the poor cop who's going nuts trying to figure out what's happening and why. Adapted for film in 1968 by French director François Truffaut. ++1/2 The novelization of the 1965 film. Part Ellery Queen, part Paul W. Fairman. Fairman wrote the novelization (as an unpublished manuscript by John Watson in which Holmes takes on Jack the Ripper) and Queen wrote the framing story (in which Ellery reads the manuscript and comes to his own conclusions). Both segments are enjoyable in their own way, but in the end, this mystery doesn't add up. Though Fairman does a reasonable job capturing Holmes and the period, he completely ignores everything known about the Ripper, turning the whole thing into a cynical marketing ploy. +++1/2 Technical masterpiece that is also a clever murder mystery about a man (Ray Milland) who must think fast when his plot to kill his wealthy wife (Grace Kelly) doesn't go quite as planned. Though it will keep you guessing throughout, the film is best in the early going, when the "game" still threatens to turn serious. But, no, in the end, it's just a highly polished cat-and-mouse match. Not that that detracts from Hitchcock's precise direction, Milland's amusing urbanity, or Kelly's sophisticated charm, but it is a caution not to expect the edge of Hitchcock's Rope or Rear Window. Also with Robert Cummings as a mystery writer who tries unsuccessfully to match wits with real cop Anthony Dawson. Based on the play by Frederick Knott and originally filmed in 3D. +++ Odd mystery with title that becomes irrelevant after ten minutes about a small town sheriff (James Garner) investigating a murder and uncovering big city decadence. Nothing special, but Garner is good and the story, with its not-quite-comfortable take on 70s sexual freedom, is just off-beat enough to keep you interested. Also with Katharine Ross, Hal Holbrook, and Peter Lawford. And Hans, playing Murphy, a Doberman briefly thought to be the killer and later adopted by the sheriff. "Never have there been so many quizzically uplifted brows, so many slight pauses in speech, and so many dryly-cynical deliveries of so many forgettable lines." - Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times, November 22, 1972 "This is the most original and likable whodunit I have seen in years." - Howard Thompson, The New York Times, November 23, 1972 *** A psychiatrist is drawn into mystery and murder after meeting a new patient, a young man who claims to be working for leprechauns. Mildly successful when first published, and rediscovered by the Brits in the 70s, who admired (then overstated) its psychological components, it's really all about the mystery, which is unusual and intriguing, and features along the way such things as Percheron horses being left at murder scenes, amnesia, and torture. "Spotty -- but hard to put down." - The Saturday Review, June 1, 1946 ** Mystery-thriller set in motion when a woman receives a phone call allegedly from her young nephew who died 16 years earlier. A retired cop suspects the woman will be next after two townies are subsequently murdered. Meanwhile, the mystery itself founders on red herrings and ancillary action, until the whole thing is detailed in a sexist episode late in the book that has a man explaining psychology to a woman psychologist. With, in the cop, one of the genre's most unpleasant heroes. Implausible and contrived. Made into a film in 1972. "Well--you won't hang up" - Kirkus Reviews, Nov. 13th, 1967 **** Hitchcock's adaptation of the Graham Winston novel is about a frigid kleptomaniac with a dreadful past and the man determined to rehabilitate her, even if it means binding her with blackmail and thrashing her with his unwanted sexual advances. It is, according to the original poster, Alfred Hitchcock's "suspenseful sex mystery." (Whatever that might be -- a glory hole, perhaps?) More likely, it is an exploration of the mystery of sex, albeit the darker side of it. It asks questions like, "How far do love and good intentions allow a man to go?", "Is blackmail ever justified?", and "When is rape for a woman's own good?" Clearly, this is no movie for the knee-jerk crowd. Yet it's Hitchcock all the way. The suspense is generated by Marnie's life of crime, the mystery by her psychological problems (they date back to her childhood), and the sex by about a million years of cold, hard instinct. Not quite as good as the book (which has different emphases), but a classic in its own right. Starring Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. *** Disparate group of ten people are lured to an isolated island and killed off one by one by their mysterious host who, they realize, is one of them. One of the best-selling books of all time, its genius lies in combining the premise with murders that follow the lyrics of a well-known children’s rhyme. That, and Christie’s scrupulous integrity. What it lacks is atmosphere or humor: it’s clever, but it isn’t emotionally engaging. Rated as a novel; add an extra star if you’re just interested in the puzzle. *** First Fletch sequel picks up a year and a half later with the investigative reporter (now a freelance art critic) traveling to Boston in search of stolen paintings, finding murdered girl in his apartment. Not as satisfying as Fletch, perhaps because it isn't as personal, but a clever and enjoyable mystery in its own right, leavened with the character's usual dry wit. This time, however, Fletch isn't the smartest investigator in the book; that distinction belongs to Francis Xavier Flynn, the eccentric Boston cop in charge of the murder case, in which Fletch is the prime suspect. (Flynn would go on to star in his own series of novels.) A fast, pleasant, and amusing read. |
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