WATCH IT HERE! Forgotten Books on Film: THE LAST WARNING / THE DEAD DON'T CARE by Jonathan Latimer

The Dead Don't Care is the wildest - and most inebriated - entry in the Bill Crane series, and therefore my favorite. I raved about the book HERE.

The Last Warning, the one and only film adaptation of that book, is the third and last in the film series. I tried to post it on YouTube, but their copyright-policing bot objected. Why it allowed the first two films (The Westland Case and Lady in the Morgue), and not this one, makes no sense, but YouTube's copyright policy itself makes no sense - except to cover their own ass. 

Thankfully, the film is available on OK.RU. That site was started by a British guy, but apparently operates out of Russia, and thumbs its nose at YouTube's copyright rules.

You can watch THE LAST WARNING here:
https://ok.ru/video/576360680030 

WATCH IT HERE! Forgotten Books on Film: THE LADY IN THE MORGUE by Jonathan Latimer (1938)

I just read this book again, for the third or fourth time, and it was laugh out loud funny. Again. Can't say the same for the movie, but they did a pretty good job of wrangling the plot into 110 minutes. But as with The Westland Case (HERE), everything is condensed and sanitized, robbing it of much of the fun.

A few cast changes of note: In this book, Crane and Doc Williams have another detective pal (and drinking buddy) named O'Malley in tow. He's missing from the film. Colonel Black, whose presence in the book is limited to telegrams and phone calls, makes a brief appearance. Lieutenant Strom, the police detective from The Westland Case, returns here in place of the book's Lt. Grady. Ethnic character names Paletta, Udoni and Liebmann are changed to Collins, Taylor and Horn. Actress Barbara Pepper, who played the Mae Westish Miss Hogan, returns here in a different sultry role. Character Verona Vincent, for no reason I can fathom, is renamed Arlene. 

And we're saved from seeing anything objectionable. The naked "Lady" of the title role is not seen here at all. We do at least hear that she was naked when found dead. Women in the taxi-dance joint are fully clothed, rather than in their undies. And instead of crawling into bed with a naked woman (and man) to escape the cops in the book, Crane simply hides in the woman's closet. And (sadly) no one at all gets their head chopped off. 

As in The Westland Case, Crane is habitually sleepy instead of drunk. And in this film, though he's seen with a drink or two, he doesn't get drunk at all! That's not the Crane I know. 

My favorite scene in the book, a wild and wacky visit to a penthouse party, is included here, though in predictably tamer form. 

Bottom line, there's less drinking and less lechery than we saw in The Westland Case (which was itself watered down), so you'll just have to read the ding dang book (discussed HERE). But I don't feel a bit sorry for you. You'll enjoy the hell out of it. 

The third and last film in this series, THE LAST WARNING (based on The Dead Don't Care) was also released in 1938. One online outfit offers a copy, but reviewers warn they're notoriously unreliable. So I don't have it. If anyone out there can send me a copy (for which I will gleefully reimburse you), I'll stick that up on YouTube, too. 

Next Friday: Frank Gruber's THE FRENCH KEY

Watch it Here! THE WESTLAND CASE / HEADED FOR A HEARSE by Jonathan Latimer (1937)

Here's a mystery for you: Why would the studio think a title as bland and generic as THE WESTLAND CASE would fill more seats than HEADED FOR A HEARSE? It's too many for me. 

Breaking with the tradition of the past two weeks (with the showings of MEET NERO WOLFE and THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN), I decided to reread this book before viewing the film, so I could see how they did. And it was mighty interesting. Surprisingly, they did manage to squeeze most of the 302 pages of story into 102 minutes of film.

Much of the action was condensed, of course, with some scenes combined and other eliminated. Some scenes that take several pages literally go by in the blink of an eye. But if you're alert enough to catch the fast-talking dialogue, all the important stuff is there.

Preston Foster does a decent job as Crane, and most of the supporting cast is okay. The major piece of miscasting is Crane's pal Doc Williams. Doc should be a mustachioed lady's man, but actor Frank Jenks here seems to be doing a Lionel Stander impression. Sadly, only half a dozen lines of Latimer dialogue made it directly into the script, but others are at least alluded to. 

Two characters with a fair amount of page time - the two convicts slated to be executed with Westland - are almost absent from the film. And one character - Miss Hogan's scary Aunt Mary - was added. I'm guessing the censors insisted on Mary so viewers wouldn't think Crane and Miss Hogan did any improper canoodling overnight in her apartment. (They didn't anyway.) The public's delicate sensibilities were also protected by changing the name of the lawyer - Finklestein - to Frazee. And the several racial slurs sprinkled through the book were carefully avoided. 

What's really missing, though, is the wacky friendship of Crane and Williams that makes the book so much fun. Only a small portion of it remains. Most of their lechery (also part of the fun) is downplayed, while in scenes with Miss Hogan (here doing her best Mae West impression) it's overplayed for laughs. 

What I'm saying, I guess, is that if you haven't read the book, you oughta. And if you have, you should read it again. This was my third time, at least, and it'll be well worth another. I featured the novel in Forgotten Books a few years back (HERE) with pics of more covers, back covers and extras. You're invited to peek.

Next Friday: Preston Foster and Frank Jenks return in THE LADY IN THE MORGUE.

Forgotten Books: THE SEARCH FOR MY GREAT-UNCLE'S HEAD by Peter Coffin (Jonathan Latimer) (1937)

After sitting on this book for more than thirty years, thinking it was kind of cool to have an unread Jonathan Latimer on hand, I finally decided the time was right. And I have to admit, it wasn't worth the wait.

It's a mystery, of course. You can tell that by the Crime Club logo on the cover. But the real mystery is - why did Latimer write this thing?

As a mystery novel written by a nonentity like "Peter Coffin," it's okay. Far from "The Season's Most Startling and Diverting Mystery Story," as claimed on the cover and title page, but okay. But as a book written by Jonathan Latimer - a fact they took no great pains to disguise - it's a snoozer.

How do we know it's Latimer? Well, you can read the big fat clue on the inside flap of the dust jacket, which I've provided here. But the clincher is that halfway into the book, the protagonist gets a phone call from Colonel Black, the head of a large detective agency, announcing that Black will be joining the cast of the story. This same Colonel Black, as anyone who's read the Bill Crane series knows, is the head of the agency Crane works (between drinks) for.

I can't recall if the Colonel ever appears on stage in the Crane novels, or if he's just a presence in the background and a voice on the phone. But we meet him here, and he's the most insteresting thing about the book. More about him later.

"Peter Coffin," we learn on page 2, is the narrator and lead character of the novel. His uncle Tobias Coffin has just summoned him, and the rest of the clan, to his secluded manor house somewhere in the wilds of Michigan. After a creepy and atmospheric trudge through the forest, he arrives at the estate, where he finds a bunch of relatives he's never met pointing guns at him. It's all pretty much downhill from there.

Some of these relatives are mildly quirky, and others mildly unpleasant, but nothing rising to previous Latimer standards. Nothing much interesting happens except that his uncle's gets chopped off, and, as you know from the title, goes missing.

Peter Coffin is not a detective, and makes no effort to act like one. He's a California college professor specializing in the Restoration period of English history. He spends most of his time being bewildered and worrying about the others thinking him a coward. As the story progresses, that wondering focusses on a certain nice looking Miss Leslie, to whom he is apparently not related by blood. Yes, there's a sniff of romance in the air.

So what we have here is your basic Classic English-style Manor House mystery, with a bunch of not-especially-interesting people shut up with a murderer, wondering whodunnit and waiting for the next inevitable killing. The main thing that sets this one apart is the fact that the killer lops off heads with a meat cleaver rather than employing a rare poison. The minor thing that sets it apart is that there's no compelling reason all these people to stick around, except to offer their necks to the killer. 

So what possessed Latimer to write such a thing? The dust jacket calls it "utterly foreign to his usual work," and that's an understatement. There is no humor. No banter. No carousing. No drunkeness. No fun. I'm guessing he did it on a bet or a dare. Someone told him he couldn't write a Manor House mystery, and he proved them wrong. But so what? He merely proved that he could be ordinary.

Lopping off heads just wasn't enough. He should have gone the whole hog and done a proper send-up of the sub-genre, with his usual recipe of humor, banter, carousing, drunkeness and fun. He had a chance to hit a home run, and bunted instead.

As for Colonel Black, it was nice to see him fleshed out, but he was still only mildly engaging. As a Classic detective, he's an expert in every subject that comes up, including Elizabethan dramatists, fine brandy, flowers, bees and cows. The silliest thing he says is "I try to catch you in a lie, because one of the primary principles of detection is that no one ever lies but the criminal." Jeez, what fictional world is he living in? It can't be the same one inhabited by Bill Crane and Doc Williams.

Meanwhile, I'm curious to know what you think of this little Crime Club booger. After ignoring him for years, and thinking he just looked awkward and uncomfortable, I took a closer look and realized he spells CRIME. Awkwardly and uncomfortably. I know - big whoop. Did somebody think this was pretty cool beans back in the '30s? Maybe it was the editor who proclaimed The Search for My Great-Uncle's Head to be "The Season's Most Startling and Diverting Mystery Story."

Forgotten Books: RED GARDENIAS by Jonathan Latimer (1939)

It took me a long time to reread and review all five books in the Bill Crane series. Not because I'm a slow reader (though I suppose I am), but because I wanted to savor each one, and spend some time anticipating the next. And I'm finally finished. And yeah, these books lived up to my first impressions (and then some) and were worth the wait. If anything, I'm more impressed with Latimer than I was on my first journey through his works, some thirty years ago.

That said, Red Gardenias is not his best book. I'm forced to rate it the least enjoyable of the series, which is to say it's not great -- merely good. For me, the series reached its highpoint of hedonistic hilarity with the previous entry, The Dead Don't Care. It's hard for me to imagine Latimer outdoing himself after that one, and I have to suspect he couldn't either. So instead he gave us a slightly more mature Crane -- or at least one feeling the pangs of maturity -- and allowed him to fall in love. 

Crane still does a lot of drinking here, ably abetted by his detecting pal Doc Williams, but he doesn't enjoy it as much. Cherchez la femme, you might say, and you'd be right. The case sends him undercover, with his boss's daughter Ann Fortune pretending to be his wife. That begins well enough, but Ann soon starts acting like a real wife and criticizes his drinking. And as the story unfolds, Crane discovers he cares what she thinks of him and starts acting like a husband. A well-lit husband, to be sure, but still . . .

The case itself is certainly up to Latimer standards, as is the supporting cast. Crane's undercover role is an advertising copywriter for a family-run company that manufactures appliances, a job that would drive just about anyone to drink. One family member is dead, smelling of gardenias, and not everyone believes it was suicide. They believe it even less when the guy's brother dies under similar circumstances, and much of the suspicion falls on the vamp whose had her hooks in every man in the family, and is now sinking them into William Crane. 

My takes on the earlier Crane books are here:
Headed for a Hearse
The Lady in the Morgue
Murder in the Madhouse
The Dead Don't Care

Overlooked Radio: Jonathan Latimer's LADY IN THE MORGUE

Peter Lorre introduces this episode of Mystery Playhouse from May 15, 1945. I'd rather see the 1938 movie, but this rado version is a whole lot better than nothing.

P.S. I yapped about the book HERE.
 

More Overlooked Stuff at Sweet Freedom.

Forgotten Books: THE DEAD DON'T CARE by Jonathan Latimer (1938)

This fourth volume in Latimer's Bill Crane series is clever, funny, irreverent, sharply written and soaked in alcohol, which is to say it say it's a worthy successor to the first three books. But it also features the most intriguing deadly dame in hardboiled history, and deals with a couple of subjects that were mighty dang daring for its time.

The deadly dame is Imago Paraguay, a slinky Mayan-Spanish number whom Crane - and just about every other man in the book - finds both irrestitable and terrifying. And the better they know her the more terrified they are. On encountering her, one old acquatance turns the color of "a peeled banana," and another all but soils himself.

At one point, Crane observes, Her face was exquisite,like a painted ivory mask, but her hair was the remarkable thing about her. As black, as dull, as coarse as soot, it skull-capped her head and bunched in an ebony knot at the nape of her neck. Its distinction was its lack of luster. It seemed to pocket the rays from the lamps. It might have been dead.

Later, her face reminds Crane of the painted death mask of an Egyptian princess he had once seen in a Berlin museum. And still later we are told, She was contemptously beautiful, like a temple mask. The lids of her eyes were a faint violet-green and they ahd the luster of work silk and her brows, jet black, were arched like bamboo trees in a wind. Her lips matched the scarlet of her gown, drawn tight over her small, firm breasts and fastened over the left shoulder with an emerald-eyed serpent of twisted gold.

The first daring moment comes early, when Crane and others speculate on the possibility that Imago prefers women to men. Later he confronts her directly on that point and she goes to great length (all the way, in fact) to prove him wrong.

The other taboo subject is gang rape. When a teenage girl is kidnapped, Crane ruminates on the fact that no one wants to address the issue. And late in the story the subject comes to the forefront, as the kidnappers spend four full pages planning and attempting to commit the crime. This was only four years after Hammett caused a scandal by allowing Nick and Nora to discuss an erection.

Latimer makes impressive use of omniscient narration. Though we're most often with Crane, the point of view of his pals and other characters mingles smoothly with his own. And Latimer adds a couple of nice extras. At one point we see Crane reading an issue of Black Mask, and he later overhears a group of Florida fishermen debating whether a man seen shooting flying fish with a Tommy-gun could have been "Ernest."

Overlooked Films: THE WESTLAND CASE (1937)

Last Friday's Forgotten Book was Jonathan Latimer's 1935 novel Headed for a Hearse (HERE). The book seemed custom made for a film, and Hollywood must have agreed, because two years later Universal released it as The Westland Case. Sad as sad can be, this is one of those films I've yet to see, and I've been waiting dang near thirty years (ditto with the other Bill Crane film, The Lady in the Morgue). Is it any good? Maybe, maybe not. Does it live up to the book? Unlikely. That would be a tall order, because it's a damn good book.

Here's a teaser from YouTube:

This page appeared in the Sun Dial "Photoplay" edition of the book.