Science Fiction Mysteries for Classic Movie Fans

I'm always excited to see my varying interests combine in books/films/TV series, and the last few years have been generous to SFF readers who also know and love classic movies. This year I've read two particularly good science fiction novels that look to classic literary/movie detectives for inspiration, and I want to get the word out to other cinephiles who also enjoy science fiction and fantasy.

First up is Mary Robinette Kowal's 2022 book, The Spare Man, which takes heaps of inspiration from Nick and Nora Charles, the protagonists of Dashiell Hammett's 1934 novel, The Thin Man. Film fans know the hard-partying Nick and Nora from the series of films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, starting with The Thin Man (1934) and ending with Song of the Thin Man (1947). Although Kowal's novel is set on a luxury space liner with many creative updates and changes to the original characters, it still rewards readers who come to it with a deep appreciation for the originals. I especially like the way Kowal revises the Charles' dog, Asta, to create the adorable service Westie, Gimlet. This book is the perfect pick for any Nick and Nora fans who wonder what a futuristic version of the detective duo might look like.

If a darker noir mystery is more your speed, try Nick Harkaway's 2023 novel, Titanium Noir, which recalls Hammett's other iconic detective, Sam Spade, and the colorful characters of the 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon. The most famous adaptation of the original novel is, of course, the 1941 version starring Humphrey Bogart, although it was actually the third time the story was adapted for film. Harkaway's protagonist, Cal Sounder, has a very Spade way of operating, including his world-weariness and his tendency to find trouble, but the character of Doublewide really evokes Sydney Greenstreet's performance as Kasper Gutman, aka "the fat man." In Titanium Noir, wealthy people gain immortality thanks to a drug that makes them young again but also causes them to grow into giant superhumans, which plays perfectly into noir's distrust of the powerful upper classes. Fans of tech noir films like Blade Runner (1982) and Dark City (1998) already know what to expect from a story like Titanium Noir, but Hammett readers will find this territory familiar, too.

While I'm recommending SFF books for classic movie fans, I have to add a mention for the 2022 dark fantasy, Siren Queen, written by Nghi Vo. The novel imagines 1930s Hollywood as a dangerous, magical place where aspiring stars make deals sealed in blood. With its Asian, lesbian protagonist, Siren Queen tackles many of the historical sins of the era, but it also treats stardom as a supernatural transformation that gives the stars eternal life. While the characters incorporate bits of personality and history from actual stars from the 1930s, Vo is more interested in recreating the atmosphere than any specific individuals. It does help, however, to know something about classic movie actress Anna May Wong.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out the 2024 television series, Monsieur Spade, which serves as a sequel to The Maltese Falcon. Clive Owen gives a terrific performance as an older and even wearier Spade, now living in France and looking after the daughter of the late Brigid O'Shaughnessy. If the science fiction and fantasy genres are outside your comfort zone, you'll feel right at home with this thoughtful, beautifully shot drama series that makes the most of its post-WWII French setting.

Space, the Feminist Frontier: Essays on Sex and Gender in STAR TREK

After two years of work, I'm delighted to announce that Space, the Feminist Frontier: Essays on Sex and Gender in Star Trek is ready for publication! Our official release date with McFarland is September 2nd, 2024, and the book is now available for pre-order on Amazon and other retailers. You should also be able to special order it through traditional bookstores.

My co-editor and I are excited to have our author copies in hand, and we are currently mailing copies to the academic and fan scholars who contributed their work to the anthology. Our contributors wrote some truly fascinating essays about a wide range of characters, series, and topics, and I think there's probably something in this book for almost every Trek fan. We have essays about Christine Chapel, Michael Burnham, Seven of Nine, the Trill, Mirror Universe villains, Klingon weddings, Amanda Grayson, Nyota Uhura, Una Chin-Riley, the women of Lower Decks, and so much more.

If you're interested in reading the book but are daunted by the price (McFarland books aren't cheap), you can support our efforts by requesting that your local public or academic library order a copy for their collection. That way lots of fans will be able to enjoy our contributors' work for years to come. If you do add a copy to your personal collection or buy one for a special Trekkie friend, thank you so much! This is the third McFarland book Anissa and I have co-edited, and we know that these anthologies tend to have a long life with new readers finding them for many years.

It's always an exciting day when you hold a new book in your hand for the first time, and I'm so pleased with the work that our contributors have done for this anthology. My essay for the book is about the animated series Lower Decks and the ways that it merges genre parody and gender parity with its female characters. If you haven't watched it already, Lower Decks is a brilliant series that has become one of my absolute favorite Trek shows of all time, and the crossover episode with Strange New Worlds is not to be missed. 

If you're interested in my Trek related blog posts, check out:

Trek Noir: Out of the Past in Deep Space Nine's "Necessary Evil"

I Feel It in My Bones: My Favorite Star Trek Character
 

 

Vacation Noir on the Criterion Channel

I'm always excited when the Criterion Channel offers a themed film noir collection, especially because there are usually a few gems I don't own and a few more obscure titles I haven't yet seen. For August 2024, Criterion has a particularly seductive lineup with Vacation Noir, which showcases dark deeds set against sunny seasides, deep waters, and posh resorts. If you're a fan of all things noir, this is a great time to check out Criterion's streaming service if you don't already have access to it.

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Some of my personal favorites from the genre are featured in this group, including  Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), His Kind of Woman (1951), and Niagara (1953). Most noir devotees will already be familiar with these selections, but they're all worth seeing as many times as the chance arises. Most of these I own on physical media, but as I haven't yet added Niagara to my closet I won't miss the chance to see it again this month.

Richard Attenborough in Brighton Rock (1948)

It's still early in August, but of the new-to-me films in the collection I've already enjoyed Brighton Rock (1948), Dangerous Crossing (1953), and The Last of Sheila (1973). Adapted from the novel by Graham Greene, Brighton Rock is the best of that trio, with an electric performance by a very young Richard Attenborough as the criminal psychopath. Fans of more recent whodunnits like Glass Onion (2022) will find a lot to love in The Last of Sheila, a very Hollywood story about a group of frenemies brought together for a fateful reunion on the personal yacht of movie producer Clinton Greene (James Coburn). While its abrupt ending leaves something to be desired, Dangerous Crossing still offers an engaging take on the gaslit woman narrative, with Jeanne Crain starring as a distressed newlywed and Michael Rennie as the ship's doctor who tries to help her. 

I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the films in the collection later this month. Purple Noon (1960) and La Piscine (1969) both star French icon Alain Delon. The remaining entries are Desert Fury (1947), Kansas City Confidential (1952), Inferno (1953), and Female on the Beach (1955), all of which sound worthwhile from their casts and descriptions. I hope even the most obscure of them will be better than the 1978 adaptation of The Big Sleep that I watched last week; Robert Mitchum and Jimmy Stewart couldn't help that movie hold a candle to the 1946 version.

Additional collections for August include films about photographers, showcases for Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman, and a collection of Preston Sturges pictures, among others.

 What classic movies are you watching this month? Let me know in the comments!

Capital Classics for the Fourth of July

Summer has arrived, and the Fourth of July is just around the corner. It's too hot to be outside, so why not celebrate with some classic movies set in our nation's capital? If you haven't been feeling especially optimistic about our country's politicians lately, these films might provide some relief from the debacle of modern politics, although it's important to remember that the Hays Code helped to tint those rose-colored spectacles an even softer shade. Nonetheless, here are some classic movies that memorably depict the ideals of the American experiment if not its reality.

 

MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) - Frank Capra's tale of a young Senator's political education is quintessential Capra "corn" with James Stewart and Claude Rains delivering outstanding performances, especially Stewart in the famous filibuster scene. Although some in the US took offense at the depiction of Washington insiders, the film was banned in other countries precisely because of its pro-democracy stance. Capra, Stewart, Rains, and costar Harry Carey all picked up Oscar nominations for their work, and the movie earned six additional nominations, but it only won the Academy Award for Lewis R. Foster's writing for Best Original Story. The stellar cast also includes Jean Arthur, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi, and H.B. Warner.

THE MORE THE MERRIER (1943) - This wartime romantic comedy uses a housing shortage in Washington, D.C., to bring together an unlikely trio played by Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn. George Stevens directs the stars through some hilarious situations, with sizzling fireworks going off between Arthur and McCrea, but Coburn proves the scene-stealer of the lot in a performance that earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The picture garnered five additional nominations, including nods for Stevens and Arthur. It's an absolute delight from start to finish, and fans of modern rom coms will find a lot to love in this underrated classic.

 

BORN YESTERDAY (1950) - George Cukor directs the brilliant Judy Holliday in her Oscar-winning performance as Billie Dawn, a former chorus girl whose domineering and crooked boyfriend (Broderick Crawford) wants her to become more respectably well-educated now that his business has him hobnobbing with Washington politicians. William Holden plays the political writer hired to tutor Billie, and the two inevitably fall in love while touring the sights of the nation's capital. Billie's personal and political awakenings drive the picture, which was adapted from the 1946 Broadway play by Garson Kanin (in which Holliday also originated the role). 

These three classics make a great triple feature for your Fourth of July holiday, but if you prefer patriotic goodwill outside the Beltway, you can always celebrate with the beloved James Cagney musical, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942). If you prefer something darker, dive into JAWS (1975) for red blood, a Great White, and deep blue ocean with a climax that takes place over the Fourth of July weekend.

You'll find full-length reviews of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Born Yesterday, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and hundreds of other classic movies in my two books, BEYOND CASABLANCA and BEYOND CASABLANCA II, both of which are available as ebooks on Amazon. Hundreds more are posted here on my blog. Just use the labels to search for your favorite actors, directors, and genres!

Meeting Marilyn at Universal Studios

This spring has been one thing after another! Family travel, a totaled car, an actual tornado that hit my neighborhood, and a couple of bouts of minor illness have kept me away from the blog for too long. I hope to get a full movie review up soon, but to make up for my absence here's a highlight from my trip to Universal Studios Orlando in April: me cracking up the Marilyn Monroe impersonator with my impression of Jack Lemmon saying "Daphne!" 

 

In spite of Universal's tremendous history as a film studio, the parks really lean into the more recent blockbusters (I'm hoping the new Universal Monsters area at Epic Universe will actually honor the classic versions and not just the reboots, but we'll see). Marilyn is one of relatively few classic movie characters featured at the theme park, and she didn't have much of a line when we saw her out greeting guests. Of course I complimented her dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955). That led to a wonderful little conversation about Billy Wilder and then Some Like It Hot (1959), which I had just rewatched a few weeks before our trip.

 

I was impressed by the performer's knowledge of Marilyn and her films; she had clearly worked hard to know her character even though most of the guests won't be able to appreciate her efforts. If you happen to visit the Orlando parks, do take a few minutes to chat with "Marilyn" if you see her!

Rough and Dirty Girlhood in ANNIE (1982)

In his original review of the 1982 film musical, Roger Ebert offers qualified - and often rather faint - praise for Annie but says he doesn't know if kids will actually like the movie. Ebert doesn't find the story's heroine very compelling or believable, but it's noteworthy that all of the other child characters and performers he mentions in comparison are boys: Oliver Twist in Oliver! (1968), Henry Thomas in E.T. (1982), and Ricky Shroder in general. I recently rewatched Annie, and I have a very different perspective on the picture from the late, great reviewer, having actually been a ten year old girl (the same age as Annie herself) when I first saw the movie in theaters in 1982. While certain elements have aged poorly or lack the same appeal they had when I was a child, I can still see why my younger sister and I were so thoroughly charmed by the spunky heroine and her fellow orphans that we belted out "Tomorrow" incessantly and even got dolls of some of the characters. Yes, we were kids who liked Annie, and although we enjoyed the music and the adult characters very much, what really appealed to us was the depiction of girlhood as we experienced it, a rough and dirty childhood full of fights, conflict, and unbrushed hair.

Our culture as a whole has long imagined girls as more or less the opposite of boys. Girls are dear little things who play with dolls while waiting to grow up into loving wives and mothers. Even when they're protagonists and not merely supporting characters, most of them have to be pretty, kind, and generally well-behaved as models of permissible girl behavior. Shirley Temple, the quintessential "little girl" of Hollywood, wins everyone over with her dimpled sweetness, and even Alice and Dorothy are depicted as very "proper" girls in most of their film and TV adaptations (when their girlhood is not erased entirely by making them teenagers or even adults). There are exceptions, of course, like the Little House on the Prairie books and TV series, but celebrated girl-centered stories are harder to come by than stories about boys, and stories about groups of young girls (not marriageable young women) are even rarer.

Annie dispenses with all of those well-worn stereotypes about who and what girls are, replacing the usual sugar and spice with Depression era spunk. It's both a girl's version of Oliver Twist and a prepubescent take on Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), with a scrappy crew of orphan girls trying to survive by their wits, camaraderie, and sheer stubbornness. Imagine the delight my little sister and I experienced seeing these dirty, grumpy, combative girls playing tricks on Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett) and fighting amongst themselves just like we often did, much to our mother's dismay. We were girls who played outside, got dirty, tore our clothes, and only brushed our hair under duress. Annie and her friends provided a rare chance to see girls who looked and acted like us on the big screen, and we loved them for it. It helped that they weren't preternaturally cute or beautiful, like so many of the little and big girls Hollywood showcases. Mop wig aside, Aileen Quinn's Annie seemed like a kid we'd like to know, even if we felt disappointed that she had to be rescued by adults in the final act. We were hoping she'd kick Tim Curry's Rooster right off the top of the train bridge and send him screaming to his death, but at least she tore up the ill-gotten check and made her initial escape all by herself, while her friends persevered in their race to uncover the villains' deception.

In the decades since Annie, Hollywood movies have made some progress in telling stories about girls, especially in films like Matilda (1996), but Japan's Hiyao Miyazaki has done far better with My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Spirited Away (2001), and Howl's Moving Castle (2004), just to name a few of the Studio Ghibli movies to center the experiences of young girls as interesting and not idealized characters. Women film reviewers, however, are still well aware of the dearth of great movies about young girls, as Anya Jaremko-Greenwold opines in the 2016 Atlantic essay, "Why Hollywood Doesn't Tell More Stories for - and About - Girls." Given that Hollywood still doesn't make many movies like Annie, I'm glad that today's little girls can see the 1982 version in spite of its dated elements. Maybe, at this very moment, some stubborn little girl with tangled pigtails and a dirty face is watching the movie on Netflix as the orphans sing "It's the Hard Knock Life" and delighting in the vision of girls who look and act like her.

Related Posts:

"My Life at the Movies" (2011)

"High School Movies, Then and Now" (2018)

Modern Movies: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022)

I often tell people that I love "weird movies," and Hundreds of Beavers (2022) is definitely one of the weirdest, wackiest, and most purely delightful movies I have seen in a long time. This festival darling from Mike Cheslik (writer and director) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (writer and star) puts silent comedy, Looney Tunes cartoons, and modern video games into a blender to create an absurdist masterpiece with gags flying by at a breakneck pace for the entire 108 minute run of the picture. If you have the opportunity to see Hundreds of Beavers in a theater, you should skip this review and hurry out the door, but for those who - like me - have to make elaborate travel plans to see indie festival flicks, here's my review to encourage you to book the hotel and gas up the car (or at least make sure you track this one down when it hits streaming or physical media release).

Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays the hapless Jean Kayak, whose boozy good times making and selling applejack abruptly end when beavers destroy his business. Forced to survive in the relentlessly cold winter, Jean learns by painful trial and error to hunt the beavers and other local critters (all played by actors in cartoonish costumes). He's encouraged in his efforts by an old Master Trapper (Wes Tank) and the attractive furrier (Olivia Graves), but as it turns out the beavers have much more grandiose plans than general mischief against the local humans.

There's so much going on in addition to this basic narrative that it's hard to know where to start, but try to imagine Tex Avery directing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) with Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton in the starring role and you might begin to get the idea. The movie owes a lot to silent comedy, with many scenes evoking The Gold Rush (1925) thanks to the setting but also Modern Times (1936) and any of the Keystone Cops pictures. There are sight gags and stunts Keaton would love, especially the more meta examples like the holes that dot the landscape or the elaborate Rube Goldberg traps Jean builds. Watching the movie is often like watching someone play a puzzle game (I found myself especially thinking of the 1996 classic, The Neverhood), and the video game vibe is enhanced by action scenes that recall Frogger, Donkey Kong, and other iconic games as well as the intentionally flat and artificial backgrounds against which these scenes occur.

As funny as Cheslik and the other actors are in the human roles - and they are very funny, indeed - the "animals" in the movie are absolutely uproarious, and presenting the story this way is a brilliant stroke that effectively separates us from any expectation of a moral. I won't spoil the dozens of hilarious bits, but a few of my favorites include the two detective beavers, the melodramatic story of the rabbit family, the poker playing sled dogs, and the horse. There are also several delightful puppets to represent smaller animals, including a frog, some fish, and a very annoying woodpecker. Whenever you think the movie has surely reached peak absurdity, it raises the ante again, much to the whooping delight of the audience with whom I saw it. Because it's so maniacally silly, older children will almost certainly love it, but I should add that there's a brief pole dancing scene, a fair bit of sexual innuendo and imagery, and a lot of scatological humor, in addition to non-stop cartoon violence. It's all in service to the comedy, but it's important to consider your own tolerance or that of your children before taking anyone under 12 to see it. There was at least one kid who was about 10 in our small audience, and I could hear him laughing even louder than the adults throughout the movie.

If you want to learn more about Hundreds of Beavers or find the nearest theater screening, head over to the official website. A Blu-ray release is planned for Summer 2024, and the movie will stream on Fandor starting in the spring. I will definitely be buying a copy of the movie so that I can see it again and force all of my friends to watch it.