In the 1930's Columbia produced two films based on the mystery novels of
Rex Stout and his criminologist Nero Wolfe. This one starring Walter Connolly
in 1937 and Meet Nero Wolfe in the previous year starring Edward Arnold.
What the two actors had in common was girth. A lot of it. The detective Nero
Wolfe was a very large man who did most of his detecting from his desk on
West 35th Street in NYC. His factotum and right hand man Archie Goodwin does
all the running around at Wolfe's direction while Wolfe prefers tending to
his orchids, beer and meals. In the book of the same name, Goodwin (who narrates
the books) is bored as new cases have been as rare as a homeless man with
money. He occupies himself by deciding which leg will cross the other and
offers the observation that this Is not a problem for his boss since he
is too large to cross his legs.
This might have made a nice series of low budget films but Stout - who was
not though he made his character one - disliked both films and the actors
who played Wolfe and Lionel Stander who plays Goodwin in both films. Charles
Laughton had been his choice. He swore that he would never allow his character
to be portrayed in film again. Early in his adult like Stout was a nomad
- going from job to job and state to state doing all sorts of jobs. He began
to write - first poems, then short stories for magazines but he felt he needed
at least $200,000 to be able to write and not have to worry about money any
more. Stout was apparently something of a genius and so developed a banking
system for schools that allowed children to save money - and took a small
cut. He became quite wealthy but then the depression came along and wiped
him and his idea out. So he went back to writing and his first Nero Wolfe
novel was Fer-de-Lance in 1933 and went on to write 32 more of them and became
one of the best American mystery writers in the Golden Age of crime writing.
His first novel was the basis for Meet Nero Wolfe and this one is based on
his second novel. It turned out I had a dusty old Penguin copy of it in my
bookshelves and started reading it as soon as I finished the film. Surprisingly
witty and urbane as narrated by Goodwin - not quite how Stander portrays
Goodwin in the films. In the films he is a rough fast talking wise guy. Basically
the same Stander we have come across in lots of old films.
Later on Stout relented (he didn't pass away until 1975) and there have
been radio shows and a few TV shows on Wolfe - starring William Conrad (Cannon)
in one of them. Orson Welles who was a very large man later in life tried
to produce a series - 3 films a year - with him as Wolfe but it never worked
out. And neither did a project from William Shatner who was in a pilot with
himself as Goodwin but it was not picked up. That plus the first two films
are up on YouTube (and a bunch of the TV episodes). I doubt if a lot of
the books are read any more but at least at my first taste they seem quite
good.
In this one a man comes to Wolfe saying Paul Chapin (Eduardo Ciannelli,
who played his share of mafia bosses in his career) is trying to kill him
and a group of other men - 10 in total (in the book its 30) - who accidentally
crippled him (a "lop" as Goodwin calls him) in college during a hazing incident
many years ago. They had been supporting him all these years but after he
wrote a successful mystery he no longer needs their help and seems to finally
looking for revenge. Two of the group are dead already with notes indicating
more are to come. Wolfe gathers the group of frightened men together and
tells them he will help them for a nice sum of money. They agree.
It is a decent little mystery - not as straight-forward as it looks with
a decent cast - Connelly was in some classic 1930's comedies usually as
a wealthy father or an irritable boss. Some of the other group have familiar
faces as well and the young dame in the story is played by Irene Hervey
knows to us Honey West fans as Aunt Meg in the series.
