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.
