Oldies But Goodies & More
Born in England, Anthony Price earned an MA in 1956 at Merton College, a wing of Oxford. He began as a journalist and continued in the field while writing fiction. He published 19 novels, five short story collections and a work of non-fiction. I was fortunate to luck into his first book, The Labyrinth Makers, issued in 1970, reprinted at least once. Set in 1969, it’s the story of the missing cargo of a plane that crashed post-WWII. British officials assign an agent to the case whose specialty lies elsewhere. I was intrigued from the start. The trail is winding, as the title suggests. Russians are involved. The resolution is satisfying. Although the 291 pages of the paperback edition are not an easy read, probably due to the differences in British and American prose and word usage, the tale is entertaining and satisfying. 73 users at Amazon have rated The Labyrinth Makers, forging to a consensus of 3.6 on a scale of five, a bit higher than I would go. All of Price’s novels feature either Dr. Audley, the main character here, or Butler, who is in the background of this one. Audley is awfully hard on himself. Price passed away at 90 in 2019.
It’d been a while since Movies!, channel 5–2 on OTA in NYC, ran a noir title I hadn’t seen. The Mob (1951) stars Broderick Crawford as an undercover agent investigating waterfront corruption, bringing his usual in-your-face brio to the character. Check out the supporting cast: Richard Kiley, Ernest Borgnine, Neville Brand, John Marley (“I ain’t no band leader.”), Charles Bronson, Jay Adler and several stalwarts familiar only to mega-movie-buffs, including Victor Adamson (294 credits) and Paul Bryar (384). Robert Parrish directed, setting a brisk pace over the less than 90 minutes running time. He was a Hollywood jack of all trades, 40 credits as an actor, 13 as an editor, winning a shared Oscar for Body and Soul (1947), and 23 as a director, including three episodes of The Twilight Zone. Two-time Oscar nominee William Bowers adapted the screenplay from a novel, Waterfront, by Ferguson Findley, the nom de plume of Charles Weiser Frey. In a great bit of trivia, Bowers played the chairman of the senate committee in The Godfather II (1974), the first of three acting credits. He has 59 as a writer. The Mob does not have the weight of On the Waterfront (1954), arguably America’s finest film, but it is highly entertaining. Again I wonder why it was not in syndication back in the day. “This committee owes an apology…”
War update, headline from nypost.com: “Zelensky says roughly 20 percent of Ukraine controlled by Russia.” Here’s better news from foxnews.com: “Video shows dramatic way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has imploded.”
Amusing headline from NYP: “Older drinkers recover faster from surgery than non-drinkers, study reveals.” Belly up!
From FN, an unexpected unintended consequence of the legalization of marijuana: “Violent pot shop robberies soar across US as Senate wrangles over solutions.”
Easy conditions today at the floating book shop, cloud cover the entire session, keeping out any heat. My thanks to the handsome young couple who bought a book in Russian, and to my Constant Benefactress, who insisted on paying for two kids’ books; and to the Latino gentleman who took home several DVDs; and to Michael, who chose three mysteries by Ann Purser; and to the woman who selected Seasons of Her Life by Fern Michaels.
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