Greg Clark Noir Art

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #40 TORCHY BLANE Torchy Blane was a fictional female reporter and the main character in 9 films by Warner Brothers.  The Blane series was a popular B-movie feature in the 1930s with a mixture of mystery, action, adventure, and fun.  In the pre-WWII era, the role of a newspaper reporter was one of the few in American cinema that portrayed women as intelligent, competent, self-reliant, and career-oriented - virtually equal to men.  Torchy Blane was a wisecracking reporter with an instinct for a scoop.  A typical plot had fast-talking Torchy (she spoke 400 words in 40 seconds) unraveling a mystery by staying several steps ahead of her boyfriend, gruff police detective Steve McBride.  Torchy's given name is Theresa but its only used twice throughout the series. The interesting aspect to all this is that the film series was an adaptation of the "MacBride and Kennedy" stories by Frederick Nebel.  These stories, a st...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #39 BILL CRANE Created by author Jonathan Latimore, Bill Crane was a private detective who worked and lived in Chicago, though he frequently traveled to New York and Florida in the course of his investigations.  Crane is 34 years old but looks younger, is a quiet and modest person whose clear-skinned face is often sun-tanned.  He smokes cigarettes and drinks anything - and often.  His brown tweed suits are rumpled and creased because he falls into a drunken sleep anywhere.  He is aided in his cases by his friends Tom O'Malley and Doc Williams.  And at the end of his last case Crane became engaged to the lovely Ann Fortune. Crane is a decidedly hedonistic kind of guy, booze-soaked and possibly inept, he somehow managed, despite the ponderous and copious intake of a variety of intoxicating substances, to somehow crack the case.  Crane drank for the simple reason that he enjoyed it.  In the course of five no...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #38 CORNELL WOOLRICH Cornell George Hopley Woolrich (1903-1968) was an American writer of crime and mystery stories whose ability to create an atmosphere of terror has been equaled only by Edgar Allan Poe.  Woolrich was a virtual recluse.  So little was known of him that the New York Times  obituary was confusing and didn't even mention his most famous book, "Phantom Lady".  He was born in New York City but spent his early years in Latin America with his father, a mining engineer, and in New York with his socialite mother.  While an undergraduate at Columbia he wrote his first book "Cover Charge" (1926) a well-received romantic novel.  The following year "Children of the Ritz" won a $10,000 prize offered by College Humor  and First National Pictures, which produced a film of the book in 1929.  While in Hollywood working on the script, Woolrich, a homosexual, married the daughter of a producer.  ...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #37 MR. MOTO The soft-spoken, overly polite Mr. I. O. Moto is Japan's number one secret service agent.  His diminutive stature belies great physical strength which, combined with expertise in judo, makes him capable of killing an adversary with little difficulty.  Mr. Moto's impeccable English is spoken softly, his s's hissing through shiny, gold-filled teeth.  He says, "I can do many, many things.  I can mix drinks and wait on tables and I am a very good valet.  I can navigate and manage small boats.  I have studied at two foreign universities.  I also know carpentry and surveying and five Chinese dialects.  So very many things come in useful..." Mr. Moto was created by author John P. Marquand at the request of The Saturday Evening Post  who was seeking stories with an Asian hero after the death of Charlie Chan's creator Earl Derr Biggers.  Marquand (1893-1960) was born in Wilmington, Dela...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #36 NERO WOLFE Perhaps the most eccentric of all detectives is Nero Wolfe, created by Rex Stout, the elephantine sleuth whose brownstone on West 35th Street in NYC serves as his home and office.  He is 5'11" but weighs 285 pounds.  He is a gourmand and loathes unnecessary physical activity.  "I carry this fat to insulate my feelings," he once stated.  No one - police, criminals, or Wolfe himself - denies that he is a genius.  He speaks seven languages and has a good knowledge of Latin.  His command of English is exemplary and limitless.  Anyone who uses words properly, even his enemies, gains his respect.  He curses or swears only occasionally.  His brown hair is neatly trimmed and brushed, and his teeth are so white that they gleam.  He dresses conservatively, wearing a suit, tie, and vest year-round.   To Wolfe, work is detestable.  He keeps his confidential assistant, Arch...

  GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #35 DAN TURNER, HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE With the exception of Black Mask  most of the pulp heroes sold for 10 or 15 cents an issue.  Dan Turner, the Hollywood detective, was a two-bit gumshoe and to follow his adventures you had to cough up a quarter.  Turner appeared in more stories than any other pulp detective, featured in three separate magazines, and was the only private eye of the pulps to have his own magazine devoted exclusively to his exploits.  It all began in 1934 with Spicy Detective Stories  the flagship periodical of the "Spicy" line ( Spicy Adventure , Spicy Mystery , Spicy Western , etc.)  Dan Turner appeared in issue #2, June 1934, created and written by Robert Leslie Bellem in the story "Murder by Proxy". Bellem cranked out scores of Dan Turner stories and the popularity of the character was in the breezy, sexy, colloquial style Bellem wrote.  The stories were wildly improbable and yet compl...