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 completely predictable and revolved around movie people - actors, actresses, agents, directors, moguls - and their involvement with blackmail, theft, kidnapping, and murder.  Bellem's tales took place in Hollywood but lacked the color and insight of writers like Raymond Chandler.  Chandler wrote about L.A. as though it were a character in his novels.  Bellem wrote about L.A. like it was nothing more than a canvas backdrop and the reader gleaned no knowledge of Southern California except that there were scantily clad women and mayhem abounding.

And what was Bellem's writing style like?  "It was a dame who barged into me.  She was an auburn-haired, curvesome cutie with violet eyes, bee-stung lips and a figure like seven million bucks."  "She was a double-barreled knockout in a triple distilled funk."  "From the doorway a roscoe said 'Ka-chow!' and a slug creased the side of my noggin.  Neon lights exploded inside my think-tank."  Not exactly the refined stuff of Hammett and Chandler.  There is some debate over whether Bellem wrote in an intentionally bad style as satire of the hardboiled school, or if he was deliberately lousy.  It is estimated that Bellem wrote over 3000 pulp stories at over a million words a year, and that 300 of these were Dan Turner tales.  It was Bellem's high-octane use of slang that made him stand out from all the others.  Women were wrens or frills, people didn't get killed but were croaked, cooled or iced, and guns didn't go bang - they were roscoes that spat, coughed and belched.

The publishers of Spicy Detective branched out in 1937 to add Private Detective Stories to their publications.  A Dan Turner story, "Murder on the Sound Stage", accompanied the first issue.  Spicy Detective ran until late 1942 when it (and all the "Spicy" titles) changed its name to Speed Detective.  Also in 1942 Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective acquired his own pulp.  Where the Shadow or Doc Savage would have one story per issue of their magazines, Dan Turner would have half a dozen.  Every story was about Dan Turner.  And there would be an 8-page black and white comic penned by Bellem and drawn by Adolphe Barreaux in each issue.  By the second year the title was modified to just plain Hollywood Detective but Dan continued to dominate each issue.  Turner appeared in every issue of Spicy and Speed Detective from June 1934 until the magazine ceased publication in 1947.

In the October 15, 1938 issue of The New Yorker, they ran a piece by S. J. Perelman titled "Somewhere a Roscoe..." that examined the public fascination with Dan Turner.  Turner's career came to an end in the summer of 1950 with the final issue of Hollywood Detective.  The last issue included seven stories, three signed by Bellem, and the others, pseudonyms, by Bellem as well.  Bellem went on to be a successful writer for television, writing for "The Lone Ranger", "Dick Tracy", "Boston Blackie", "Superman", and "77 Sunset Strip".  He died in 1968.

In addition to its prose of flimsy underwear and milk-white flesh, Spicy Detective was distinguished from its statelier rivals by its artwork.  The covers, usually by H. J. Ward, always showcased a young woman who was not exactly naked.  She would have enough clothes to preserve her decency but not her reputation.  And there were more interior illustrations than other pulps.  An average issue of Black Mask might have 6 illustrations where Spicy Detective had two dozen and each featured at least one young woman in her undies or less.  The "Spicy" pulp line bordered on what would have then been considered pornographic (pretty tame by today's standards) resulting in most issues not being displayed and sold under the counter.  You had to ask for it by name.

FILMS

You'd think that a character who was known as the "Hollywood Detective" would have been embraced by the movie industry.  Not so.  Even they wanted to maintain a distance from this one.  But two movies were produced, and neither was very good.

"Blackmail" Republic, 1947.  William Marshall (Turner), Grant Withers, Adele Mara, Ricardo Cortez, Stephanie Bachelor, Roy Barcroft, Tristram Coffin, Richard Fraser, Gregory Gaye, Eva Novak.  Director: Lesley Selander.  Based on "Stock Shot" from the July 1944 Speed Detective.  Turner is approached by a movie executive to stop a blackmail plot against him.

"The Raven Red Kiss-Off" Fries Entertainment, 1990.  Marc Singer (Turner), Tracy Scoggins, Arte Johnson.  Based on "Homicide Highball" from the October 1943 Hollywood Detective.  Sent to keep an eye on a studio head's girlfriend on a film shoot, Turner is forced into hiding when two people are shot with his gun.  This direct-to-video stinker was filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma.