GREAT DETECTIVES & PEOPLE OF MYSTERY #63

MATT HELM

The American equivalent of James Bond, Helm is a freelance writer, mainly of western novels, and a photographer of hunting and fishing subjects.  He worked for a secret military organization during WWII and learned the fine arts of spying and killing.  His code name was Eric.  After the war Helm resumed his peacetime occupations and was married, but in the early 1960s he was summoned by his former chief, known only as "Mac", to serve his country and undertake a special mission.  Helm accepted, but the price he had to pay was the breakup of his family.  Later, his wife remarried.  In subsequent missions Helm travels (with beautiful girls) in his beloved old pickup truck all over the United States, and his assignments take him to Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, Scotland, and Scandinavia.

"Death of a Citizen", the first book in the Helm series, tells of his return to his wartime profession of spy and killer.  A harsh and sometimes shocking story, its told with restraint, power, and conviction.  The series seemed to hit its peak with numbers six through eight of the novels - these stories are more credible than previous books, but they are embellished with frightening overtones that hold the reader in suspense until the final page.  "The Ambushers" involves a Castro-type potential dictator who must be eliminated, an eagerly sought Nazi war criminal, and a deadly atomic missile.  "The Shadowers" concerns Helm's efforts to save a beautiful space scientist from assassination by marrying her.  The plot contains, in addition to the Helm spy-adventure story, a detective puzzle.  In "The Ravagers" Helm's mission is to see that secret plans get into the right hands - but this time they are destined for the Soviet Union.  All of this is set against a long chase across Canada.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Donald Hamilton (1916-2006) was born in Uppsala, Sweden, arriving in America when he was eight.  He studied chemistry at the University of Chicago and received a bachelor degree in 1938.  After serving four years in the Naval Reserve as a chemist, he became a freelance writer and photographer in 1946.  Married in 1941 he had two sons and two daughters and lived in Santa Fe.  He has written about hunting, yachting, and photography for various magazines, and several works of fiction for Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post.  Several of his books were turned into films, including "Ambush at Blanco Canyon" that was filmed as "The Big Country" with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston.

1960 "Death of a Citizen"/  1960 "The Wrecking Crew"/  1961 "The Removers"/  1962 "The Silencers"/  1962 "Murderer's Row"/  1963 "The Ambushers"/  1964 "The Shadowers"/  1964 "The Ravagers"/  1965 "The Devastators"/  1966 "The Betrayers"/  1968 "The Menacers"/  1969 "The Interlopers"/  1971 "The Poisoners"/  1973 "The Intriguers"/  1974 "The Intimidators"/  1975 "The Terminators"/  1976 "The Retaliators"/  1977 "The Terrorizers"/  1982 "The Revengers"/  1983 "The Annihilators"/  1984 "The Infiltrators"/  1985 "The Detonators"/  1986 "The Vanishers"/  1987 "The Demolishers"/  1989 "The Frighteners"/  1992 "The Threateners"/  1993 "The Damagers"/  "The Dominators" was finished in the late 1990s but is unpublished.

FILMS

In 1965 Columbia acquired the rights to 8 Helm novels and planned to make parody films of the books.  Singer-actor Dean Martin starred in four of the film distortions of Hamilton's spy, in an attempt to present a glib, easygoing American counterpart to Bond's tongue-in-cheek derring-do.  As in the Bond films, girls abound, the inventions are fantastic, and the menace is global.

"The Silencers" Columbia, 1966.  Martin, Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Victor Buono, Arthur O'Connell, Robert Webber, Cyd Charisse, James Gregory (Helm's chief, head of ICE - Intelligence & Counter-Espionage).  Director: Phil Karlson.  Former spy Helm is pulled out of a happy retirement photographing girls when enemy agents attempt to divert an American missile to cause destruction.  An important bit of computer tape is passed from one pretty girl to another to keep Helm occupied.

"Murderer's Row" Columbia, 1966.  Martin, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Camilla Sparv, Gregory, Beverly Adams (Helm's assistant Lovey Kravezit).  Director: Henry Levin.  Helm stages his own funeral in order to proceed undercover to the French Riviera, where a master-spy has kidnapped a scientist and his formula and plans to destroy Washington, D.C..  Matt joins forces with the scientist's energetic daughter.

"The Ambushers" Columbia, 1967.  Martin, Senta Berger, Janice Rule, Albert Salmi, Gregory, Adams.  Director: Levin.  An experimental flying saucer of America is brought down mysteriously somewhere in Mexico.  Matt enters the country posing as a tourist-photographer with a "wife" as cover, while assorted representatives of foreign powers kill one another off.

"The Wrecking Crew" Columbia, 1968. Martin, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Nigel Green, Tina Louise.  Director: Karlson.  Matt must single-handedly save the American and British economies by making certain a gold shipment to London arrives safely.

TELEVISION

ABC aired a pilot film for a proposed Matt Helm series on May 7, 1975.  Tony Franciosa played Helm, a retired spy who opens a private detective agency.  The pilot also starred Patrick Macnee, Ann Turkel, and Loraine Stephens.  The resultant series only lasted 13 episodes, airing from September 20, 1975 to January 3, 1976.