The agony column by Earl Derr Biggers

This was nice :-) A bit old-fashioned, since it takes place in 1914, but nonetheless nice at the end. At first I couldn't decide if it was a murder case with a love story as its background, or if it was a romantic novel hiding behind a mystery.. now it's all clear :-) It starts with an American in London, Geoffrey West, seeing a girl with her father, and it was love at first sight. This pretty American girl shared with him an idle passion: each morning both of them liked to read a special column in the Daily Mail: the Personal Notices, "popularly known as the Agony Column", full of personal, cryptic messages, and thus West had the idea to approach the girl through that column. When she read the column of personal notices she found his words to her, and she replied the same way, stating she was fond of "mystery and romance" and demanding that he would write to her "one letter a day for seven days" to prove how interesting and worthy he is. For sure the letters arrive, one each day. He writes about how he met an English man in America who gave him a letter for his cousin in London. Upon meeting this captain, he was told he had no cousin by that name! Then the poor captain was killed, and he was questioned by the police. A strange woman threatened him "advising" him to change his deposition, then the captain's younger brother asked for the same thing but with a different 'motive': although innocent, he wanted to confess the murder to save the honor of the family name. Was his brother a traitor of his Country? West strongly confided in Colonel Hugh's help and advice. The moment came when both the brother and the woman confessed to the murder, but she only did it to get inside Scotland Yard. The Colonel had West arrested, but also released the next day, with the startling revelation that the spy was actually the chief inspector of Scotland Yard himself!

This the girl learned in the sixth letter, which ended with the surprising confession that West did, indeed, kill the captain! In the seventh letter the explanation: he's a writer of plays, and he invented the story to provide her with the "mystery and romance" she was so fond about :lol:

I admit I had wondered at the beginning, but totally forgot while reading further :-p

Seven letters, now he can only wait for her move. Due to the worrying news of war, many people including the girl Marian and her father have to flee the Country. She sends him a telegram saying what boat she'll be on, and he goes too: even without a ticket. There he meets her, and eventually her father. Needless to say she'll accept him, of course, and her dad will approve too :-) but it's nice how these last pages are written. Sweet and rather funny, at least pleasant :-)

So nothing regarding the murder actually happened. The captain is alive and quite amused by the story, and everything he wrote was just fiction :lol: So that's what it was: a love story masked as a mystery novel :-)

Seven keys to Baldpate by Earl Derr Biggers

Interesting and nice, but rather slow and with no thrill, and unfortunately no comedy: a generous amount of good comedy, and maybe just a hint of slapstick, would have made a great play out of it. I'd like a movie like that, they're not making good comedies anymore. A lot of good actions, and that's it. I can't wait to see comedy back into fashion!
As I was saying, though, there is no comedy in here at all. A couple of short action-scenes, and the rest should be a mystery but it's so slow... I liked the female characters though: good and rather modern!
The story: the Baldpate Inn, on top of Baldpate Mountain, opens in Summers but stay close in winters. It's almost Christmas, and the Inn is the most solitary place in the world. For this reason William Magee chooses it for his "retreat". He is a writer, and he seeks absolute solitude to write a great story full of heart and soul. He gets a key from the Inn's owner's son. Magee has been there but an hour when other people start arriving. First Mr Bland, who has a gun and who hides something in the hotel safe (he has secured a key from the Inn's manager); then Professor Bolton whose key was given to him by the owner himself. Pretty Miss Norton and her nothing-alike-mother have a key, but maybe it was stolen. Four keys until now.
Mr Cargan, the mayor of the near town of Reuton, comes with "his shadow" Lou Max (five). Already at this point things start to move. Miss Norton tells a more-in-love-by-the-minute Magee that there are 200.000 dollars in that safe and she must have it. When Cargan and Max are about to go away with the money, a mysterious figure stops them, but Magee surprises him too and runs away with the money. Right there and then in comes Miss Thornhill (six) and he's confused as to what he should do with the money. It's not her beauty that confuses him but the fact that she comes with his friend's recommendation and assurance that she can trust Magee and he'll help her. So Magee hides the money until he has time to think, but Bolton sees where and takes it, but Bland catches him with the bundle in his hands and takes it from him. Suddenly Mr Hayden comes (with no key) saying it's his money and he wants it back, but that bribe-money were promised to Cargan, who won't give it up. Bolton has again the bundle (taken from the hands of "the hermit of Baldpate" now working as their cook) and Magee knows it. Again a fight with the mysterious man and Magee's ready to give it to Miss Norton, when Hayden threatens him with a gun, but in comes the seventh key's holder, the mysterious figure, Mr Kendrick who has spent six years hiding abroad because tricked by Hayden, who now commits suicide. Kendrick is reunited with Miss Thornhill who waited for him all this time. Magee takes the gun and keeps them all there until Miss Norton is safely away with the money. He now learns the whole story of the corrupt mayor, Hayden that wanted to bribe him, Bolton working for justice and wanted the money as proof against him... but nobody knows who Miss Norton really is. Morning comes and they all go away to Reuton, where they discover the truth. She's a journalist and a sensational article condemns all the sordid story of the bribe. Happy that she was on the good-side, Magee professes again his love and wins her over, quite happy that he did not find the solitude he had looked for at the Baldpate Inn.
Now, the whole point of taking the money was somehow stupid on those who were on the honest side: how can a bundle of money with nothing specific about it be a proof that Hayden wanted to bribe a very happy-to-be-bribed mayor? It's just money, it could come from everywhere! So you see it makes no sense at all, but it could have make a good comedy, since the mystery was so disappointing.
What a shame it wasn't.

The daffodil mystery by Edgar Wallace

It's a very old style, but I like his books enough. This one was nice too. The switch for me was not at the end, but rather early in the book, when the murder surprised me. It starts with rich, spoiled Mr Lyne talking to one of his employees. He likes her, but she (Odette Rider) refuses him strongly and Lyne feels deeply offended. He starts hating here and wants revenge. He talks to Mr Tarling, the book's hero, I thought, ad wants to hire him to frame the girl up, telling him she's been robbing his store. Tarling understands the lie and refuses the job. He's a serious detective (who ha worked mostly in China) and feels it his duty to warn the girl of such hatred. Now, at this point I thought Lyne was the bad guy and that Tarling would have to protect Odette from him, but here was the real switch of the book for me: it's Lyne himself that gets killed and Odette is a suspect. Obviously Tarling falls in love with her and he's asked to investigate the murder. Also obvious is that she's innocent.
There are many things involved: Mr Milburgh who also worked in Lyne's store and had been robbing him for a long time: he was Odette's mother's second husband, so the girl didn't want him exposed. Also Mr Stay, a little criminal that Lyne had helped many times, not really out of generosity but because the strange man liked to be talked about, to play the part; Stay loved him deeply, believing him an angel, the best man in the world, and he believed all the lied that Lyne had told him about Odette. Stay was furious and wanted to ruin her. He killed her mother (I guess he thought it was her) so I wasn't all that surprised to find out that he had also killed Lyne by mistake, in an attempt to disfigure her. He loved Lyne so much that he went mad and tried his best to avenge his death against the person he thought responsible for everything: Odette. While Tarling and Inspector ( I think) Whiteside were searching for Milburgh as a thief, an arsonist ( he burned down the place where all the books were supposed to be reviewed by specialists to discover any irregularities) and a murderer, Tarling's Chinese assistant Ling Chu learned of the danger she was in (because Milburgh had told Stay the hospital she was in, after discovering her mother's death) so he went to her to protect her. He arrived to see Stay driving a taxi, without her suspecting a thing. He stayed on top of the taxi until it stopped (Stay phoned Tarling knowing that he would suffer after being told the girl's fate) then he freed Odette and took her place. Once Stay arrived where he wanted to take her (the cemetery, to bury her with Lyne) he got out instead, they thought and Stay was recovered in a hospital where he regained his sanity and confessed all before dying: how he went to her house to punish her, not knowing that Lyne had decided to go to her (for his unholy purposes no doubt). In the dark they didn't recognize each other, so they struggled and he shot his assailant. Later he realized what he had done, that he had killed the man he loved as a God, and tried to take him to a hospital but Lyne died before getting there, so Stay laid him down in the park and put flowers on him (daffodils found in the park).
There were a lot of false tracks too: daffodils in Odette's apartment (of a different kind, though); Ling Chu's sister that was called "The little Narcissus" but foreigners (like Lyne) called her "the little daffodil": Lyne had offended her with inappropriate speeches and insulted her when she refused to go to him and sit on his knees, so she killed herself to regain her honor (because he had "put shame upon her by embracing her before the eyes of men). Ling Chu hated the man and wanted to kill him so he went to the store thinking, wrongly, that he would live there. Instead he was almost discovered by Milburgh who took the gun (Tarling's gun) that Ling Chu had left there in his hurry. Stay had taken that gun when Milburgh had gone to Odette's apartment that same night (because he wanted her to be accused of the theft for which he himself was responsible). That's about it, I think, and obviously it ends with Tarling and Odette together, planning to go back to his beloved China.

The yellow crayon by E. Phillips Hoppenheim

How boring. It was really boring: no fun, no mystery, no thrill, no action. It's supposed to be a spy-story full of intrigue and love and danger.. the love part I could see: former countess Lucille has been recruited to come to London and end the career of a socialist politician so she's forced to leave her house without a note and her husband the Duke of Souspennier (aka Victor) is determined to get her back, his great love and only reason for living.
The intrigue: the yellow crayon is the name of a secret society that unites the aristocracy of Europe and works to defend their privileges against the socialists. The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer called for her and she 'could not refuse' because both her and Victor are members. Her task is to have Mr Brott fall in love with her so much he'll choose her over his political career, and it works! His career is ruined but then a crazy man shoots him for betraying the people. I don't think they cared enough about it, there are people that think they are in every way superior, they only count and others are nothing! Just like Victor's valet, who died and nobody cares.
The danger: a few time Victor or Lucille are threatened with arrest, and of course there is the valet episode. He's found dead: he committed suicide because he had been ordered to kill Victor and he saw no other way out of it. That's it basically.
The Prince says to Lucille 'you can't go' and she doesn't. I mean, there's really nothing to it.
It was boring, and most annoying with that attitude of superiority they all possess. It felt like it was a right thing to do, you know, give your life for someone who is your superior, stuff like that, how sick it was, very annoying.

The gold bag by Carolyn Wells

Fleming Stone, a private detective better than Sherlock Holmes, as his friend detective Burroughs tells us... but come on, the bits with Stone were the worst. I liked the rest, but not his deductions. Let's be honest and say that this deductions are often rubbish: -he always walks at her right side, never at her left, that proves that either she's deaf in her left ear of he is deaf in the right ear- come on, is it really?? It can be, of course, but it's in no way absolute. Maybe he likes to give a lady his left arm, or maybe she likes to carry her bag with her left hand/shoulder... there can't be just one reason for simple actions like that, people are different, not all the same! Anyway, the rest of the book was nice. Very old-fashion due to its age, but nice. Joseph Crawford is murdered, and Burroughs goes to investigate, and he falls in love with Florence Lloyd, Crawford's niece and engaged to Gregory Hall, a fortune-hunter. Florence is the heiress, so she's suspected a lot, and Hall too is suspected because of course he wanted the money. A late-night paper is found in the room of the crime, along with a gold bag. From this Burroughs starts his investigation alone; he interrogates people, he follows every clue, but he feels too much in love and worried over Florence to think clearly. Hall refuses to say where he was the night of the murder and the reason behind that was really too obvious. He was with another girl and didn't want Florence to know. Burroughs tries to convince people to send for Stone, but they all refuse except Florence. She agrees, they call for him and in one day he solves everything! The murderer poisons himself to escape the shame and the sentence, Florence breaks her previous engagement and shows a new affection for Burroughs, quite happy.
A few more details: when the will was nowhere to be found (making the brother Philip the heir) Hall was for breaking the engagement, when it came out (after Philip confessed his stealing it) he was all for marriage again. Of course the motive for the murder was money, but not the will. It was all a financial matter, people playing the market. Joseph had a big stock of the same thing others had, and by selling it all at once of course the price would have fallen causing big losses to the others. One of these people would have been financially ruined, so he killed him in an act of desperation. Funny how in the 'good old days' people (of a certain class) were all good and intelligent, isn't it? How come now there are so many bastards around and even more idiots? It's surprising, it is indeed.
I don't know why but I like the ending line, when Burroughs asks Florence if she loves somebody else (of course she broke up with Hall, saying she actually never truly loved him) and the last line is "you-she murmured softly, and I was content" I don't know why but that 'and I was content' sticks to my mind, it's nothing special and yet it is :-)

Cat among the pidgeons - Poirot's film/tv-episode

I don't know where in the series is this, anyway, as always I liked it; I think David Suchet is the perfect Poirot, I like the atmosphere so English and the actors, although I was sorry that they changed the funniest scene in the book, when young Julia leaves the school to go to London, and is then introduced to a Poirot who knows nothing. Of course they had to, this is the Poirot series, you can't have him appear twenty minutes before the end. They didn't change much this time, they only had to cut it short a little bit. I don't remember the thing about the voodoo doll being in the book, I don't think it was, and I could have done without it, honestly it was silly. I didn't recognize Amanda Abbington as the art teacher, since she looked so different from Mary Watson :-p
I like Miss Bulstrode a lot, and Mrs Upjohn, the scene when she entered at the end was quite good. I liked Shaista and Miss Rich too. There isn't much to say, the story is pretty much the same as in the book. Prince Alì, his friend Bob and the jewels hidden in the tennis racket.  The school and fake Princess Shaista. Jealous Chaddy hitting Miss Rich on the head (almost killing here) but giving her life at the end to save her dear friend Bulstrode. Poirot here is a friend and stays here to help Bulstrode figure out the best person to take her place when she'll decide to retire.


ITA macabro quiz

The day time stopped moving by Bradner Buckner

A nice short story, about ten pages long. It start with a suicide: Dave responded to the difficulties of life by wasting himself; instead of looking for a solution hoping for better days he started drinking, a lot, and losing money betting on horses. His wife Helen could not stand this situation any more and after having many times threatened to leave, she finally does. He comes home twelve hours late and totally drunk and upon seeing her goodbye letter he goes crazy. He thinks that killing himself "will show her" and he actually pulls the trigger... but then he finds himself in the strangest situation. He seems to be alright, but also the only one that is. Everything and everyone is frozen, people are like statues. He seems to be the only one that can move about, until he meets a dog called Major and a man called Erickson.
Erickson tells him it's his fault, an experiment gone a bit wrong, sort of, so time froze and only those that were between life and death in that precise instant can now move (the dog was probably hit by a car, it seems). To put things right and get time moving again he simply needs to add power to his machine (still working) and since they can't move things that are frozen, so they can't use the wire in the room, they make one. Upon Dave suggestion, they strip each other of everything that might be used as a wire, using coins, keys, and stuff. When time moves again, he finds himself alive because the old gun had not worked properly, and Helen is in the room with him, she came back for him. He's decided to change his life for the better, now that he's had a second chance. Only six minutes have passed since he fired the gun, so he believes his adventure impossible, just a dream, but then he realizes it was not a dream when he reads of Erickson's death, with the details of the poor dog's presence and what's more, the "chain of small metal objects" they had made together.
Now, why he was frozen too since apparently he was nowhere near death at all is another matter...

The secret house by Edgar Wallace

A pity that the end was so abrupt. Another bad finale. The book wasn't bad, Wallace wrote very well and I like his style, but this time the end was not satisfactory at all. The story: Farrington is a rich, respectable man on the surface, but under the name of Fallock he is also a merciless blackmailer and a murderer. He is the guardian of young beautiful Doris, the only person in the world he loves. Poltavo is a criminal: he has quite a record set for himself and now he works for Fallock. Frank is a young man passionately in love with Doris, and in good terms with Farrington, who gives him an assignment: find out who is the heir of the Tollington's fortune, the only descendant of a woman that went away with her husband and never let her family know where she was or how she was now called. Lady Constance Dex is a woman that lost the true love of her life because of Fallock and now wants revenge (although her beloved was quite something, leaving her and his Country just because he heard voice that her past conduct had not been honorable, not thinking of talking to her about it!)
T.B.Smith and Ela are detectives hunting down these criminals.
Poltavo takes a fancy to Doris, enough to confuse her. He speaks of real sentiment but we're told that he's not new to this kind of thing, and usually it is "real" only for a short period of time then he gets tired. Farrington fakes his death not just to avoid prison or revenge, but mostly because of Doris. In his will she'll discover that she's to marry Frank or she'll lose all her fortune. She feels obviously forced and up in arms over this. She's young and inexperienced and is not sure about her feelings. Right now she likes Frank but doesn't love him, however when she receives a letter from her supposed-to-be-dead-guardian urging the marriage for his safety, she complies. She marries Frank and only now the whole of Farrington's plan for her is clear: he has used her fortune and she has nothing left, that's why the marriage was so important: Farrington knew all along that Frank was the Tollington heir. He had known for years, and that's why he killed his father (Constance's lover) so that Frank might be heir. We know nothing more of these two: will she love him? Will he keep true to himself and his own words and love her now (penniless) as he loved her before (rich)? Nobody will ever know.
Farrington is hidden in the Secret House, a thing that made me think "uh, like Harry Potter's school!" only the rooms here moved not by magic but by electricity....
His accomplice Fall is just as bad as he is. In that house they will kill Poltavo before he has a chance to betray them to Smith, and to do so they use their very own electric chair, only it is described to be a very, very quick death..
Constance is taken prisoner and freed by mere chance by Smith and Ela, and again we know nothing more of her. The detectives discover the secret of the house but Smith is taken prisoner and about to be electrocuted, so Ela runs to cut off the power to the house, just in time. T.B. will shoot Farrington: the end. Just like that. Not a word more. We can imagine, of course, Fall being convicted, Constance trying to move on, Doris and Frank managing their married life... but I would have liked to read about it, not imagine it by myself, there was no satisfaction in this ending at all.

Get Carter - 2000

A film I didn't even know existed, but not too bad. There are a few things totally useless and I think they weighted on it. The nice part was the relationship between Carter and his niece Doreen, never too much, difficult of touching where it had to be. In details: Stallone is Jack Carter, who calls himself a "financial enforcer": what he does is beating up people who owe money to mob boss Fletcher. When his brother dies, he leaves Las Vegas to go to the funeral. He used to live there so he knows where to go and who he should talk to. Jack believes his brother Ritchie has been murdered, and he unveils many things: Cyrus (Mickey Rourke) makes porn movies using girls that not only know nothing about the movie, but are also drugged and raped. Millionaire Kinnear (Alan Cumming) helps him financially (for some reason he's in Cyrus hands) and when Ritchie took hold of a disk with some videos in it, Cyrus killed him. Watching the video, Jack is overwhelmed and enraged when he sees Doreen. Luckily she remembers very little, although that little is already too much imo.
The best scene of the movie is when Jack talks to Doreen without telling her that he knows. He says she's a special girl, history is in the past we can only move on, shit can happen to anybody, and all those things that could work for him too. He also says that her mom loves her and she should talk to her. Doreen understands that somehow he knows, and talks to him and they hug and it's a nice scene, played well both by Stallone and Rachel Leigh Cook (Doreen, of course).
Jack kills the rapist first then he beats Cyrus up but doesn't shoot him (he was either unconscious or already dead, his end is not clear to me). He goes after Kinnear but gives him a second chance and lets him go alive. He kills Brumby (Michael Caine) who had always claimed to be Ritchie's friend but he was in on it too. Again, it's not too clear to me what his part was, in the whole mess.
Unfortunately there was a sort of side story: Jack had an affair with the girlfriend of his boss, apparently. He tells her to go away, she doen't. Fletcher tells him (again) to come back, but he doesn't, so Jack's ex-partner comes to kill him: fast chase, a bit of shouting and a boring conclusion where Jack, obviously, wins. This story is useless and weighs on the movie. The time would have been better filled in some other way, something concerning the main plot: with Jack and Doreen, or Doreen and her mom (Miranda Richardson), or a bigger talk Jack-Cyrus, or maybe explaining better Brumby's role in the matter... Mostly it would have been good to see more about Ritchie's story, what he knew about them, how he came to have that disk (yes, the girl gave it to him but why? did he know already about Doreen or did he watch it for other reasons?) , the whole story I mean.



ITA la vendetta di Carter

The hasty heart - 1949

A good film, sad, but not one I would watch and rewatch. I liked that it ended before the death...
It's a peculiar story: 1945, Burma, the war is over and the soldiers are going home, but those that have been injured can't go yet. Corporal Lachlan Mclachlan (Richard Todd) has recovered from the operation itself, but is left with just one kidney and unfortunately it's a bad one. The patients in the hospital ward are told about this, and knowing that he has but weeks to live they feel compassion and want to help. The corporal though knows nothing about it and can't understand why they won't let him go home. Everyone including Sister Parker tries to be as kind and as helpful as they can, but "Lackie", as they call him, has had a difficult life so he trusts no-one. He is very stubborn and openly hostile towards everyone. Sister Parker doesn't give up, and plans a birthday party for him. Touched by the gesture, Lackie becomes more friendly, and for the first time in his life he makes friends; he talks to them about his home in Scotland, asking if they'll like to go there, but they all have a home elsewhere and would like to return there. There's a guy from London, one from New Zealand, one from Australia, and there's Yank, obviously American, played by Ronald Reagan. There's another one too, an African man they call Blossom because that's the only English word he knows. At first I wondered about him, not sure why they included such a character that seemed to add very little to the story or the group, so the nicest bit of the film, at the end, was finding out that Blossom was actually the key to everything. Once told the truth, Lackie will of course believe that it was all an act, that they acted out of pity but were not real friends, so he closes up again, becoming once more hostile and proud; everyone tries to talk to him but he doesn't care for their words, not believing them. He's about to go home to spend his last days at home, and Blossom comes forward to give him the necklace he made. When Lackie throws it back at Blossom Yank gets angry. Of course they all felt pity for him (but it was out of friendship that Yank refused to go home, wanting to stay with him) but Blossom didn't know! Blossom doesn't understand English, so he didn't know before and still doesn't. That rules out the pity, so the gift can only be out of sympathy and friendship :-)
When Lackie is about to leave, he bursts into crying, finally saying that he doesn't want to die alone. There's nobody waiting for him in Scotland, so he asks them to accept him back, he wants to stay there with them, and of course they agree :-) The movie ends here, not showing us his death. It even ends on a funny note, with the English guy finally managing to look under his kilt to see if he wears anything :-p
One thing that puzzled me at first was that they called the girl "Sister" Parker, and I had thought she was a nun, but then Lackie proposed to her and to make him happy she accepted to marry him (before he knew of his fate, of course). At first Lackie was very unpleasant, but then he started acting like a child :-p because he had never had friends. The most touching bits were when Lackie told about home and future, and everyone looked sad knowing that that was never gonna happen.
Personally I don't share this belief that not knowing is better, although surely it depends on the person, it is not better to me.

Four weddings and a funeral - 1994

I always liked this movie, for its humor and for John Hannah. Oh I like his Matthew so much, he's so cute and sweet and nice, and of course heartbreaking at the funeral. Sure, the real protagonist is Charles (Hugh Grant) who unfortunately I don't like very much. He meets Carrie (Andie MacDowell) and is immediately in love with her, but can't admit it, not to her not to himself. They meet during social occasions like, no surprise, weddings and even a funeral. It will take him a lot of time to admit it, passing through her wedding and separation and even his almost-wedding, but they'll finally be together. Obviously.
Other characters are nice too: Tom (James Fleet) is nice, I like him a lot; Scarlet (Charlotte Coleman) is fun. I like other characters too and I like the ending that shows images of these characters' future: Charles and Carrie have a baby, Matthew finds a new boyfriend and smiles again, Tom is happy with Deirdre, Scarlett is happy with her Texan boyfriend: they're so cute, she's like a pocket-girlfriend :-p
The most touching moment of the film is of course Gareth's death, right from the start, when we see Matthew smiling and singing, not knowing that Gareth has fallen down and is dying. Of course his speech at the funeral is very touching, he's a very good actor, he made me cry. Funny how all his friends are sort of surprised: Charles says he never knew that two of them friends were already married, all that time. That sentence stuck with me. At that moment I also liked Tom's simplicity, such a contrast between him and Charles and his torments. Tom who is so sure that one day he'll find someone, never stopping to think What If, good for him.
I liked every moment the camera was on Matthew :-) I liked the love story between David and Serena (right,yes?) because it moves on slowly wedding after wedding, and again it's a big contrast when you think that Charles is going backwards, in a way. I liked Serena, she saw and liked him at once, so she prepared herself by learning sign language and she approached him, and they hit it off nicely. Charles' story, on the other hand, goes like this: he meets girl, girl goes back to America, girl comes back with boyfriend, them marries said boyfriend, while he tries to tell her he loves her only to take it all back, so he tries to forget her by marrying another girl but on his wedding day he learns that she's free again, so calls it off and gets punched in the face for it. And well deserved it was!
Finally he meets her again but doesn't let her go away this time.


ITA quattro matrimoni e un funerale

となりのトトロ (totoro) - 1988

I like it. Each and every one of Hayao Miyazaki's movies possess a poetic and delicate touch that appeals to me. In a way I could say that this movie has little to no plot, basically "two little girls trying to cope with their mother's illness, with a little help", but this is what makes it so nice and adorable, because it's not about action, it's about images and feelings and magic.

The Totoro in the title is a strange, huge animal usually invisible to people, a sort of spirit of the woods. It reminds little Mei of the image of a troll she has in her books, so she says Totoro trying to say the Japanese word for Troll but failing to pronounce it correctly as it often happens to her,  but in the dubbed version this "joke" is lost, at least in the Italian version where Mei pronounced everything correctly so it might seem she totally invented the name for him/it, but it can still be clear to those who care to pay attention that she means another word, because when she says Totoro to her sister, she doesn't ask "what is it?" instead she replies "oh you mean...".

Still, the name Totoro is so cute that it doesn't really matter :-)

The story is quite simple, as I said before. Mei is four and has an older sister, Satsuki. Their mother must stay in a hospital so they move to a house in the country in order to be closer (three hours is the walking distance, but there is a bus, of course). It's a sad situation, little Mei misses her mum and Satsuki is worried she might die and leave her alone. She is the "older" sister, but she's still a child herself. Maybe this is the reason why Totoro shows himself to them. Mei finds him while wondering alone in the woods, then they both meet him on a rainy night while at the bus stop waiting for their father (to give him an umbrella, the sweet things).

They meet him again outside their house, waking up in the middle of the night, but more importantly Satsuki finds him when she needs him. Towards the end the sisters learn that their mother won't come home for the weekend as planned, Mei throws a tantrum, shouting that she doesn't want it (to wait for another time to see her mother, she wants her now, she's so little) and the sisters fight (poor Satsuki is responsible for her but she's only 9 or 10, she's a child herself)so later Mei wanders alone with the intention of walking to the hospital to give her mum an ear of corn thinking it'll make her feel better, but she gets lost and nobody can find her. Satsuki is worried, her dad has to go to work every day so he's not home, and the whole village helps her find little Mei. Nobody can find her, so Satsuki asks for the woods' spirits' help, to lead her to Totoro. She gets there and crying asks for his help. Totoro calls the catbus (imagine a bus entirely made of fur, with a tail and the head of the Cheshire Cat, plus its eyes are like torches). Satsuki gets on the catbus and it brings her to Mei, then it brings them both to the hospital. The sisters and the catbus stop on top of a tree and looking through a window of the hospital they see their father talking to their mom, who is smiling and saying that as a precaution the doctors won't let her go, but it won't be long. Happy to know that she's ok they go back home. The end. More or less :-p

The credits at the end show some drawings that explain what happens afterwards: mom back home with them, reading them stories, and Satsuki and Mei playing with other children; now they don't need Totoro anymore and they won't see him again, but this is ok because this is a sweet Japanese film where people are not obsessed with showing Totoro to other people or finding out more. Totoro was a special part of their lives when they needed him, and they'll always remember him.

While I watched it I saw a scene where dad and daughters bath together in the same bathtub, and wondered how many people in the world might be offended or angry at that. It's a completely innocent scene of course, normal family life, but we live now in a sex-obsessed world, so I wonder.. besides, I remember that as a teenager watching American movies or series I was shocked to see that children kissed their parents on the lips (and being actors they weren't even related) and I was like yeuch, what are they doing?? because nobody does that here; to be honest, it is still a bit weird :-p

Tonari no Totoro

ITA il mio vicino totoro

The kidnap murder case by SS Van Dine

Well, it was a bit boring here and there, but not  a bad read. I like the character of Philo Vance (at least for now), and I like the fact that in every book, after the solution is revealed, we are told a bit of what happens to the other characters.
The story is quite simple, and the solution didn't shock me at all. It starts with Kaspar Kenting being kidnapped from his home, but Vance is from the start quite sure that he's probably already dead. The other characters are: Kaspar's brother Kenyon, a good and responsible man, not like his stupid brother  or his even worse father. Kaspar's wife Madeleine, her brother Frayn and her mother Mrs Falloway. Plus Mr Flees, the family lawyer who 'controls' their money. A first attempt of paying the ransom fails and Madeleine is kidnapped too, while Kaspar is found dead (and has been dead for a long time, like Vance feared). In the end Vance, Van Dine who refuses to leave him alone, and sergeant Heath find the house where she's kept and free Madeleine. Vance reveals that, in a desperate need of money after having played and lost the Kenting's money, Fleel had planned everything. Incidentally Vance manages to save Heath's life: he kills three men, Madeleine's kidnappers, who were all wanted by the police so now Vance is "threatened with a medal" and plans to go abroad to avoid all the fuss :-)
We learn that in time Madeleine will marry Kenyon and Mrs Falloway will follow Vance's advice and have her son cured by the doctor whose name was given to her by Vance. All's well that ends well, isn't it? So, it's not a book to read again and again, but it was a pleasant enough read nonetheless.
The end.
What always surprises me is how useless Markham is. I mean, sergeant Heath does the police work, Vance does all the investigating-interrogating-making of important decisions, but Markham does nothing at all. It's sweet how they all care about Vance, and I like the Markham-Vance friendship, but I find annoying how he always doubts Vance, gets angry at his slow methods, and would always accept the easy solution that criminals set for him. Vance is a good character, without him the whole thing would be really boring.


ITA sequestro di persona

The green rust by Edgar wallace

Well, it wasn't bad but it was too long. Two stories mixed together. A girl who doesn't know she's an heiress must be protected from fortune-hunters, and a criminal plans to destroy the world's fields of wheat to make it dependent on Germany's supply. I did not like the comments on "Germans are..." same way as I never like that kind of comments (exchange name and adjectives and at all ages people say things like that, as if people of the same Country were all the same, which is so wrong and unreal, come on) but of course this book dates 1919, so I guess the sentiment is understandable somehow.
There's Oliva (:-D) Cresswell, the young heiress: Mr Kitson is her secret guardian and Mr Beale the man he brought from America to London to protect her. While doing so, Beale discovers a much bigger scheme and threat than a simple fortune-hunter. Doctor Van Heerden had killed old Milliborn to learn the heiress secret identity, and had set himself to pursue her, marry her and get legally access to all her fortune in order to finance his criminal plan. He's German and he hates England and America and he has employed all his resources to ruin them, as well as the rest of the world. He is preparing big quantity of this "green rust", that once released on a wheat field it will spread and destroy it all for ten years, so the world will face starvation and will be forced to buy from Germany at whatever price. Beale prevents Van Heerden from marrying Oliva by marrying her first, then he prevents the disaster by catching him before he's had a chance to communicate with his men around the world, to order them to start the destruction. Jolly good, but what's not clear to me is why he was producing green rust here (well, in London) if his 'agents' around the globe already had it, and if they did not have it, how did  he send so much abroad, while he was being watched, and had planned to use pidgeons to send his orders?
Conclusion, not a bad book, it is a pleasant enough read, alright, although not one of his best.


ITA la ruggine verde

Big time operator by Jay Richards

A very short story, only five pages, but nice. From Dave's point of view. He's about to have his cousin Eddie killed. Dave is a gang boss, and Eddie dared bother his woman Karen, so she called two killer from outside: Dave is now waiting for Eddie, then he'll point him to the killers and they'll shoot him dead, but things don't go as 'he' had planned. When Eddie arrives, the killers join him and they follow Dave! Betrayal! Karen and Eddie together had planned to kill him! He runs, but can't find anywhere to hide (how nice that a gang boss would not try to hide among the crowd to avoid putting them in danger...) until he sees a phone box. He thinks 'I'll call the police, for once' but he's a man who always wanted to be great and hated coins, stuff for poor people, he never kept coins, he never took the change when he bought something, he even hated touching the coins, so now he can't make his call. He has lots of dollar bills in his pockets that are perfectly useless. The three men reach him and shoot him and he dies holding the useless bills in his hands...


ITA in grande stile

The scarlet box by Patrick Quentin

Not bad, 58 pages in my book, pretty simple story but pleasant to read. Set in Rome, it's the story of an American painter, Robert Miller, who finds himself involved in a murder case. He meets young American Emily Layden and takes her to meet famous director Andy Prussing. They know each other and he leaves them alone but when he comes back Andy's dead, murdered. He finds there Gabriella Celano, an Italian princess (oh my) but he believes her innocence and explanation and lets her go with a scarlet box containing her love letters to Andy. Robert doesn't tell the Italian police of either Gabriella or Emily, but eventually Emily's name comes out and Robert is determined to save her because he's in love with her already. He speaks to Gabriella's father, to her fiancée, to Betsy the famous actress who had a relationship with Andy, and with Kate, Andy's secretary. Thanks to a secret compartment in the box he finds out Andy was blackmailing Betsy, but when he finds Andy's letter to her hidden in his painting he discovers that the idea was Kate's, and she killed him because he was now in love with Betsy and wanted to come clean. Robert confronts Kate but she has a gun. Betsy helps him quick, and they stop Kate and call the police. Emily is now free and the two of them are happily in love, in Rome :-) happy ending :-)
See, a simple little story, but it was nice.



ITA la scatola scarlatta

Gone tomorrow by Lee Child

One of the books about Jack Reacher; not my kind of thing, I must say, not bad but sort of boring: too much following his random thoughts and too much description of New York streets, and much less action than I thought. The story is written in the first person, from Jack's point of view. It is interesting, because you learn a piece of it after another along with him, until the whole thing is (more or less) clear. It starts with Reacher on a train, noticing a woman. She has all the 'twelve signs' of a female suicide bomber, and Reacher approaches her, but she has no bomb, only a gun that she uses to kill herself in front of him. He is obviously approached by NYPD, but also by some federals who refuse to identify themselves and by some other men working for a mysterious figure he doesn't yet know. They are all interested in Susan Mark, the dead woman, and in what she might have told or given him before her death. So many questions and mysteries keep him interested and he keeps investigating. The men were sent by Lila Hoth. She pretends to be a victim, with her mother Svetlana, but actually she's a psycopath and a terrorist, they both are. They had kidnapped Susan's son, and had her steal a picture from the Government. A national security secret. I can't talk about this book without revealing everything at once. So:
an ex military officer now running for senator is involved. It's a picture of him with Bin Laden during a secret mission, in Reagan's time. Reacher thinks the woman want the picture because it might be a problem to them more than it might damage Sansom's career or the US Government, but we're never told what details were in that picture, so neither Reacher or us will ever know this.
Anyway, Susan was bringing them the picture, but she got stuck in traffic for hours and couldn't meet  the deadline, so the Hoth women (probably, this is all Reacher's reconstruction of what happened) sent her proof that her son Peter had been killed (and in a horrible way). Desperate but unable to do anything, still stuck on the road, she slowly thought of vengeance. She had a gun, she prepared herself for a sort of suicide mission, because she had no chance of coming out of there alive. The Hoth women had twenty men with them: 22 against 1. But maybe she could have been able to kill Lila if Reacher had not approached her that night.
Reacher has a bit of help from a cop, Theresa Lee (who of course will sleep with him, as usual there can be no story with a man and a woman without sex, how boring) and also from Sansom and his loyal man and ex military Springfield. Reacher is determined to take them out personally and by himself, so he goes alone. After all the men are neutralized or killed, Reacher has the last fight with the two women assassins. They all have knives. Reacher kills old Svetlana first, then Lila gives him a bad wound, cutting him in the stomach, then he kills her. Of course.
He has other books to fill, he can't die like this, right?
The end. Reacher is helped by Springfield and Lee and brought to a hospital. He gives Sansom indication of where he would find the picture-file, then he thinks back and regrets his approaching Susan. She would have died anyway, but maybe if she had killed Lila she would have died happy (well, less desperate because glad of having avenged Peter's murder). It ends with Lee telling him that "apparently" the file was destroyed; of course that's politics, no chance he could really see it; he spends some time thinking about it, about the reason the Hoths wanted it so much, but after a month, bored and tired of making conjectures he forgets the whole thing and moves on.
Personally I found it rather boring, this book had so many pages not because there were lots of things to say but because he showed us every corner of every street and even informed us on the color of his shirts anytime he buys a new one. Still, it wasn't bad, just boring.
I liked Springfield, though.



ITA i dodici segni

Open season on cops by Michael Avallone

Nice, a short story of no more than thirty pages that would have made a nice episode up until the 80s, maybe 90s.  A cop, Joe Kling, is dead, killed by robbers. his son Tony is determined to find them, so he investigates by himself and finds all the information he needs: young members of a gang. With the help of Joe's friend, p.i. Eddy Noon, and the police, they catch the gang members. One of them tries to run away, Noon follows and stops him in time before he kills another agent. Seeing him from behind, Eddy shouts "Tony! No!" and maybe the readers will have thought "is that why Joe didn't shoot, because he saw his own son?" But no, Tony found them, Tony is already a policeman at heart, but yes, Joe didn't shoot immediately because for a moment he saw a teenager of the same age, built and height of his son...


ITA una gara è aperta

She'll hate me tomorrow by Richard Deming

Not bad, I liked it enough. I don't understand the title though, its connection to the story. This is not a mystery, there's nothing to investigate and the police have but a very, very small role in it. It starts with a secretary, Stella. She works for lawyer Vegas, in Chicago. Dangerous criminal Whitey Cord is, or was, his client. The two of them have a fight, and Vegas knows that his life is in danger. He has Stella write a letter that would put Cord in jail if the police had it, but he doesn't send it. He puts it in his safe, and tells her to send it if he were to be killed. Pretty silly move, I'd say, lawyers should be more intelligent than to keep it in their own office. That same night someone breaks into the office and steals the letter. After that, Vegas and two men that he mentioned in the letter as present the night that Cord killed another man who was about to testify against him are killed. After Stella learns what happens, she understands she's now in danger. She knows everything because she wrote the letter! So she runs away before they can get to her. She takes the first bus, going to St. Stephen, a 12-hour journey, so it's not so strange that they thought of looking for her there..
She doesn't trust the police to protect her, so she goes away saying nothing to anyone (she has no family or friends). Once there, she looks for a job and finds one. Sam Black runs a night club and young, attractive Clancy Ross hires her for the club upstairs (a gambling place). It doesn't take long for them to find her; she's ready to leave but Ross won't let her go. He wants to show that nobody can even harm his employees  and get away with it, so he protects her, but by doing so he attracts troubles upon himself. He starts a war with local gangster Bix Lawson, who has been ordered by dangerous Cord to get the girl. Ross replies to every move: you blow up my place, I blow up three of yours. You send killers to shoot me, I send your men to the bottom of a pond, forever. Stuff like that.
Last try, knowing that Cord has sent his woman to get him into a trap, he goes prepared and manages to kill Whitey Cord and his two killers. At that point, the war with Lawson can end, and everything goes back as it was before. Plus, he has Stella.
Now, the title could be related to the fact that he sleeps with Stella but has no trouble in doing so with other women, not caring if she knows, at least at first, but it has very little to do with the story itself.


ITA e... dopo?

Temptress by Hal Ellson

A nice, very short story (eight pages) but very obvious indeed, nowadays. Of course that's to be expected, crime stories hardly keep with the time, specially after the huge amount of books/series/movies on the subject. This is nicely written but not at all a surprise. John promised his wife to quit drinking, but he hasn't. When his wife goes out shopping, a girl rings the doorbell. She goes door-to-door to do market research or something like that. He is very keen on not wanting to open the door, but she (Betty) rings insistently so he opens but he resists for a couple of times and does his best not to let her in, until one day he fails himself and invites her in.
It doesn't take long and he jumps on her, at first trying to rape her, then to strangle her when she resists. Luckily the police come. She's a cop herself, and he is accused of having murdered a girl that had tried to sell door-to-door like Betty. He remembers her, and says so, adding "that's why I wanted to prevent Betty from coming in..."
A psychological crime story, well written. Of course he's arrested.


ITA tentazione

In the three-ring circus by Brett Halliday

Nice but very simple and short: 36 pages. It's well written, well enough at least, but it's so short that as the investigation starts, it's already finished. Mike Shayne is a private investigator and he accepts a curious case: a circus might be under sabotage. Jolly the clown and Thumbo the dwarf own the circus, and Thumbo is sure that someone is trying to sabotage it. Shayne investigates. A lot of little accidents without serious consequences, until the old lion breaks loose and Thumbo almost has a heart attack. He has a weak heart, and this gives Shayne the idea that not the circus but Thumbo himself might be the intended victim. If Thumbo died, Jolly would be the only owner of the circus. Mike finds easily the proof he needs, and he can arrest Jolly and his accomplice, a girl who had written him love letters and would have liked to share with him the ownership. Thumbo is heartbroken but alive. That's it, nothing more. I found it in a collection of crime-stories, the only possible place for it.


ITA il circo a tre piste

Wasted effort by Belton Cobb

A very short story, no more than five pages, in which the bad guy wins. It wasn't bad, although I prefer stories where the bastards get what they deserve. Here we have Robert forced to call the police when he finds a dead body in his garden. It's of a man who was in love with Mary, Robert's wife, but she refused him and he committed suicide. When the police ask about Mary, Robert shows a letter that he himself wrote. The police believes that she left him and went away, nobody knows where but Robert. She's in the garden, six feet under...

ITA la lettera

Parking lot by R.C. Stimers jr

A very short story, no more than six pages. A man thinks he committed the perfect murder, but is immediately found out because he left his car in the parking lot all night, instead of going home as he told the police, so there's no trace of rain under his car. Probably a good enough switch at the time but nowadays quite common.  It could have been a good start of a Columbo episode, but nothing more.


ITA parcheggio

The casino murder case by SS Van Dine

Another Philo Vance book; not bad, the plot was a bit more interesting than 'the dragon murder case'  but here there was no character that touched my heart. My curiosity on Van Dine was satisfied, though, in a few lines where I could learn that Van Dine and Vance were at University together and great friends too, so Van happily left his job in his father's firm (Van Dine, Davis and Van Dine) to go working for Vance, as a sort of secretary-lawyer-accountant..
The plot is..well, I must start from the end and explain everything right away, or it'll take me pages. So, rich Lynn Llewellyn lives with his wife Virginia, his mother and sister, his uncle Kincaid who owns the casino. The facts are: Vance is involved from the start because of a letter warning him that something will happen. During a night at Kincaid's casino Lynn feels sick and is brought to the hospital, because he's been poisoned. That same night his wife dies, poisoned. Shortly after, his sister is poisoned too, but like Lynn she gets well rather quickly. Every step seem to point at Kincaid, but Vance knows from the start that he's being framed, because of the letter. The final showdown shows Lynn threatening Vance, Van Dine and Markham with a gun, confessing everything. Honestly I wasn't all that surprised: when a wife dies, first thing to do in an investigation is: suspect the husband! He put poison in his wife's eyedrops, but he used something different and less dangerous to poison himself. At the end he wanted to shoot them inside Kincaid's casino, because he wanted Kincaid arrested for murder. Vance had sergeant Heath record the confession, and Kincaid's himself came to help, previously called by Vance. Honestly Markham doesn't seem all that much to me: brave and strong, yes, but not intelligent at all, always hasty in accepting the simple (and wrong) solution that is presented to him, and always impatient. I like more sergeant Heath. What surprises me every time is that Vance does everything: the interrogations, the investigation, he gives orders to everyone and they all obey him, and Markham does nothing but follow him waiting impatiently for his solution of the case. Pretty useless I'd say.

The dragon murder case by SS Van Dine

This book is quite old, 1933, but I liked it and it didn't 'feel' old. There is no action in this book, but I didn't miss it. There are good characters and a good ending, and that I liked a lot. It's not easy to write a good ending, so often a bad ending has ruined an otherwise decent book or movie, and the ending is the most important thing! How it ends is much more important to me than how it starts, and this book was at times a bit boring (due mostly to its age and all the 'sergeant, call the butler and tell him to call Miss Stamm' things, and also to the descriptions of the locations and murder scene, very detailed to give us readers all the information we need, but totally wasted on me because I couldn't picture it in my head at all), but at the very end I closed it satisfied, with the feeling of having read a good book, and that is a good ending's clever trick.
It starts slowly, without a clear crime as such. Sergeant Heath received a call from Mr Leland, and he involved D.A. Markham (I think that's the right title, but I'm not 100% sure because unfortunately I didn't have this in English) and Philo Vance (and therefore Vance's friend Van Dine, the man that writes his stories :-D). Once on site they learn all the facts. At Mr Stamm's house there are various guests, along with his sister Bernice Stamm and their old, crazy mother. One of the guests, Montague, went to swim in the lake and never came out, so Mr Leland called the police, insisting for an investigation. All the guests, Leland included, had reasons to dislike Montague, but Markham is deeply annoyed because there's no proof of any crime yet. They keep investigating because Vance is very much interested in the mystery and sure enough Montague's body is eventually found, rather distant from the lake and not drowned but clearly murdered, and soon enough another guest will have the same fate. The title is due to a legend that puts a dragon in that lake, and the old woman believing the dragon protects her family against its enemies. Basically the book consists of Vance interrogating everyone then going to personally watch the 'crime scene' then coming back to interrogate some more , and so on, back and forth. It moves on very slowly, and yet the characters are well written, I could 'feel' their character and I really liked Leland, so quiet, intelligent, but with a beating heart.. :-)
He could not be the murderer, it would have been absurd, but since I liked him I feared for him, but luckily the explanation makes sense. On with the spoilers on the ending!
The murderer was Mr Stamm himself, using his diving suit and experience, and both Leland and Bernice had known it, but could not say it. All the time Leland had been torn in two between his love for Bernice and his sense of duty in front of a murder. He had decided to call the police out of duty without expressing his suspicions, hoping they would find out by themselves. Near the end, after Vance had discovered everything, Stamm died in an accident, which made things easier for everyone. The book ends with Vance fully explaining the events, plus a note or two on what happened next: Leland married Bernice and Stamm's butler, who shared his passion for exotic and rare fish, went working in a tropical fish shop :-) I found all this quite nice, because it's sweet that he didn't forget about the characters involved, like so often happens :-)

ITA il mistero del drago

Has anyone here seen Kelly? by Bryce Walton

A very short story taken from a 1954 science-fiction magazine. A very strange one, but interesting in a way. It speaks of a group of people on a spaceship, not exactly knowing what they were looking for or where they were headed, just that "they had come into space because that was how it was with those who fought their way up to being the dominate life form of whatever world they had lived on and grown and died on. If you were the kind who went into space, you went because space was there. Who needed a better reason than that?".
Aboard this ship there are: Kelly, human, and four aliens: Kew, Lakrit, Lijub, and Urdaz. They all got along quite well, but they were very different life-forms and the journey was extremely long, so they worked out a way of survival. Their bodies hibernated in the bunkroom could last longer, their consciousness merged in a "big glob of protoplasm in the tank". This way they could easily communicate and relate: being part of the Crew was actually very "comforting and cozy" and they had lived like that for fifty years now, but Kelly couldn't be satisfied by that only. He was the ship's engineer, he ought to take care of the ship, not vice-versa, and he also feared the danger of apathy; they felt so comfortable that had no interest in getting out and into their bodies again, so Kelly had a plan. He returned to his body and set a manual course towards a planet. There's nothing there, but he's not really interested in the planet itself. His plan is to crash the ship, to damage it enough to force the Crew to return to their alien bodies in order to repair it, a they once used to do. His plan goes awry when the ship crashes and the impact is so strong it destroys it. Kelly is desperate: the planet is dead, there's no life anywhere nor there can be, and his friends are now all dead. He wanders a bit, so he's not inside when the ship explodes destroying every food and record in it. Nobody would ever know, now. When the wind brought him the Crew's voices "has anybody here seen Kelly?" he thinks he's going mad and hearing their voices in his head, but then the voices reply to him, saying they didn't die in the crash or in the explosion. They are alive and waiting for him. I liked this bizarre revelation: "there was a kind of dull glow in it, a faint hint of warmth in the rock" - "this is the life here, Kelly. Perhaps there is life everywhere in the most impossible seeming places [...] Here, this rock is life, and it has taken us in, it has been here a long time. And it will be here for a much longer time" They have forgiven him for what he's done, he was trying to do the right thing, and they want him back, so Kelly joins them again. Perhaps one day someone will come here and find the rocks and find the Crew...
A very bizarre story but nice. Its shortness was a good thing: no time wasted with boring details, it'd have ruined it.