|
Harry Martineau
Harry Martineau is a fictional British police detective created by Maurice Procter. He is a Chief Inspector in the industrial Northern city of Granchester, which was inspired by Manchester. Procter, himself a former police officer, wrote fourteen novels in the series published between 1954 and 1968. Martineau has been described as a transitional figure in detective fiction standing between the Golden Age detectives such as Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn and Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant and the newer fashion for police procedurals. Novels * ''Hell Is a City'' (1954) * '' The Midnight Plumber'' (1957) * ''Man in Ambush'' (1958) * ''Killer At Large'' (1959) * ''Devil's Due'' (1960) * ''The Devil Was Handsome'' (1961) * ''A Body to Spare'' (1962) * ''Moonlight Flitting'' (1963) * ''Two Men in Twenty'' (1964) * ''Death Has a Shadow'' (1965) * ''His Weight in Gold'' (1966) * ''Rogue Running'' (1966) * ''Exercise Hoodwink'' (1967) * ''Hideaway'' (1968) Film adaptation In 1960 the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hell Is A City (novel)
''Hell Is a City'' is a 1954 crime novel by the British writer Maurice Procter. It was the first in a series featuring Chief Inspector Harry Martineau, set in the Northern industrial city of Granchester. It takes the form of a police procedural, and marked a transition away from the traditional Golden Age detective novel. Published by Hutchinson, it was released in the United States by Harper the same year under the alternative title ''Somewhere in This City''. Film version In 1960 the novel was adapted into a British film of the same title directed by Val Guest and starring Stanley Baker, John Crawford and Donald Pleasence Donald Henry Pleasence (; 5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career, where he played numerous supporting and character roles including RAF ....Goble p.376 References Bibliography * Dove, George N. ''The Police Procedural''. Popular Press, 1982. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roderick Alleyn
Roderick Alleyn (pronounced "Allen") is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, although the last Alleyn novel, ''Light Thickens'', was published in 1982. Marsh mentions in an introduction that she named her detective Alleyn after the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, where her father had been a pupil. She started a novel with Alleyn in 1931, after reading a detective story by Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers on a wet Saturday afternoon in London and wondering if she could write something in the genre. So she bought six exercise books and a pencil at a local stationer and started ''A Man Lay Dead'', involving a Murder Game, which was then popular at English weekend parties. Background and early life Roderick Alleyn (pronounced 'Allen', and known as Rory to friends) is a gentleman dete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Characters Introduced In 1954
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Location Shooting
Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for example, scenes in the film ''The Interpreter'' were set and shot inside the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan), or it may stand in for a different locale (the films ''Amadeus'' and '' The Illusionist'' were primarily set in Vienna, but were filmed in Prague). Most films feature a combination of location and studio shoots; often, interior scenes will be shot on a soundstage while exterior scenes will be shot on location. Second unit photography is not generally considered a location shoot. Before filming, the locations are generally surveyed in pre-production, a process known as location scouting and recce. Pros and cons Location shooting has several advantages over filming on a studio set. First and foremost, the expense can often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val Guest
Val Guest (born Valmond Maurice Grossman; 11 December 1911 – 10 May 2006) was an English film director and screenwriter. Beginning as a writer (and later director) of comedy films, he is best known for his work for Hammer, for whom he directed 14 films, and science fiction films. He enjoyed a long career in the film industry from the early 1930s until the early 1980s. Reprinted from ''Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors'' Early life and career Guest was born to John Simon Grossman and Julia Ann Gladys Emanuel in Maida Vale, London. He later changed his name to Val Guest (officially in 1939). His father was a jute broker, and the family spent some of Guest's childhood in India before returning to England. His parents divorced when he was young, but this information was kept from him. Instead he was told that his mother had died. He was educated at Seaford College in Sussex, but left in 1927 and worked for a time as a bookkeeper. Guest's initial career was as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hell Is A City
''Hell Is a City'' is a 1960 British crime thriller film based on the 1954 novel of the same title by Maurice Procter. Written and directed by Val Guest, it was made by British studio Hammer Film Productions and filmed in Manchester. It was partly inspired by the British New Wave films and resembles American Film Noir. Plot Committed but seen-it-all police inspector Martineau rightly guesses that after a violent jailbreak a local criminal will head home to Manchester to pick up the spoils from his last job. Martineau is soon investigating a murder during a street robbery which seems to lead back to the same villain. Concentrating on the case and using his local contacts to try to track the gang down, he is aware he is not keeping his own personal life together as well as he might. Cast * Stanley Baker as Inspector Harry Martineau * John Crawford as Don Starling * Donald Pleasence as Gus Hawkins * Maxine Audley as Julia Martineau * Billie Whitelaw as Chloe Hawkins * Joseph T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man In Ambush
''Man in Ambush'' is a 1958 crime novel by the British writer Maurice Procter. It is the third in his series featuring Chief Inspector Harry Martineau, set in the Northern industrial city of Granchester. It takes the form of a police procedural. Published by Hutchinson, it was released in the United States by Harper & Row the following year.Vicarel p.218 Synopsis Martineau sets out to try and hunt down the killer of his colleague Inspector Robert McQuade. However he soon faces attempts on his own life and a scheme to frame him for taking bribe Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corru ...s. References Bibliography * Dove, George N. ''The Police Procedural''. Popular Press, 1982. * Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford Universit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Midnight Plumber
''The Midnight Plumber'' is a 1957 crime novel by the British writer Maurice Procter. It is the second in his series featuring Chief Inspector Harry Martineau, set in the Northern industrial city of Granchester. It was published in the United States by Harper the following year.Vicarel p.218 Synopsis The city is being targeted by a series of burglaries Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ... committed by an organised gang led by an anonymous man known only as "The Plumber". They inspire such terror that Martineau finds it nearly impossible to gather any information about their activities. References Bibliography * Dove, George N. ''The Police Procedural''. Popular Press, 1982. * Herbert, Rosemary. ''Whodunit?: A Who's Who in Crime & Mystery Writing''. Oxford University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Police Procedurals
The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on either a private detective, an amateur investigator or the characters who are the targets of investigations. While many police procedurals conceal the criminal's identity until the crime is solved in the narrative climax (the so-called whodunit), others reveal the perpetrator's identity to the audience early in the narrative, making it an inverted detective story. Whatever the plot style, the defining element of a police procedural is the attempt to accurately depict the profession of law enforcement, including such police-related topics as forensic science, autopsies, gathering evidence, search warrants, interrogation and adherence to legal restrictions and procedure. Early history The roots of the police procedural have been traced to at le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author. Her novel ''The Daughter of Time'' was a detective work investigating the role of Richard III of England in the death of the Princes in the Tower, and named as the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association. Her first play ''Richard of Bordeaux'', written under another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, starred John Gielgud in its successful West End run. Life and work MacKintosh was born in Inverness, the oldest of three daughters of Colin MacKintosh, a fruiterer, and Josephine (''née'' Horne). She attended Inverness Royal Academy and then, in 1914, Anstey Physical Training College in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham. She taught physical training at various schools in England and Scotland and during her vacations worked at a convalescent home in Inverness as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. A youthful romance ended with her soldier friend's deat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ngaio Marsh
Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh (; 23 April 1895 – 18 February 1982) was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. As a crime writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Marsh is known as one of the "Queens of Crime", along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham. She is known primarily for her character Inspector Roderick Alleyn, a gentleman detective who works for the Metropolitan Police (London). The Ngaio Marsh Award is awarded annually for the best New Zealand mystery, crime and thriller fiction writing. Youth Marsh was born in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where she also died. In the Introduction to ''The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh'', Douglas G. Greene writes: "Marsh explained to an interviewer... that in New Zealand European children often receive native names, and Ngaio... can mean either 'light on the water' or 'little tree bug' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Procter
Maurice Procter (4 February 1906 – 28 April 1973) was an English novelist. He was born in Nelson, Lancashire, England. Early life Maurice Procter was born in Nelson, Lancashire, on 4 February 1906. His parents were Rose Hannah and William Procter, a weaver, who had two other sons, named Edward, nicknamed Ned, and Emmot. The family lived in Charles Street, Edward and Maurice attended Nelson Grammar School before running away to join the army at age 15. He had lied about his age so his parents tried to secure his release from the army, but even with the support of their local MP they were unsuccessful. After the army Maurice worked briefly as a weaver in a Lancashire cotton mill. In 1927 Maurice joined the police as a constable in Halifax, Yorkshire. At that time a policeman was not allowed to serve in his home town, and he was based at King Cross police station in Halifax, and initially lodged at the station. Later he lodged at 24 Cromwell Street, Halifax with electrician A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
