Craig Rice (author)

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Craig Rice (pseudonym of Georgiana Ann Randolph Walker Craig; 1908–1957) was an American author of mystery novels and short stories, sometimes described as "the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction." She was the first mystery writer to appear on the cover of Time Magazine, on January 24, 1946.

Craig Rice "apparently spent her early life working in (Chicago) on radio and in public relations. For a number of years she tried unsuccessfully to write novels, poetry and music, but it was not until her first story of John J. Malone, which she published under her pen name of Craig Rice, that she enjoyed some hard-won success."^[1]

Gritty but humorous, Rice's stories uniquely combine the hardboiled detective tradition with no-holds-barred, screwball comedy. Most of her output features a memorable trio of protagonists: Jake Justus, a handsome but none too bright press agent with his heart in the right place; Helene Brand, a rich heiress and hard-drinking party animal par excellence (to become Mrs. Justus in the later novels); and John Joseph Malone, a hard-drinking, small-time lawyer (though both his cryptic conversation and sartorial habits are more reminiscent of such official or private gumshoes as lieutenant Columbo). Against the odds and often apparently more by luck than skill, these three manage to solve crimes whose details are often burlesque and surreal, sometimes to the point of grand guignol, and all involving the perpetually exasperated Captain Daniel Von Flanagan of the Homicide Squad. A few stories feature the team of Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kusak, small-time grifters who become involved in criminal situations and have to dig themselves free by solving the mystery.

Craig Rice also ghostwrote for a number of celebrities, including Gypsy Rose Lee and George Sanders. Her association with Sanders came about as a result of her work on the screenplays of two of The Falcon movies, The Falcon's Brother (1942, Sanders's final outing as The Falcon) and The Falcon in Danger (1943, when Sanders's brother had taken over the role). She collaborated with fellow mystery writer Stuart Palmer on screenplays and short stories and with Ed McBain on a novel for which she furnished the principal characters.

She had three children, two daughters and a son. "Craig Rice kept her private life very much to herself and little is known about the rest of her life -- including how many times she was married. Records indicate she was certainly wed four times, and may even have had two other husbands."^[1] One of her husbands was beat poet Lawrence Lipton. A reader of her 1944 novel Home Sweet Homicide might be excused for believing that it was based on her experiences with her own children; the children solve a mystery while their mother, oblivious to their antics and everything else around her, tries to finish writing a mystery novel. The novel is told from the children's point of view.

Emulating the wild lifestyle of her characters, Rice developed chronic alcoholism and made several suicide attempts. She also suffered from deteriorating health, including deafness in one ear and blindness in one eye with incipient glaucoma in the other. She died of apparently natural causes shortly before her fiftieth birthday.

Contents 1 Novels 2 Film, radio and television adaptations 2.1 Films 2.2 Radio 2.3 Television 3 References

[edit] Novels

All novels feature John J. Malone and Jake and Helene Justus unless otherwise noted.

• Eight Faces at Three (1939) "John J. Malone, rumpled Chicago lawyer, teams up with press agent Jake Justus and eccentric heiress Helene Brand, to discover who killed a vicious dowager and why the murderer then made up the beds in the victim's house and stopped the clocks at 3:00."^[2]
• The Corpse Steps Out (1940)
• The Wrong Murder (1940)
• The Right Murder (1941)
• The G-String Murders (1941; possibly ghostwritten for Gypsy Rose Lee, though there is some dispute) (featuring Gypsy Rose Lee)
• Trial by Fury (1941)
• The Sunday Pigeon Murders (1942; Bingo and Handsome)
• Mother Finds a Body (1942; ghostwritten for Gypsy Rose Lee) (featuring Gypsy Rose Lee)
• The Big Midget Murders (1942)
• Telefair (1942; non-series)
• Having Wonderful Crime (1943)
• The Thursday Turkey Murders (1942; Bingo and Handsome)
• Home Sweet Homicide (1944; non-series)
• Crime on My Hands (1944; ghostwritten for George Sanders)
• Lucky Stiff (1945)
• The Fourth Postman (1948)
• Innocent Bystander (1949; non-series)
• My Kingdom for a Hearse (1957)
• Knocked for a Loop (1957; all publication from this point on is posthumous)
• The April Robin Murders (1958, principally credited to Ed McBain and featuring Bingo and Handsome)
• The Name is Malone (1958; short stories)
• The People vs. Withers and Malone (1963; short stories; completed by Stuart Palmer and featuring his Hildegarde Withers character)
• But the Doctor Died (1967)
• Murder, Mystery and Malone (2002)

• The Pickled Poodles (1960, by Larry M. Harris) is a continuation of the John J. Malone series.

[edit] Film, radio and television adaptations

[edit] Films

• The Falcon's Brother (1942, original screenplay)^[3]
• The Falcon in Danger (1943, screenplay)^[4]
• Having Wonderful Crime (1945) Pat O'Brien as Michael J. Malone, George Murphy as Jake Justus, Carole Landis as Helene Justus, loosely based on the novel^[5]
• Home Sweet Homicide (1946) Peggy Ann Garner, Dean Stockwell and Connie Marshall as the mystery-solving kids; Lynn Bari as their mystery-writing mother, and Randolph Scott as the homicide detective whom they introduce as a romantic interest for their mother.^[6]
• Tenth Avenue Angel (1948) Margaret O'Brien and Angela Lansbury in a "weeper" based on a radio sketch by Rice entitled Miracle at Midnight.^[7]
• The Lucky Stiff (1949) Brian Donlevy as John J. Malone, Dorothy Lamour as Anna Marie St. Claire, the nightclub singer, and Robert Armstrong as Inspector Von Flanagan, loosely based on the novel^[8]
• The Underworld Story (1950) Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall and Gale Storm in a film noir story from Rice's original story.^[9]
• Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950) based on a story by Rice and Stuart Palmer, Once Upon A Train, or The Loco Motive. Featuring James Whitmore as John J. Malone and Marjorie Main as Hattie O'Malley in a comedic story of murder on board a train to Chicago.^[10]
• The Eddie Cantor Story (1953) -- treatment only.^[11]

[edit] Radio

The Amazing Mr. Malone (aka Murder and Mr. Malone) 30 minute episodes, 1948 (ABC), 1951 (NBC). John J. Malone was played principally by Eugene Raymond and also Frank Lovejoy and George Petrie.

[edit] Television

The Amazing Mr. Malone (1951-1952) 13 30-minute episodes starring Lee Tracy as John J. Malone

"Although The Amazing Mr. Malone ran for only one season on ABC from September 1951 to March 1952 it is fondly remembered by older viewers as the first crime series to feature a wise-cracking relationship between a Chicago lawyer and a police Captain ... which had originated in print, transferred successfully to the cinema, and then made it to TV -- though not with the success it had enjoyed in the other two media. ... All in all, The Amazing Mr. Malone deserved a better fate than the one to which it was condemned by poor ratings.^[1]

[edit] References