classics of detective fiction - carleton.ca · eric ambler june 1909, born ... ambler’s wife joan...
TRANSCRIPT
CLASSICS OF
DETECTIVE FICTION
Week 1: John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps
Week 3: Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana
Week 4: Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger
Week 5: John Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Week 6: Joseph Finder, Charles McCarry, “End of the
String” and “Neighbors”
OVERVIEW OF EPITAPH
Overview Dark Frontier (1936) parodies British thriller
Epitaph for a Spy (1938) resets country-house mystery
on French Riveria with a spy plot
Viewpoint 1st person point of view = fear, ineptitude and
selfishness
Form Character study -> social types/deceit
Spying as a game -> games within games
Country-house mystery -> discover who did it within a
certain time
CONTEXT: WWII SPIES
Allied spies:
Virginia Hall
Agent Garbo
Soviet spies:
Cambridge 5 Philby
Burgess
Maclean
Cairncross
Blunt
MORALITY/ETHICS OF SPYING
Business is never be purely neutral
Pharmacist who develops film, tells
police
A job is not just a job -> morality and ethics
are involved
Vadassy deciding whether to save
himself at expense of
Schmiler/Heinberger
P. 160 – It was my liberty or someone elses
ERIC AMBLER
June 1909, Born in London
1920s, Engineering student;
advertising copywriter
1930s, Moves to Paris; marries
Louise Crombie
1936, Publishes The Dark Frontier
1938, Publishes Epitaph for a Spy
1939 Publishes, A Coffin for
Dimitrios
ERIC AMBLER
1940, Publishes Journey into Fear
1941-44, Royal Artillery; assistant
director army films; earns Lt.
Colonel rank
1950s, Works in British/U.S.
films; moves to Hollywood
1958, Marries screenwriter/
producer Joan Harrison
ERIC AMBLER
1959, Publishes Passage of Arms
1960s, Works for TV/film 1969,
Moves to Switzerland
1972, Publishes The Levanter
1981, Publishes Care of Time
1985, Returns to England
1998, Dies
CRITICS/READERS
Peers: Praised for realism—psychological,
social, political
Spy thriller from melodrama to realism
Dirtiness, not glamour, of ordinary spying
Villains and heroes banal, shabby
Story material from travelling, talking to refugees
First to capture British subject’s cynicism with the
Empire’s society and politics
CRITICS/READERS
Questions: Still relevant post-Cold War?
Bad guys undercut by humour, ridiculous habits
Popular fiction said more about reality than high
literature
Depicts how business, government and crime work
closely together
‘Depicts death of Victorian ideals; new world of big
business, profit and violence replaces it
PLOT – KEY EVENTS
Assignment: Suspicious photos of military
installments; Vadassy threatened to find out
who the spy is
Quest pursuit/obstacles: Hotel guests could all be the
spy but who?
Inept spycraft by Vadassy – losing the camera
Accused of being a thief – distrusted by other guests
Not realizing it is Roux
Falsely accusing Schimler/Heinberger – putting him
at risk with the Vogels
PLOT – KEY EVENTS
Resolution: Roux leaves hotel with Vadassy
arrest as spy
Roux’s attempt to turn Vadassy into a real spy
Attempted capture, his death
His paymaster uncovered
No great heroism – fear, failure and starting back
at zero
Being forced by state to do things we don’t want
to do
Conclusion : Returning to “normal”
but alienated, lack of trust
GROUP ACTIVITY
Key secondary characters
Vogels – jolly Germans
Herr Heinberger/Schimler- secret Communist spy
Skeltons – young American cousins
M. Duclos – French factory owner
Clarendon-Hartleys
Questions: Who do I pretend to be? Who am I really?
Why am I lying? What will happen to me if I don’t lie?
JEOPARDY - SF ELEMENTS
Hero: Where is Joseph Vadassy from?
Average man-in-middle, unheroic, fearful;
misreads clues/own self (Vadassy)
Villain: What physical oddity does Roux
have?
Overly sensual/brutal behaviour
Shrewd observer, intelligent interrogator
“Realist” (materialistic) world view
SPY FICTION ELEMENTS
Helpers: What relationship do the Skelton’s pretend
to have?
Mean well (“genuine”) – Skeltons, Kӧche
Self-interested – Duclos, Vogels, Clarendon-Hartleys
Victims – Schimler, Vadassy
Chief: What does Beghin do in the heat?
Banal but dangerous
Shrewd, calculating.
Official power vs. the stateless citizen
SPY FICTION ELEMENTS
Technology/spycraft: What 3 nationalities does
Heinberger use?
Speak foreign languages; disguises; blackmail
Specialness of a camera - role of tech allows for
theft of intelligence
Abroad: What major French Riveria city is the
hotel close to?
England/America “safe” but Europe readying for
war
Vacation spot of Riveria is no escape from politics
Settings as key to glamour – being away from home
ISSUES & THEMES
Realism vs. fantasy:
Unheroic hero
Vadassy’s wild imagination
Respectable vs. criminal:
Everyone appears “proper”
BUT impropriety is widespread
-> self-interest as motive
ISSUES & THEMES
Providence vs. Chance vs. Choice:
What is meant to happen –
the will of the universe or human choice?
Camera taken by mistake – does the mix
up favour the spy?
Spy’s jump to freedom fails
Hero’s citizenship problem resolved
by cooperating (spying accusation saves)
ISSUES & THEMES
Average citizen:
What does loyalty/legal behaviour:
depend on - a certain amount of
pleasure?
What is freedom? The safety to move,
talk, meet moderate pleasures?
What is lost freedom? Searched/seized
property (identity cards), restricted
movement, social alienation
ISSUES & THEMES
Spy/criminal:
Self-guarantees freedom, self-defines
pleasure
Freedom of action via violence
Pleasure not “ordinary” but excessive,
desiring more than others
FILM
Ambler successful screenwriter:
Noir characters plus anti-hero
Exotic atmosphere
Frequent devices = re-construct identity
and/or dead coming alive → influences
Greene’s “The Third Man,” Welles’
“Citizen Kane”
FILM CONT.
Hitchcock’s uncertain heroes/spies
– who to trust? -> Notorious – hunting Nazis;
The lady vanishes (spies)
Suspicion who is the hero? Saboteur – man on run,
wrongly accused
Foreign Correspondant – looking for villain – but
under your nose – the girlfriend’s father
Ambler’s wife Joan Harrison, worked as screenwriter
for Hitchcock and then as as producer before marrying
Ambler; Ambler’s books influenced AH
FILM CONT.
“Topkapi” (1964) – based on Ambler’s Light of Day
Hiring Arthur Simpson – shmoh
Thriller-comedy, how the rejected of British society
become criminals or quasi-criminals
Dassin leaves US before 1950 b/c of Hollywood
blacklist, moves to France, directs and known for
noir films