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Stanley (Bernard) Ellin (1916-1986) |
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American mystery writer, one of the modern
masters of the genre. Stanley Ellin won three Edgar Allan Poe Awards and the
Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Grand Master Award for
lifetime achievement. Despite his critical acclaim as a novelist, Ellin
is best-known for his short stories, beginning with the 'The Specialty
of the House'
(1948). The story about a New York restaurant with a special treat for
gourmets, was an immediate sensation. It was later dramatized on the
television series 'Alfred Hitchcock
Presents' as many other Ellin's tales. The waiter did not stir an inch, but his voice rose slightly. "By the body and blood of your God, sair, I will help you even if you do not want! Do not go into the kitchen, sair. I trade you my life for yours, sair, when I speak this. Tonight or any night of your life, do not go into the kitchen at Sbirro's!" (The Specialty of the House', in Quiet Horror: A Collection of Mystery Stories by Stanley Ellin, with a special foreword by Ellery Queen, New York: Dell Publishing, 1959, p. 35) Stanley
Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up
and lived most of his life. Stanley was the only child of Louis Ellin
and Rose Mandel Ellin. In his childhood his father read him
Beatrix Potter's tale Peter Rabbit on
his demand over and over again. On the family bookshelves he discovered
the works of Mark Twain, Kipling, Poe, Stevenson, and Maupassant. He
wanted to be a writer very young. "I think that writing is an aptitude
of personality, the persona. I guess it is the question how I became
the person I am." ('Stanley Ellin,' in Conversations with Writers II, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978, p. 3) After studies at Brooklyn College, Ellin received his B.A. in 1936. Next year he married Jeanne Michael, an editor; they had one daughter. To support his family, Ellin abandoned his literary ambitions for a period and worked as a dairy farmer, "pusher" for a newspaper distributor, teacher, and steelworker. From 1944 to 1945 he served in the United States Army.
Encouraged by his wife, Ellin became a full-time
writer in 1946. Jeanne often did the first editing of his writing. 'The
Specialty of the House' won the Best First Story Award in
the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
contest of 1948. In the story Laffler, a gourmet, goes with his
assistant for a dinner at a exclusive restaurant. The kitchen is what
Laffler wants to see – which is a great mistake. Ellin received Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1954 from the Mystery
Writers of America for the short story 'The House Party', a suburban
story with an element of fantasy. Two years later he was awarded for
the short story 'The Blessington Method,' a comment on the social
rights of the elderly, and in 1958 for novel The Eight Circle,
which was an attempt at a long, serious novel about a modern private
detective Murray Kirk, who drives a Cadillac. The title was derived from Dante's Inferno, in which a circle of dark-colored stone is divided into ten individual pockets of punishment. Dante sees there barrators, sowers of discord, counterfeiters, misusers of public funds, and simoniac popes. When Kirk enters the eight circle, there is a surprise waiting for him and his client. The paperback cover of the Dell edition of The Eight Circle was painted by Robert McGinnis. Ellin left the chararter and concentrated on short stories. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Ellin's exploration of macho self-hatred and violence, won in 1975 Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. H.R.F. Keating selected it in 1987 for his list of the one hundred best crime novels. The murder mystery revolves round the hero's sexual background. "Ellin uses all the words, the words that are likely to offend and are generally labelled 'dirty', but held in place as they are in the web of the whole they are no longer 'dirty'. They are no longer words used for their titillating or shocking effect, as in so many cheaper crime novels, and cheaper novels of all sorts." ('Mystery Stories by Stanley Ellin (1956),' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1996, pp. 119-120 ) Ellin made his debut as a novelist with Dreadful Summit (1948), published
by Simon & Schuster. At that time the Ellins lived on the West Side
of New York, in the Chelsea section; he picked up an event from there
and developed it into a story. The novel deals with father-son
relationship, when a sixteen-year-old
boy obtains a gun and sets out to avenge his father's beating and
humiliation. The action is squeezed into twenty-four hours. Following
the tradition of John O'Hara, many of Ellin's stories have a surprise
ending or a twist in the plot, which have made them attractive to film
makers. Clive Donner's film Nothing but the Best (1964) was
based on Ellin's black comedy 'The Best of Everything' (Ellery
Queen's Mystery Magazine,
November 1952). Alan Bates is an ambitious clerk, Jimmy Brewster, who
marries his boss's daughter (Ann Horton), and kills his former helper
(Denholm Elliot) on his way to the top. In Joseph Losey's film Big Night, adapted from Ellin's Dreadful
Summit (1951),
the author served as a front for two blacklisted writers, Hugo
Butler and Ring Lardner Jr. Ellin never met Losey, who lived in California. Losey barely finished this film noir
melodrama before he left Hollywood. The third wave of Hollywood HUAC
hearings had began in 1951, and Losey had been named by two people. His
lawyer invited him to testify secretly. "I simply said 'I'll have to
think it over', and in three days I was on my way to Europe." However,
Losey and his second wife Louise were never actually subpoenaed. (Joseph Losey by Colin Gardner, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 9) Sunburn (1979),
directed by Richard C. Sarafian and starring Farah Fawcett, was very loosely based on the novel The Bind
(1970). Again the hero
appears to be a sharp, cold-blooded investigator of a murder, but has
also his
soft side. "All sun and skin and swirling cameras, this entire movie is
a seventies cliché, but it provides some fitful amusement." (Halliwell's Film Guide by Leslie Halliwell, London: Paladin, sixth edition 1988, p. 997) Often Ellin's short stories deal
with ethical problems, as in the 'Question'. The narrator is an
executioner or "electrocutioner," as he likes to be called. He
inherited the position of state's electrocutioner from his father. "Not
that this is my profession. Actually, it's a sideline, as it is for
most of us who perform executions. My real business is running an
electrical supply and repair shop just as my father did before me." ('The Question,' in The Speciality of the House: The Complete Mystery Tales, 1948-1978 by Stanley Ellin, London: Orion Books, 2002, p. 316) The
crime genre was for Ellin an inexhaustible source of themes and like
Roald Dahl, he aimed at perfection in all his works. "Ellis writes only
about one short story a year, working in a slow, painstaking way. After
mulling over an idea, sometimes for weeks, he laborously writes and
rewites each page, sometimes a dozen times, before he is satisfied." ('Ellin, Stanley (Bernard),' in Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976. p. 142) Mystery Stories(1956) included such pieces as 'The Cat's Paw,' 'Broker's Special,' and 'The Moment of Decision,' in which a dispute between neighbors leads to a fatal decision. "Ellin has written several excellet novels . . . but his talent shows at its finest in his short stories. . . . Ellin can be quite as ingenious as any Golden Age practitioner, but his ingenuity is turned to ends which produce the authentic shiver. The little final twist is a turn of the knife in the reader's sensibility." (Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History Julian Symons, New York: Viking, 1985, p. 158) In Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series (1955-1965) one
of the episodes from 1956, 'Help Wanted', was adapted from Ellin's
original story. During the years also 'The Specialty of the House',
'The Blessington Method' and 'The
Orderly World of Mr. Appleby', about an antique dealer, who do not want
to sell his precious items, were seen in the series. Broadcast first on
CBS, the programmes opened with a line drawing of Hitchcock's profile,
accompanied by the theme tune, Charles Gounod's Funeral March of
the Marionette.
Hitchcock's introductions were written by Jimmy Allardice. Ellin never
had a personal contact with Hitchcock, but he met Joan Harrison, the
producer of the series. She was married to the British thriller writer Eric Ambler. 'The Moment of Decision' was adapted to s sixty-minute television show on The U.S. Steel Hour (1961). Fred Astaire, famous for his singing and dancing roles, was the host and played the narrator of the story, the brother-in-law of Hugh Lozier, "the exception to the rule that people who are completely sure of themselves cannot be likable." 'The Blessington Method,'
Ellin's Edgar-winning short story, gave the title for his second book. After the third collection, Kindly Dig Your Grave
(1975), Ellin published in 1979 his complete mystery tales 1948-1978.
Ellin's last story was 'Unacceptable Procedures' (1985), which
questioned the morals of economic development. Stanley Ellin died of a heart attack on July 31, 1986, in Brooklyn. He was a member of Mystery Writers of America and its past president. Ellin's works were a long time out of print, until Foul Play Press reprinted two of his novels in 1996. The Luxemburg Run
(1977) told of identity changes of David Shaw, a young American man in
Europe. In Stronghold (1975)
Ellin explored his own religious background and portrayed a family of
nonviolent Quakers at the mercy of single-minded, murderous criminals.
The story is narrated from the point of view of Marcus Hayworth, a
leading member of a Quaker community in upstate New York, and the
psychotic James Flood, the town's troublemaker in his youth. Ellin and
his wife Jeanne were active members of Brooklyn
Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of. Friends (Quakers). In an
interview Ellis said that he based many of the characters of the novel
on people in Brooklyn Meeting. "But surprisingly enough, no one ever
recognized themselves." John Milano, Ellin's third PI character was introduced in Star Light, Star Bright (1979), in
which Milano tried to prevent the murder of a renowned mystic guru, who
begins to receive threatening letters. The second John Milano book, The Dark Fantastic
(1983), was rejected by Random House because of its insufficient
political correctness in dealing with racial problems and attitudes in
New York. For most of the readers it was clear, that the author did not
share the racist, hate-filled opinions of his character, Professor
Charles Witter Kirwan, who plans to blow up his one of his own
apartment buildings. Kirwan and Milano alternately narrate the story. House of Cards (1963) was a Hitchcockian psychological thriller with international intrigue. The film version of the book, starring George Peppard and Inger Stevens, was made in 1969. George Peppard played Reno Davis, a former American prizefighter, who lives in France. He has been trying to become a writer but takes a job as tutor of young Paul de Villemont, son of an aristocratic family. In the barred de Villemont mansion Reno becomes involved with Paul's beautiful, neurotic mother, Anne de Villemont (Inger Stevens). A fascist group with connections to the family plans a coup d'état, and pursues Anne and Reno throughout Europe. Orson Welles, in one of his most forgettable roles, was a menacing conspirator, named Leschenhaut. For further reading: 'Ellin, Stanley (Bernard),' in Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler (1976); 'Stanley Ellin,' in Conversations with Writers II, Gale Research Company (1978); Private Eyes: One Hundred And One Knights: A Survey Of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984 by Robert A. Baker and Michael T. Nietzel (1985); 'Ellin, Stanley (Bernard)' by Edward D. Hoch, in Twentieth Century Mystery and Crime Writers, edited by John M.Reilly (1985); 'Ellin, Stanley. The Specialty of the House and Other Stories. The Complete Mystery Tales, 1948-1978' by R.E.B. [Robert E. Briney], in 1001 Midnights: The Aficionados Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller (1986); 'Mystery Stories by Stanley Ellin (1956),' in Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books by H.R.F. Keating (1996); 'Ellin, Stanley (Bernard)' by Edward D. Hoch, in St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers, edited by Jay P. Pederson (1996); American Mystery and Detective Writers, edited by George Parker Anderson (2005); 'Stanley (Bernard) Ellin (1916-1986),' in American Short-story Writers since World War II: Fifth Series, edited by Richard E. Lee, Patrick Meanor (2007) - Novellisuomennoksia: 'Oma pieni paratiisi' (A Corner of Paradise) teoksessa Seitsemän kuolemansyntiä, toim. Kari Lindgren (1985), 'Talon erikoinen' (The Specialty of the House) valikoimassa Top Crime: Jännityksen valiot (1984), 'Palkanmaksu' (The Payoff) sarjassa Maailman parhaat jännärit 5 (1971), 'Herra Applebyn seitsemäs vaimo' (The Orderly World of Mr Appleby) valikoimassa Jännityskertomuksia läheltä ja kaukaa, toim. Pauli Kopperi (1963), 'Kiusallinen kysymys' julkaisussa Ellery Queenin jännityslukemisto 4 (1963), 'Järjestelmällinen Hra Kessler' julkaisussa Ellery Queenin jännistyslukemisto 2 (1962) Selected works:
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