Judge — March 1, 1930 — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

He stands alone as ace shocker. Hereafter even S. S. Van Dine must lower his monocle, cough up the en- cyclopedia and eat some humble pie. We pacaned Hammett’s “Red Harvest” till we went blue in the ‘ace and other publishers offered us bribes to lay off and give their titti- vators a break. It was the pearl of underworld stories, and suggested the nice idea that the way to exterminate killers would be to let them slaughter themselves off. Then came ‘The Dain Curse,” a love-cult mystery, overloaded with plot but 90 per cent pure bonanza. And now “The Mal- tese Falcon,” a button-button-who’s- got-the-falcon? of San Francisco. It is everything you want. The conventional ingredients of the typi- cal gu vho are there but so handled to bring on maximum blood pressure. The characters are hatable and out of police dquarters family albums. Sam Spade, the private dick, is harder than Hammett himself. The writing is better than Hemingw since it conceals not softness but hardness. It is the “Broadway” of mysteries and should have been chosen by a book club, Still unconvinced? Well, it’s swell. They say P. G. Wodehouse always rewrites the same story, not both to change the clothes of his s dramatis personae, but merely giv them new monickers. These horrib! faults are present to a loathsome de- : in his newest bangle of short ms, t'wit, “Mr. Mulliner Speak- Well, what of it! The book's a cuckoo. God bless Mr. Wodehouse! Pardon us a few sprigs of rasp- berry. After all, we aren't completely the critical cheer leader. Nor natu- rally are we a boo critic. Corey Ford's and Jean Bruller’s “21 De- lightful Ways of Committing Suicide” is a masochistic dud, about as funny as a news er obit; several Bruller drawings being without excuse. Aaron Mare Stein's virals” blurts the story of a group of light-minded Princeton gnomes who e their Stravinsky, Brancussi, Spengler and themselves straight. Maxwell Boden- heim’s “Bringing a shuck 0° poems, is a sort of Greenwich Village hangover, with Bodenheim offering any of the jingles to a composer who will set them to music. Boy, run out, get a pound of firecrackers and a kazoo and Mr, George Antheil. —Tep Suane Sue—Anybody would think that I was nothing but a cook in this household! He—Not after eating a meal here! . Eliminating the brutality. comicbooks.com