Two good authors whose work won't fade away because there were these film versions -- Garbo

 It's tempting, when working on The Kay Kemble Project,  to just do music, movies, and news events of the 1940s. We do have a couple of movie trailers today, but both come from books.

You know, books. People used to buy and read them.  The 1930s and 1940s had so many movie trailers, with words like "Bestseller!" and "Sensational!" splashed across the screen.The colorful dust jackets of books used to spin up and/or zoom in till they took over the screen,  as in this screenshot of a 1940s film trailer I found at the TCM website.

A note on the book cover design:  This swirly thing started to me a motif for alternate reality or perceptions, starting in the 1940s, especially in psychological suspense, especially if it the psychologically complex person was female.

 

The novelist, clearly a complex thinker herself, was Charlotte Armstrong.  My research was easy this week, thanks to the fact-dence website for The Mysterious Press, where I found a greatphoto,  author bio, and some bibliographic information on Armstrong.

Here's the trailer for Hollywood's version of "The Unsuspected."

The Unsuspected was not the only book of Charlotte Armstrong to be films. A few years later, the same happened for her 1950 book Mischief.  People on Goodreads, the review site, really like this book.   Check out this rather alarming book jacket design.

 

 This time around the movie version of the novel got a new title. Here's the trailer for "Don't Bother to Knock."

A writer with a reputation for good fiction at roughly the same level as Charlotte Armstrong's fine work is Christianna Brand. Once again, I went to the Mysterious Press site for bio, biblio, and publicity photo.

 

 Before I get to the Brand novel which became a film, I need to make a visit to the title and jacket art for this one. Thank you for your kind indulgence.

 

Now, to the medically-themed mystery Green for Danger. 

 

 

While the plot points of the actual mystery to be solved remind the reader of one of Agatha Christie's more convoluted tales, the characters are well-filled-out and we get a full novel which doesn't feel like a hastily-built set piece. The film version has the advantage of Alistair Sims playing the slightly goofy detective. Here's the trailer.

 

Next week: Nothing mysterious or even particularly complex