The League of Frightened Men

Twenty year ago, when a student at Harvard, Eduardo Ciannelli was hazed by his fellows and crippled. Now he needs two canes to walk about. He lived for decades in poverty, supported by the guilty men, until his career as an author took off. Once he now longer needed their financial support, they began to die, and the remainder come to Nero Wolfe, asking for him to find the evidence to put away the man they all know is guilty.

It's a far better movie than the earlier one; Alfred Green was a fine director, and there isn't the clangorous humor. Unfortunately Walter Connolly is the most un-Nero-Wolfe like detective you can imagine. He goes out to gather evidence himself. He's kind and courteous and even considerate. It's a fine mystery, and well shot and performed. It just ain't Nero Wolfe.

In 1936, Columbia made its first Nero Wolfe film and it starred Edward Arnold as the amateur detective. A year later, they brought Wolfe back but with Walter Connolly playing the dick. In both cases, unfortunately, they chose Lionel Stander to play Wolfe's right hand man, Archie. I say unfortunately because Archie in the Nero Wolfe books was sophisticated and smart....not an uncouth boob like he is in these two films.

In "The League of Frightened Men", a group of Harvard alumni are worried that one of their old classmates might be murdering them. And, if this is the case, the man in question had plenty of reason and justification for doing so. But it's not at all certain the man in question is a killer and it's up to Wolfe to get to the bottom of this.

I really disliked this film...more so than the first one. It's because it's one of the talkiest murder mysteries I've seen. It's also confusing (Wolfe sometimes seems to pull things completely out of thin air) and gimmicky at the end...where Wolfe invites everyone to his house in order to reveal the real killer....a trope used approximately 30452998 times in other films (give or take 3). Overall, a disappointment...and odd to see the agoraphobe, Wolfe, leaving his home repeatedly during the movie.

"The League Of Frightened Men" gets off to a gripping start, with two murders in the first few seconds! Unfortunately, the story soon reveals itself to be both confusing and underdeveloped: several characters are difficult to tell apart (matters are not helped by the fact that the prints of this already bare-bones production have never been remastered). Walter Connolly is an adequate replacement for Edward Arnold as Nero Wolfe, though his character seems to have abandoned his trademark habit of never going outside his house. Lionel Stander reprises the sidekick role. Eduardo Ciannelli and Rafaela Ottiano have a few good (i.e., "bad") moments, but overall it's not really surprising that this film series never had a third chapter. ** out of 4.

A "rare-films-on-DVD" seller has posted the first 7 minutes of this at Youtube as promotion. Their sales would improve if they took it down. They certainly won't get many fans of the Rex Stout novels picking up a copy any time soon, except for the 'must-have-everything' fanatics. I certainly have no interest in the remaining 67 minutes that I haven't seen.

It is said that Stout refused to have any other films made from his books because of gruff-voiced Lionel Stander's slightly pugilistic performance as Archie Goodwin. But the real disaster, screaming from his first appearance on screen, is Walter Connolly pretending to play the role of Nero Wolfe.

Don't get me wrong - Connolly was a fine character-actor of the old school. The problem here really isn't completely his - after all, he didn't cast himself in the role, and he is definitely miscast. So not only does Connolly apparently have no idea who Nero Wolfe might be or why his character is popular, but neither do the producer, the director or the scriptwriter - wow, could Stout have been unluckier in his choice of whom to sell his movie rights to? Let's get some basics straight: Nero Wolfe does not wear a smoking jacket; he does not have a mustache; he does not sit beside a fireplace that his office doesn't have. He does not have a 'butler' whom Archie views with some contempt, he has Fritz Brenner a Swiss chef whose cooking Archie really enjoys. He doesn't smile, he doesn't make light banter, he abhors bodily contact, he doesn't like to make any visitors feel welcome, because they're not - as clients they are a necessary burden to keep him in beer, good food, and orchids - speaking about which, the beer was noticeably absent from the first 7 minutes of this film - so obviously this couldn't possible have been about Nero Wolfe.

I thought the bearded William Conrad miscast in the old Nero Wolfe television show, but at least he was allowed to play Wolfe as smug and self- satisfied and somewhat overbearing, which Wolfe certainly is. And I thought Sidney Greenstreet's appearance as Wolfe on the old radio series was a bit of miscasting, too, but at least they had him drink plenty of beer.

But this film hasn't anything of Wolfe in it at all. A lot of literary series characters get rewritten for the screen, but nothing quite like this, short of open parody. And if this was meant to be parody - it ain't funny.

If you don't like the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout, or haven't read them, you might like this; what I saw was the beginning of a pretty typical low-energy '30's B mystery. But if you have any admiration for Stout or his characters - STAY AWAY - you will certainly experience some frustration, or like me you will be flat outraged.

Nero Wolfe is supposedly one of the great sleuths of detective fiction, but his appeal eludes me. Wolfe is an extremely unsympathetic character: arrogant, lazy, self-indulgent, corpulent. He avoids detective work (or any other work) unless he absolutely needs the money, preferring to spend his time eating enormous gourmet meals and tending his expensive orchids in his swank penthouse. Even more off-putting is the fact that Wolfe refuses to set foot outside, insisting that all the clues be brought to him by his 'leg man' Archie Goodwin. (It would be interesting if Wolfe were an agoraphobe, trapped in his house due to psychological terror rather than laziness.) Goodwin is a much more interesting character than Wolfe, and should have made a go of it as a detective without Wolfe's patronage.

In 1936, Columbia attempted to make a low-budget series of Nero Wolfe features. The casting for 'Meet Nero Wolfe' was impressive. Edward Arnold captured Wolfe's personality perfectly. I savour one scene in which Arnold, as Wolfe, supped a beer and then immediately spat it out again ... expertly depicting the basic vulgarity and self-indulgence of this character. Even more brilliantly, Lionel Stander was absolute perfection as Archie Goodwin, the role Stander was born to play. With this team, the series could have clicked.

For some reason, Edward Arnold did not come back for seconds. The next (and last) instalment in Columbia's short-lived series was 'The League of Frightened Men'. Stander returns as Goodwin, but Nero Wolfe is now played by Walter Connolly, an utterly unimpressive performer. Connolly's high-pitched voice and indecisive manner have ruined every role I've seen him play. There are quite a few good things in this movie (including its title), and I should like to have seen Charlie Chan or Philo Vance handle this material, with these production values (and with Lionel Stander along for the ride). But with Connolly in the central role, this film is a lot duller than it had to be.

The frightened men are ten Harvard alumni, from the same graduating class. They all came from wealthy backgrounds, and formed a fraternity. While at Harvard, they hazed Paul Chapin, a scholarship student from a lower-class background. The hazing went wrong (we never learn the details) and Chapin was crippled for life. All of this was years ago, and the ten men are now middle-aged. But three of them have died under mysterious circumstances, and a fourth has vanished. The other six have received threatening letters. In terror, they come to Wolfe (why not the police?), seeking his help. The obvious suspect is Chapin ... but in the interim he has become a successful author of murder mysteries, despite being crippled. Would he jeopardise his financial success for mere revenge? And, if Chapin is guilty, why has he waited so long for vengeance?

Eduardo Ciannelli was a character actor whom I've always disliked yet whom I consistently admire. His cold manner, coarse features and accent keep him resolutely unlikeable on screen, but his talent as an actor is manifest. (Unlike that of Walter Connolly.) There's one very powerful scene in this film. The Harvard alumni -- a bunch of overstuffed fiftyish men -- stand trembling in Wolfe's study, pleading with him to protect them from Chapin. Suddenly the door opens and Eduardo Ciannelli totters into the room, supporting his twisted body on two walking sticks. With Lon Chaney-like effort, he crutches his way round the room, confronting the men who maimed him, snarling with rage while they quiver and shake. Then he lurches out of the room again. A great scene by a great actor; too bad it isn't in a better film.

A major flaw in 'The League of Frightened Men' is that our sympathies are meant to be with Wolfe's six clients, and against Chapin. But I felt just the other way. These men pulled a stupid stunt that crippled a man for life, yet they don't seem the least bit disposed to compensating him. They haven't even the grace to apologise. (A correspondent who has read Rex Stout's novel informs me that they did give Chapin some compensation in the book; the subject isn't even mentioned in this film.) Ciannelli typically played unsympathetic characters, but here for once I was in his corner.

Also on hand here is character actress Rafaela Ottiano, whom I usually find quite sexy even while I'm repulsed by most of the characters she plays on screen. She and Lionel Stander are quite good here. Edward McNamara, the living embodiment of the Irish cop, plays here (for once) a cop who isn't Irish. One of the potential murder victims in this movie is played by Victor Kilian, ironically a murder victim in real life. 'The League of Frightened Men' has a lot of those wonderful elements that make many low-budget second features of the 1930s so enjoyable ... but the pieces never quite come together, and the hole at the centre of this movie is Walter Connolly's weak and boring performance. I don't believe that there has ever been a first-rate Nero Wolfe movie, but 'Meet Nero Wolfe' with Edward Arnold is much more enjoyable than this limp sequel. Mostly for the performances of Stander, Ciannelli and Ottiano, I'll rate this movie 6 out of 10.