Harry Stephen Keeler: So Bad He’s Great
While I can justify many of my pop-culture pleasures with little effort, Harry Stephen Keeler is a different matter. He was a prolific writer in the 1920s and ’30s, but none of his 70 or so novels had large print runs. So how to convey the appeal? For me, a Keeler novel is similar to a bad movie: If it’s a C-, I don’t want to see it; if it’s an F, I’m intrigued. Was Keeler a mystery writer? Only if you discount pretty much every rule that makes a mystery novel a mystery. My jaw dropped, when this copy of The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro appeared on the kitchen counter, while I was helping my best friend, Kerry, clean out her parents’ estate. It turned out that her husband had found it in the basement and pulled it because he liked the Constructivist feel of the dust-jacket art. Comparing Keeler to movie-maker Ed Wood might have served as shorthand, but, since there was a novel at hand, it was easier to explain my fascination by flipping pages at random to start reading. I did. Kerry couldn’t believe her ears. She took a turn. We kept it up, until her husband came back and plopped three more vintage Keeler books on the counter. This time, she joined in on the squeals. Click away to see for yourself why I reacted like a kid at a surprise party when confronted by four of these gems.
The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro, 1929
Sing Sing Nights was a 1934 Monogram Pictures release based on Keeler’s 1928 novel. Thanks to Paul Curtis for the loan of book and lobby-card art—and for introducing me to Keeler’s writing in the first place.
