Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was an English writer.

Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at 12. He joined the army at 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines, later publishing collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author.

After a disastrous bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO studios. He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933).

A prolific writer, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books then read in England were written by him. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work. He is remembered for the creation of King Kong, as a writer of 'the colonial imagination', for the J. G. Reeder detective stories, and the Green Archer. He sold over 50 million copies of his combined works in various editions and The Economist describes him as "one of the most prolific thriller writers of [the 20th] century", although few of his books are still in print in the UK.

King Kong (1933 film)

King Kong is a 1933 American Pre-Code monster film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose was from an idea conceived by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. It stars Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot and Robert Armstrong, and opened in New York City on March 2, 1933, to rave reviews. It has been ranked by movie site Rotten Tomatoes as Greatest horror film of all time

The film tells of a gigantic, prehistoric, island-dwelling ape called Kong who dies in an attempt to possess a beautiful young woman. King Kong is especially noted for its stop-motion animation by Willis O'Brien and a groundbreaking musical score by Max Steiner. In 1991 it was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It has been remade twice: in 1976 and in 2005.

Plot

In New York Harbor, Carl Denham, famous for making wildlife films in remote and exotic locations, charters Captain Englehorn's ship Venture for his new project, but he is unable to secure an actress for a female role he reluctantly added. Denham searches the streets of New York for a suitable woman. He meets penniless Ann Darrow and convinces her to join him for the adventure of a lifetime. The Venture quickly gets underway. The surly first mate, Jack Driscoll, gradually falls in love with Ann. After weeks of secrecy, Denham finally tells Englehorn and Driscoll that their destination is Skull Island, an uncharted island shown on a map in Denham's possession. Denham speaks of something monstrous there, a legendary entity known only as "Kong".

The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder

The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder is a collection of short stories by the English crime writer Edgar Wallace, published in 1925. (Current practice in UK English is to omit the full stop after "Mr", but Wallace and his publishers included it.)

The stories, which are about a former police officer working for the Director of Public Prosecutions, are:

In the United States the book was titled The Murder Book of Mr. J. G. Reeder and the stories were presented in a different order:

The Four Just Men (novel)

The Four Just Men is a detective thriller published in 1905 by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The eponymous "Just Men" appear in several sequels.

Publication

Edgar Wallace formed the idea of The Four Just Men — four young, handsome, immensely wealthy vigilantes (including a European prince) who kill people in the name of Justice – while returning to England in 1905. He had to create his own publishing company, Tallis, to publish it and decided to manage a 'guess the murder method' competition in the Daily Mail with a prize of £1,000 (equivalent in purchasing power to at least £93,000 in 2013). Wallace intended to advertise the book on an unprecedented scale, not just in Britain itself but across the Empire. He approached the proprietor, Lord Harmsworth for the loan of the £1,000 and was promptly refused, but Wallace pressed ahead anyway. His alarmed workmates at the Mail prevailed upon him to lower the prize money to £500: a £250 first prize, £200 second prize and £50 third prize, but were unable to restrain him in the privacy of his home. Wallace had advertisements placed on buses, hoardings, flyers, and so forth, running up an incredible bill of £2,000. Though he knew he needed the book to sell sufficient copies to make £2,500 before he saw any profit, Wallace was confident that this would be achieved in the first three months of the book going on sale, hopelessly underestimating the expenses.

Edgar Wallace Mysteries

The Edgar Wallace Mysteries was a British second-feature film series, produced at Merton Park Studios for Anglo-Amalgamated. There were 47 films in the series, made between 1960 and 1965.

The films were loose adaptations of Edgar Wallace's books and stories. Very few used his original titles, and there was no attempt to set them in the period in which Wallace wrote, probably to obviate the need for elaborate costumes and sets. A 1962 article in Scene magazine quotes £22,000 as the budget for an episode then in production.

Most of the series featured a uniform title sequence, in which a shadowed bust of Edgar Wallace revolves slowly against a backdrop of swirling mist, to the accompaniment of the "Man of Mystery" theme written by Michael Carr. "Man of Mystery" was later recorded by The Shadows and became a no. 5 hit record in the UK.

The series has been shown on television. In Britain it was seen on ITV, Channel 4 and Bravo at various times from the late Sixties through to the Nineties. It was shown on U.S. television as The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre, with episodes cut to fit hour-long commercial TV slots.