Robert Leslie Bellem's Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective [Hardcover]

Robert Leslie Bellem (Author), John Wooley (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 157 pages
• Publisher: Bowling Green (Ohio) State Univ Popular Press (December 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879722312
• ISBN-13: 978-0879722319
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,194,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

His friend's called him Leslie, but the pulp editors of the 40s insisted he publish under his first name, so that no one thought he was a woman.

Robert Leslie Bellem wrote over 3000 pulp stories, with Detective DanTurner starring in at least 300 of them, along with 60 or 70 comic book stories and a few novels. In his prime, Bellem was pumping out a million words annually, and selling every one to pulp magazines.

Before becoming a writer he worked in Los Angeles as a newspaper reporter, radio announcer and film extra. After the demise of the pulps, Bellem switched to writing for television, including a number of scripts for The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman (1950s version), The original Perry Mason show, 77 Sunset Strip and other shows.

Bellem wrote in a variety of genres for many pulp magazines, particularly those owned by Culture Publications such as Spicy Detective, Spicy Adventure, Spicy Western and Spicy Mystery (one of the weird menace pulps). The word "spicy" in the titles of these magazines was meant to indicate sexual content, although this was very tame compared with current standards.

Bellem's most famous creation was the hardboiled detective Dan Turner, whose stories were written in the first person in a racy, slangy style that made them extremely popular. Set against the background of the Hollywood film industry (of which Bellem had personal knowledge), the Dan Turner stories appeared first in the pages of Spicy Detective (subsequently retitled Speed Detective) and later in his "own" magazine, Hollywood Detective, which ran from January 1942 to October 1950.

Noir House recently re-introduced Dan Turner to modern audiences through hardboiled mash-ups merging pulp fiction with pop culture. In the debut Kindle book, a Hollywood starlit turns to Detective Dan Turner to protect her from a blackmailer, but Dan's already on the blackmailer's payroll. It's takes the spirit of Marilyn Monroe to put Dan on the straight and narrow and save the Girl with the Donkey Tattoo.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like othing-nay else your peepers have ever glimmed., August 1, 2002

By 

Doghouse King "eddie_denman" (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Robert Leslie Bellems Dan Turner Hollywood Detective (Paperback)

One cannot review a collection by Robert Leslie Bellem; one has to review the whole of his work.
Bellem is many things: inventive, energetic, fun, exhausting. Some might say bad. But like Hong Kong Cinema and whatever kind of rock music you listened to to rebel against your elders, Bellem's Dan Turner saucy, hard-boiled pulp stories transcend such petty, bourgeois categorizations at good or bad. They are entertainment at its purest, most raw and visceral.

Perhaps he was a hack. After all, he cranked out a million words a year by some accounts. He possessed none of the depth of Chandler, Hammett, Ross Mac, not even of Spillane or Gardiner. Then again he is more compulsively readable than Stockbridge or Daly or any of the others except Chandler. His voice was unique, creating a genre parody only a few years after the genre itself had been created. 40's slang has been called the most vibrant language since The Bard's time. And Bellem used his share of it. Although there is none of Chandler's artistry and care with language and simile (Bellem uses the language like a blunt, inexact science, formulated like an equation to get a rise from readers) it is a wonder to behold, all the same. Some say he was spoofing; others merely that he was lousy. But I tend to think he knew what he was doing. It takes talent to write as he did, and so what if he doesn't delve into the human psyche?

What exactly are his stories like? Well, Dan Turner investigates crimes involving drugs, murder, blackmail and adultery among the elite Babylonians of Hollywood. Only he's not a detective or a PI, he's a skulk or an orb for hire. And he doesn't do leg work because he doesn't have legs; he has sticks or pins. And he torches gaspers, sticking them in his pan or his mush. Women are wrens or pigeons, seldom wear a whole lot and every dame in Turner's universe has all the equipment wink-wink, nudge, nudge. He doesn't call people on the phone, he rings and yodels. Roscoes belch ka-chow and people are bumped by lead pills in acts of killery. He finds one or two per story dead as six buckets of fish bait. Turner would not say, "The heck you say!" He would say, "The heck you utter!" Bellem is not above bludgeoning readers with alliteraton. And, come on, the guy actually uses pig latin! How can you not like stuff like this?

Critics might say that once you've read one Dan Turner plot, you've read them all, or that once you've read six stories, you've read every turn of phrase in Bellem's arsenal. There is an element of truth to that, in the same way there is an element of truth to say Speed was similar to Die Hard. But I watch them each and every time they're on TV and don't grow weary. And I will continue to seek out Bellem fiction.

Bellem wrote primarily for the "spicy" pulps, much frowned-on in the 30's and eventually done away with. At his most prurient Bellem feels fairly scummy. On average he is less so that Spillane. Only one in this collection feels like it was meant solely for the lonely, sweaty under-the-counter market. Although Dan Turner demonstrates his way with the ladies and shows he knows how sometime-heroes make use of ellipses...

Okay, I'm back. And no, I didn't. But I trust you get the idea. Anyway, a faint sense of yuckiness keeps me from bestowing this book a fifth star.

But I heartily recommend it, if you can find it, and any other Bellem stories you can dish out your hard-earned geetus for, get your mitts on and glim.