Favorite fictional early (before 1930) detective poll besides Sherlock Holmes

[sdreid]

Isn't there some sort of copyright quagmire surrounding the character at the moment?

I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me.

[sdreid]

A copyright more than 100 years old seems a little ridiculous to me.

[sdreid]

Boston Blackie is 100 now.

[sdreid]

Nick Carter only has one vote here but by American radio broadcast episodes, he leads Sherlock Holmes by 726 to 657. They are only 2 and 3, however, behind Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons who has a whopping 1690.

[sdreid]

Mr. Keen didn't appear until after 1930, I don't believe.

[Beowulf]

I really did not think I had any answer to this column. I could not think of any early writers I loved and who were considered among the detective genre.

But I realized there is one. He wrote Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Edgar Allan Poe

[sdreid]

Well, Dupin has one vote.

[sdreid]

He's the only one completely outside of the Anglosphere too.

[sdreid]

Even there, the writer wasn't.

[sdreid]

Only one on the list is U.S. born which ties us with Belgium, China and France.

[Mayerling]

Agreed.

Isn't there some sort of copyright quagmire surrounding the character at the moment?

Did anyone see the recent big(gish) budget version of Arsene Lupine?

I don' know if it is quite the same thing, but in the 1980s there was a funny spoof on Drummond called "Bullshot", which satyrized the entire set of storylines. Perhaps they had to get permission from "Sapper's" family to do such a film as the copywrite would still most likely have been in effect.

Jeff

[sdreid]

Boston Blackie is 100 now.

I think the character has been dormant since the TV series went off about 60 years ago however.

[sdreid]

It ended in 1953.

[Steadmund Brand]

This was a hard choice for me.. .but Boston Blackie wins just based on the Richard Kollmar version of the radio Boston Blackie... Chester Morris was fun in the movies.. but Kollmar was so much better on the radio (if not, more fun anyway)...

Happy 100th Boston Blackie!!!

Steadmund Brand

[sdreid]

I remember watching reruns of the Boston Blackie TV series when I was a kid. The program was paired with the China Smith series.

Also mentioned prominently in the Jimmy Buffet song Pencil Thin Mustache - the Boston Blackie kind.