Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe

I have to admit I am a late-comer to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. My Mystery reading was dominated by the English school (Holmes, Poirot, Marples) and the hard-boiled school (Marlowe, Continetal Op) and for American non-hard-boiled there was Perry Mason and Ellery Queen. Wolfe I missed somehow. Well, happily I am correcting that now. I find Archie Goodwin's adventures for the rotund genius hilarious. (Was Wolfe the inspiration for the Baron Harkonnen? in Dune?)

The recent television show starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton is blast as well. Filmed in Toronto, it took some chances that a regular show would not have. The same supporting cast plays different characters in each episode. It also did not update the series to the modern day (which I hate but happens for budget reasons usually.) Hutton's dad, Jim Hutton, played Ellery Queen in a single-season TV show in the 1970s. I think Jim would be proud!

I found the old radio shows from the 1940s starring Sidney Greenstreet as Wolfe. Not as good (mostly because the actor playing Archie is bland, a mistake the TV show avoided. I call this Doctor Watson Syndrome. Let's get Nigel Bruce to be a complete 'tard so Sherlock looks brilliant!)

I think the genius of Stout is how he welded the hard-boiled Archie to the Holmesian Wolfe. Anyone as eccentric as Wolfe (or Holmes) just wouldn't survive in the real world. Thank goodness we have detective fiction so they have a place to live.

GW





G. W. Thomas has been published since 1987. He has appeared in over 400 publications including Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. His website is www.gwthomas.org