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Iiki Yusan: Ellery Queen in Japan
Kurt Sercu
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The Japanese Fan Mystery
Depending
on your definition of popularity
yes and no. In Japan, I feel,
there are two ways to describe
the term "popular." The word can
be used in reference to selling
large quantities, and writers
that are popular in this sense
are the authors of
“Bestsellers,” books with an
initial popularity but which
after 10-20 years will be out of
print. The works of
J.S.Fletcher,
Edgar Wallace and Johnston
McCulley
come to mind. But the term
“popular” can also denote a book
that has a long selling life.
These books continue to be
published and sold past their
initial run, and will still be
available 20 years after their
initial publication.
Q:
Surely this had an impact in
Japanese movies?
In this movie, Ellery (the detective) was re-imagined as a young American studying Japanese culture. But on the whole, the storyline of this movie is faithful to the original novel. If you have read Calamity Town, you might well be able to follow the movie even without a translation. You might not be able to understand the dialogue, but you’ll still would be able to get the feel of the movie. One of the most appealing aspects of this movie was it’s gorgeous cast of actresses. The Wright sisters, Rosemary, and Roberta (with Japanese names) were portrayed by beautiful and talented actresses. This reflects the fact that the producer intended this Calamity Town to be more of a drama focused on women and their mysterious love affairs than merely a mystery.
Q:
And what about television?
In 1978
The Tragedy of
Y was
produced for Japanese
television.
It was
comprised of 6 hour long
episodes and was produced by
Sigemichi Sugita, from scripts
written by Kunio Shimizu.
Shimizu is
now very famous in Japan but
back then he was just starting
out as a script writer. Sugita
told me once that he had plans
to make sequels based on
The Tragedy of
X and
Drury
Lane's Last Case
but in the end the plans were
shelved.
On the
whole, the story that was
produced for Japanese television
remains true to the novel with
the possible exception of it's
depiction of the main
protagonist.
While the
original Drury Lane was retired,
here he clearly was still a
young man.
Kunio
Shimizu (the writer) was also
clearly an
Ellery Queen
fan, and his Drury Lane in fact
bore more resemblance to
Ellery Queen!
In 1980,
The Best
Japanese Mysteries Series
ran on Japanese TV. It was an
anthology series that resembled
Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
The
stories in the anthology were
derived from Ellery
Queen’s
Japanese
Golden Dozen.
At the opening of each episode,
Fred Dannay provided an
introduction pretty much like
Hitchcock did in his series. "The
Cat-House Murder Case"
was memorably made into an hour
long drama for the series and
was based on "The Adventure of
the Seven Black Cats".
The puzzle
story was somewhat altered into
a suspense drama without Ellery
even appearing.
So in this
version, for those familiar with
the story, Miss Curleigh, the
pet shop owner solved the case at
the peril of losing her own life
since the murderer tries to kill
her.
The Lonely Hunter
(1982)
was a 2 hours drama based on Cop Out and sadly I have
never seen this drama
More recently Q.B.I.'s The
Three Widows
(1993)
was
filmed for television, based on
the Ellery Queen
short-story. In this one hour
drama cast members added lots of
subplots and gimmicks to the
story. This wasn’t beneficial to
the story and it can easily be
forgotten.
Two documentaries
have also been produced for
Japanese television focusing on
Ellery
Queen,
These were
Ellery Queen
Centennial
(2005)
and
Ellery Queen,
Mystery from A to Z
(2009).
Each
contained background material on
the author, his detectives, and
works, and had interviews with
people who love the mysteries. I
provide background material for
each of these programs.
Q:
Which leaves us with theatrical
productions.
This might
be somewhat more obscure but I
was told by a member of EQ Fan
Club in Japan that
there were two stage plays
produced by a small company.
·
The Adventure of the African
Traveler
(2004, 2008)
·
The Adventure of the
Glass-Domed Clock
(2010)
Both followed the original
storyline closely and had a
"Challenge to the audience" in
them.
Q:
Japanese comic production is
unsurpassed. Surely
Ellery Queen
wasn’t left out?
Actually there are two
comic-books based on EQ's
stories.
As early as
1978 Mikiya Motizuki made The
Terror House. It contained
three stories
based on "The House of
Darkness", "Man Bites
Dog" and "Trojan Horse".
While the storyline may have
resembled the original works, the
image of Ellery himself was not
up to specs.
JET did a
better job at that when in
1995-96 he produced The
Adventures of Ellery Queen
(1995-96). This was a
four
stories collection based on "The
Adventure of the African
Traveler", "The Adventure of the
Bearded Lady", "The Adventure of
the Two Headed Dog" and "The
Adventure of the Seven Black
Cats".
Q:
From where I’m sitting it seems
obvious that
Ellery Queen
must have a lasting influence of
aspiring writers, even today!
In Japan,
“whodunits” are immensely
popular and hence there are a
lot of detective writers who
specialize in "whodunits." Most
of them have been influenced by
Ellery Queen.
Some of them even follow an EQ
style of titling their books,
e.g. "country-name and item-name
and Mystery" and "The
Tragedy of __ “. "The
Challenge to the Reader" is a
frequently used in books. And,
of course, as with most writers
of the Golden Era, "fair play",
"logic" and "deduction" are
paramount in these stories.
They could start with the two books on EQ I've written:
This last
book also tries to make several
valid points. E.g. it tries to
sort out the fact that the
"Challenge to the Reader"
doesn’t actually just sets out
to ask "whodunit" question but
also challenges the reader to
follow Ellery Queen’s
deductive reasoning.
©
Original
text 2011
Iiki Yusan
Response by Ho-Ling Wo November 9.2011
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