Curtains for Three
Encyclopedia
Curtains for Three is a collection of Nero Wolfe
mystery
novella
s by Rex Stout
, published by the Viking Press
in 1951 and itself collected in the omnibus volume Full House (Viking 1955). The book comprises three stories that first appeared in The American Magazine:
(2001–2002). Directed by John L'Ecuyer
from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, the episode made its debut June 3, 2001, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include Bill Smitrovich
(Inspector Cramer), Saul Rubinek
(Lon Cohen), Colin Fox
(Fritz Brenner), James Tolkan
(W.J.), Debra Monk
(Mrs. Carlisle), Kathryn Zenna (Cynthia Brown), Trent McMullen
(Orrie Cather), Conrad Dunn
(Saul Panzer), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Aron Tager
(Mr. Carlisle), Nicholas Campbell
(Colonel Percy Brown), Nancy Beatty (Mrs. Orwin), Philip Craig (Gene Orwin), Beau Starr
(Malcolm Vedder), Richard Waugh (Dr. Morley) and Ken Kramer (Dr. Vollmer).
In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small
, the soundtrack includes music by Ib Glindemann
(titles) and David Cabrera and Phil McArthur (opening sequence).
In international broadcasts, the episodes "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" and "Disguise for Murder" are linked and expanded into a 90-minute widescreen telefilm titled "Wolfe Stays In." The two episodes are connected by scenes of Archie playing poker with Saul, Orrie and Lon — extensions of the Stout originals written by head writer and consulting producer Sharon Doyle.
"These poker scenes were put in for marketing reasons," executive producer Michael Jaffe told Scarlet Street
magazine. "Nero Wolfe airs as a two-hour show overseas and the two episodes had to be tied together. So we looked for ways to do that. We've heard Archie talk about poker a million times. So there was nothing abnormal about seeing them play poker, except that we don't see them do it in the book."
A Nero Wolfe Mystery began to be released on Region 2 DVD in December 2009, marketed in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment. The third collection released in April 2010 made the 90-minute features "Wolfe Goes Out" and "Wolfe Stays In" available on home video for the first time; until then, the linked episodes "Door to Death"/"Christmas Party" and "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo"/"Disguise for Murder" were available only in the abbreviated form sold in North America by A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X). The A&E and Just Entertainment DVD releases present the episodes in 4:3 pan and scan
rather than their 16:9
aspect ratio for widescreen
viewing.
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo January 16, 1982, with guest stars Fiona Reid
, Jack Creley and Neil Munro
.
Nero Wolfe
Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created in 1934 by the American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin narrates the cases of the detective genius. Stout wrote 33 novels and 39 short stories from 1934 to 1974, with most of them set in New York City. Wolfe's...
mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s by Rex Stout
Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
, published by the Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
in 1951 and itself collected in the omnibus volume Full House (Viking 1955). The book comprises three stories that first appeared in The American Magazine:
- "The Gun with Wings" (December 1949)
- "Bullet for One" (July 1948)
- "Disguise for Murder" (September 1950, as "The Twisted Scarf")
The Gun with Wings
The police are satisfied that a top tenor at the Metropolitan Opera shot himself, but his widow and the man she hopes to marry know it was murder.Disguise for Murder
The garden editor of the Gazette persuades Nero Wolfe to play host to the Manhattan Flower Club. While a couple of hundred people are upstairs in the plant rooms looking at Wolfe's orchids, a woman is strangled in his office.A Nero Wolfe Mystery (A&E Network)
"Disguise for Murder" was adapted for the first season of the A&E TV series A Nero Wolfe MysteryA Nero Wolfe Mystery
A Nero Wolfe Mystery is a television series adapted from Rex Stout's classic series of detective stories that aired for two seasons on the A&E Network. Set in New York City in the early 1950s, the stylized period drama stars Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin...
(2001–2002). Directed by John L'Ecuyer
John L'Ecuyer
John L'Ecuyer is a Canadian film and television director. He is the younger brother of Gerald L'Ecuyer, a noted Canadian film and television director. L'Ecuyer studied at Ryerson University in Toronto, where his classmates included screenwriter Brad Abraham.His first feature, Curtis's Charm , was...
from a teleplay by Sharon Elizabeth Doyle, the episode made its debut June 3, 2001, on A&E.
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...
is Archie Goodwin; Maury Chaykin
Maury Chaykin
Maury Alan Chaykin was an American-born Canadian actor. Best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, he was also known for his work as a character actor in many films and on television programs.-Personal life:...
is Nero Wolfe. Other members of the cast (in credits order) include Bill Smitrovich
Bill Smitrovich
-Personal life:Bill Smitrovich was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Anna and Stanley William Zmitrowicz, a tool and die maker. Bill is a graduate of the University of Bridgeport and holds an MFA from Smith College . He is married to Shaw Purnell from Pittsburgh, PA...
(Inspector Cramer), Saul Rubinek
Saul Rubinek
Saul Rubinek is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage.-Early life:...
(Lon Cohen), Colin Fox
Colin Fox (actor)
Colin Fox is a Canadian actor. His acting credits include playing Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi Des Mondes in Strange Paradise , as well as voice work in various animated series, and in other roles in film, television and on the stage...
(Fritz Brenner), James Tolkan
James Tolkan
James S. Tolkan is an American actor, often cast as a strict, overbearing, bald-headed authority figure.-Personal life:He was born in Calumet, Michigan, the son of Ralph M. Tolkan, a cattle dealer, and attended the University of Iowa, Coe College, the Actors Studio and Eastern Arizona College...
(W.J.), Debra Monk
Debra Monk
Debra Monk is an American actress, singer, and writer.Monk was born in Middletown, Ohio. She was voted "best personality" by the graduating class at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. She graduated from Frostburg State University in 1963...
(Mrs. Carlisle), Kathryn Zenna (Cynthia Brown), Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen
Trent McMullen is a Canadian actor known for his portrayal of freelance detective Orrie Cather in the A&E TV original series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery , and the series pilot, The Golden Spiders: A Nero Wolfe Mystery . In 2010 McMullen starred in Ed Gass-Donnelly's second feature film Small Town Murder...
(Orrie Cather), Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn
Conrad Dunn is an American actor. He began his screen career with the role of Francis "Psycho" Soyer in Stripes . Working for some ten years under the name George Jenesky, he achieved soap-opera stardom in Days of our Lives as Nick Corelli, a misogynistic pimp who evolved from bad guy to romantic...
(Saul Panzer), R.D. Reid (Sergeant Purley Stebbins), Aron Tager
Aron Tager
Aron Tager is an American actor and artist.- Background :As an artist, Tager has had numerous exhibitions of his work and has sculptures installed at the following locations: Mount Anthony Union High School, Bennington, VT; Shaftsbury Elementary School, VT; Delaware County Community College,...
(Mr. Carlisle), Nicholas Campbell
Nicholas Campbell
Nicholas Campbell , sometimes credited as Nick Campbell, is a Canadian actor and filmmaker, who has won three Gemini Awards for acting. The movies Naked Lunch, Prozac Nation and the TV series Da Vinci's Inquest are some examples of his acting work.-Early life:Campbell was born in Toronto, Ontario,...
(Colonel Percy Brown), Nancy Beatty (Mrs. Orwin), Philip Craig (Gene Orwin), Beau Starr
Beau Starr
Beau Starr is an American actor who has starred in movies and on television. He is known for his film role as Sheriff Ben Meeker in the 1988 hit horror movie Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers; he reprised his role in the 1989 sequel Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers.Starr was born...
(Malcolm Vedder), Richard Waugh (Dr. Morley) and Ken Kramer (Dr. Vollmer).
In addition to original music by Nero Wolfe composer Michael Small
Michael Small
Michael Small was an American film score composer best known for his scores to thriller movies such as The Parallax View, Marathon Man, and The Star Chamber. Relatively few of his scores are available on compact disc...
, the soundtrack includes music by Ib Glindemann
Ib Glindemann
Ib Glindemann is a Danish jazz musician, the big band leader of the Ib Glindemann Orchestra . When in Europe, saxophonist Stan Getz was a frequent guest star of the orchestra.-External links:*...
(titles) and David Cabrera and Phil McArthur (opening sequence).
In international broadcasts, the episodes "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo" and "Disguise for Murder" are linked and expanded into a 90-minute widescreen telefilm titled "Wolfe Stays In." The two episodes are connected by scenes of Archie playing poker with Saul, Orrie and Lon — extensions of the Stout originals written by head writer and consulting producer Sharon Doyle.
"These poker scenes were put in for marketing reasons," executive producer Michael Jaffe told Scarlet Street
Scarlet Street (magazine)
Scarlet Street was an American film magazine that primarily specialized in the genres of horror, mystery and film noir. Its initial concentration was on Sherlock Holmes and related film and television productions, but later its subject matter expanded to include a variety of other genres.The title...
magazine. "Nero Wolfe airs as a two-hour show overseas and the two episodes had to be tied together. So we looked for ways to do that. We've heard Archie talk about poker a million times. So there was nothing abnormal about seeing them play poker, except that we don't see them do it in the book."
A Nero Wolfe Mystery began to be released on Region 2 DVD in December 2009, marketed in the Netherlands by Just Entertainment. The third collection released in April 2010 made the 90-minute features "Wolfe Goes Out" and "Wolfe Stays In" available on home video for the first time; until then, the linked episodes "Door to Death"/"Christmas Party" and "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo"/"Disguise for Murder" were available only in the abbreviated form sold in North America by A&E Home Video (ISBN 0-7670-8893-X). The A&E and Just Entertainment DVD releases present the episodes in 4:3 pan and scan
Pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
rather than their 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
aspect ratio for widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
viewing.
Nero Wolfe (CBC Radio)
"Disguise for Murder" was adapted as the premiere episode of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio series Nero Wolfe (1982), starring Mavor MooreMavor Moore
James Mavor Moore, CC, OBC was a Canadian writer, producer, actor, public servant, critic, and educator.-Biography:...
as Nero Wolfe and Don Francks
Don Francks
Donald Harvey Francks or Iron Buffalo is a Canadian actor, vocalist and jazz musician.- Life and work :Francks was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a drummer, poet, native nations champion, motorcyclist, author and peace activist...
as Archie Goodwin. Written by Ron Hartmann, the hour-long adaptation aired on CBC Stereo January 16, 1982, with guest stars Fiona Reid
Fiona Reid
Fiona Reid, CM is a Canadian television, film and stage actress. She is best known for her role as Cathy on the TV series King of Kensington....
, Jack Creley and Neil Munro
Neil Munro
-Acting career:Born in Musselburgh, Scotland, Munro moved to Toronto at an early age. After graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1967, he quickly established himself as one of the most compelling theatre actors in Canada, performing with Toronto Arts Productions, the National...
.
"The Gun with Wings"
- 1949, The American Magazine, June 1949
- 1965, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, March 1965 - 1972, Ellery Queen's Anthology, Spring–Summer 1972
- 1977, Masterpieces of Mystery: The Golden Age, Part Two, ed. by Ellery QueenEllery QueenEllery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
, New York: Davis Publications, 1977
"Bullet for One"
- 1948, The American Magazine, July 1948
- 1950, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, June 1950 - 1970, Crimes and Misfortunes, ed. by . Francis McComas, New York: Random House, 1970
- 1970, Ellery Queen's Anthology, 1970
- 1978, The Great American Detective, ed. by William Kittredge and Steven M. Krauzer, New York: New American Library, October 1978
"Disguise for Murder"
- 1950, The American Magazine, September 1950, as "The Twisted Scarf"
- 1951, Ellery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery MagazineEllery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...
, April 1951, as "The Affair of the Twisted Scarf" - 1964, Ellery Queen's Anthology, 1964, as "The Affair of the Twisted Scarf"
- 1975, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked, ed. by Alfred HitchcockAlfred HitchcockSir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, New York: Random House, 1975, as "The Affair of the Twisted Scarf"
Curtains for Three
- 1951, New York: The Viking PressViking PressViking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
, February 23, 1951, hardcover
- In his limited-edition pamphlet, Collecting Mystery Fiction #9, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I, Otto PenzlerOtto PenzlerOtto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.-Biography:...
describes the first editionEdition (book)The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...
of Curtains for Three: "Gray cloth, front cover printed with red lettering (and decoration on front cover only) and black rules; rear cover blank. Issued in a black, orange and white dust wrapper." - In April 2006, Firsts: The Book Collector's Magazine estimated that the first edition of Curtains for Three had a value of between $300 and $500. The estimate is for a copy in very good to fine condition in a like dustjacket.
- 1951, New York: Viking (Mystery GuildBook of the Month ClubThe Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
), 1951, hardcover
- 1951, New York: Viking (Mystery Guild
- The far less valuable Viking book club edition may be distinguished from the first edition in three ways:
-
- The dust jacket has "Book Club Edition" printed on the inside front flap, and the price is absent (first editions may be price clipped if they were given as gifts).
- Book club editions are sometimes thinner and always taller (usually a quarter of an inch) than first editions.
- Book club editions are bound in cardboard, and first editions are bound in cloth (or have at least a cloth spine).
- 1951, London: Collins Crime ClubCollins Crime ClubThe Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
, October 22, 1951, hardcover - 1955, New York: The Viking Press, Full House: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus (with The League of Frightened MenThe League of Frightened MenThe League of Frightened Men is the second Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout. The story was serialized in six issues of The Saturday Evening Post under the title The Frightened Men. The novel was published in 1935 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc...
and And Be a VillainAnd Be a VillainAnd Be a Villain is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1948...
), May 15, 1955, hardcover - 1966, New York: BantamBantam BooksBantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
#F3063, June 1966, paperback - 1995, New York: Bantam ISBN 0-553-76294-X January 2, 1995, paperback
- 1997, Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape, Inc. ISBN 0-7366-3747-8 July 21, 1997, audio cassette (unabridged, read by Michael Prichard)
- 2010, New York: Bantam ISBN 978-0-307-75582-7 May 12, 2010, e-bookE-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
- 1951, London: Collins Crime Club
-
External links
- A Nero Wolfe Mystery — "Disguise for Murder" at The Wolfe Pack, official site of the Nero Wolfe Society