After reading and enjoying the first two Dr. Kildare stories by Frederick Faust writing as Max Brand, I decided to read more of Faust’s contemporary stories. Although most famous, and justly so, as a Western author, Faust wrote all sorts of stories. “Fixed” and “Beyond the Finish” are two with sports backdrops.
“Fixed” appeared in the June 13, 1936 issue of the slick magazine COLLIER’S. As you might suspect from the title, it’s a prize fight yarn about a middleweight title bout between the champ, a young Irishman named Slam Finnegan, and the challenger, a black fighter known as “Little David” Larue. Attending the fight is a gangster Faust refers to only as “Big Bill”. Bill knows something nobody else does: Slam Finnegan is going to take a dive in the ninth round, and Bill is going to clean up on a bet he made at long odds.
Of course, fixed fights never go exactly the way they’re supposed to. We all know that from the movies we’ve seen and the boxing yarns we’ve read. Sometimes the fix works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I won’t say which way it turns out here, but the fun for the reader is in the getting there, and Faust makes it fun, indeed, with lots of great dialogue between Big Bill, his lackey who attends the fight with him, other crooks and gamblers, and a beautiful girl who’s also ringside. You knew there had to be a beautiful girl, right? It’s fast and colorful and with more plot would have made a great movie with, say, Eugene Pallette as Big Bill, Joel McCrea as Slam Finnegan, and maybe Jean Arthur as the girl. I can’t help but see this stuff in my head.
“Beyond the Finish” also appeared in COLLIER’S, in the March 24, 1934 issue. With that title, it’s got to be a horse racing story. The protagonist is a young man who, after being orphaned, goes to live with his cousin, a wealthy horse breeder and trainer in Virginia. He becomes an excellent rider and is picked by his cousin to ride a new horse in the big steeplechase race. But there’s something shady going on, hijinks among horsey high society, if you will, and our hero winds up with quite a conflict going on, complicated (as these things always are) by the involvement of a beautiful young woman. Given all that, it’s not surprising that this story reminded me a little of a Dick Francis yarn, although it’s nowhere nearly as hardboiled and crime-oriented as Francis’s work. But Faust does a great job with the characters and the race itself, and he had me eager to find out what was going to happen next.
I really enjoyed both of these stories and plan to read more of Faust’s contemporary tales, even though I think maybe I’ve shaken out of my funk and am ready to go back to reading novels. We’ll see.
2 comments:
I wonder if the France's curtain of fire article was about the Maginot line.
That seems likely.
Post a Comment