Bedelia (30 page)

A.B. Emrys

Kearney, Nebraska

October 2005

1
.Caspary created three professional detectives: policeman Mark McPherson in
Laura
, insurance investigator Ben Cheney in
Bedelia
, and Joe Collins in the novella
Murder in the Stork Club
(also published as
The Lady in Mink
), who must clear his radio mystery-writer wife of suspicion. Caspary also read some mystery writers she liked, such as Cornell Woolrich and Frances Iles. She had met Dorothy B. Hughes, whom Caspary admired as “a blithe spirit, a hard-woking [sic] woman who wrote her books, kept house, raised three children and never complained of anything!” (“From Readers,” 1981).

2
.In a script not used, both Mark and Laura had voiceover narrations, paralleling Waldo's voice that still introduces the film (Preminger 1978, 77).

3
.Some odd criticism has resulted from admiration for the glamorous picture of Tierney. The only book chiefly about Caspary's work,
“Laura” as Novel, Film, and Myth
, by Eugene McNamara, does contain insightful comments, especially on the film's production, but also dwells heavily on “myth.” It is sometimes unclear whether the author has in mind the character of Laura in either novel or film, or Tierney, the picture of her, or the theme song.

4
.I have seen the American script and read Ann Warren's comments on the British script. In both scripts Bedelia apparently is not pregnant, and takes poison left for her but not actually pressed upon her by Charlie.

5
.The suicidal ending of
The White Girl
was the publisher's choice. Caspary's manuscript describes the protagonist picking up the pieces and getting on with her life (“Discards” 117–18).

I
would like to thank the Friends of the Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for a grant-in-aid and the Research Services Council at the University of Nebraska-Kearney for their additional support, all of which enabled me to use the extensive library resources at the University of Wisconsin and thoroughly explore the Vera Caspary Papers archived at the Wisconsin Historical Society. I am also grateful to the Authors Guild for permission to quote from Caspary's works and unpublished manuscripts. The archive includes the drafts and revisions of
The Secrets of Grown-Ups
, which is far longer in manuscript than in its published version, as well as working drafts of Caspary's published works, business and fan correspondence, and unpublished scripts and other writing.

Except for the present Feminist Press editions, all of Caspary's books are out of print. Assorted editions of some are available from online booksellers, and some large libraries still have copies.
Laura
has been released on DVD, and the adaptation of
The Blue Gardenia
, Caspary's screen story of a lonely telephone company worker who may or may not have killed the company masher, is available on DVD, as is Caspary's screen adaptation of
A Letter to Three Wives
.

Babener, Liahna. 1994. “De-feminizing
Laura
,” in
It's a Print!: Detective Fiction from Page to Screen
, ed. William Reynolds and Elizabeth Trembley. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press.

Bakerman, Jane S. 1984. “Vera Caspary's Chicago, Symbol and Setting,” in
MidAmerica XI: The Yearbook of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature
, ed. by David D. Anderson. East Lansing, MI: Midwestern Press.

———. 1980. “Vera Caspary's Fascinating Females: Laura, Evvie and Bedelia.”
Clues
1.1: 46–52.

Caspary, Vera. 1941. “Laura.” [catalogued as “Untitled Murder Story”]. Box 11. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. 1942 “Laura, 1942, Synopsis.” Box 5. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. 2006.
Bedelia
. Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1945; New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

———. n.d. “General Correspondence January 1946–June 1962–March 1980.” Box 2. Folder 1. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. Script of Recorded Interview [later used in
The Boston Herald
] by Dudley Fraser for Little, Brown & Company, 15 July 1950. Box 13. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. 1960. Letter to Joan Khan, December 31. “Correspondence from Readers 1957–58,” The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. 1971. “My ‘Laura' and Otto's.”
Saturday Review,
June 26.

———. 1978. “Mark McPherson.” In
The Great Detectives
, edited by Otto Penzler. Boston: Little, Brown.

———. 1979.
The Secrets of Grown-Ups
. New York: McGraw-Hill.

———. “Correspondence from Readers 1979–1981.” Box 28. Folder 5. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. 2006.
Laura
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1943; New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.

———. n.d. “Discards and Rewritten Pages.”
The Secrets of Grown-Ups
. Box 29. Folders 4, 12. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. n.d. “Draft Article.” Box 28. Folder 17. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. n.d. “Screen Stories.” Box 9. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. n.d. “Women in Crime.” Box 29. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

———. n.d. “Working Draft 1927–1954.”
The Secrets of Grown-Ups
. Box 29. Folders 3. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

Caspary, Vera and George Sklar. n.d. “The Exiles.” Box 10. The Vera Caspary Papers. Film and Manuscript Archive, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.

Caspary, Vera and George Sklar. 1945.
Laura: A Play in Three Acts
. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Emrys, A.B. 2005. “
Laura
, Vera and Wilkie: Deep Sensation Roots of a Noir Novel.”
Clues
23: 5–13.

Jackson, Kevin. 1998.
The Language of Cinema
. New York: Routledge.

Maio, Kathi. 1980. “Rebel With A Cause.” Books.
Sojourner,
January 12.

McNamara, Eugene. 1996.
Laura as Novel, Film, and Myth
. Lewiston: Mellen.

Preminger, Otto. 1977.
Preminger: An Autobiography.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Schloff, Linda Mack. 2003. “We Dug More Rocks: Women and Work.” In
American Jewish Women's History: A Reader
, edited by Pamela S. Nadell. New York: New York University Press.

Warren, Ann L. 1988.
Word Play: The Lives and Work of Four Women Writers in Hollywood's Golden Age
. Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California.

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Femmes Fatales restores to print the best of women's writing in the classic pulp genres of the mid-twentieth century. From mystery to hard-boiled noir to taboo lesbian romance, these rediscovered queens of pulp offer subversive perspectives on a turbulent era.

SKYSCRAPER

Faith Baldwin

Afterword by Laura Hapke

eISBN: 9781558617872 | ISBN: 9781558614574

Lynn is an ambitious young woman who loves her job in a gleaming new Manhattan skyscraper. Soon, Lynn falls in love with Tom, the young clerk down the hall. They are so in love that if they don't get married, something improper is bound to happen…. But her company has a strict new policy: Any woman who marries will be immediately fired. First published in 1931 as a serial in
Cosmopolitan
—the same year the Empire State Building opened its doors—
Skyscraper
marks the advent of a new kind of romance, and a new kind of heroine. This
Sex in the City
for its time was made into a pre-Code Hollywood movie starring Maureen O'Sullivan.

“With its sexual bargains and betrayals, insider trades and financial maneuvers,
Skyscraper
is pulp fiction at its best.”

—Maria Dibattista, author of
Fast-Talking Dames

“A captivating and quietly subversive novel, featuring a spunky young working woman struggling to make it on her own.
Skyscraper
declares that despite all challenges, women should insist on their right to have it all.”

—Alicia Daly,
Ms.

FAITH BALDWIN
(1893–1978) was one of the most prolific
mid-twentieth century authors of popular fiction. She published eighty-five books between 1921 and 1977, many of them focused on women juggling family and career, including
White Collar Girl
,
Men Are Such Fools!
, and
An Apartment for Peggy
, which was made into a Hollywood film in 1948.

BEDELIA

Vera Caspary

Afterword by A. B. Emrys

eISBN: 9781558616486 | ISBN: 9781558615076

Long before
Desperate Housewives
, there was Bedelia: beautiful and “adoring as a kitten.” An ideal housekeeper and lover, she wants nothing more than to please her insecure new husband, who can't believe his luck. But is Bedelia too good to be true? A mysterious new neighbor turns out to be a detective on the trail of a picture-perfect wife with a string of dead husbands in her wake. Caspary builds this story to a peak of psychological suspense when her characters are trapped together in a blizzard. The true Bedelia—the woman who escaped a life on the street—is revealed.