Vamp by Loren D. Estleman
Vamp is the seventh full-length novel in masterful author Loren D. Estleman’s Valentino, Film Detective series. These cinematic gems are as enticing as the buttery roasted aroma of fresh movie lobby popcorn. Film buffs and avid mystery readers can also ferret out several short stories featuring this intrepid film archivist named for “The Sheik” of silent film stardom in back issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. (Alternatively, they could buy a copy of Valentino: Film Detective which contains all 14 short stories.)
The series is set in present-day Los Angeles with snappy dialogue, scintillating repartee and quickstep pacing reminiscent of the glory days of 30’s and 40’s Hollywood. Valentino, surname undisclosed, is by profession a UCLA Department of Film archivist searching for lost or missing vintage movies including footage fragments, primarily from the silent era, for restoration and preservation.
His personal passion project is the reclamation of The Oracle, a formerly derelict classic movie palace. He managed to save this ruin from the wrecking ball several years ago but the painstaking renovations have been progressing at a snail’s pace due to his limited funds. Frame, the first book in the series, published in 2008, launched Valentino’s amateur career as a criminal investigator when he discovers a human skeleton hidden in the theater’s secret Prohibition-era basement along with some reels of Erich von Stroheim’s masterpiece Greed.
Bodies have continued to pile up in the subsequent books along with appearances by Golden Age film stars and plots centered on locating rare film footage. Each book is nuanced, layered with multiple subplots; an eccentric cast of characters with great odd-ball names and concludes with a bibliography and filmography.
Blackmail and Dilapidated Drive-Ins
In Vamp, Valentino is hot on the celluloid trail of Cleopatra; one of filmdom’s lost “Holy Grail” movies featuring one of the greatest silent stars and earliest sex symbols, Theda Bara. He is temporarily living with his long-time girlfriend Harriet Johansen, a forensic scientist working with LAPD while a bathroom is installed next to The Oracle’s projection booth which doubles as his living quarters.
The adventures begin when Dinky Schwarz, whom Valentino has not seen since sophomore year in college, phones him. Dinky is a failed UCLA Bruin football player turned flourishing building contractor. He recently impulsively purchased The Comet, a defunct drive-in movie theater and wants Val’s expertise in rebuilding and modernizing it with a superior sound system and modern amenities to capitalize on nostalgia and attract a contemporary audience.
His mentor Kyle Broadhead, an eccentric professor of cinema history, argues against the advisability of the proposed project. Still, Val persists and consults with Leo Kalishnikov, a renowned theater designer who claims to be a White Russian who defected from Russia before the collapse of the Soviet Union but his accent suspiciously slips from time-to-time.
His office, despite its location in a shady neighborhood, is sumptuously decorated in the fashion of the inside of a Faberge egg. His wardrobe features a wide-range of costume choices often topped off with silk-lined capes and elaborate hats. Kalishnikov may have put the “f” in flamboyant but is always in demand and well paid. He agrees to consult on Dinky’s proposed drive-in but only if Valentino can thwart a blackmailer troubling him. The potential income from solving both problems could fund the final restoration of The Oracle in time for a truly grand opening.
The stage is set, the short subject has been screened and Vamp begins in earnest with past and present murders and multiple intriguing subplots that must be read to be fully appreciated. It’s positively Oscar-worthy!
Fiction Meets Cinema History
Loren D. Estleman, recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award as well as four Shamus Awards, five Spur Awards, three Western Heritage Awards and multiple other honors displays his love for and vast knowledge of cinema history. Estleman may be favorably compared to the late Stuart Kaminsky (1934-2009), Film Studies professor and mystery writer with 24 books in his “Toby Peters” series set in 1940s Hollywood.
The pseudonymously named S.S. Van Dine (1888-1939) literary editor and art critic Willard Huntington Wright, who turned to writing short murder mystery films for Warner Brothers and the successful Philo Vance detective series, is another notable author who incorporated Hollywood stars into his fiction. Loren Estleman has stated that he is a slow writer who diligently devotes six hours daily to his craft typing on a 1950 manual typewriter. The Valentino series are fictional works liberally sprinkled with some artistic license taken.
Theda Bara was less a woman of mystery than successful actress who retired early from show business and enjoyed a comfortable private life. After appearing in several local theatrical productions in her hometown of Cincinnati, the ambitious Theodosia Burr Goodman, daughter of a Polish-born successful Jewish tailor, moved with her family to New York and debuted on Broadway. She changed her name when she signed a five-year contract with Fox Studios, based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, located across the Hudson River about six miles from Manhattan.
Theda Bara became their biggest star who soon earned $4000 per week (A veritable fortune, roughly equivalent to $67,500 in today’s dollars) and helped support her parents, brother Marque and sister Lola (Esther). After a bit part as a gangster’s moll in The Stain, in 1915 she landed the lead as “The Vampire” in the hit A Fool There Was.
In early 20th-century motion pictures, a vampire was a femme fatale; a mysterious, beautiful seductress. Theda Bara became permanently nicknamed “The Vamp”; America’s first cinematic sex symbol, clad in skimpy, revealing pre-code fashions, earning a fabricated and apparently wholly undeserved reputation for amorality.
She essentially retired from filmmaking in 1921 when she married British-born writer and director Charles Brabin. The vast majority of the 122 credited films he directed were silent and largely also lost. He retired in 1934. He was Theda Bara’s only husband. They had a happy marriage that lasted until her death from cancer in 1955. They owned homes in Nova Scotia, Cincinnati, and Beverly Hills where they had many friends including Clark Gable and George Cukor and frequently hosted lavish dinners.
Theda was renowned for her fine cooking and kind generosity. They enjoyed frequent trips to New York to see operas and plays. Although no longer recognized for appearing in film, Theda Bara was a welcome, frequent guest on radio interview programs.
Fox Studios had archived their highly flammable nitrate-based silent film in 48 large storage vaults in New Jersey. Disaster struck in July, 1937 when most of their pre-1932 stock was destroyed by a massive fire caused by spontaneous combustion after an extended period of high heat. Negatives from several other studios were also destroyed. It remains the worst of the many film fires with over 40,000 negatives obliterated.
The misfortune for Theda Bara’s legacy was nearly her entire body of work was destroyed with the exception of four unexceptional full-length features, two shorts and the briefest of tantalizing fragments. A later circa 1940 fire in MOMA’s film archive was reported to have destroyed the only known copies of Cleopatra and Salome. About one minute of footage exists for Cleopatra, widely regarded as her finest film; another great was Salome with approximately two minutes surviving along with seconds of outtakes from The Lure of Ambition.
Further Reading
For those interested in reading more about Theda Bara, film biographer Eva Golden’s Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara published in 1997 is an excellent resource.
The Library of Congress, UCLA and the Museum of Modern Art among other facilities are primary sources for preservation and research on the great Silent Film era in the United States. Approximately 11,000 feature films were made between the years of 1912 to 1929 in the United States. Fewer than 3300 survive but not all are complete. International, global efforts continue to locate missing films for cataloging, preservation and restoration with reels turning up in Russia, Argentina, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy as well as in personal collections. Learn more.
About Loren D. Estleman:
Loren D. Estleman graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Journalism. In 2002, his alma mater presented him with an honorary doctorate in letters. He left the job market in 1980 to write full time, after a few years spent “pounding out beat-the-train journalism” during his day job as a reporter before going home and writing fiction at night.
His first novel was published in 1976, and has been followed by 80 books and hundreds of short stories and articles. His series include novels about Detroit detective Amos Walker, professional killer Peter Macklin, L.A. film detective and amateur sleuth Valentino, and the Detroit crime series. On the western side is the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series. Additionally, he’s written dozens of stand-alone novels.
His books have been translated into 27 languages and have won multiple Shamus, Spur, Western Heritage, and Stirrup awards. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2012, the Western Writers of America honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
He lives in Michigan and is married to writer Deborah Morgan.
