The Guardian (23/Sep/2010) - On the trail of the Three Investigators
Details
- article: On the trail of the Three Investigators
- author(s): David Barnett
- newspaper: The Guardian (23/Sep/2010)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Janet Leigh, Psycho (1960), Random House, Robert Arthur, The "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" Series (books)
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Article
On the trail of the Three Investigators
Who can uncover the secret of boys' detective fiction? Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews are more than a match for the Hardy Boys
I distinctly remember the first time I watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was Psycho, of course, and I was allowed to stay up later than usual to watch a film that I was really too young to see. To be honest, it didn't matter I fell asleep about half an hour in. But I was happy, because I'd seen what I wanted: the director's famous cameo, standing outside Janet Leigh's office, wearing a cowboy hat.
My relationship with Hitchcock had begun long before, thanks to a series of books in which Hitch appeared fleetingly, but left a lasting impression. If I say Jupiter Jones to you, and Uncle Titus, and Red Gate Rover and Skinny Norris, you might be transported back, just as I am, to the heady days of the Three Investigators.
I discovered the Three Investigators at about the same time as I was reading the Hardy Boys and (smuggled between other books, of course) the occasional Nancy Drew adventure. But there was something about the Three Investigators that lifted them far above their fellow amateur sleuths. Even at primary school age, Drew and the Hardy brothers seemed to me to be far too preppy and posh, too country club and privileged, for me ever to emulate. The Three Investigators, though, were a whole different kettle of clues. The leader ("First Investigator", according to the business card that was reproduced at the beginning of each case) was Jupiter Jones, whose private dick parents had died on an investigation, meaning he now lived with his Uncle Titus and Aunt Mathilda in a junkyard. As a very small child, Jones had been an actor called Baby Fatso, which he always tried to play down, and was the brains of the outfit.
The action man was Pete Crenshaw ("Second Investigator"), always called upon for feats of athletic prowess, and whose dad was a Hollywood special effects man, providing lots of excellent props and whizz-bangs to help the boys bring down various bad guys.
Then there was Bob Andrews poor old Bob, his leg in a brace, with a part-time job at the local library. Bob was "Records and Research", and his dad was a reporter. Bob's bookish nature helped him come up with the vital clue or the piece of evidence which could close a case.
The Three Investigators were created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first few books and then oversaw and edited the rest of the series. It was he who had the brainwave of having Alfred Hitchcock as the patron of the team. Hitch introduced each case, and often called them in to set them off on their latest adventure. It was this intrusion of real life into a fictional world that cemented my relationship with the Three Investigators. Could these stories possibly be true ... ?
The investigations themselves had more than a dash of the Scooby-Doos about them, with spooky scenarios, villains hiding behind grotesque disguises and the sheer, enviable freedom of a bunch of kids doing their own thing and solving honest-to-goodness mysteries. They also had a long-running enemy in Skinner "Skinny" Norris, a rich kid who could drive because he'd passed his test in another state, and who was always trying and failing to outdo the Three Investigators.
The real magic, though, was in the boys' headquarters, hidden among the piles of junk in Uncle Titus's scrapyard. Built from an abandoned trailer, the secret base was accessed via a series of ingenious secret passages, with the codenames Green Gate One, Tunnel Two, and Red Gate Rover the latter so named because it was hidden behind a painting of a dog.
The original run of Three Investigators books started in 1964 and ended in 1987 I probably stopped reading sometime in the early 1980s. There were moves to shudder update them in 1989, ageing the characters to 17 and adding more action to the mix, but apparent disagreements between publishers Random House and the estate of creator Robert Arthur put the revamp on ice after two years.
The Three Investigators, though, have had a new lease of life in, of all places, Germany, where they are known as "Die Drei Fragezeichen" The Three Question Marks). The original run of just over 40 books has been bumped up to more than 150, with attendant and hugely popular radio adaptations.
I was disappointed when I found out that Hitchcock himself hadn't written the books apparently Random House paid to use him as a character but the Three Investigators certainly made a lasting impression on me. And even after I'd had my fleeting glimpse of Psycho, for a long, long time I thought those books were the best thing to which Alfred Hitchcock had ever put his name.
