Fredric Brown's The Screaming Mimi

Fredric Brown (1906-1972) was an American writer of science fiction and crime fiction. Although he was a pretty big deal in the crime genre he is a writer whom I’ve overlooked until now. The Screaming Mimi, published in 1949, is one of his earlier crime novels. It was filmed in 1958 and in 1970 it was adapted (apparently “unoffically”) by Dario Argento as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. We’ll get back to Argento later.

The Screaming Mimi has been reprinted by Bruin in a two-novel paperback edition, paired with a slightly later Brown crime novel, The Far Cry.

The Screaming Mimi is the story of a drunken Irish newspaperman named Sweeney. Sweeney is not sure how long he’s been drunk. It could be a few days, it could be a couple of weeks. He doesn’t think he left Chicago during that time but he can’t be sure of anything.

Sweeney witnesses a crime. The crime, an attack on a woman, takes place behind locked glass doors. What the witnesses (including Sweeney) see is the immediate aftermath of a crime rather than the crime itself. A crowd has gathered and the cops have arrived but nobody can get in through those glass doors to help the woman because of the dog. It’s a big dog, a really big dog, and it has no intention of letting anyone in. The cops could of course just shoot the dog but they don’t want to. The woman isn’t dead and while she’s hurt she doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger of death. The dog doesn’t seem to be intending to hurt her. It occurs to the cop on the scene that the dog probably belongs to the woman. If they shoot it she might make a fuss. And the cop likes dogs. He doesn’t want to shoot a dog that is only trying to protect his mistress.

Eventually the cops get in and find that the woman isn’t badly hurt.

This event causes a sensation because in the previous couple of weeks three women have been murdered by a crazed killer who’s been dubbed the Ripper. This woman, a stripper named Yolanda Lang, is the first woman to survive an attack by the Ripper. The newspapers turn the event into a media sensation. Yolanda can’t identify her attacker which makes the story even bigger - a serial killer still on the loose.

The event has a different effect on Sweeney. That’s because Yolanda was nude. Sweeney has never seen such a gorgeous female body. He figures she probably has a nice face as well but he isn’t sure because it wasn’t her face he was looking at.

Sweeney discusses the matter with God. No, not that God. This God is a drunken bum named Godfrey but everyone calls him God. God has a theory. He believes that a man can get anything he wants, anything at all, if he wants it badly enough. He just has to be prepared to pursue the goal with single-minded determination. Sweeney decides to test the theory because for the first time in his life he’s found something he wants badly enough to be prepared to devote himself to achieving it. He wants to sleep with Yolanda Lang. He doesn’t want to marry her, he doesn’t want her to be the mother of his children, he just wants to sleep with her.

Sweeney will have to drag himself out of the gutter to achieve that aim but that part isn’t too difficult. Sweeney isn’t an alcoholic. He’s a moderate social drinker who goes on occasional spectacular benders. He’s even able to get his job back. He’s a reporter.

Now he’s onto the biggest story of his career but Sweeney never loses sight of the fact that solving this crime is merely a mean to an end. The end is to have sex with Yolanda Lang.

Sweeney is a good reporter when he’s sober. And he finds a lead that the cops have overlooked. It’s a naked girl. Not Yolanda Lang, but a different naked girl. This one is a foot high. She’s a nude statuette of a terrified young woman. Her name is Mimi. The company that sells the statuettes has dubbed this particular line the Screaming Mimi. Sweeney has a hunch that Mimi is the key to solving the mystery.

Sweeney has another hunch as well. In fact he has several, but there’s one that obsesses him.

There are several potential suspects. They have alibis, but not rock-solid alibis.

As the author tells us at the start, Sweeney’s story begins with a nude woman. And it ends with a nude woman. Not that nude statuette but an actual nude woman. What’s cute is that while all these nude women add the sort of salacious content that makes crime novels sell they are essential to the plot, and the fact that they’re naked is essential to the plot.

That opening sequence behind the glass doors is a corker. It’s easy to see why it got Argento’s attention. Argento took a fine effective literary scene and turned into one of the best visual set-pieces in cinema history. Aside from that scene Argento’s movie retains some key plot points and scraps others. It’s interesting that the emphasis on the purely sexual nature of Sweeney’s obsession is downplayed in the movie. It’s interesting because the giallo is a sub-genre of the erotic thriller and Sweeney’s obsession with Yolanda’s naked body is ideal erotic thriller material. Overall this is a case of a movie differing somewhat from its source material but both the novel and the movie are masterpieces in their own ways.

Brown’s novel is a fine mystery story with a terrific plot but it’s also very definitely an erotic thriller.

The novel also includes a lot of sly humour. It’s not by any stretch of the imagination a humorous detective story but it has some very witty very amusing moments. Brown’s attitude towards his hero is also interesting. Sweeney is a nice guy and he’s likeable but Brown doesn’t gloss over his character failings. He’s a very human hero.

The Screaming Mimi is a gripping well-constructed crime thriller with a few very nice structural touches. Very highly recommended.

I've also reviewed Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.