Hank Hyer

Created by Kurt Steel
Pseudonym of Rudolf Kagey
(1904-1946)

Now here's a weird one: you'd think Kurt Steel would be the private eye's name, and HANK HYER would be the author.

Nope.

It's Hank's creator who's the one with the unlikely monicker of Kurt Steel. Then again, that's just a pseudonym of Rudolf Hornaday Kagey. So I guess Kurt Steel is an improvement, after all.

According to the very helpful information provided by the Dell paperback edition (love those mapbacks!) of Judas, Incorporated (1939), Hank's a "tough and well-muscled private investigator"who "takes himself and the world with adequate salt, and rarely allows sentiment to intrude upon the fundamentals of life. Hyer likes things stirred up and is not adverse to giving fate a stimulating prod. Only a fat fee check can lure him from Broadway."

In other words, a typical hard-boiled dick of the era, albeit an early one who actually predates the debut of Chandler's Philip Marlowe. And Steel saddled Hyer with an interesting background: he'd been a brilliant welterweight boxer at one point.

Also, the series seemed to be a little more political (or at least more aware of politics) than most hard-boiled books of the era. In his The Ethics of the Mystery Novel, Anthony Boucher notes that Judas Incorporated was "a pro-union labor novel," while in Ambush House (1943), Hank adopts a young girl, a refugee from the Spanish Civil War.

Anyway, Hank (sometimes Henry) appeared in a string of books in the thirties and forties, and proved popular enough to inspire at least a couple of B-films from Paramount. 1937's Murder Goes To College, was based on his novel of the same name, published the previous year. It featured Lynne Overman as Hyer and Roscoe Karns was added as Sim Perkins, providing comic relief as a bumbling, booze-swilling reporter, and was promptly followed by Partners in Crime, also 1937, and also supposedly based on Murder Goes to College.

TRIVIA

Lynne Overman also played Frank Gruber's Oliver Quade, The Human Encyclopedia, with a very young Donald O'Connor cast as his comic relief sidekick.

UNDER OATH

"Tops for the tough type."

-- Time Magazine, June 5, 1939, on Judas Incorporated.

NOVELS

Murder of a Dead Man (1935; aka "The Traveling Corpses")
Murder for What? (1936)
Murder Goes to College (1936)
Murder in G-Sharp (1937; aka "Strangler's Holiday")
Crooked Shadow (1939) ..Buy this book
Judas, Incorporated (1939) ..Buy this book
Dead of Night (1940) ..Buy this book
Madman's Buff (1941)
Ambush House (1943) ..Buy this book

SHORT STORIES

"The Friendly Slayer" (September 1947, Detective Novel)

As far as I know there were no Hank Hyer other short stories, and I'm not even sure if "The Friendly Slayer" is merely an alternate title for the reprinting of one of Steel's novels, or a completely original work and a late addition to the series. Editions of at least a few of his novels were reprinted in pulp magazines, including Murder in G-Sharp (Fall 1948, Detective Novel Magazine) and Murder For What? (Fall, 1948, Detective Mystery Novel).

FILMS

MURDER GOES TO COLLEGE
(1937, Paramount)
77 minutes, black & white
Based on the novel by Kurt Steel
Screenplay by Brian Marlow, Robert Wyler, Eddie Welch
Directed by Charles Riesner
Cinematography by Henry Sharp
Film editing by Edward Dmytryk
Starring Lynne Overman as HANK HYER
and Roscoe Karns as Sim Perkins
Also starring Marsha Hunt, Astrid Allwyn, Harvey Stephens, Buster Crabbe, Earle Foxe, Anthony Nace, John Indrisano, Barlowe Borland, Purnell Pratt
PARTNERS IN CRIME
(1937, Paramount)
66 minutes, black & white
Based on the novel Murder Goes to College by Kurt Steel
Screenplay by Gladys Unger, Garnett Weston
Directed by Ralph Murphy
Cinematography by Henry Sharp
Film editing by Eda Warren
Produced by Harold Hurley
Starring Lynne Overman as HANK HYER
and Roscoe Karns as Sim Perkins
Also starring Muriel Hutchison, Anthony Quinn, Inez Courtney, Lucien Littlefield, Charles Halton, Charles C. Wilson, June Brewster, Esther Howard, Nora Cecil, Russell Hicks, Don Brodie, Archie Twitchell

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with an important lead from Bill Kelly. Thanks, Bill.

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