Simon Lash
Created by Frank Gruber (1904-1969)

Ornery, cantankerous, cynical ex-soldier, ex-lawyer SIMON LASH is one PI who doesn't seem to give two hoots about much of anything except his beloved books about the Old West and, of course, his fee. He has an assistant, Eddie Slocum, whom he barely tolerates, but together they managed to appear in three novels in the forties by Frank Gruber, and they were popular enough for PRC to film the first book, Simon Lash, Private Detective, in 1946, as Accomplice.

Accomplice is some sort of film -- that's for sure. Supposedly a better-than-average B-film, but that's only if you're not looking for a coherent plot. Lash, whom Richard Arlen to his credit plays as written, is hired by an old girlfiend to find her missing husband, but the susequent investigation turns up one murder after another, an inexplicable tailjob through several Southwestern states, some great character bits (the interplay between Lash and Eddie, played by Tom Dugan, is definitely amusing) and a rather goofy shootout. The Detective in Film calls Lash "a surly and unattractive hero," but I sort of enjoyed the film, and I thought Arlen did a pretty good job. It rushes by so fast it barely makes sense, but that's part of the fun. And it features Poodledale (here called Palmdale) prominently, although it's not exactly a flattering portrait. No sequels were made.

Author Frank Gruber is one of the most prolific of the great pulpsters, and recouted his experiences in The Pulp Jungle. He also found the time to write three different private eyeseries. Beside Simon and Eddie, he wrote about con artists/PIs Fletcher and Cragg, and legit dicks Otis Beagle and Joe Peel, and came up with TV hybrid P.I./cowboy Shotgun Slade. In the pulps he wrote a long series of short stories about crime-solving encyclopedia salesman Oliver Quade.

NOVELS

• Simon Lash, Private Detective (1941) ,. Buy this book
• The Buffalo Box (1942) ,. Buy this book
• Murder '97 (1948) ,. Buy this book

FILM

• ACCOMPLICE
  (1946, PRC)
  68 minutes, black and white
  Based on the novel "Simon Lash, Private Detective" by Frank Gruber
  Screenplay by Irving Elman and Frank Gruber  
  Directed by Walter Colmes
  Produced by John K. Teaford
  Starring Richard Arlen as SIMON LASH
  and Tom Dugan as Eddie Slocum
  Also starring Veda Ann Borg, Marjorie Manners, , Archie Twitchell, Earle Hodgins, Francis Ford, Edward Earle, Herbert Rawlinson, Sherry Hall, Robert McKenzie

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.