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Checkmate (1930) is one of the many popular novels written by Englishman Sydney Horler in the first half of the 20th century. Forgotten today, the book describes the exciting lifestyle of the wealthy social elite. Checkmate adds an element of crime and adventure to that atmosphere, but the countless coincidences throughout the plot guarantee a thoroughly predictable happy ending, complete with a double wedding.
The novel is about a gang of four international criminals who hire a young and naïve English girl as an innocent decoy in a scheme to rid an English aristocrat of her family jewels.
The innocent girl is 24-year-old Mary Mallory, who has spent the last seven years in isolation caring for her invalid aunt. After the latter's death, Mary, now living in London, realizes that she has to earn her own money unless she wants to live in relative poverty. She answers the ad of a Comtesse Zamoyski, who is looking for a companion with whom to travel to the Côte d'Azur, and, after an interview, she is accepted for the post. As Mary sees it, her new job combines at least two advantages: seeing the world and proving, to herself as well as her friends, that she is an independent woman. Mary's blinkered view lets her ignore all the warning signs that are pointed out to her. Jessie Stevens, her old schoolmate, even suspects that "White Slavery" could be behind that ad, but Mary does not listen and leaves London with her new employer.
Through a series of coincidences a number of people are alerted to the dangers that might be in store for Mary. Apart from Jessie Stevens, it is Dick Delabrae, a society columnist for The Sun, and his friend Robert Wingate, who happens to be the nephew of Lady Wentworth, whose pearls the gang wants to steal. They all come to Cannes, where the Comtesse Zamoyski and Mary Mallory are staying in a remote villa, in order to help the young woman and prevent the theft of the pearls.
The Comtesse turns out to be rather moody, but at first Mary has no idea that she is associating with criminals. Her first visit to the casino is a huge success: Not only does she win more than £1,500 at baccarat but she also makes the acquaintance of Lady Wentworth, who immediately takes a liking to the charming girl. Later that night, however, back at the villa, she overhears a conversation between the Comtesse, José Santes, allegedly the Comtesse's nephew, and a young Russian called Nadja, allegedly her maid, which makes it unmistakably clear to her that she is staying under the same roof with criminals.
However, escape is now no longer possible. Before she can get away from the villa, Mary Mallory is captured, drugged and hypnotized by the fourth member of the gang, a Frenchman posing as a doctor. On his way to the villa to rescue Mary, Robert Wingate, who has fallen in love with Mary, is kidnapped by Santes's men and thrown into catacombs somewhere below the streets of Cannes. Lady Wentworth is lured to the Comtesse's villa with the prospect of seeing Mary again but after her arrival she is tied to a chair and, in a drug-induced frenzy, stabbed to death by José Santes, a "dope fiend". As she is not wearing her pearls, the gang flee without any loot. When Mary Mallory wakes from her stupor some time later it is only to encounter the French police accusing her of murdering Lady Wentworth, whose body she discovers in the same room where she was lying unconscious.
But Robert Wingate can escape from the dungeon, and all misunderstandings are cleared up in the end. The members of the gang are arrested near the Italian border, and the two couples — Dick and Jessie on the one hand, Robert and Mary on the other — return to England to get married.
In Checkmate it is described how railway passengers, before boarding their train, would grab the latest novel from the bookstall at Victoria Station in order to be able to indulge in some light reading during their journey. Checkmate itself would have been such a novel: sensational, thrilling — a variation of the old "damsel in distress" motif —, romantic, sexy, with characters larger than life, with many complications during the plot but a clear-cut ending where good and virtuous behavior is rewarded and evil is punished.
Young women, it seems, are placed into three categories according to their knowledge of the world: Women like Nadja, who have seen and done it all, clearly belong to the "wrong 'un" type; the same would be true of the so-called Comtesse in her younger days ("a woman with a history […] and a past"). Girls such as Jessie Stevens, on the other hand, know what is going on and enjoy life to the full but never do anything illegal or immoral, which implies that they do not indulge in pre-marital sex or recreational drugs. Finally, there are young women like Mary Mallory, who is described as "absolutely a child, so far as the world is concerned" and so gullible she will believe almost anything she is told.
In a world full of double standards of morality, men are conceded a greater amount of freedom. Robert Wingate, for example,
possessed about the usual number of faults and virtues of his type. Whilst certainly not a prig, he could not with justice have been placed in the saintly category. He enjoyed life to the full, but he had a certain code to which he adhered. Briefly, it was this: he was always prepared to be amused by a girl who was "goey", provided she was sufficiently attractive, but no girl of the stricter class had ever had cause to regret getting to know Bobby Wingate. There were certain unwritten rules in the game, and this was one of them. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he barred married women — which is to say he respected them even when they didn't respect themselves. One day — if ever he did get married — he would be able to look into his wife's eyes without undue shame, which is as much as any man, born of woman, can hope to do. (Chapter IV)
The people who have time and money enough to travel to the Côte d'Azur are seen in rather an unfavorable light. At one point in the novel Robert Wingate explains to Mary Mallory that, "apart from the millionaires, the courtesans, the crooks, and the gamblers", the majority of visitors to Cannes are "émigrés and hivernants— people who leave England in order to escape paying taxes, and who are able to make a better show financially than they would in their own country" (Chapter XII). However, honest members of the British upper and upper middle classes such as Delabrae and Jessie Stevens also mingle with that crowd.
Progress is one of the magic words with that particular set of people, with progress in aviation being especially appealing. The members of the jet set appreciate the fact that there are scheduled flights now not only from Croydon to Le Bourget but also from Paris to Cannes. When Dick Delabrae and Jessie Stevens decide to join Mary in Cannes, they consider the various means of transport available to them:
"How do we go? Blue train?"
"Nothing so prosaic! By air — the only possible way nowadays. You're provincial, my child."
"Provincial be damned!" was the quick retort; "I have only one neck and I want to keep it intact!"
Delabrae laughed at the suggestion of any danger. (Chapter XXIII)
Young and Innocent, released in the US as The Girl Was Young, is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer.
Lady Audley's Secret is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published on 26 May 1862. It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel. Critic John Sutherland (1989) described the work as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels". The plot centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. The plot was summarised by literary critic Elaine Showalter (1982): "Braddon's bigamous heroine deserts her child, pushes husband number one down a well, thinks about poisoning husband number two and sets fire to a hotel in which her other male acquaintances are residing". Elements of the novel mirror themes of the real-life Constance Kent case of June 1860 which gripped the nation for years. Braddon's second 'bigamy' novel, Aurora Floyd, appeared in 1863. Braddon set the story in Ingatestone Hall, Essex, inspired by a visit there. There have been three silent film adaptations, one UK television version in 2000, and three minor stage adaptations.
To Catch a Thief is a 1955 American romantic thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes based on the 1952 novel of the same name by David Dodge. The film stars Cary Grant as a retired cat burglar who has to save his reformed reputation by catching an impostor preying on wealthy tourists on the French Riviera.
Persuasion is the last novel completed by the English author Jane Austen. It was published on 20 December 1817, along with Northanger Abbey, six months after her death, although the title page is dated 1818.
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron, nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was an educational reformer and philanthropist who established the first industrial school in England, and was an active abolitionist. She married the poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, and separated from him after less than a year, keeping their daughter Ada Lovelace in her custody despite laws at the time giving fathers sole custody of children.
Nancy is a fictional character in the 1838 novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and its several adaptations for theatre, television and films. She is a member of Fagin's gang and the lover, and eventual victim, of Bill Sikes.
Adele Jergens was an American actress.
Jamaica Inn is a 1939 British adventure thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 novel of the same name. It is the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted. It stars Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in her first major screen role. It is the last film Hitchcock made in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States.
The Hireling is a 1973 British drama film directed by Alan Bridges, based on a 1957 novel of the same title by L. P. Hartley, which starred Robert Shaw and Sarah Miles. It tells the story of a chauffeur who falls in love with an aristocratic woman.
To Catch a Thief is a 1952 thriller novel by David Dodge. The scene is the French Riviera, and the time is 1951.
The Passionate Friends is a 1949 British romantic drama film directed by David Lean and starring Ann Todd, Claude Rains and Trevor Howard. The film is based on The Passionate Friends: A Novel (1913) by H. G. Wells. It describes a love triangle in which a woman cannot give up her affair with another man. The film was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.
Mademoiselle Marie is the name of two fictional characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. She first appeared in Star Spangled War Stories #84, and was created by Robert Kanigher and Jerry Grandenetti. She was based in part on several actual members of the French resistance, most notably Simone Segouin.
Anne Elliot is the protagonist of Jane Austen's sixth and last completed novel, Persuasion (1817).
The Lone Star Ranger is a Western novel published by Zane Grey in 1915. The book takes place in Texas, the Lone Star State, and several main characters are Texan outlaws. It follows the life of Buck Duane, a man who becomes an outlaw and then redeems himself in the eyes of the law.
At the Villa Rose is a 1910 detective novel by the British writer A. E. W. Mason, the first to feature his character Inspector Hanaud. The story became Mason's most successful novel of his lifetime. It was adapted by him as a stage play in 1920, and was used as the basis for four film adaptions between 1920 and 1940.
Sweet Revenge is a 1976 American crime film directed by Jerry Schatzberg. It was entered into the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. It was the second leading role for actress Stockard Channing in a film, following the previous year's The Fortune in which she co-starred opposite Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.
Eliza Capot, Comtesse de Feuillide was the cousin, and later sister-in-law, of novelist Jane Austen. She is believed to have been the inspiration for a number of Austen's works, such as Love and Freindship, Henry and Eliza, and Lady Susan. She may have also been the model from whom the character of Mary Crawford is derived.
Maigret and Monsieur Charles is a detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon, and is the last novel featuring his long-running character Jules Maigret.
Mary Mussi, née Edgar, was a British writer of over 50 romance novels as Mary Howard, who also wrote over 10 gothic romance as Josephine Edgar. She is one of the two novelists to win three times the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Jacqueline Holt is a character in Wentworth and serves as the main antagonist in the first season. Jacs was notable for being the first known top dog in Wentworth and for her rivalries with Franky Doyle and Bea Smith. Jacs was portrayed by Kris McQuade.