The Black Cat (The Three Question Marks)
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| Radio play ( Germany ) | |
| publication | 1979 |
| genre | Youth series / crime thriller |
| duration | 44 min |
| Publisher / label | Europe |
| Contributors | |
| author | William Arden |
| editing | HG Francis |
| Director | Heikedine Körting |
| music | Bert Brac , Betty George |
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The three ??? and the black cat (original title Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Secret of the Crooked Cat ) is an American juvenile crime novel by William Arden from 1970. It is the 13th (7th in German counting) volume in the series The three ??? . In it, the young protagonists Justus Jonas, Peter Shaw and Bob Andrews try to solve the riddle of black stuffed cats in a traveling circus, which a criminal tries to get hold of by all means.
action
Justus, Peter and Bob deliver painted hot tubs for Justus' uncle Titus Jonas , which are needed to replace the podium at the lion dressage in a traveling circus nearby. They use the opportunity to have a look around the site. At a shooting gallery they notice a quarrel and a customer, who apparently feels cheated about his price, snatches it from the seller and flees with it. However , he loses the stolen prize, a black, creepy-looking stuffed cat , on his escape.
The boys bring the cat back to the stand, where they make friends with the owner, Andy Carson, the circus owner's son, who is about the same age. Peter wins the cat in the shooting. When he goes away with Andy for a moment to get new prizes, they see that the lion rajah is roaming free outside. Although it is considered harmless, it could cause a great deal of panic among visitors. Peter, who by his father a lot of experience in dealing with trained animals , has can calm the lion until it the tamer is brought back into the cage. The boys suspect that this could have been a distraction because the cat can no longer be found. Andy tells them that Raja's going out was not the first of its kind. Lately there have been strange mishaps at the circus that looked like sabotage, and a fire even broke out at the last venue. Andy suspects that his grandmother might have something to do with it because she was always very opposed to the boy joining his father and his circus. The three detectives also suspect that the perpetrator must be someone from the circus, who apparently knew very well that Raja is harmless. Above all, the strong man Khan, who, it is said, is actually a well-known circus artist, but now appears under a different name in the small circus, appears suspicious to them.
When Bob accidentally discovers a newspaper ad that is supposed to be looking for black stuffed cats like the ones in Andy's shop for 25 dollars - supposedly for a kindergarten - the boys suspect a connection to the stolen stuffed cat. With an old stuffed cat, Justus, Bob and Andy go to the address given by telephone, while Peter is supposed to keep an eye on the circus. Many other children are already waiting on site in the hope of being able to turn their stuffed cat into money. The man who placed the ad has an eye-catching tattoo on his arms. However, Andy cannot remember any employee at the circus who had one. Later, the boys observe how the stranger cuts open the few cats he has bought and searches through the food - but to no avail. When entering the house, they are locked in a trap. Using a tracking device that Justus developed, Peter can find out where she is and free her. They discover a kind of circus costume in the house, plus shoes with suction cups. The boys suspect that the stranger is the cat thief from the circus grounds. Andy expresses the suspicion that they might be dealing with the unique Gabbo. This was a circus performer who appeared as a fly man in exactly such a costume, but was then jailed for various criminal machinations .
The boys make their way to an address that a child had previously given the man because his friend who lived there recently won such a cat as a prize at the circus. However, you are too late, the stranger with the tattoo has already broken into there and stole the stuffed cat. When the affected family reports the incident to the police, the three boys find out that the description of the stranger corresponds exactly to that of a bank robber who is currently wanted. They suspect that there must be some indication of the prey's whereabouts in the cats.
Jupiter assumes that the criminal has now found what he wanted by stealing the last of the five cats and that there will be no more incidents in the circus. It is also possible that the criminal has already run away with his prey. When they return to the circus, they discover that there has been another sabotage. They discover a figure by Andy's car that has been broken into and pursue them. Justus and Peter as well as Bob and Andy take different routes that lead them to an empty amusement park . Jupiter and Peter flee from the suddenly appearing power man Khan, whom they suspect to be behind all the processes. They finally hide on the bank in a boat, the ropes of which the pursuer loosens, so that the boys drift away from the coast. With difficulty you get to the small island of Anapamu off the coast and by building a makeshift outrigger boat back to the mainland.
There Jupiter reveals that there are six cats instead of five as previously thought: Andy gave five cats as prizes, but a sixth was damaged in the fire, which Andy thought of repairing when he got the chance. You go straight to the circus, but the cat has since been stolen. The police cordon off the circus, the perpetrator cannot get outside for the time being. Justus finally succeeds in convicting one of the two clowns as the perpetrator, whom Andy's father undoubtedly recognizes as the unique Gabbo. The tattoo wasn't real either, it was part of the disguise. The inside of the cat he was carrying contains a luggage storage card, where the loot of the bank robbery was hidden. Gabbo is taken away by the police. It turns out that Khan is now working as a private detective and was hired by Andy's grandmother to take care of the boy. She allows Andy to stay with the circus through Khan's report, and Khan also wants to stay as an artist. Later the detectives present the summary of the case to Alfred Hitchcock in his office, who agrees to publish this case as a book as well.
German publication
The novel was published in Germany in 1971 and the associated radio play was published in 1979 by the audio book publisher Europa . A new version appeared in 2019. The original editions still bore the name and likeness of Alfred Hitchcock , who was the patron and editor of the series. Because the license expired in Germany in 2005, the references to Hitchcock had to be removed from the new editions of the novel that have been published since then.
The cover motif was designed by Aiga Rasch and shows the head of a black cat, which - in contrast to the one described in the novel, which has one eye closed - has two normal eyes.
expenditure
a book
It has appeared several times as a book and as a radio play. The book was first published in 1970 in the USA by Random House, Inc., and in Germany in 1971 by Franckh'schen Verlagshandlung. Further publications followed, for example in 1978 and 1997. It was published in February 2000 in paperback. As a paperback it was published in 2003 as a double episode book together with the episode The Super Whale . It was published in the Black Edition in 2006 together with Der Phantomsee and Der tanzende Teufel .
- William Arden: Alfred Hitchcock: “The three ??? And the black cat ” , Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1971, ISBN 978-3-440-03827-7 .
- William Arden: Alfred Hitchcock: “The three ??? And the black cat ” , Kosmos, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-440-13151-0 .
radio play
A compact cassette was released on September 2, 1996 and a CD on October 15, 2001 by Sony Music.
In 2017, a new version rewritten by André Minninger on the basis of the original book was conceived as an interactive radio play for presentations in planetariums, which was released in 2019 as a stereo version on double CD. The story has been carefully modernized and added some dangerous situations that appear in the book but not in the 1979 version. Therefore the new version is much longer. The characters Justus, Peter, Bob and Andy were voiced by the same people as in 1979. In the new version, Thomas Fritsch acted as narrator , Andy's father Carson is spoken by Hans Kahlert , Gabbo by Manfred Reddemann , Iwan by Urs Affolter , Khan by Klaus Dittmann , Aunt Mathilda by Karin Lieneweg and Uncle Titus by Andreas E. Beurmann under the pseudonym Hans Meinhardt.
reception
The Zauberspiegel found that the 1979 version was a "fast-paced episode with small weaknesses", but that the circus and fairground flair would benefit the radio play.
Sascha Leupold compares the new and old version in a short review : most of the scenes “stayed the same and exudes the same charm”. The “well thought-out and mysterious story has lost none of its fascination” and the entire radio play has retained its original “charm and was implemented in an exciting way”. After almost 40 years between the two versions, the voices of Oliver Rohrbeck, Jens Wawrczeck and Andreas Fröhlich sound more mature, the "earlier childlike naivete is of course no longer possible in the dialogues, now they are more emotional and more elected".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hörspielland.de: The three ??? and the black cat . Retrieved August 4, 2021
- ↑ a b c d Sascha Leupold: Review of the new version of the radio play (2019) . In: Short review of February 21, 2019. Retrieved on August 4, 2021
- ↑ Verlag Kosmos: The three ??? And the black cat . Retrieved August 4, 2021
- ↑ The three ??? and the black cat . In: halloherne of December 6, 2017. Retrieved on August 4, 2021
- ↑ G. Walt: Old history in a new version . In: zauberspiegel-online.de . Retrieved August 4, 2021
- ↑ Thorsten Zwingelberg: CD Reviews, The three question marks - The three ???: The three ???: ... and the black cat (new version) . In Twilight Magazine on March 24, 2019. Retrieved August 4, 2021
- ↑ G. Walt: The three ??? (4) ... and the black cat . In: zauberspiegel-online.de . Retrieved August 4, 2021