Hitchcock and the hipper Hardy Boys

I was thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s face, musing on his famous profile and his habit of making cameos in his movies, when I suddenly had a flashback to that same distinctive silhouette on a book jacket.

It came back to me then – the Master of Suspense once endorsed a detective series for kids, akin to the Hardy Boys. A quick go on Google supplied the name of the series: The Three Investigators.

The Three were a gang of boy detectives whose adventures I devoured via my local library at an impressionable age, tucked under my arm along with Nancy Drew, Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Bobsey Twins (did they even solve crimes?) and, probably my least favourite, the aforementioned Hardy Boys. (I’d freakishly strong biceps for a small child)

Spooky mysteries chock-full of secret tunnels behind bookcases, hidden treasure, pirate gold, invisible ink, lock-picking, torches, CLUES, man. This stuff ruled my youth.

Our heroes were three all-Americans teens with a limo that they won in some kind of unlikely raffle, plus a chauffeur who functioned as a handy token adult when needed. Their headquarters was a mobile home in their leader Jupiter Jones’s uncle’s scrapyard, concealed from view by the junk (his detective parents were deceased, of course, so goes the trope of children’s literature of dead or absent parents granting the opportunity for less supervision, more adventure).

Putting Jim Rockford to shame, the caravan HQ housed a well-stocked office, lab and darkroom. Jupiter was wicked smart, stocky and round faced which often led others to underestimate his intelligence, something he ruthlessly used to his advantage. (He was embarrassed by an early career as a child star called ‘Baby Fatso’.)

Peter Crenshaw was the action guy, athletic but nervy and reluctant, although he had access to all manner of handy kit since his dad was a Hollywood special effects man. Bob Andrews was the bespectacled part-time librarian who wore a leg caliper in the early books. I’m guessing he was probably my favorite.

Titles include The Secret of Terror Castle, The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot and The Mystery of The Screaming Clock. The series was created by Robert Arthur, in its heyday penned by William Arden, with a number of other authors and illustrators involved as time wore on,  from 1964-87.

Apparently Hitchcock’s actual input didn’t stretch much beyond pocketing the fee from publishers Random House, but the first 30 titles were ‘introduced’ by him and bore his likeness on the cover in a genius marketing ploy. In certain books,the trio were summoned to his office to be set upon the case by the great man himself.

I had forgotten all about the Three Investigators and their cinematic genius of a mentor, despite being a major Hitchcock fan, Vertigo and Rear Window among my all-time favourites.

It seems the books remain strangely massive in Germany – entitled Die Drei ??? – and there’s even a recent series of kids films based on them.

Maybe due to their junkyard base, Hollywood links and, ooh, chauffeured limo the lads struck me as far cooler and more exciting than the rather prissy, preppy Hardy Boys. In fact, they may be a big part of the reason I now solve mysteries in my spare time.

 

FIONA SMITH @fifilebon