Smooth Kyle

Created by Borden Chase
Pseudonym of Frank G. Fowler?
(1900-1971)

 PETER “SMOOTH” KYLE was not a private eye, but he was definitely a cabbie — first an actual one, working Hell’s Kitchen, and then posing as one after signing up with the U.S. Treasury Departments. As a G-Man, he prowled by mean streets of New York City to bring mobsters, drug dealers, assorted hoods, scam artists and fake police officers to justice, in at least three serials in Argosy Weekly.

Helping him out were his pals at the Customs Office, and his best gal, the wise-cracking bad-girl-turned-good, Gilda Garland.

The stories were full of rip-snorting pulpy goodness, with plenty of bang-bang action, played out against a backdrop of New York City and environs, full of swanky dames, dive bars, glittering diamonds, flophouses, luxury liners, back alleys, explosions, fisticuffs, shootouts and swellegant estates. At one point Smooth even makes it to Havana.

The rights to the first serial was filmed by 20th Century Fox, and released as Midnight Taxi, starring Brian Donlevy as Charles ‘Chick’ Gardner (don’t ask), while another one, “Blue-White and Perfect,’ was used as the partial basis for a Mike Shayne film  in 1942, and later collected, re-titled and re-published as a novel, Diamonds of Death, in 1947. 

Even more recently,  Steeger rounded up the first serial, “Midnight Taxi,” and published it, complete with original illustrations, in 2024.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Before making it as a writer,  Chase worked as chauffeur for Prohibition-era mobster Frankie Yale — until Yale was ‘rubbed out’ by the Capone mob in July 1928. Figuring to get out while the getting was good, Chase worked first as a “sandhog” on the Holland Tunnel and later as a cabbie (both occupations he later wrote about), before turning to writing. After making a name for himself in the pulps, he moved on to  Hollywood, writing for film and television, getting much acclaim for westerns, including Red River (1948), Winchester ’73 (1950), The Far Country (1954), and Backlash (1956). In television, he supplied scripts for Tales of Wells Fargo, Daniel Boone, The Detectives, Whispering Smith, Bonanza, Route 66 and The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, among others..

SHORT STORIES

• “Midnight Taxi (Part One)” (October 12, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Two)” (October 19, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Three)” (October 26, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Four)” (November 2, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Five)” (November 9, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Six)” (November 16, 1935, Argosy)
• “Midnight Taxi (Part Seven)” (November 23, 1935, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part One)”  (January 11, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Two)”  (January 18, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Three)”  (January 25, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Four)”  (February 1, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Five)”  (February 8, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Six)”  (February 15, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part Seven)”  (February 22, 1936, Argosy)
• “Once for a Thousand (Part One)”  (January 11, 1936, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part One)” (September 18, 1937, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part Two)” (September 25, 1937, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part Three)” (October 2, 1937, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part Four)” (October 9, 1937, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part Five)” (October 16, 1937, Argosy)
• “Blue-White and Perfect (Part Six)” (October 23, 1937, Argosy)

NOVELS

• Diamonds of Death (1947) | Buy this book

FILMS

• MIDNIGHT TAXI
  (1937, 20th Century Fox)
  Directed by Eugene Forde
  Starring Brian Donlevy as CHARLES ‘CHICK’ GARDNER (Smooth Kyle in the original)
  and  Frances Drake as Gilda
  Also starring Alan Dinehart, Sig Ruman, Gilbert Roland, Harold Huber, Paul Stanon, Lon Chaney Jr., Russell Hicks, Regis Toomey, Agnes Ayres, Joseph E. Bernard, Edgar Dearing
• BLUE, WHITE AND PERFECT
  (1942, 20th Century Fox)
  Based on characters created by Brett Halliday and Diamonds of Death by Borden Chase
  Screenplay by Samuel G. Engel
  Directed by Herbert I. Leeds
  Starring Lloyd Nolan as MIKE SHAYNE (Smooth Kyle in the original)

COLLECTIONS

• Midnight Taxi: The Complete Cases of Smooth Kyle (2024) | Buy this book

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Death Flags a Cab
  Taxi-Driving Eyes (and Limos Too!)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.