Martin Beck

For other uses, see Martin Beck (disambiguation).

Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective who is the main character in a series of ten novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, collectively titled The Story of a Crime. The stories are often seen largely from his perspective and are frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories.

Character

Throughout the novels, he goes from being an unhappily married man and father to two young teenagers, to a divorced man in an unmarried relationship. Beck is prone to colds and often is suffering from ailments and physical discomforts. Beck also gets several promotions, seemingly much to the chagrin of everyone involved, including himself.

In the novels he is a tall man who smokes. In The Abominable Man he is shot and severely wounded.

All ten novels have been adapted to film, although some appeared with different titles and four have been filmed outside Sweden. The first actor to play Martin Beck was Keve Hjelm in 1967. Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt portrayed Beck in 1976. In 1993 and 1994, Gösta Ekman played the character in six films. To the American audiences, the most notable actor to play Martin Beck is Walter Matthau from the 1973 film called The Laughing Policeman, though his character was called "Jake Martin." Martin Beck has also been played by Jan Decleir, Derek Jacobi and Romualds Ancāns. Two of the novels have been adapted for films twice, Roseanna and Murder at the Savoy. In the later films that is only based on the characters, Martin Beck is played by Peter Haber.

Novels

• 1965 – Roseanna (Roseanna)
• 1966 – Mannen som gick upp i rök (The Man who Went Up in Smoke)
• 1967 – Mannen på balkongen (The Man on the Balcony)
• 1968 – Den skrattande polisen (The Laughing Policeman)
• 1969 – Brandbilen som försvann (The Fire Engine That Disappeared)
• 1970 – Polis, polis, potatismos! (Murder at the Savoy)
• 1971 – Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle (The Abominable Man)
• 1972 – Det slutna rummet (The Locked Room)
• 1974 – Polismördaren (Cop Killer)
• 1975 – Terroristerna (The Terrorists)

Films based on the novels

Independent films

• 1967 – Roseanna (based on Roseanna, starring Keve Hjelm)
• 1973 – The Laughing Policeman (based on The Laughing Policeman, starring Walter Matthau, the setting is changed to San Francisco and the characters have different names)
• 1976 – The Man on the Roof (based on The Abominable Man, starring Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt)
• 1979 – Nezakonchennyy uzhin (based on Murder at the Savoy, starring Romualds Ancāns)
• 1980 – Der Mann, der sich in Luft auflöste (based on The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, starring Derek Jacobi)
• 1993 – Beck - De gesloten kamer (based on The Locked Room, starring Jan Decleir)

Films with Gösta Ekman

• 1993 – Roseanna (based on Roseanna)
• 1993 – Brandbilen som försvann (based on The Fire Engine That Disappeared)
• 1993 – Polis polis potatismos! (based on Murder at the Savoy)
• 1993 – Mannen på balkongen (based on The Man on the Balcony)
• 1994 – Polismördaren (based on Cop Killer)
• 1994 – Stockholm Marathon (based on The Terrorists)

Films only based on the characters

Season 1 was written by Rolf Börjlind and season 2–4 by Rolf Börjlind and Cilla Börjlind. They all starred Peter Haber as Martin Beck and Mikael Persbrandt as Gunvald Larsson. Some of them were released theatrically, but most went direct-to-video.

Season 1

• 1 – Beck (27 June 1997) (later called Beck – Lockpojken)
• 2 – Beck – Mannen med ikonerna (17 December 1997)
• 3 – Beck – Vita nätter (27 February 1998)
• 4 – Beck – Öga för öga (27 March 1998)
• 5 – Beck – Pensionat Pärlan (8 April 1998)
• 6 – Beck – Monstret (20 May 1998)
• 7 – Beck – The Money Man (3 June 1998)
• 8 – Beck – Spår i mörker (31 October 1997)

Season 2

• 9 – Beck – Hämndens pris (27 June 2001)
• 10 – Beck – Mannen utan ansikte (7 November 2001)
• 11 – Beck – Kartellen (12 December 2001)
• 12 – Beck – Enslingen (16 January 2002)
• 13 – Beck – Okänd avsändare (13 February 2002)
• 14 – Beck – Annonsmannen (20 March 2002)
• 15 – Beck – Pojken i glaskulan (10 April 2002)
• 16 – Beck – Sista vittnet (4 January 2002)

Season 3

• 17 – Beck – Skarpt läge (28 June 2006)
• 18 – Beck – Flickan i jordkällaren (6 December 2006)
• 19 – Beck – Gamen (17 January 2007)
• 20 – Beck – Advokaten (21 February 2007)
• 21 – Beck – Den japanska shungamålningen (5 June 2007)
• 22 – Beck – Den svaga länken (23 March 2007)
• 23 – Beck – Det tysta skriket (19 September 2007)
• 24 – Beck – I Guds namn (10 October 2007)

Season 4

• 25 – Beck – I stormens öga (26 August 2009)
• 26 – Beck – Levande begravd (22 June 2010)

Radio adaptations

The BBC has adapted the series for radio and began broadcasting the adaptions in October 2012 under the umbrella title of The Martin Beck Killings. Beck is played by Steven Mackintosh and Kollberg by Neil Pearson. Other actors include Ralph Ineson as Larrson, Russell Boulter as Ronn, and Adrian Scarborough as Melander.

• 1 - Roseanna (27 October 2012)
• 2 - The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (3 November 2012)
• 3 - The Man on the Balcony (10 November 2012)
• 4 - The Laughing Policeman (17 November 2012)
• 5 - The Fire Engine That Disappeared (24 November 2012)
• 6 - Murder at the Savoy (tba 2013)
• 7 - The Abominable Man (tba 2013)
• 8 - The Locked Room (tba 2013)
• 9 - Cop Killer (tba 2013)
• 10 - The Terrorists (tba 2013)

Impact

Sjöwall and Wahlöö's technique of mixing traditional crime fiction with a focus on the social issues in the Swedish welfare state received a great deal of attention. The concept has been updated in the 1990s with Henning Mankell's detective character Kurt Wallander and in the 2000s with Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy featuring Lisbeth Salander. The basic concept has, by extension, given rise to the entire Scandinavian noir scene.

See also

• Maj Sjöwall
• Per Wahlöö

External links

• Martin Beck series on Internet Book List