Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 125: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 110

June 1956 Part IV

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Uncanny Tales #44

Cover by Carl Burgos

"Out of the Swamps!" (a: Dick Ayers) ★★1/2

(r: Uncanny Tales #2)

"The Frightened Man!" (a: George Roussos) ★★  

(r: Dead of Night #2)

"She Came from Nowhere!" (a: John Forte) ★★

"Beyond Belief!" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #4)

"Planet of Doom" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★★1/2

"The Girl Who Didn't Exist!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

(r: Dead of Night #2)

"Out of the Swamps!" is a preachy about a genius scientist, Dr. Carl Mandel, who discovers a heretofore undiscovered species of simian-like creatures in the swamp. He quickly gives them a name: Lemur Squamata! The egghead takes the little critters back to his lab and discovers they're extremely intelligent and breed fast. He builds a domed world for the Lemsquas and watches as they solve all the mysteries of the world: atomic fusion, non-aggressive behavior, eggplant that tastes good, lots of stuff.

Not wanting to be disturbed during his research but wanting to share the info (especially about tasty vegetables) with the rest of the world, Mandel contacts a billionaire (after all, he muses, billionaires have everything they want already and won't use the info for selfish means--and this guy is super-smart?) and spills the beans. Over the next few days, Mandel listens to the radio as the world becomes a new, better place. But, of course, nothing good lasts long and the billionaire arrives at the lab, wanting to know how Mandel came to all his conclusions. When he finds the lemurs, he throws the scientist into a locked room and contemplates being master of the world. 

Luckily, the Squamata clan are a deeply loyal bunch and come to Mandel's rescue, vowing to head back into the swamps to avoid any more calamity. Not a bad little fantasy tale, with some of Dick Ayers's best work, ruined only partially by the reminder in every other panel that mankind should learn to live together as one and all that tommyrot. I love how the little rug rats even have small microscopes inside their dome. I can see the Prof ordering tons of metal and plywood from Home Depot to supply this little utopia.

In the second preachy this issue, "The Frightened Man," tyrant Franz Hyle feels satisfied and all-powerful now that he's chased his main rival, Professor Rolfe, out of the country. But with the arrival of a Plutonian in Camilandt, Hyle begins to question his staying power. The outer space man (who can read minds) feeds Hyle info on all his most trusted men and staff, reminding him that it's usually the most trusted who are turned first. Hyle has his entire staff arrested but is astonished when the Plutonian unmasks and reveals himself to be none other than... Professor Rolfe. The manipulator explains that the only people left surrounding Hyle are his enemies. Like "Out of the Swamps," "The Frightened Man!" lays it on thick but benefits from some nice Roussos graphics.

Salesman Harry Long breaks his number one rule of driving across country (don't pick up hitchhikers) when he stops for a young lady alongside a country road. But she's so beautiful! The girl climbs in the front seat and explains that she must get to Clarksville immediately. Just then, a car comes along and runs Harry off the road. The woman explains that the two men will say they're cops but they're not and she'll explain later. Harry rolls his eyes and wonders why he didn't follow rule number one. But she's so beautiful!

The men roughly throw Harry and the girl in their back seat and speed off. Thinking a girl this beautiful could not be a criminal, Harry lunges for the wheel and the auto crashes into a tree. Harry and the beautiful girl hoof it into the forest. Once they've found a safe spot, the girl finally introduces herself as Princess Darla of Ornil, a planet in another dimension. Back on Ornil, there was this big revolution and a group of scientists created a "time flaw" that allowed the Princess to slip through onto Earth. The two goons are henchmen sent to Earth to bring her back. She can stay as long as she wants to but they have a limited time before they vanish back to Ornil. Why she wanted to come here and how she found that fabulous dress and why Clarksville are questions best not asked. All we really need to know, as Harry reminds us every other panel, is that she is beautiful!

Harry finally comes to his senses (it happens when the Princess insists that Harry give her his car keys so she can drive on to the Inter-Dimensional Time Flaw Convention in Clarksville) and runs toward the highway with fake cops at his heels. The boys disappear as promised and Harry is picked up by a delivery truck. He tells the driver he's heading to Clarksville to meet up with the most beautiful girl in the world! "She Came from Nowhere!" is dopey fun as long as you don't slow down and question the odd choices the scripter (Carl Wessler?) made. We never do find out what Darla's mission here on Earth might be or why she needs to get to Clarksville so badly. Were the events of "She Came from Nowhere!" the inspiration for Boyce and Hart? Who knows?

Jonathan Black uses his genius for evil when he invents the devilish Gas-X, a formula that lifts houses and buildings off of their foundations. Black intends to extort governments for millions, holding anything that's cemented down as hostage. It's only when a freak accident lifts his house into the stratosphere that Black's dastardly plan is ruined. I love how Black is still rambling on about his plot after he's left Earth's gravity and, ostensibly, the oxygen that allows him to breathe. It's "Beyond Belief!" Bad guys always dressed so nicely in the 1950s.

In the far-off future of 1971, those stinkin' Commies are at it again with their selfish, dangerous ego trips. This time, the Russkies (well, they're not identified as such but this is a Stan Lee-edited funny book so...) are packing rocket ships with thousands of jailed dissidents and shooting them into space, headed for the planet Sirius-XM. It's a win-win for the Commies; they get rid of bad eggs and they possibly discover if humans (and Russkies) can survive on another world. Think of the opportunities! Galaxy-wide dominance!

Well, the rocket ships keep blasting off but the top brass never hear anything back from the test pilots, so eventually they man a craft with high-thinking tyrants with an eye to discovering if the planet is a green Eden waiting to be conquered or a graveyard of useless vehicles. They land on Sirius and are greeted by an old man, who explains that he is the last surviving member of the expeditions; everyone else was killed by the planet's deadly atmosphere. Hearing this, the new crew hop back on board their tin can and exit stage right. The old man heads back to his shining metropolis and tells the rest of the explorers that their ruse worked. Three sermons in one issue is overload but at least each of the stories has dynamite art. "Planet of Doom" might be the most gorgeous of the trio. 

Finally, we have the dreary and cliched "The Girl Who Didn't Exist!" Junior archaeologist Augie Walford falls in love with an ancient statue of the gorgeous Claudia Caligara that was unearthed at a Roman site. Obsessed with the work of art, Augie enters an underground passage that leads to Ancient Rome, where he immediately gets off on the wrong foot with a local tough. The bright side is that he meets Claudia, who quickly falls for the pith helmet the digger wears and declares that this is the man she will marry.

Augie gets caught up in some Roman gladiator nonsense in the arena, defeats the mighty Justinian, and is convinced by Claudia to stay in the past. Back in the present, his old digging buddies look far and wide for the missing Augie but to no avail. The new statue they've just unearthed is the spitting image of their lost companion. Time travel tales can be a lot of fun but this one follows a worn-out road (in fact, the pavement has turned to dirt) and the climax, with the newly discovered "Caesar Augustus" sculpture, breaks a rule that even Claudia knows about: What you left behind, does not exist! The art, by the usually reliable Paul Reinman, is sub-par. Far from sub-par is the wonderfully atmospheric cover by Carl Burgos, which almost brings back the glory of pre-code Atlas in one image.-Peter

World of Mystery #1

Cover by Bill Everett

"The Metal Men" (a: Angelo Torres) ★★1/2

"I Am Your Master!" (a: Robert Q. Sale) ★

"Man Hunt!" (a: Bob Powell) ★

"When the Clock Stops" (a: Ed Moore) ★

"The Long Wait" (a: Bernard Bailey) ★★1/2

"Mission to Earth" (a: Joe Orlando) ★★★

Just what the newsstand needed in 1956, another package of safe sci-fi/fantasy tales to complement the thirteen other safe packages marketed as funny books by the company. World of Mystery would survive for seven (mostly bi-monthly) issues, axed like just about everything during the implosion of Summer 1957. If nothing else, at least the premiere issue presents a stunning Bill Everett cover.

Speaking of stunning art, let's welcome back one of the masters of 1950s science fiction/fantasy art, Angelo Torres, after a one-year hiatus from Atlas. "The Metal Men" tells the tale of an expedition to Mars and what the explorers find. Martians have been driven underground by the very robots they created. The Earthlings help the Martians win their world back and learn a lesson in doing so: always make sure you can unplug your great invention! As noted, Torres delivers graphics worthy of the EC sf comics and turns what would have been just an average lecture on trusting too much in technology into a gorgeous sermon.

In the ridiculous "I Am Your Master," jailbird Lank Hull (no, seriously!) happens upon a passage in a book in the prison library on mesmerism that enables him to hypnotize anyone around him. He entrances the guard and convinces him to free him. In the outside world, he puts the whammy on the first blonde waitress he runs across and convinces her to marry him. Though his betrothed, Rita, knows about the nineteen years remaining on his sentence, she agrees to run off with him anywhere he goes. They hop on a plane bound for Argentina but the jumbo jet heads for the prison instead. 

Lump manages to get to the pilot before he lands and they turn the plane around. The couple then try a train; same problem. Last chance, they board a luxury liner bound for Europe but, hours later, Lank looks out of his porthole and sees the familiar sight of his old address, the prison! Attempting to hypnotize the captain proves fruitless and, suddenly, Lunk finds himself back on his jail bunk, a doctor examining him. A guard explains to Lint that he had messed up by practicing his hypnotic powers in the mirror, thereby mesmerizing himself! It was all a dream. Groan.

Hardboiled P.I. Joe Bolton (think Bogie) is hired by a gorgeous blonde (Marilyn) to find her great-great-great grandfather who disappeared 150 years before after building a "crude flying machine" and was never seen again. Witnesses have sworn they've seen an old man fitting gramps's description wandering the city streets.

Never questioning the color green, Bogie heads out to track down a man who couldn't possibly still be around. There's a really lame expository (the blonde is actually an agent from Neptune, here to nab the runaway old man) that doesn't fill in some important blanks (like why this old timer would head to Earth in the first place), but the extra info would require more wordage so actually I'm okay with it.

Scavenger Dolf Anjov rummages through the wreckage of a bombed town and discovers a grandfather clock he believes he can get a pretty penny for. As he's hoisting it on his back, an old man emerges from one of the buildings and warns Dolf that the clock has a curse on it and the owner must wind it every day or die. Dolf scoffs and heads out of the village but each day he doesn't wind he discovers he's growing weaker. Could the old man have been right? The Carl Wessler script is lifeless but Ed Moore's art is really what sinks this one for me. Amateurish and undemanding, Moore's pencils represent crude doodles and haste.

Two shipwreck survivors land on an uncharted island and are welcomed by natives who claim they are ruled by a "metal god." The head native tells the men to wait on the beach and he'll go grab the boss. Indeed, the head man is made of metal, a robot built years before and similarly shipwrecked on the island. Excited to see what real men look like, the robot heads to the beach but slips on a rocky cliff and does a reverse corkscrew into the ocean, never to be seen again. Supremely silly (but for once, intentionally so), "The Long Wait" is the perfect bag of Doritos after a steady meal of week-old fish.

Two Saturnian couples, the Gaals and the Kzojs, are tasked with flying to Earth and bringing back two young couples for scientific study. Whichever couple brings back their prisoners first will be granted ascent to royalty. We follow the Gaals on their journey to middle America and their blending into the culture, making friends with the neighbors, especially the Walkers. Agreeing the Walkers are the perfect couple to bring back to Saturn, Hak and Vat Gaal lure their new buds into a spaceship disguised as a house and blast off back to Saturn. Once there, the Gaals surrender their prizes up to the Grand High Minister, only to discover they kidnapped the Kzojs! Hilarious sci-fi from pulpsmith Carl Wessler, "Mission to Earth" was successfully adapted into the Robert Silverberg soft-core porn novel, Sin Aliens, wherein Hak and Vat land in a neighborhood populated by swingers. 

Well, no, that actually didn't happen, but a man can dream, can't he?-Peter

World of Suspense #2

Cover by Joe Maneely

"When Walks the Scarecrow?" (a: Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) ★★★

"Inside the Cave!" (a: Hy Fleishman) ★★

"The Man Who Saw Too Much" (a: Jim Infantino) ★1/2

"Hiding Place" (a: Lou Cameron) ★★1/2

"The Man from Nowhere" (a: Tony DiPreta) ★★

"Who Lurks Down There" (a: Steve Ditko) ★★

When a scarecrow is struck by lightning it comes to life! The first people it meets run in fear, but the creature quickly observes that the dam above the valley is leaking and, if the leak is not stopped, the valley will flood. Dragging itself to the dam, the scarecrow observes that the man in charge is sick in bed, so it does the only thing it can and stops the leak with its own body. Two days later, the man in charge sees sticks, rags, and straws plugging the leak and, down in the field, the farmer sees that his scarecrow is gone.

"When Walks the Scarecrow?" works due to the art by Andru and Esposito, who do a fine job of portraying a creature whose arms and legs are barely solid enough to keep it standing and moving forward. The scarecrow's sacrifice is no surprise, and the story doesn't include the scene on Maneely's cool cover, but it still succeeds as a four-page diversion.

Scientists are puzzled by a strange specimen until an engineer named Fred Hawkins bursts in to explain! One day he was out for a drive in the country and happened into a cave, where a strange gas made him shrink to a few inches tall. He met a race of tiny men "Inside the Cave!" whose ancestors were shrunken by a magician in the Middle Ages and who long to mingle with normal-sized people. Their solution is to have invented a gas that shrinks humans; they plan to shrink everyone down to their size. The engineer convinces them that the best way to accomplish this is to pump the gas into people's homes through a gas main. He hooks up the gas to a big pipe and pumps it all out, not telling the wee folk that it's really a waste pipe that leads to the ocean.

Fred gets away from the little people, passes out, and wakes up normal-sized. He tells the scientists that the gas must have hit a full-grown whale in the ocean and shrunk it into the tiny specimen they have been examining. Hy Fleishman's art is nothing special, but I have to wonder why the small people in the cave thought it was a good idea to shrink everyone else down to their size. They should have used their ingenuity to invent a gas that made them bigger!

A man looks out of his window and sees that the next town over has been flooded. Two days later the newspaper reports a flood the day before and the man realizes that he saw the future. A doctor doesn't believe him at first, until "The Man Who Saw Too Much" sees a forest fire the day before it occurs. Scientists examine him and decide that his vision of the future was caused by exposure to the glare of an atomic explosion while crossing the desert, but since he's nearsighted he can only see the next day. The top eye surgeon is brought in to operate to fix the man's vision, but when he looks out the window, he sees strange animals, including a purple cow. The scientists scoff, unaware that the man can now see far into the future and observed a zoo of animals collected from outer space in the year 2356.

Another weak effort by Carmine Infantino's younger brother fits this one-note story. It's odd that the man sees a scene from 400 years in the future and remarks that he can see "thousands of years ahead." Maybe the atomic blast hurt his math skills. It's not a huge leap from this to the Marvel super-heroes whose powers were the result of exposure to radiation.

Pointy-eared aliens approach Earth in their spaceship, confident that humans are small, timid creatures. They land and set out to visit a city. Later, Morton Jones receives a new camera for his birthday, but every photo he takes shows the aliens! The police start a dragnet (using an actual net) and every photo Jones snaps shows the invisible creatures. Finally, when Morton takes a coffee break, the tiny creatures sneak out of their "Hiding Place" in the camera; it turns out they were the small ones, not humans!

An extra star for the surprise ending, which I did not guess in advance. Lou Cameron's art has a Golden Age/newspaper comic feel to it and is above average for the pages of Atlas. I'm puzzled by the dragnet; I've never seen police use an actual net to go through the streets before. I thought it was more of a conceptual net than a literal one.

Linda thinks Joe is a bore and suggests taking a break. He goes home and decides to try shaving with foam to shake things up (he really is a bore!). A genie pops out of the can of shaving cream and is Joe's double, so Joe suggests the genie take Linda out and show her a good time. Fake Joe grabs Linda, who is impressed with his new sports car and speedboat. They land on an island that sinks underground (this has to be a Wessler script from the sheer randomness of the events) and fake Joe has to suit up as a knight and joust with another knight for Linda's hand. The other knight wins and Linda runs into fake Joe's arms. They return to the surface, where real Joe shows up. Fake Joe insists he's won Linda, but she does the right thing and runs back to real Joe, happy to share his boring life. Guess what? None of it really happened and it was all the genie's work.

Tony DiPreta's art is so angular in  spots in "The Man From Nowhere" that it almost looks like something by Salvador Dali, though I don't think that was intentional. The story is all over the place and ends up right where we all knew it would.

A young sponge fisherman named Jaime discovers an underwater city led by Ponce de Leon, who found the Fountain of Youth and remains young. Jaime drinks from the fountain and escapes to return to the surface, planning to bring others to the strange land. When his diving helmet is removed, he is wrinkled and his hair is white.

Yep, I don't get it either. Steve Ditko's art is pretty good, with the occasional awful panel, but the story makes no sense to me. If Jaime drank from the Fountain of Youth, why is he suddenly old?-Jack

Next Week...
More Nostalgia Nuggets from
the 80-Page Giants!

The Hitchcock Project-Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog by Lee Erwin [8.17]

by Jack Seabrook

"Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" aired on CBS on Friday, January 18, 1963, and was the only episode of the Hitchcock TV series to be written by Lee Erwin (1906-1972). Born Irwin Lieberman, he wrote for TV from 1952 until his death and his credits also include co-writing an episode of Star Trek. "Forecast" is an original teleplay that is not based on a story or a novel; it is well-structured and suspenseful and it contains subtle social commentary addressing relationships between the sexes in the early 1960s.

The show takes place in and around a beautiful beach house that is supposed to be in Los Angeles County, California, judging from the uniforms worn by policemen in the show. The exterior shots of the house and the beach it sits next to were filmed in Oxnard, a city in Ventura County about an hour west of downtown L.A. The house is still there at 1101 Capri Way.

Inger Stevens as Karen Wilson

After an establishing shot of the isolated beach house at night, located at the edge of a fog-enshrouded beach, the scene dissolves to the interior, where Karen Wilson, an attractive, young, blonde woman, is alone, tending to a fire in the fireplace. A foghorn is heard blowing outside and she turns on the radio; a weather report says that visibility is at zero. She looks out of the sliding glass doors that separate the living room from the outdoor patio, which faces the beach and the Pacific Ocean. The telephone rings and her husband Stan is calling from San Francisco, where he is working on a business deal. The deal is not done, so he tells her that he has checked into the Mark Hopkins, a real luxury hotel that opened in 1926. He has to stay overnight and remarks that Karen has never spent the night alone in their house before. She tells him about the fog and he replies that it "'sounds cozy,'" instructing her to lock up, take a sleeping pill, and go to bed.

Karen hangs up the phone and, just as soon as she has locked the front door, the doorbell rings and ominous music plays on the soundtrack. Outside, a man with a Spanish accent tells her that he has had car trouble. She opens the door, which is on a chain, and when the man tells her that his car has run out of gas, she tells him to walk to a gas station half a mile down the road. Karen refuses to let the man in to use the telephone, even though he tells her that his girl is in the car and he does not want to leave her alone. Karen shuts the door in his face, cutting him off. After locking the kitchen door, she goes to the bookshelf and selects a book; on her way up the stairs to bed, she hears a woman scream outside and then the loud engine of a car roaring off. Karen goes to the front door and looks out but, seeing nothing in the dark and the fog, she goes upstairs to bed.

Dan O'Herlihy as Simon Carter

Later that evening, she is awakened when the doorbell rings again. She gets up, puts on a robe, and goes downstairs to admit Deputy Sheriff Geary, along with another policeman and Sanchez, the man who had earlier come to her door. He is now in custody. She confirms his story about having come to her house earlier that evening and learns that his girl is in the hospital; she was missing when he returned to the car with gas. Karen tells the deputy sheriff about hearing a scream and a car driving off and he tells her that Sanchez's girl was found about a mile up the beach, unconscious, her skull fractured. Sanchez angrily accuses Karen of leaving the woman alone outside to die, but the deputy sheriff reassures her and tells her that they will be patrolling the area all night.

After the police leave with Sanchez, Karen calls her husband in San Francisco and wakes him up. She is hysterical and he agrees to get a car and drive home right away, since the fog has grounded all of the planes. She spends the rest of the night asleep on the living room sofa. Karen is awakened in the morning by the doorbell; her neighbor Simon Carter enters and makes coffee, and they discuss what happened the night before. He is a writer who says that his alibi for the prior evening is that he was watching a TV show that he wrote, commenting that "'watching what happens to one's story is a form of masochism I don't usually practice,'" perhaps speaking on behalf of some of the writers of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour!

Chris Robinson as Rick

As they sit outside on the patio in the sun, the fog having burned off, he confesses that he falls for happily married women. Karen ignores his comment and admits that she feels responsible for what happened to the woman. Just then, a trio of surfers walk by on the beach carrying their boards. They call to Karen, who refers to them as her friends and offers them coffee. Simon says that he loathes the younger men and leaves. After he exits, Karen hears a car engine that sounds very much like the one she heard the night before, right after the woman's scream.

The first act of "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" sets Karen up as a woman alone in a remote, possibly dangerous setting. She refuses to help a suspicious male stranger, who represents the "other" because he is Hispanic and speaks with an accent. In contrast, Karen is portrayed as the ideal American woman, white, blonde, and well-off. Sanchez turns out to be innocent (at least, it seems that way at the end of act one), but his girl has been hurt by a person or persons unknown. Karen summons her much-older husband home to act as her protector. In the morning, another older man visits who implies that he also desires her; he seems suspicious, especially when she hears a loud car engine right after he leaves. At this point in the story, the surfers seem irrelevant, but that will change.

As the second act opens, the three surfers, whose names are Rick, Ed, and Tom, have replaced Simon on the patio and are having coffee and chatting with Karen. They encourage her to come surfing with them and, after brief resistance, she agrees. Later, her husband arrives home to an empty house, having driven four hundred miles in a hurry thinking that his wife was terrified. Instead, she is shown to be out in the ocean, surfing with the young men in a scene with unfortunately obvious rear-projection. She falls off her board and they rescue her as Stan runs to the water's edge. After the surfers have left and she is inside with Stan, he is upset at her for engaging in seemingly frivolous activity when he thought she was upset.

Peter Brown as Ed

Stan receives a telephone call that his deal has not fallen through as he thought, so he immediately decides to fly back to San Francisco with Karen, since the sun is out and the fog is gone. In one of the show's inexplicable decisions, she declines to accompany him, instead saying that if he cannot make it back by evening she will stay with their friends, the Baileys. Karen opens a desk drawer to get Stan's checkbook for him and sees his automatic pistol; she takes it out and brandishes it, joking that "'Anybody comes messin' around here I'll just pull out old Bessie and blast 'em.'" Stan demonstrates that Karen doesn't know what to do with the gun; he takes it from her, loads it, and engages the safety catch. The viewer familiar with the principle of Chekhov's gun expects that, if a gun is introduced in act two, it will most likely be fired in act four.

After Stan leaves and Karen is alone again, she telephones Deputy Sheriff Geary to ask about the injured girl, whose name is Marta Garcia. Karen drives to the hospital, where she encounters a doctor named Foster in the hall and asks him about Marta, whose condition is unchanged. From down the hall, Sanchez watches Karen; he angrily confronts her outside the elevator, telling her that her concern has come too late and insisting that, although she would have taken in a stray dog that came to her door, she would not let him in. She offers to help pay for Marta's medical care and he replies, "'You will get your chance to pay and I will be there to collect.'"

Richard Jaeckel as Tom

In act two, the surfers are introduced and they claim to have seen Sanchez fighting with his girl on the beach the evening before, which they think means he is guilty of the attack. Karen's poor judgment is shown when she goes surfing with them and has to be rescued; throughout the episode, she is portrayed as a helpless woman who makes poor choices. Another bad decision on her part comes when she declines Stan's invitation to come with him to San Francisco; instead, she plays with his gun, suggesting that she does not understand the gravity of her situation. She then goes to the hospital and is threatened by Sanchez, who seems dangerous yet unlikely to have attacked the girl, as the surfers assume. In fact, the most likely suspect at this point in the show is Simon, Karen's lustful neighbor.

Act three opens with Karen returning home from the hospital in a taxi; Stan has taken their only car, so she is unable to drive anywhere on her own. As the day goes on the fog again rolls in off the ocean. At the hospital, Dr. Foster and Deputy Sheriff Geary tell Sanchez that Marta has died. He is distraught and seems determined to exact revenge, driving to Karen's house after dark has fallen. Expecting Stan to return, Karen sets a candlelight dinner for two, unaware that Sanchez is outside the front door, trying to pick the lock. He peers in through the kitchen window before setting to work on the lock on the back door. Meanwhile, the events of the prior night begin to repeat themselves as Stan calls from San Francisco to tell Karen that the airports have shut down due to the fog and he cannot come home. This time, she says that she will go to the Baileys' house, unaware that Sanchez has successfully picked the lock on the back door and entered the house. As Karen dials the phone to make another call, he sneaks into the living room and runs up the stairs when he hears the back door opening.

Simon Scott as Stan Wilson

Karen hears it too and grabs the gun, only to discover that Simon Carter has walked in through the unlocked kitchen door. Karen points the gun at Simon, whose number she had been dialing, but he tells her to put it down and places it in the drawer of the living room's coffee table, unaware that Sanchez is watching their every move. Karen lies and tells Simon that Stan will be home at any moment, but he knows that she is wrong and pompously begins to speak about the basic drives that men have that led to the events of the prior night. Although Karen hears a noise upstairs, Simon continues to talk, theorizing that every man has a murderer inside him and speculating that the man outside in the fog the night before was overcoming frustration. He sits uncomfortably close to Karen and remarks that his goal is attainable; he grabs her and she fights him off and runs. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Karen runs outside to encounter the three surfers in the dense fog.

Act three unfolds as a repeat of the events of the night before, with Karen trapped at home again by herself and Sanchez bent on revenge, blaming Karen for his girl's death in a show of misplaced anger because he does not know who is really responsible. Stan is once again incapacitated. Sanchez breaks in and becomes the first threat to Karen's safety; the second threat arrives in the person of Simon, whom Karen foolishly trusts. He acts on his lust and she runs out into the fog, since the interior of her home is now unsafe; she takes the place of the girl from the night before and again meets the surfers.

The final act begins as Rick, Ed, and Tom assure Karen that they will protect her. Sanchez runs back upstairs as they enter the house; we will later learn that he came downstairs and took the gun from the coffee table drawer after Simon left through the patio doors. The surfers think that Simon is the hidden threat, unaware that Sanchez is in the house, and Rick wields the fireplace poker as he and Tom search the second floor, Sanchez barely managing to avoid them as they go from room to room. In a Hitchcockian touch, the viewer's loyalties are momentarily transferred to Sanchez, as we fear his capture and thrill to his escape.

Christopher Dark as Sanchez

Finding no one, Rick and Tom return to the living room, where they discover that the sliding glass doors have been left open and realize that Simon left that way. Rick telephones the police, saying that he is calling from the Wilson house at Red Rock Point, a fictional location, and asks them to come to Karen's home. The scene that follows is chilling and finally reveals what has really been going on. Karen sits in the living room with the three surfers and they explain that they heard about the fog on the radio and that the planes had been grounded, so they decided to check on her. She says that she feels sorry for Simon and thinks he is sick. She begins to wonder why the police have yet to arrive and Rick begins to discuss the surfers' love  of "kicks"; Ed shuts off a table lamp and there is a subtle mood change as Simon and Sanchez have been forgotten and Karen thinks that she is alone with three young men.

Ed slides the chain on the front door to lock it and Karen begins to get scared. He turns off another light and suddenly the truth comes out as the surfers explain that they siphoned the gas out of Sanchez's old truck the day before. Fortunately for Karen, Sanchez is at the top of the stairs, watching and listening to every word. Now he knows who is responsible for his Marta's death. The surfers begin to threaten Karen, explaining that they ripped the phone lines out of the wall outside the house before entering and that the call to the police was fake. No one is coming to save her and they will have their way with her and then set fire to her house when they leave, expecting the police to blame Sanchez and preventing her from identifying them.

Karen pulls open the coffee table drawer, expecting to see the gun, but it is gone. She is pinned down on the sofa with a hand over her mouth. Suddenly, a gunshot rings out from the stairs and Ed is hit. Sanchez rushes down into the living room, holding the gun and standing over Tom, who begs for his life and receives a kick in the face. Ed lies on the floor, shot in the arm, as Rick runs out the sliding glass doors, over the patio and onto the beach. Sanchez runs out onto the patio and shoots at Rick, but Simon suddenly appears and tackles the surfer. Sanchez follows and holds the gun on Rick, who tells him to go ahead and shoot. Instead, Sanchez pulls the man to his feet and marches him back inside Karen's house. Simon apologizes to Karen outside on the patio and she bursts into tears as a plane flies overhead. The fog has lifted and the danger has passed.

Russ Thorson as Deputy Sheriff Geary

The last act cleverly plays with the viewer's emotions, transferring our loyalties to Sanchez as the surfers search the house for Simon, who has already left. The scene that follows is chilling, as the surfers' guilt gradually comes to light while the mood and the room darken. They are exposed as brutal, amoral men, whose only interest is in kicks and who are willing to rape and kill without remorse. Unexpectedly, Sanchez is the one to rescue Karen, aided by Simon! But in the end, who wins? The guilty are caught yet the women continue to suffer; Marta is dead and Karen has been through a harrowing experience.

The men in "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" are mostly varying degrees of bad. Stan, Karen's husband, is much older than she, a protective husband who cares more about his business than his wife. It's fitting that she wears a baby doll nightgown to bed, since Karen is essentially a baby doll for her older husband. Sanchez may come to the rescue at the end but that doesn't excuse his threats and we never know what he would have done if the surfers had not arrived. Simon may apologize to Karen at the end, but he was so overcome with lust for the "'happily married'" woman that he nearly attacked her before being interrupted by the arrival of the surfers, whose amorality and guilt tops that of any of the other male characters. Even the policemen and the doctor are unable to help either of the women.

The show is well directed by Charles Haas (1913-2011), who helmed only this single episode of the Hitchcock TV series. He started his Hollywood career as an extra before becoming an assistant director and then a director of documentaries and industrial films. After making training films for the Army in WWII he went back to directing industrial films before becoming a TV director in 1951. He continued directing until 1967, making a few films along the way, as well as four episodes of The Outer Limits.

Robert Millar (?)

Lovely Inger Stevens (1934-1970) plays Karen Wilson; she was in one other episode of the Hitchcock TV series, "My Brother, Richard." Born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden, she was on screen from 1954 to 1970 and also appeared on The Twilight Zone twice. She starred in the TV series The Farmer's Daughter from 1963 to 1966 and died of an overdose in Hollywood.

Creepy Simon Carter is portrayed by Irish actor Dan O' Herlihy (1919-2005), who started out as a stage actor in Dublin and appeared on screen from 1947 to 1998. He was a regular on The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963-1964) and co-founded the Hollywood School of Drama with fellow Irish actor Charles Davis, who also appeared on several episodes of the Hitchcock TV series. "Forecast" was O'Herlihy's only role on the show.

Rick, who seems to be the unofficial leader of the trio of surfers, is played by Chris Robinson (1938- ), who started out on Broadway in 1954 and began acting in films in 1957, including playing the title monster in Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). He appeared frequently on episodic TV during the 1960s, including two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (see "The Dividing Wall"). He wrote the screenplays for three films in the mid-1970s and also directed movies and TV shows during that period. As an actor, he had long-running roles on two soap operas: General Hospital, from 1978 to 2002, and The Bold and the Beautiful, from 1992 to 2005. Robinson's most recent acting credit was in 2022.

Greg Morris as Dr. Foster

Peter Brown (1935-2016) plays Ed, the surfer who gets shot in the shoulder. Born Pierre Lynn de Lappe in New York City, Brown appeared on film and TV from 1957 to 2005. He co-starred in the TV series Lawman (1958-1962) and was featured in several soap operas from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, including Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, and The Bold and the Beautiful. Brown appeared in one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Death of a Cop," and there is a website devoted to him here.

The third surfer, Tom, is played by Richard Jaeckel (1926-1997), a recognizable tough guy from TV and movies who started his film career in 1943 and his TV career in 1951. He was on the Hitchcock series four times, including a key role in "Off Season." Jaeckel had regular or semi-regular roles in six TV series in his career; the most memorable was as Martin Quirk, the police captain on Spenser: For Hire.

Simon Scott (1920-1991) plays Karen's husband Stan; he was on screen from 1952 to 1985, appeared in three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (including "Memo from Purgatory") and one episode of The Twilight Zone, and was a regular on the TV series, Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1985).

Christopher Dark (1920-1971) plays Sanchez. Born Alfred Francis DeLeo, he served in the Army in WWII and acted on screen from 1950 to his death, usually on TV. He was in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In smaller roles:

• Russ Thorson (1906-1982) as Deputy Sheriff Geary; he was on radio in the 1940s and on screen from 1949 to 1978, appearing once on Night Gallery and twice on The Odd Couple. He was in one other episode of the Hitchcock TV series, "The West Warlock Time Capsule."
• Robert Millar is credited as Mitch and must be the second policeman who comes to Karen's house with Geary and Sanchez; he was on TV from 1960 to 1969.
• Greg Morris (1933-1996) as Dr. Foster; he served in the Army during the Korean War and also appeared in "Final Escape" on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He was in one episode of The Twilight Zone and was best known for his long-running roles on Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) and Vega$ (1978-1981).

Kathleen Quinlan as Karen

This episode was remade for the late-1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as "Fogbound," which aired on USA on October 8, 1988. Lee Elias is credited as the writer, though he had been dead for sixteen years. The episode is half the length of the original but appears to have used the same teleplay, which was cut and altered slightly by an uncredited writer. This version opens with a radio report stating that there have been three murders in the area in as many months, and the Wilsons' house is on a marina rather than a beach. Stan never appears and the trio of young men are seen sitting on a boat docked at the marina; there is no surfing. The doctor at the hospital is a woman this time and when Sanchez returns to Karen's house, he carries a switchblade.

Ric Sarabia as Sanchez

In the final scenes, Simon's attack on Karen is more aggressive, as he grabs her, pushes her down on the desk, and kisses her until she grabs the gun and hits him in the side of the head before running outside. At the end, Sanchez shots Tom and Ed in the chest before running outside, where he takes another shot at Rick and points the gun at Simon, telling him that he witnessed his attack on Karen. In the end, Sanchez tells Karen that "'I came here to harm you, but I couldn't have done it.'" She invites him into her home and the show ends as they walk together through the fog.

While this version as a whole is poorly acted and directed, Ric Sarabia gives a good performance as Sanchez and the additional dialogue between him and Karen at the end provides closure to his story that was missing from the original. Kathleen Quinlan plays Karen and Mark Sobel directed the show.

Watch "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" online here. It is not available on U.S. DVD. Watch "Fogbound" online here and compare the episodes.

Sources:

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

"Fogbound." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 1, 8 October 1988.

"Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 1, episode 17, CBS, 18 January 1963.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" here!

In two weeks: "Diagnosis: Danger," starring Michael Parks!

Batman in the 1960s Issue 35: September/October 1965

 

The Caped Crusader in the 1960s
by Jack Seabrook
& Peter Enfantino

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #343

"The Secret War of the Phantom General"

Story by John Broome

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

Commissioner Gordon calls on the Bat-Phone to let the boys know that Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, wishes to speak to them at the New Gotham Hotel but, while en route, they're distracted by a call from the police. There is a disturbance at Gotham City Terminal. Away they go!

When they arrive, they come across a heavily-armed group of thugs holding prisoners inside the building. Batman and Robin put the wham-bam-slam on most of the bad guys but, thanks to a special gas screen, a few escape down into the subway. They board a train and head off, free as the proverbial birds.

With nothing more to do at the site, the Dynamic Duo head for the hotel, where they find Ralph and Sue Dibny hanging out in their "spacious suite." Sue heads out to the Music Hall, cuz she's just a girl, and lets the boys talk manly business. Batman gives his stretchy friend the rundown on what just transpired at the Terminal and Ralph stutters out a "Wh-wh-what?" He then lets our heroes in on the big secret: General Von Dort, infamous Nazi war criminal who was presumed to have died in Hitler's bunker, is alive and well and vacationing in Gotham. Well, he does have a purpose. He's looking for a stash of the very radioactive M-244. If Von Dort does get ahold of the isotope, he can destroy the world.

At that moment, Von Dort's army parachutes into Gotham Park during a charity auction and attempts to heist a cache of priceless paintings. The Caped Crusaders arrive in time to put a dent in the plan but it turns out Von Dort had an ace up his sleeve; he had his henchmen commit the robbery while he was stealing the M-244 from a safe across town. He and his man Friday, Heinrich, then board a jet out of Gotham and fly to South America to assemble their super-secret death ray!

Batman, Robin, and Elongated Man hop in the Bat-Plane and give chase, landing just outside Von Dort's secret hideaway in the Andes Mountains. With the combined brain and brawn of three costumed heroes, Von Dort doesn't stand a chance. Even facing a deadly monocle eye-beam. Batman delivers the final right cross and freedom is restored to the world!

Not a bad little adventure, "The Secret War of the Phantom General." There are definite Big Bob Kanigher vibes in the script and, especially, that catchy cover. It screams "Sgt. Rock" cross-over, but we get Ralph Dibny instead. There are a couple of bizarre throwaway inserts here where John Broome explains what's going on. I'm not sure what the point was but the panels (one featuring a dart board with Julie's pic as a bullseye) are amusing. Von Dort is a one-and-done but his son, Willi (no, seriously, that's his name!), will battle Bats and "The New" Wonder Woman in Brave and the Bold #87 (January 1970).-Peter

Jack-My favorite parts of this overstuffed book-length story were the cameos by John Broome, which made me flip to the first page to confirm that there was no byline attributing the story to Bob Kane. On the letters page, the editor asks readers if they can figure out who wrote this issue's tale and, if so, how. I think that was a fun idea. The art isn't up to the usual high standards set by Infantino and Giella and Elongated Man didn't add much to a tedious issue.

Infantino/Giella

Batman #174

"The Human Punching Bag!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"The Off-Again On-Again Lightbulbs!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

B.G. (Big Game?) Hunter is the world's best, but he wants to capture Batman to prove his mettle. He holds Roy Reynolds, "genius of the getaway gimmicks," (last seen in Batman #170) in a cage and makes him come up with a great crime and a super getaway to lure Batman into Hunter's trap. Robin is away on a Teen Titans adventure, so Batman responds to an alarm and beats up three crooks robbing a jewelry store, who manage to get up and run away.

When Batman gives chase, he is stopped by a leaf storm and ground sprinklers that cause him to stumble and crash into a park bench. The crooks get away, but Batman notices that they ran through butterfly bush flowers, so he can track the fragrance on them using a florameter. The trail leads to Hunter's mansion, where Batman again knocks around the hapless trio of crooks until he falls through a trap door and into a big plastic bag. Three boxers practice on "The Human Punching Bag!" but Batman uses guile to defeat them and B.G. Hunter.

B.G. Hunter? Seriously? Will he hire the law firm of Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe to defend him? This is juvenile stuff and a real letdown, especially in light of the terrific cover. Giella certainly makes Moldoff's art look better than Paris did, but it's still stiff and simplistic, just like the story.

After helping Robin catch the Islip gang, Batman rushes to the latest meeting of the Mystery Analysts of Gotham City, where a heavy, bald porter tells the members that it's Friday, not Wednesday, as they all thought. He uses a special chandelier to hypnotize everyone but Batman, who engages in fisticuffs and demands to know what's going on. The porter refuses to talk and, after he's sent to jail, Batman fears that the rest of the club members are in danger. The Cowled Crusader deduces that Al Cutshaw must be out for revenge; fortunately, he saves two of the club members from a bomb in the nick of time. The porter is unmasked as Cutshaw and Batman reveals that he was wearing contact lenses that prevented him from being hypnotized.

Slightly better than this issue's lead story, "The Off-Again On-Again Lightbulbs!" suffers from a plot that jumps around too much and depends on fistfights to move it along. The last page, where Robin pulls a bald cap off of the villain, is about at the level of a Scooby-Doo reveal. Not a good issue!-Jack

Peter-He's defeated super-strength cavemen, diabolical aliens from Uranus, and masterminds of crime, but Batman is foiled this issue by... a leaf storm. Sorry, a bit anti-climactic for me. Gardner Fox gets mileage out of "The Human Punching Bag" since its script is very similar to that of "The Crime Boss Who Was Always One Step Ahead of Batman!" in 'tec #344. "Off-Again" is lame with a capital L. Once again, I'll bemoan the atrocious art. One panel (reprinted below because my simple words cannot do it justice) seems to visualize a Batman punch that knocks a criminal's head off!

On the Letters to the Batcave page, an anonymous fan reveals that the fanzine, Batmania, conducted a poll to determine the best Batman story of 1964  and the award went to... "Castle with Wall-to-Wall Danger" from 'tec #329 (July 1964). Hard to argue with that choice.

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #344

"The Crime-Boss Who Was Always One Step Ahead of Batman!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

While doing their early morning rounds, Batman and Robin notice there's something a little off about sweet old Apple Annie, an octogenarian who donates fruit to the boys every morning. She seems to be nervous while handing over her prizes. They don't call him the World's Greatest Detective for nothin' and Batman's keen instincts tell him that the guy on the corner is watching their every move. 

Using his noodle, Bats parks around the corner and follows the shadowy figure to an apartment high atop a nearby building. Using his insanely sharpened senses, the Dark Knight is able to read lips (hanging upside down!) and learns the characters inside the room are about to pull a caper and are en route to a car parked outside the building. Using deaf-and-dumb sign language, Bats tells his junior crime-fighting partner to go hide in the boot of the car while he remains to see what's what. Robin does what he's told and the car speeds off, taking him far outside the city.

When the car finally stops and Robin hops out of the trunk, he's annoyed to find several gun barrels pointing right at him. The Boy Wonder gives it the old college try, knocking out two of the three hoods, but number three draws our hero out into the woods where the Teenage Tornado falls into an underground pit. It was all a trap! As if to put an exclamation point on the event, the hood that Batman has been watching outside the apartment building opens the window and tells Bats all about Robin's fate. "Always remember, Batman," the criminal mastermind explains, "Johnny Witts is thinking one move ahead of you every step of the way." He convinces Bats to come in from the cold and then brags about his heightened intellect.

Witts speeds for the door but when Bats follows, he finds himself nearly falling down a four-story elevator shaft. Witts escapes and the Caped Crusader survives only though his skilled training. Back at the Bat-Cave, Robin returns to find the boss already hard at work on a new theory revolving around Apple Alice. He's convinced that Alice isn't "an old hag" at all but a pretty young maiden. With the help of the Bat-Identi-Sketch-Kit, the duo is able to come up with an exact sketch of Annie. Rather than give their sketch to the cops (who never seem to be doing anything anyway), our heroes use their noggins and visit every fashion salon in town, finally unmasking Annie with the help of a seamstress, who also agrees to sew a tracker button onto Annie's latest dress.

The tracker works and the Dynamic Duo follow Annie to a brownstone, where they discover Witts and his henchmen. After some violent fisticuffs, our heroes turn Witts and Co. over to Gotham's finest (Bats had hung a giant donut and a "50% off Sale" sign outside the brownstone) and head back to the Bat-Cave to gloat over their latest victory.

There is some odd language used here that would not make it past 21st-Century censors; "old hag" and "deaf-and-dumb" have long been seen as less than complimentary but fall under the 1966 fair usage act for primitive phrases in funny books. Winning the Most Long-Winded Title of 1966 Award, "The Crime-Boss Who Was Always One Step Ahead of Batman Until the End When His Scheme Fell Apart" is nowhere near as much fun as "Phantom General" and the art... well, let's not go there again. The script is flimsy but readable. My favorite Bat-ism this issue would have to be the gizmo in the Batmobile that apes an engine fading off into the distance. Just how big is that crazy control panel?

On the Batman's Hot-Line letters page, future comic book scripter Mike Friedrich (his first pro sale will arrive in the June 1968 Batman) taunts Julie about the secret identity of the Outsider: "Actually, I think you yourself don't know who he is; making up the rules as you go along." I side with Mike.-Peter

Jack-Johnny Witts isn't much of a criminal mastermind. When the going gets tough, he clutches his noggin and complains that he needs peace and quiet to think of a way out. The highlight of this story occurs when Batman and Robin put on various disguises to follow the knockout gal around Gotham City. It sure beats hanging upside down trying to read lips!

Next Week...
More Uncanny Commie Tales!