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Batman in the 1970s Part 6: September and October 1970

2012-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

& Peter Enfantino

Batman #225 (September 1970)

"Wanted for Murder One, The Batman"

story by Denny O'Neil

art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

"Shutdown on York Street!"

story by Mike Friedrich

art by Irv Novick & Mike Esposito

In the first story, TV talk-show host Jonah Jory hates Batman and verbally attacks him while Commissioner Gordon is a guest on his show. Later that night, Jory is shot to death at the Gotham Athletic Club. A witness sees Batman outside the window and the hero is charged with murder one. Batman goes undercover to find the real killer and deduces that Jory arranged his own death and had Batman blamed.

In the second story, a drag race ends in tragedy when one of the racers is killed by another, whose brakes fail as he tries to scare his opponent. Batman investigates and determines that a jealous young man was the culprit.

Jack: O’Neil uses the Ellery Queen challenge to the reader on the bottom of page 11, telling us we have all the clues we need to solve the mystery.

PE: I'm not sure Ellery Queen would run a mystery so far-fetched in its denouement. But then again...

Jack: Anti-establishment themes run through O’Neil’s work at this stage; here, a TV host hates a hero for no clear reason and is shown to be a fake—false teeth, toupee, and shoulder pads in his sport jacket.

PE: What function does Gotham's Public Works Department serve? Why am I thinking Public Works would be water, electricity, cable TV, etc.? Why does Reeves show up at crime scenes? To make sure the utilities are working, if I follow my own lack of reasoning. This is not the first time Reeves has cast aspersions on The Dark Knight and it won't be the last. Gordon continues to act like a chump when guilt is thrown Batman's way. "Well, he's pulled our fat out of the fire countless times but I have no choice, arrest Batman and, if he puts up a fight, shoot to kill!"

Jack: Batman is a detective, not a super-hero. These stories are gritty and realistic.

PE: I'll agree with you on the gritty point, Jack, but not on the realism. At least not on "Wanted for Murder..." That slingshotted gun through the gym window was a bit of a stretch (if you'll pardon the pun). Nice art, though. I must be a master detective just like Batman, since I figured out who the killer was as well. And the motive.

Jack: Although the backup story runs nine pages, not much seems to happen. Once again, Batman is involved with regular people, not super-villains.

PE: When Alex ran Vic over and totaled his car, I thought for a moment that Vic must have had super powers to destroy Alex's car. It looked like an accordion! There's a lot of hazy action here. Why is Batman so convinced the kid is innocent? Alex ran Vic down. He told witnesses. Case closed. Jack's right on the money, as usual, about the "regular people" aspect of these stories. Outside of Man-Bat, we've yet to hit any super-villains in 1970 and, peeking ahead, we won't see any member of Batman's gallery of rogues until mid-1971. These villains are lawyers, entertainers, politicians, people with money. You could consider Batman the Columbo of comics.

Detective # 403 (September 1970)

"You Die By Mourning!"
story by Frank Robbins
art by Bob Brown & Frank Giacoia

"Break-Out!"
story by Mike Friedrich
art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

A Mrs. Randall comes to see Bruce Wayne at his VIP (Victims, Inc. Program) office and informs Wayne that she'll become a widow very soon, since her husband will be killed. As Bruce rises to question the woman, she runs off, exposing a gun in her purse. As Batman, Wayne decides it's best to investigate this strange woman. He tracks her to her mansion and catches her and her husband readying themselves to attend a strange Haunted House party. Following them to the "haunted house," Batman witnesses an attempt on the lives of the couple. Now convinced that Mrs. Randall isn't actually in on the plan to kill her husband, Batman attempts to get to the bottom of the identity of the would-be assassin.

In our back-up story, Dick Grayson is heading to the youth detention center where he volunteers when there's a breakout by the same two youths he had put away at Hudson U. last issue. As Robin, he helps the police by tracking the two youths to a nearby barn.

Jack: This story has a nice Dracula vibe with the couple traveling to the haunted-house monster party in a horse-drawn carriage. I like this story overall.

PE: The reveal of the bad guy is a cheat. He's a character we haven't been introduced to. The fact that his wife is Randall's twin sister and he doesn't even know it is ludicrous. Did he have his eyes closed or something? Did the twin not mention it? The art shows a split personality again--anything with a costumed character in it is eerie and perfectly suited for a story about a "haunted house" but when it comes to the rest of the cast (including Batman's alter ego), it's all second-rate. One face blends in with another. Don't even start me on the Batman two-page finale expository. God, I hate those.

Jack: Batman shows off his Detective skills once again—I did not notice the different beauty marks on the twin sisters!

PE: That's why he's a Dark Knight Detective and we read comic books, Jack.

Jack: It’s interesting to watch Robin try to establish himself as a solo crime-fighter. He doesn’t always make the right decisions and is all the more human for his mistakes.

Batgirl!

Jack: This story is unusual for a Detective backup in that it is self-contained. Robin also gets off the college campus for a change.

Detective #404 (October 1970)

"Ghost of the Killer Skies!"
story by Denny O'Neil
art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

"Midnight Doom-Boy"
story by Frank Robbins
art by Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia

In Spain to oversee the filming of "The Hammer of Hell," a bio-pic about the famous war pilot Baron Hans Von Hammer, Bruce Wayne and his film crew are plagued by on-set incidents, the latest of which is the death of a stunt pilot who is strangled while flying in a one-seat World War I reproduction. Who's trying to sabotage the blockbuster? Evidently it's Hammer uber-fan Heinrich Franz, trying to put the kibosh on what he sees as an insult to the legacy of The Baron. The Dark Knight must use his limited flying skills in a showdown in the sky with the madman who calls himself the Ghost of Von Hammer. Batman may have an Ace up his sleeve.

In our back-up story, Barbara Gordon's search for lost beau Jason Bard comes to a surprising conclusion when she turns on the news and sees him arrested for the murder of "underground cinema" director Billy Warlock.

PE: Bruce Wayne and the crew of the movie being made seem to treat the strangulation of the dead pilot as an annoyance. "Perhaps we should have a meeting" about all the incidents marring the filming is Wayne's suggestion, while the guy lies amidst the smoldering wreckage! At this point in the series (after 30+ years), Bruce Wayne should appoint Batman his bodyguard a la Iron Man and Tony Stark. This would make the explanation of why no one questions the fact that, no matter where Wayne goes, the Batman follows so much easier to swallow. At one point in the story, Batman climbs into a vintage plane and remarks that, years before, an old stunt pilot had taught him how to fly one of these old "crates." This guy has had one heck of a life. Where has he had time to train at everything known to man? How old is Bruce Wayne?

Jack: Bruce Wayne is in Spain this month, bankrolling a movie about a WWI flying ace to show the “nature—and folly—of war.” Batman is aided by the ghost of another famous flyer in this tribute to Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher. They created the character of Hans von Hammer, the Enemy Ace, in 1965, and he has appeared on and off in comics ever since.

PE: Don't even get me started on DC war comics, Jack. If I had a few more hours in the day, we'd be looking at that genre as well on this blog (maybe someday!). Needless to say, the pairing of Batman and Enemy Ace (as brief as it is) is a match made in Enfantino comic book heaven. Speaking of DC war characters, The Caped Crusader would team up with Easy Company's leader, Sgt. Rock, in several issues of Brave and the Bold as well. Neal Adams is the perfect artist to evoke Joe Kubert (who was still doing his thing at a high level in the various DC war titles), as you can see in the panel below.

A very Kubert-esque image!

Jack: Barbara Gordon refers to Jason Bard as her suitor. That doesn’t faze her dad, who once again jumps to the conclusion that a good guy is a killer, based on some pretty flimsy evidence.

PE: I'd put the guy in jail too if he was trying to get my daughter in the sack. Besides, Bard talks like a meathead. Reading this "hip jive talk" is like trying to watch an All-Irish cast movie without the subtitles. Very annoying. Nice cliffhanger ending almost looks like an ad for the latest issue of The Witching Hour. I like this series so much more than Robin.

Jack: Billy Warlock is obviously a play on Andy Warhol, whose cinema verite film style was the inspiration for the 24 hour film that Gordon used to blame Bard.

PE: I got that part but what threw me was the X-Epic talk. I thought at first this guy was making porn but a 1970 comic book wasn't allowed to acknowledge that there were such things. I'm so glad we live in a world that has moved past silly things like Andy Warhol's "epics" and into legitimate epics like The Transformers trilogy. Now that's fine art.

Jack: Perhaps Michael Bay is the reincarnation of Andy Warhol?

PE: An all-star letter column this issue features Mike Barr, Alan Brennert, and Marty Pasko. But the best letter printed this month is by Steve Beery, who writes that: "Due, no doubt, to the success of such mags as House of Mystery, a kind of semi-horror angle is being tried out on Batman." Steve goes on to worry that this new supernatural slant skews the previously realistic world of The Batman. Good point, but I applaud the invasion of the creepy, of course. As we see with this issue and future Batmans, the otherworldly belongs in the same universe as The Caped Crusader.

Somebody fire up the time machine!

Hey, kids! Let's rap!

Robert Bloch on TV Part Nine-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "Bad Actor"

2012-02-15T16:57:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

“Bad Actor,” which was adapted by Robert Bloch from a story called “The Geniuses” by Max Franklin, has been the subject of some misinformation both in print and on the internet. It is not based on a story called “Acting Job” by Richard Deming, as reported in The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion, although Richard Deming and Max Franklin were one and the same person. It is not about an actor who exchanges his prop gun for a real one during casting sessions for a play, as is claimed on TV.com and other web sources.

Instead, “Bad Actor” tells the story of Bart Collins, a young method actor with beatnik tendencies who has “bombed out” of TV, “goofed” in the movies, and “fouled up” on stage. He has a drinking problem and difficulty controlling his anger. When he flies back from Hollywood to New York to audition for the lead in a new play, he is frustrated by competition from squeaky-clean Jerry Lane, who seems destined to get the part. At Bart’s apartment, the drunken actor decides to show Lane how good he is by acting out a murder scene from the play, only to take things a bit too far and strangle Jerry for real.

Bart then attempts to cover up his crime, buying bottles of acid and meat butchering tools in order to cut up Jerry’s body, dissolve it, and wash it down the bathtub drain. Before he can finish the job, however, he is interrupted by a visit from his fiancé, Marge Rogers, and his agent, Ed Bolling. Bart stashes Jerry’s head in an ice bucket, and the rest of the episode is a suspenseful game as Bart’s guests—eventually including a police lieutenant—unsuspectingly come ever closer to opening the ice bucket and exposing its gruesome secret.

The story on which the show is based, “The Geniuses,” was published in the June 1957 issue of the mystery digest Manhunt, which also included “The Amateur” by Richard Deming. The presence of a second story by the same author in the same issue is surely the reason that “The Geniuses” was published under a pseudonym.

When Bloch took the story and adapted it for television, he made significant changes. In print, the tale is told by Ed Bolling, an 18 year old college student who helps his friend Bart Conway plan and execute the murder of fellow student Herman Groper in order to prove Bart’s theory that their high intelligence will allow them to succeed in committing the perfect murder. They dispose of the body by butchering it and then incinerating it in a science lab furnace; before they can dispose of the head, the police come to call and the geniuses stash the remaining portion of poor Mr. Groper in a hatbox. Bart’s hubris is displayed when he brings out the hatbox in front of everyone and wraps it up as a Christmas present for Ed’s girlfriend, Marge. Suspense builds until the police lieutenant insists that she open the box.

One reason that Bloch made such major changes to “The Geniuses” may be due to the story’s similarity to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope, a failure when it was released. Rope was withdrawn from circulation for decades, but perhaps Bloch thought that the conceit of two highly intelligent young men carrying out a “psychotic thrill kill” and then hiding the evidence in their apartment was too close to the plot of the film.

Bloch discarded the first section of the story and replaced it with his own invention of a failing young actor who murders a rival in a fit of passion. Bart even goes so far as to highlight his own lack of erudition (in contrast to the geniuses of Franklin’s story) by pointing out to Jerry Lane that he has never even opened a set of encyclopedias that Marge had given him. Once the murder is committed, the teleplay follows the story more closely, though the disposal of the body is done entirely in Bart’s bathtub, eliminating the need to take it out piece by piece to another location for removal, as in the story. The hatbox of the tale becomes the ice bucket of the teleplay, and it is here that Bloch’s skill in plotting really shines. Taking Chekhov’s famous adage about the gun several steps further (if you show a gun in the first act, it had better go off in the third), Bloch has the ice bucket pop up throughout the episode.

In the first scene, Bart’s agent has to rouse him from a sleepy hangover and pours cold water over his head from the ice bucket, foreshadowing the manner in which that same bucket will cause a shock in his life later on. After a scene in a café where Bart dances to the music of bongo drums, he and Jerry go back to his apartment, where Bart plays his own bongo music on the upside down ice bucket. He tells Jerry that Marge gave him “the best ice bucket in the world,” and he holds it up as if it were Yorick’s skull when he begins to quote Hamlet’s speech. The bucket goes from being a substitute prop for a skull to holding a real one when Bart has to find a quick hiding place for Jerry’s pate.

Marge comes into the apartment and heads for the bathroom, where Bart has just finished washing away the body. He tries to prevent her from going in and she, feigning jealousy, asks: “have you got somebody hidden?” Once police Lieutenant Gunderson arrives, the ice bucket becomes even more central to the action, as first Marge and then Ed come perilously close to opening it to get ice to make drinks. Finally, the lieutenant opens it, sees the horror inside, and asks Bart a question that was never asked in the story: “How did you dispose of the rest of the body?”

Another aspect of “Bad Actor” that is pure Bloch is the milieu of the actor and the world of the beatnik. In numerous stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bloch explored these two worlds and their intersections, often showing their denizens as lacking a moral compass. Bart Collins has this same failing—he is a drunk, a murderer, a liar, and a bad actor in three ways: his acting is poor in his chosen profession, he does a horrible deed (truly a “bad actor”), and his efforts to cover up what he has done are rather pathetic.

“Bad Actor” is interesting to study both as a step in the development of Bloch’s skill as a writer of teleplays and as an example of his ability to adapt the work of other writers. It shows that he was comfortable taking only the aspects of his source material that interested him and working them into a plot of his own devising, focusing on character types and situations about which he enjoyed writing.

The program was directed by John Newland (1917-2000), who began his career as an actor, mostly on TV, but later gained fame as a TV director and as the host of the series, One Step Beyond. He directed four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and four of Thriller; while some of his work on Thriller is very atmospheric, his direction on “Bad Actor” is not overly distinctive; an unusual camera angle is utilized in the scene where Bart buys the butchering tools and Newland does a good job of building suspense.

Carole Eastman

Starring as Bart Collins is Robert Duvall, born in 1931. This was one of Duvall’s earliest roles on television, coming the same year as his breakout role in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Duvall would of course go on to a long career on TV and in film and become one of the most famous film actors of recent decades. The rest of the cast included Carole Eastman (1934-2004) as Marge; she gave up acting several years after this and became a writer, authoring the screenplay for Five Easy Pieces under the pseudonym of Adrian Joyce.

William Schallert

David Lewis (1916-2000) played Bart's agent Ed Bolling; among his later roles was a recurring one as Warden Crichton on Batman. Best of all was William Schallert, born in 1922 and still acting today, who played Lt. Gunderson. Schallert is an instantly recognizable actor: he was a regular on at least six TV series, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979-1981, and he played Patty Duke’s father on The Patty Duke Show.

Richard Deming, who wrote “The Geniuses” as Max Franklin, was a prolific author. Mostly Murders lists over 100 short stories under his name, and he is said to have written over 70 novels beginning in the 1940s. Among his many books were numerous TV series tie-ins, such as novels based on Dragnet, The Mod Squad, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch. An interesting article on Deming may be read here.

Robert Duvall and David Lewis

“Bad Actor” was first broadcast on NBC on January 9 1962, at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday night on NBC. Thriller, which had followed Alfred Hitchcock Presents on NBC the season before, had now been moved to Monday nights. The episode was remade as part of the revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 1980s. Retitled “Method Actor” and starring Martin Sheen in the Duvall role, it was directed by Burt Reynolds and broadcast on Sunday, November 10, 1985, at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.

The original episode may be viewed here. The remake may be viewed here.

Sources:

"Bad Actor." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 9 Jan. 1962. Television.

Cook, Michael L. Monthly Murders: A Checklist and Chronological Listing of Fiction in the Digest-size Mystery Magazines in the United States and England. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982. Print.

Deming, Richard. "Acting Job." 1961. 100 Malicious Little Mysteries. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992. 76-82. Print.

Fantastic Fiction. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/>.

Franklin, Max. "The Geniuses." 1957. Best Detective Stories of the Year: (13th Annual Collection). New York: E.P. Dutton, 1958. 128-50. Print.

Galactic Central. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://philsp.com/>.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Wikipedia. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Batman in the 1970s Part 5: July and August 1970

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Peter Enfantino

& Jack Seabrook

Detective #401 (July 1970)

"Target for Tonight"
story by Frank Robbins
art by Bob Brown & Joe Giella

"Midnight is the Dying Hour!"
story by Denny O'Neil
art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

A fiend calling himself The Stalker has discovered Batman's secret identity and placed The Caped Crusader on his hit list. The Stalker's real identity is big game hunter Carleton Yager and his wall has an empty plaque with Batman's name on it. Lured to a deserted island by Yager, Batman must tiptoe through endless traps and devices until he meets up with Yager, face to face. In a freak accident, the hunter is killed and Batman's secret identity is safe once again.

In our back-up feature, Batgirl is being walled up by a nutty actor convinced he's Edgar Allan Poe. Robin rescues her just in time and clamps the cuffs on the Faux Poe.

PE: "Target for Tonight" starts out as a whodunit. Who is The Stalker and why does he want Batman's head on a plaque? More importantly, how does he know The Dark Knight moonlights as a millionaire playboy? Well, the suspense lasts at least one page before we're served up a suspect: Carleton Yager, whose constant companion, a hunting falcon, just happens to be the messenger of one of the threats delivered to Batman. When our hero visits the man's "safari club" (think wine club for guys who like to put water buffalo noggins on the wall), he's nearly taken out with a crossbow. A tape machine relays a message from Yager that he's waiting for Batman on a nearby island. Is the hunter being set up? Seems as though, for a whodunit, we're being given a red herring. Can't be Yager, right? Wrong. It's Yager. Here's what's wrong with this awful mess: why give the guy the moniker of "The Stalker" when one page later you're referring to him as Carleton Yager? How did Yager find out that Wayne and Bats are one and the same guy? Once the villain takes a tumble into a pit of sharp objects (at least I think that's what happened since it's drawn and written so clumsily), Batman sighs and tells Alfred "He's taken my secret identity to the grave." That's it? Not even a "Hmmm, how did he figure it out? I must be slipping somehow." If we gave letter grades to these stories, this one would merit an F.

Why does Batman kick
the tape recorder? And how
does he lift his leg so high?

Jack: I never knew that the water buffalo is the “most dangerous” of beasts! I guess I liked this story better than you did. Batman defeats a fitting adversary with his wits. Once again, the villain dies a violent death. And once again, the slick Neal Adams cover takes a scene from the story and changes it to make it more exciting. Letter writers this month include Martin Pasko, who is starting to become a regular, and Douglas Moench, later a Marvel scribe and eventually the writer of Batman and Detective comics!

Is this move possible?

PE: "Midnight is the Dying Hour" is a so-so wrap-up to the strong first chapter we saw last issue. It's wrapped up a bit too quickly and neatly for my tastes. The bit of detection on Robin's part to discover the identity of the killer is a hoot: he notices that the dead man's fingers are pointing to the "POE" section of a Book of Poetry-- ergo the killer must be the guy portraying Edgar Allan Poe in the school play. Huhwhat? That's a bit of a stretch, no? And as the guy's dying, did he look around for the proper book to point to? Cripes, what if the school play had been Animal Farm?

Jack: Did I mention that Kane & Colletta draw one smoking hot Batgirl? Item: Does Robin often talk to himself in itemized lists? Is Batgirl flirting with Robin at the end of the story?

PE: It's not a bad installment of Batgirl and Robin, it's just not as strong as the first chapter. It's certainly classic literature compared to "Target for Tonight." And I like the sassy Batgirl's final line to Robin, promising some risque action in their future? The TV Batgirl certainly wouldn't be able to get away with a tease like that. Unlike so many back-up features, this is a strip I look forward to reading.

Batman #223 (July/August 1970)

"City Without Guns!" from Detective 196 (June 1953)
"Batman of the Mounties!" from Batman 78 (Aug. Sept. 1953)
"The Mardi Gras Mystery" syndicated newspaper strip that ran from 8/6/44-9/17/44
"Journey to the Top of the World!" from Batman 93 (Aug. 1955)
"Around the World in 8 Days" from Detective 248 (Oct. 1957)

PE: Of the five classics assembled here, my favorite would have to be "Journey to the Top of the World," credited to Bob Kane but, according to the indispensable Grand Comics Database it's actually drawn by Dick Sprang.

Jack: Picking up a thread from the letters column in the last Giant Batman, regular contributor Steve Beery asks what Batman and Robin did in the early days that would be contrary to their code. The editor replies that Batman carried a gun and sometimes he and Robin actually killed! They later adopted an anti-gun, anti-killing code, says he. Steve Beery grew up to be Harvey Milk’s lover, of all things, and later died of AIDS. The things you learn from Google! Reading these reprints, it seems to me that the Batman story and art style did not change much from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. Though the stories are not memorable, I love the Curt Swan cover, which I do remember from 40+ years ago.

PE: I really dug these all-reprint issues when I was a kid. I couldn't grasp that this hero had been around for 30+ years, so I never knew until years later that these stories had appeared decades before. I would assume these were, in essence, "vacation books" for Frank Robbins, Mike Friedrich, Neal Adams, Denny O'Neil and anyone else associated with the creation of Batman comic books each month. The naivete of the reprints can be startling, though, when compared with the then-current style of dark and grim. These reprint volumes would continue every fifth issue through #233, when DC would raise the price of Batman temporarily from fifteen cents to twenty-five cents and run one reprint per issue. As I recall, this raised quite a fuss in fandom. Of course, the real fun began in February 1974 when DC bulked up several of its flagship titles to 100 pages and raised the cover price to a then-whopping fifty cents. Most of us saw these Giants as a bargain. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. We'll have plenty of time to wax poetic over One Hundred Page Spectaculars in a few months' time.

Of course! How simple!

Detective #402 (August 1970)

"Man or Bat?"
story by Frank Robbins
art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

"My Place in the Sun"
story by Mike Friedrich
art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

It seems like a simple safe-cracking robbery, but if the criminals looked up in the rafters they'd have an ominous sight: The Man-Bat, waiting patiently for the safe to be opened. Inside is a much-needed potion that Man-Bat, aka Dr. Kirk Langstrom, hopes will reverse the effects of his initial bat serum. Unfortunately for Langstrom, the robbery is broken up by The Batman before he can find his salvation. Before long, the transformation to bat is reaching its zenith: Langstrom seems to be losing touch with his human side and his arms sprout wings capable of flight. Looking for a place to hide, Man-Bat inadvertently discovers the Batcave just as Batman is heading in. The two tussle and Man-Bat is mortally wounded. The Caped Crusader faces a moral dilemma: give the creature the serum to change him back and risk death or wait it out. To be continued!

In the Robin back-up, The Boy Wonder is joined by Speedy, Green Arrow's teen sidekick, for lunch at Hudson University. There, a food fight breaks out and Robin makes an appearance, jumping to conclusions and hammering the wrong party. The Boy Wonder must hang his head in humiliation and soak up the bad vibes on campus.

PE: If 1970 is, as most comic historians assert, the beginning of The Bronze Age, then Man-Bat is certainly Batman's first classic villain. He may be, in fact, the best Bat bad guy of the entire Bronze Age (we'll find out together). What astounded me was that this story was not written by Denny O'Neil but rather the roller-coaster writer known as Frank Robbins. I may just chart a graph of Mr. Robbins's highs and lows on Batman and Detective.

Jack: This is the best Batman story I’ve read so far! The development of the Man Bat character is fascinating. He reminds me a bit of The Lizard, Spider-Man’s foe, yet Langstrom is an honorable character who gradually loses his humanity without ever becoming evil—just more like an animal. The Adams/Giordano art is top-notch!

PE: You've read my notes, Jack. I couldn't be more in agreement with you. The story is fabulous and I can't wait to read #403. That's a feeling this old fan-boy doesn't get much anymore. Man-Bat is a lot like Marvel's The Lizard (and Gerry Conway would mine that vein again in the 1980s with an even more transparent rip-off, Killer Croc), down to the question of whether he's losing that part of his humanity that recognizes Batman as friend rather than foe. Their first names are even similar (The Lizard was aka Curt Connors). Adams just adds more proof for the argument that he's the greatest artist ever to touch Batman.

Jack: It’s nice to see fellow Teen Titan Speedy in the second story! The 1970s college campus politics are dated, but the argument about Robin prefigures a similar theme that would be central to The Watchmen. The art has some nice spots but overall is not up to the usual Kane/Colletta standard.

PE: Speedy mocks Robin's "escape route" (a drainpipe outside his dorm window) as a "kindergarten branch of this costume-hero business." I liked this playful razzing (or is it playful?); Robin's probably humiliated as he's the sidekick to, arguably, the DC Universe's #1 hero and he can't be used to this kind of wisecrack. I never bought into the "Teen Titans" schtick: Sidekicks United. The rosters over the years only back up my mocking tone: Aqualad, Aquagirl, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash. I didn't even know these characters existed. It would take years before Marvel descended to these depths with a She-Hulk and Spider-Woman. Of course, those who oppose my argument might bring up Gnarrk, the Neanderthal who was a semi-member of The Titans. I didn't say my thesis was water-proof.

Jack: These backup stories seem too short to really go anywhere. Robin wants to grow up! By the way, who is the “bazooka-playing radio-star Bob Burns, whose name was . . . Robin”? Why, there he is on Wikipedia! And he coined the word “bazooka”!

PE: "My Place in the Sun" almost feels like one of those Denny O'Neil epic "searching the soul" stories that ran in Green Arrow/Green Lantern that same year, albeit at much shorter length. It doesn't soar to those heights but it gets off the ground, touching on some of the drawbacks to being a celebrity and a masked one to boot. Friedrich perfectly captures Dick Grayson's frustration with the highs and lows of that celebrity and also his place in the superhero world. The tale is hampered, as Jack says, by its length. There's no time to open up the story before the end credits roll. I am impressed, though, that this, like the continuing Batgirl back-up series, is not a throwaway like a lot of these fillers can be.

Batman #224 (August 1970)

"Carnival of the Cursed"
story by Denny O'Neil
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

Blind Buddy Holden, an old jazzman, is beaten to death on a New Orleans sidewalk. Batman reads about it and shows up at the street funeral just in time to stop an attack. He fights Moloch, a large, deformed man who scampers off with an incredible leap.

Wheelchair-bound Rufus Macob tries to buy the dead man’s possessions from his friends, but they won’t sell. Batman sends Macob a message to try to scare him, but Macob’s gang kidnaps Max, another old bluesman, and lures Batman to a river boat, where he is knocked out and tied to the paddlewheel. Batman escapes and intercepts Macob and his gang as they dig up Buddy’s grave. It turns out that a map pinpointing the location of oil in the bayou was etched on the side of the dead man’s horn.

Macob reveals himself to be Moloch, born a freak. He nearly defeats Batman but flees when he hears sirens. Batman catches him and knocks him out, crumpling the horn in the fight and destroying the secret map forever.

Jack: This is one long story—24 pages! The Novick/Giordano art is evocative, especially the night scenes at Mardi Gras. Were it not for Adams, this art would be more highly regarded.

PE: Can't agree with you on the art, Jack. If I didn't know better, I'd think Frank Robbins was moonlighting. His Moloch has those same rubbery limbs so prevalent in Robbins' work. What's with Batman leaping twenty feet to an upper balcony? We're to swallow a lot, I suppose, what with his daring leaps across rooftops and death-defying dives from upper story windows, but a standing twenty-foot leap? Despite my problems with the art, I thought the story was enjoyable enough. It even serves up a cliffhanger that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Adam West show: Macob (subtle name, Denny!) ties Batman to the paddles of a moving steamboat and our hero escapes drowning only because of good dental work.

Jack: I don’t really get Moloch, and as usual the cover promises more than the story delivers, but I like the setting and tale overall.

SOME ADVERTISING HIGHLIGHTS FROM 1970

DC ad: bad news for MU professors in 1970

Batman in the 1970s Part 4: May and June 1970

2012-02-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

& Peter Enfantino

Detective Comics #399 (May 1970)

"Death Comes to a Small, Locked Room"

written by Denny O'Neil

art by Bob Brown & Joe Giella

"Panic by Moonglow"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

At a police academy demonstration, Batman is sparring with a karate expert named Khan when the "master" feels the Caped Crusader has embarrassed him and turns the spar into an all-out fight. Batman, of course, lays the man out in a matter of minutes and the matter is forgotten.

Or so he thinks, as exactly one month later, Batman answers a call from Commissioner Gordon to meet him at Khan's karate studio. There, our hero finds what is left of the studio (and, ostensibly, Khan) after a furnace explosion. He and Gordon are called away for a seance, at which the men have been promised answers to a murder. At the seance, the "spirit" of Khan tells Batman that, since the Caped Crusader humiliated him in life, the dead karate master will humiliate the Batman by killing Commissioner Gordon at the stroke of twelve the next night. To protect him, Gordon is to be put in a locked vault just before midnight. However, when it comes time for Batman to help the Commissioner into the vault, he discovers that the man is not the commish at all, but The Great Dilbert in disguise. The swami dies immediately after doffing his Gordon mask (it was laced with a very toxic skin poison) but manages to gasp out a clue that enables the Batman to find and rescue Gordon, being held by Khan in a cellar below his burned-out dojo.

"Panic in Moonglow" continues the Robin adventure from Detective #398. The Boy Wonder discovers that (COMMIE ALERT) the communists are behind Dick Grayson's fellow alum turning green. The Russians have used a special soap that turns skin green in order to smear NASA's space campaign.

PE: Comic characters with "accents" have always been a distraction for me, especially those with really badly written accents (the Germans in Sgt. Fury come to mind immediately), so it's a tough go with not only the broken Irish (at least I think it's Irish) of our token "bad guy who shows up in the middle of the action and may or may not be involved," "Big Dough" Joe Brunner, but also The Great Dilbert, the medium of foreign substance.

Gil Kane!

Jack: I had this one figured out before Batman. When the dying crook mutters "Do...Jo" and Batman had fought earlier in the story with a karate master, I was right there with putting "Do" and "Jo" together to get "Dojo." Credit all those hours in seedy movie houses in downtown Newark, NJ, in the early 70s with my dad and little sister, but I did not for a minute think he meant "Big Dough" Joe.

Batman thinks very hard!

PE: Batman claims The Great Dilbert dies because he touches his Gordon mask but it's actually Batman who unmasks him. In fact, Dilbert never touches the disguise. Were we supposed to read between the panels?

Jack: That was confusing. I went back and read it again and it still makes no sense. He was wearing the mask over his face. If the poison acts instantly on contact with skin, what about the skin on his face?

PE: There's a big minus and a big plus this issue which averages this issue out to a C+. The drawback, as usual, is the story, which seems to meander and go nowhere before puttering out in a nonsensical expository. Denny O'Neil obviously hasn't gotten to the issues he made his name on. I can be patient but I still wonder at the dopeyness of the plots. Would this karate nobody really build a fire-proof cellar, burn his studio down, fake his own death, hire an actor, and commit murder just to get revenge for being humiliated? Clearly, there are nuts out there in this world who would. I'd be just as astonished by a real-life Khan as I was uninterested in this one.

...bought a new car, capped my teeth, wrote an autobiography...

Jack: Just close your eyes and think Shatner---"KHAN!!!"

PE: Anyone can see who the would-be assassin is half way through the story. There's no great mystery and yet it's treated that way right up to the "Scooby Doo" climax. This is the fifth month of 1970 we've covered and, without exception, the killers have been "the every man" (well, okay, the Muertos were a little bit supernatural, I'll give you that). Quite a few times it's been the wealthy. I wonder if editor Julius Schwartz had it in mind in the early 1970s that the rich were the "bad guys" in the eyes and minds of John Q. Public. That particular slant worked well on TV's Columbo, where the murderers were usually well-off financially, if not filthy rich. There seems to be a moratorium on super-villains for the time being. No Joker, Riddler, Penguin, or Catwoman every three months. That's about to change.

Jack: Unlike today, when the rich are the good guys---oh, wait...

PE: The Robin back-up is... a back-up. Nice Gil Kane art that illustrates another ho-hum plot laced with communist scares (who'd have thunk we'd still be raising the COMMIE ALERT all these years later?), red herrings, and close calls for The Boy Wonder. If nothing else, these adventures, like the Batgirl solo stories, just point out all the more that Batman doesn't need sidekicks.

Jack: If it weren't for the great Kane art, these backup stories would be completely disposable.

Batman #221 (May 1970)

"A Bat-Death for Batman"
Story by Frank Robbins
Art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

"Hot Time in Gotham Town Tonight!"
written by Mike Friedrich
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

Piranhas in the Rhine! Killer bulls! Yes, Bruce Wayne is visiting Germany and something batty is going on! At Fledermaus Castle (shaped like the Bat Signal), Bruce meets Baron Willi Von Ritter, who seems to long for the good old days of the Third Reich. Under cover of night, Batman investigates the castle and stumbles on a cruel battle between a vicious lamb and a cowardly lion. The Baron's biochemist, Otto Kramm, has developed a serum that makes animals killers, and some accidentally got released into the river. Batman must fend off a swarm (flock?) of angry, killer bats, while the Baron's hot, young wife, Ilga, prepares the Baron's elderly valet to be the first human to try the serum. Batman survives the attack of the bats, but Ilga injects Otto, who grows bigger, stronger, and less inhibited. He is no match for Batman, though, and gets thrown to the angry lamb! Batman explains to the dying Ilga how he used bits of aluminum foil to distract the bats.

In the second story, the Gotham City Fire Department is dealing with a mid-summer heat wave and a lot of false alarms. A call comes in from the home corner of one of the firemen, and they race to the scene, only to see Batman rescue a boy from the blaze. The fire seems to have started when the fireman's brother rubbed an idol he brought back from Vietnam! Batman grabs the glowing idol and throws it out the window. When it crashes to the ground and shatters, and all is well again.

PE: After 373 appearances in Detective Comics and 221 in his eponymous title (not to mention Brave and the Bold, World's Finest, blahblahblah), it still strikes me odd that no one puts two and two together and comes out with Bruce Wayne = Batman. Has Wayne ever taken a one-man trip to the moon and then had to don his Bat-gear? Is that what it would take for someone to figure it out?

Jack: I like how Otto Kramm, the big German baddie, calls Batman Der Fledermensch. My rudimentary German tells me that's "Batman."

PE: Bruce Wayne mentions that it's ironic that Fledermaus is German for bat and Baron Willi Von Ritter's castle is shaped like a bat. You call it irony and I call it COINCIDENCE. I'm ignorant to der vays uff der Germans (as Stan Lee may have scripted it). Do I pronounce the Baron's first name "Willie?" An odd name for a powerful person, no? Still, it's a departure from the usual Commie threat. I think Nazis were just becoming "popular" again in the early 70s (probably thanks to then-recent documentaries like Hogan's Heroes that showed us that the guys in the Wehrmacht were just a bunch of happy-go-lucky oafs).

Jack: The first story is pretty good, if kind of disgusting. The angry lamb attacking (and killing) the sweet-looking lion is a little yucky, if you ask me.

PE: One thing you can say about DC that's not apparent through 1965 of Marvel's line: they don't shy away from death. There's a high mortality rate in these strips and a lot of violence. Oh, I'm not fooled one bit that there might be a chance that Bats, Robin, Gordon, or any of the major players will buy the farm (well, I am reading these 41 years after the fact but ignore that for the moment) but, if you're a minor character, have fun while you can as you may not see the last panel. The fate of Otto (ostensibly eaten by the lamb with a lion's heart) reminds me of some of the work Michael Fleischer did in "The Spectre" strip in the mid-70s.

Jack: I did not get what the heck Batman was saying about the bits of aluminum foil. That seemed tacked on. By that point, I had forgotten all about the Bats and didn't really care.

PE: Bats attacking Batman. That's ironic. I love how our unnamed masked villain (Germanman? Gogglesman? The Whip? The Enzyme Exchanger?) does what his predecessors on the Batman TV show always did: leave Bats while he's about to be dispatched because they've got "a more pressing appointment." Believe me, if I had The Dark Knight on the ropes, I'd savor it and make sure the job was done. I guess Germanman never read any of the newspaper reports of Der Fledermensch and his seemingly charmed life. The art on this story, by the way, is a tale of two extremes. Giordano and Novick seem to be dialed in on drawing a competent Batman but the non-masked characters are another story. The men all seem to look similar (Otto, on page 13, is the spittin' image of Bruce Wayne).

Jack: As for the second story, I am a sucker for these late 60s/early 70s stories where black people get helped by superheroes and we all get a lesson in something or other.

PE: Well, hopefully next issue, Batman will aid a Native American reservation. Four-alarm fire (and screaming children) happening just outside his door but kid brother Joey just goes right on polishing his idol. I buy that. What a dumb story. At least we're left with these parting words: "For the natural violence of life, there is always the fireman! For the supernatural violence of life, there is always... The Batman." Sheesh.

Jack: At least give DC points for trying!

PE: On the letters page, we get missives from Alan Brennert and Batmania (the first all-Batman fanzine) editor Bill J. ("Biljo") White

Detective Comics #400 (June 1970)

"Challenge of the Man-Bat"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

"A Burial for Batgirl"

written by Denny O'Neil

art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

Dr. Kirk Langstrom, employee of the Gotham Museum of Natural History and in charge of the new night creature habitat exhibit, has been doing a little moonlighting. In his off-hours, the doctor has been extracting enzymes from bats and injecting himself in order to sensitize his hearing and night vision. The serum works too well, however, and Langstrom is transformed into a full-size (Skreek!) bat. The only upside to this physical setback is that Langstrom gets to aid his hero, the Batman, in a fight against some thugs attempting to heist jewelry with the aid of night goggles.

In "A Burial for Batgirl," our heroine is accosted by a teenager escaping from the scene of a murder. When she rounds the kid up, she believes his story of innocence. Since the murder happened on Dick Grayson's campus, Robin is soon drawn into the investigation. While following a lead, Batgirl is walloped and walled up by a shadowy figure obviously influenced by Edgar Allan Poe.

PE: First appearance and origin of Man-Bat (aka Dr. Kirk Langstrom), sometime villain, sometime hero awarded his own (short-lived) title in 1975. It's a silly origin (as are most origins) but Langstrom's much more of a sympathetic character than most of these comic book monsters are. He's working on this serum to magnify his hearing and night vision, but why? What possible reason could he have? You might list off a plethora of good reasons but writer Frank Robbins doesn't even try. All we know is that Langstrom idolizes Batman and wants to emulate his hero to the Nth degree. Why would these enzymes increase his senses (never mind turn him into a full-fledged bat)? It's nothing more than a variant of the Spider-Man origin (except Spidey didn't grow extra limbs... until issue #100, that is!). His moniker is a bit funky as well. If I was turning into a bat and looked into a mirror, I'd say I look like a Bat-Man rather than a Man-Bat, but since this is a comic book and we can't have two Bat-Mans running around, confusing things, he's a Man-Bat. I grimaced though when one of the henchmen says something along the lines of "Look out everybody, it's a Man-Bat!!"

Our first look at Man-Bat!

Jack: I always thought Man-Bat was pretty cool and I felt sorry for the guy. It reminds me of the Underdog episode when he battled a villain named OverCat. As a wee bairn, I had imagined that a cool adversary for Underdog would be named OverCat, and one day, there he was. Kind of like Batman meeting Man-Bat.

PE: You wouldn't get from this story that Langstrom is anything other than a dweeby Batman fan who has a scientific background and wants to emulate his hero. To a degree, that is what this story is about, but Langstrom's back story will be filled in come future installments. Art is by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano and usually that's a good thing. Here it looks rushed and most of the scenes are heavily shaded as most of the action takes place in the dark. There are too many panels of villains in goggles and not enough Batman. At least we get a new villain, as I was just bemoaning the fact that we've been subjected to forgettable menaces during the first part of 1970. Man-Bat is a legitimate contender and remains popular to this day, even co-starring in the major Green Lantern crossover storyline, "Blackest Night" last year.

Jack: I liked the Adams art this time. It seemed more steady than the last time. I really think he outdid himself with Man-Bat. I especially like the cover, with the oversize Batman and Man-Bat facing off above Gotham City.

PE: The back-up story is billed as the very first team-up for Batgirl and Robin. Hard to believe, but then the Barbara Gordon incarnation of Batgirl had only been introduced four years earlier (in Detective #359), so I guess not so crazy after all. The TV show, I'm sure, muddies the memory waters.

Jack: Some team-up! Dick Grayson appears briefly and we see Robin rounding a corner. Not that I wouldn't like more pages of Gil Kane drawing Batgirl, though!

PE: There's a well-written letter by young Alan Brennert, comparing Frank Robbins's writing to that found on the 1966 TV series: "Honestly, has Frank been taking lessons from Lorenzo Semple, Jr.?" He goes on to tick off a list of "Robbins-isms" that haunt the writer's work (including all the coincidences I cited in that issue) and make for tough reading.

Jack: Reading these Batmans is giving me a new appreciation for Frank Robbins. I'm sorry I said all those things back in the 70s when he drew The Invaders and Red Sonja. Obviously, he should have stuck with writing.

PE: There's not much to the back-up and the hyped team-up of sidekicks never actually happens, but since it's a multi-part story, I'm sure there will be oodles of exciting and dangerous happenings next issue. On the whole, not much of a celebration for a 400th issue. I believe only one comic had passed 400 issues by that time (Action Comics) so it truly was a milestone. Puzzling that this wasn't a double-sized giant spotlighting the best stories ever presented in Detective Comics.

Jack: I remember being very excited about Detective #400. It seemed like a big landmark at the time, and introducing a new character like Man-Bat made it even more special.

Batman #222 (June 1970)

"Dead . . . Till Proven Alive!"

written by Frank Robbins
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

"Case of No Consequence!"

written by Mike Friedrich
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

Dick Grayson and his pals at Hudson U are intrigued by the rumors surrounding the supposed death of Saul Cartwright, one of the four members of the swingin' combo, the Oliver Twists. Bruce Wayne invites the group to stay at Wayne Manor while they're in town for a concert. Bruce and Dick try to solve the mystery of whether Saul is really dead or not, using voice recorders and various tricks. After a close call at a recording studio with some hired killers, Batman discovers that Saul is alive but the other three ~~Beatles~~ Twists are dead, having been killed in a plane crash. Saul hired three stand-ins and cooked up the rumors of his own death to cover for them. With Batman's urgings, Saul starts a new trio called Phoenix!

In the second story, Batman is exhausted from a long night of crime-fighting but still finds time to recover some cash and a camera that were stolen from a deaf-mute by a mugger.

Jack: Here we go again with the hip lingo, cheat cover, and dopey story. "Saul" is dead? His partner is named Glennan? This is not the new look Batman of the 70s that were had hoped for.

PE: At least Marvel had the cojones to use the real Beatles in the execrable Strange Tales story featuring The Thing and The Human Torch. If I was DC at the time, I probably would have been afraid The Fab Four would sue me as well--for popping them into this pap filled with nauseatingly cutesy-pie Beatles stand-ins (Eden Records for Apple, Pink Submarine). Had anyone in the DC bullpen noticed that the Boys didn't wear their Sgt Pepper uniforms anymore? The only missed opportunity here was naming Ringo - Benji and George - Hal. Why not Gorge and Dingo? Bingo and Scorch? No imagination. I suspect if you look up the entry for "meaningless filler story" in The Dictionary of Comic Book Terms, this story is reprinted in full.

Jack: Except for some long sideburns, those kids at Hudson U could have walked straight out of the 50s, not 1970.

PE: I take back all the bad things I said about broken Irish and badly pronounced German "accents." What the hell does "Yay, Keeds--- This is Ho Ho Ho, your jolly green deejay at XJL--with the newest poop on ye great "Oliver Twists" mystery! Dig the Seventh Groove on our boys' "Summer Knights"! Spin at 78rpm instead of 33--and playback at 1-7/8 i.p.s.!" mean in 2011 language? Were University "keeds" ever this unhip? Really? If I was Batman and Robin asked me "How did you groove it was a trap?" I'd put him over my knee, Wertham be damned.

Jack; That DJ patter did seem hopelessly dated, even for 1970. It's as if the last time Frank Robbins turned on a radio, out came Alan Freed.

PE: The back-up isn't much of a story but I will say it's more readable than its opener. As I noted already, Julius Schwartz seems to have hit upon a bonanza of capable Bat-illustrators. They all know what to do to make the Caped Crusader suitably cool and imposing. Gone are the days of a beefy Batman.

Jack: Irv Novick never got much credit, but his work is solid. I think Dick Giordano's inks add a lot, too.

PE: On the letters page, comics historian Bill Schelly raves about issue 219's "Death Casts the Deciding Vote" and asks if The Joker is in Batman's future. "No plans for The Joker and/or his costumed cronies as yet," answers editor Schwartz, "but they're bound to rear their ugly heads,"

Yes, young Jack did clip these out.
It was a sad day in the early 70s
when Palisades was torn down to
make way for condos. Another sad
day occurred when the people who
bought these comics realized they
had some holes.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Eight-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

2012-02-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

Diana Dors as Irene

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is that rare example of a great short story that is even better on film. Appearing first in the January 1949 issue of Weird Tales, Bloch’s tale of horror is told in the first person by Hugo, a deformed young man of limited mental capacity who was raised in a “Home” by the “Sisters,” but who ran away when he grew old enough to be sent to live at a county facility. He lived a transient life until he was found, lying nearly dead in a snowy alley behind a theater, by the Great Sadini, also known as Victor Sadini, who has a magic act with his wife and assistant Isobel.

Sadini feels pity for Hugo and takes him in, allowing him to help with the loading and unloading of props. Isobel does not have as much sympathy for the boy, even though Hugo tells her that she looks like an angel in contrast to her husband, who Hugo thinks resembles the Devil. Hugo is amazed by Victor’s illusions and relieved when the magician does not really saw his beautiful wife in half with an electric saw.

Although Hugo does not really understand the relationship between the bickering Sadinis, he does understand when he sees Isobel two-timing her husband with George Wallace, a singer and dancer traveling with the same show. After Hugo overhears Wallace urging Isobel to run away with him, Isobel speaks to the boy privately and uses his simple belief that Sadini is a servant of the Devil to convince the lad that his suspicion is true.

Angel and Devil?

Isobel kisses Hugo and talks him into murdering her husband. Hugo sneaks up on Sadini and kills him by bashing him in the back of the skull with a lead pipe. Wallace, drunk, happens upon the crime scene and receives the same fate as Sadini. Isobel arrives and faints when she sees her husband and her lover both dead. Certain of the power of Sadini’s wand in his hand, Hugo imagines himself as Hugo the Great. In the empty theater, he straps the unconscious Isobel into the box and saws her in half with the electric saw.

Shocked that the trick went awry, Hugo screams until he is taken away, and he tells his inquisitors—police? doctors?—that he is very tired and wants to go to sleep.

Bloch adapted “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and the episode was filmed in the summer of 1961, probably in August. This makes it likely the first of his scripts for the seventh season of the series, since episodes seem to have been produced no more than a couple of months before they were aired, and his next episode did not air until January 9, 1962 (“Bad Actor”). As has been reported many times before, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was deemed too gruesome by the show’s sponsor, Revlon, and thus was not aired as part of the network run of the series. It was included in the syndication package, however, and is now considered to be in the public domain.

Hugo the Great

The televised version of the story makes a number of changes to the printed version, but they do not change the plot. The story’s frame, told by Hugo, is removed, and the setting is changed from a theater to a carnival, with many tents and acts. The seedy carnival setting fits the story perfectly. Hugo is not deformed (in the story, he refers to “the way I looked, with my eyes and back”); he is just simple, naive, and sincere to a fault. Isobel becomes Irene, and George Wallace becomes George Morris, perhaps to avoid confusion with the controversial governor of Alabama, who had lost the primary election in 1958 but who won in 1962.

The teleplay’s dialogue mirrors that of the story very closely, and Bloch provides exposition through exchanges of conversation rather than narration, as he had in the story. Other changes include Irene telling Hugo that her husband is really the Devil, rather than his slave, and in the televised version she explains to the boy that the magic is in the wand, something she denied in the story. On television, Hugo kills Sadini with a knife, not a pipe, and he does not kill George at all—the lover merely passes out drunk on the floor of Sadini’s trailer.

Finally, at the conclusion, Irene falls, hits her head, and is knocked unconscious; in the story, she is asleep. The show ends with Hugo running the giant buzz saw into the box in which she is trapped. She wakes up screaming as the saw approaches, and the picture fades to back as Hugo the Great urges her gleefully to “Smile, Irene! Smile! Smile!”

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” benefits from perfect casting. Brandon deWilde plays Hugo with a sense of wide-eyed innocence that seems more that of a simpleton than a mentally challenged youth. He had become famous as the boy in Shane (1953) and he appeared in the beloved Thriller episode, "Pigeons From Hell." He died in a traffic accident in 1972, when he was only 30 years old. David J. Stewart plays Sadini; born in 1915 as Abe Siegel, he appeared in movies and on TV but had no major roles prior to his death in 1966. In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” he looks like a magician/devil and walks a tightrope between being a tough carnival man and a tender friend to Hugo.

Larry Kert as George

Larry Kert was born in 1930 and plays George, Irene’s lover. He was the original Tony in West Side Story on Broadway and did more work on stage than on TV or film; though he played one of the most romantic parts in Broadway history and played Irene’s lover in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, ” he was openly gay and died of complications of AIDS in 1991.

Finally, and perhaps most impressive, was Diana Dors (1931-1984), the blond bombshell who was known as the British Marilyn Monroe. She was born Diana Fluck and led a stormy life, appearing in films from 1947 to her death. She is perfect for the part of Irene, her stunning good looks and brash nature making a real contrast to Hugo’s belief that she is an angel. Learn more about Diana Dors at this fan website or at her estate’s website.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was directed by Josef Leytes (1901-1983), a director who was born in Russia, came to the US in 1958, and made TV and films as Josef Leytes or Lejtes. Very little has been written about him and this was his only effort for the Hitchcock series. In my opinion, the auteur of a television show, particularly one of about 24 minutes in length, is usually the screenwriter rather than the director, unlike in films. I think that Bloch’s script is more responsible for the success of this episode than the direction; however, it is filmed competently, shot clearly, and paced quickly, so it is a great pleasure to watch.

This episode has been easily available on DVD for years, appearing in packages with Hitchcock films such as Rich and Strange, Blackmail, and Easy Virtue. It can also be viewed online, though the picture quality is better on DVD.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” was originally a German poem by Goethe (1797); it was then adapted as a symphonic poem by Paul Dukas in 1896-97, and this piece of program music served as the basis for the Mickey Mouse segment of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), which is probably what most people think of when they hear the title of this terrific story and teleplay by Robert Bloch.

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." The Ghoul Keepers: Nine Fantastic Stories. New York: Pyramid, 1961. 9-22. Print.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Television.

Wikipedia. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Yankee Classic Pictures. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. <http://yankeeclassic.com>.

Batman in the 1970s Part 3: March and April 1970

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Peter Enfantino
& Jack Seabrook

Detective Comics #397 (March 1970)

"Paint a Picture of Peril"

written by Dennis O'Neil

art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Four scuba gear-clad men break into the Gotham Marine Festival Art Exhibit to steal the least valuable painting on display, "Startled Mermaid," by Van Der Smuts. Their robbery is momentarily broken up by the Batman, but the Caped Crusader is harpooned and must allow the robbers to escape. Our hero notices a strange glow to the algae in the water and deduces that only a submarine with "low-yield nuclear engines" could leave a glow like that. With the help of his undersea sled, Batman is able to track the sub to the estate of recluse millionaire Orson Payne, whose obsession with the past leads him to steal works of art.

Jack: Another dynamite Adams cover, though once again it doesn't really show what happens in the story.

PE: I guess Marvel wasn't the only comics company that built most of their stories around coincidences. When Bruce Wayne enters his study, the television is on and airing a documentary on Orson Payne (is that name an homage to Orson Welles and Citizen Kane by writer O'Neil?). The trail of the sub leads right to the mansion of Payne himself. How does a private citizen, even a multi-millionaire, go about acquiring a nuclear sub?

Jack: I'm not wild about this story. It seems pretty run of the mill for an O'Neil/Adams piece, and some of the art is pretty weak for Adams--especially the page where Bruce Wayne fixes his own wound.

PE: I agree, Jack. I get no sense of continuity from either title as of yet. These stories feel more like the type that would run in an anthology title like House of Mystery (there's a hint of the supernatural here and a huge dose of it in Detective #395's "The Secret of the Waiting Graves"). Nothing seems to carry over. The Batman shows up to a mystery, does a little detective work, and wraps it up in 14 pages. Maybe the abbreviated page count has a lot to do with this or maybe it's just the way things were always done at DC. With Marvel University, we're able to begin at square one and watch how the "Marvel Method" develops. Here, we've jumped into the middle of a 70-year history. I'm not sure I'd be able to read the 30 years' worth of material that came prior to 1970 if the stories are like these. Thank goodness we're getting a heaping helping of great art from all parties involved. Speaking of the House of Mystery, you can almost imagine Batman (in that panel to the left above) as a gargoyle perched upon the sill of two cowering little boys. Adams's art is nightmarish no matter the circumstances.

Jack: Neal Adams really can draw a cape!

PE: On the letters page, there's correspondence from future novelist and television writer Alan Brennert (L.A. Law, The Twilight Zone, China Beach).

"The Hollow Man"
written by Frank Robbins
art by Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson

In a story continuing from last issue, Batgirl is hunting the deadly Orchid-Killer, a man who dates and murders redheads. A succession of really bad dates doesn't deter her in the slightest. She finally manages to score a meet with the real deal only to have the trap fouled by Jason Baird, who's been following Barbara on her dates. Eventually, a little detective work leads Batgirl right to the killer who, it turns out, has been under her nose all the time.

PE: Barbara Gordon needs to find a better dating service. They keep sending her guys uglier than the one before. Maybe all the bachelors in Gotham are either goons or alter egos. She almost seems charmed that Jason has turned into a stalker, following her around on her dates. This was the early 1970s, before that kind of behavior was frowned upon, I suppose. By 1970, it was probably bad form to call a character lame as Stan Lee did throughout the 1960s with Doctor Don Blake aka The Mighty Thor.

Jack: Can I rave a little bit about the art by Kane and Anderson? It's page after page of dynamic layouts and creative angles, with superb draftsmanship. Even if this issue didn't feature Adams's best work, the combination of Adams and Kane makes this a real visual treat.

PE: Oh yeah, as with the opener, the art is fabulous and makes up for a weak story filled with dopey turns. Do you think every computer dater-turned murderer leaves his actual street address with the company? Wouldn't a master detective like Batgirl be able to tell if someone is wearing a mask, especially if that someone gets real close to her? Hopefully, we won't get too many final-panel expositories, like we got here, in the future.

Batman #220 (March 1970)

"This Murder Has Been Pre-Recorded"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

Batman races to a midnight rendezvous at a telephone booth. A taped message contains a killer's confession, and the booth explodes! Batman narrates the events leading up to the blast. The day before, Bruce Wayne had received a visit from feature reporter Marla Manning, who reported on the murder of Tom Sloane. He had been blown up after turning the ignition key in his car. Marla investigated the Nova Demolition Co. and began receiving threats to "lay off--or else!"

Bruce decides that this is a job for Batman, who pays a visit to Sloane's widow, finding her being menaced by a gunman. Batman fights the gunman but is unable to prevent his escape. Mrs. Sloane refuses to identify the criminal.

Investigating further, Batman learns that Zachary Nova, president of the demolition company, was discharged from service in Vietnam. Nova catches Batman snooping and they fight, but Batman leaves after Nova threatens to blow them both up.

Batman then talks Marla into planting a story that will smoke Nova out. The trick works, and Nova calls to set up a meeting, where he will supply Marla with proof of Sloane's killer.

That night, Marla goes to the meeting spot and Batman appears, taking her place for the rendezvous. The confession is played, the phone booth explodes, and Nova appears, holding Marla at gunpoint. Batman takes him by surprise and knocks him out. Batman reveals that he had placed a dummy in the phone booth.

Sloane's widow later admits that Nova had saved her husband's life in Vietnam and then blackmailed him when they both came home. When Sloane rebelled, Nova killed him.

PE: "This Murder has been Pre-Recorded" contains another of those cheat splash pages that has become legendary for the Batman comics. Obviously, Batman can't be dead since he's one of two tentpoles that kept DC afloat, but couldn't Robbins have provided a bit of mystery to the proceedings? How can Batman be dead after the events of the splash page when, on page 2, he's narrating the story of what led to his appearance at the phone booth. Storytelling 101. Then, when we get to the obligatory closing explanatory, we're asked to swallow a whole load of bunk smelling like 1930's shudder pulps. It's the same sort of "re-written and re-drawn perspective" we got with the great airplane adventure in Detective #395.

Jack: This one didn't bother me much. It was clear that Batman did not die in the explosion because he was narrating the story. So the mystery was one of what really happened at that phone booth?

PE: I really like the art from Novick and Giordano here. It's exciting and the characters each have a distinct look that doesn't change from panel to panel like some of the Dick Ayers art I've been seeing way too much of over at Marvel University. Frank Robbins's storytelling could use a few new wrinkles. I don't feel I've read anything startlingly original but it's competent and gets the job done. Just don't expect Frank Miller or Denny O'Neil's Batman here. A big plus is the paucity of dialogue balloons and narrative. Most of the story is told through the visuals. It's not that I want to fly through the issue as fast as possible but if the story's weak, shore it up elsewhere. I can't say I'm fond of this make of Batmobile. It doesn't have the sleek look of Batmobiles past and future. It resembles a regular sports car with a few Bat-like modifications. A vehicle like this wouldn't generate much fear in an adversary.

Jack: Re-reading these old Batman stories gives me a new appreciation for Frank Robbins. I did not realize he was a decent writer, since his art in later Marvels was so bad.

PE: Demo-expert Nova gets into a tussle with Batman, gets thrown across a room, has his head slammed into a desk, but still manages to keep his lit cigar in his mouth. The Nova angle, by the way, is a stroke of semi-genius. Make us believe the killer is Nova, then convince us it can't be, and then reveal at the climax that the killer is... Nova. Never would have guessed.

Jack: It did seem pretty obvious that Nova was the killer all along. I was more interested in how Batman got out of that doggoned phone booth without getting blown up!

PE: This issue contains the Postal Mailing statement publishers had to make public in their magazines in order to garner second class mailing privileges from the US Post Office. There's a letter here from Martin (Marty) Pasko, who would become a DC writer three years later. Pasko enjoyed stints on The Saga of Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman, and Superman, as well as scripting Batman in JLA from 1975-77. Pasko here contributes a long appreciation for the new look of Batman.

Jack: Pasko was also responsible in the 1980s for the atrocious reboot of E-Man. He was eventually taken off of that series.

Detective Comics #398 (April 1970)

"The Poison Pen Puzzle"
written by Frank Robbins
art by Bob Brown & Joe Giella

Bruce Wayne is traveling incognito aboard a plane when the stewardesses start chirping about autographs. The millionaire playboy sighs and thinks something about sunglasses and disguises before discovering these girls don't want any part of him. Bruce happens to be sitting next to best-selling writer Maxine Melanie, author of the hippest tome in the world, The In People of Out City, a thinly disguised expose of Hollywood movie stars that's created quite the buzz. Wayne is not impressed and dutifully tells Melanie that if he has anything to do with it (and he does, since the studio that bought the rights is in bed with Wayne Enterprises), a film will never be made of her book with his money. When he confronts Seven Star Pictures board members, they call him a hypocrite since he's complaining loudly about a book he's never read. Conceding that point, Wayne goes off to the book store to get a copy, happening upon Maxine Melanie signing copies. The millionaire happens to be in the right place at the right time as the author is poisoned by an old woman who's not really an old woman.

Very shortly after, Loren Melburn ("Grand old dame of Seven Star Pics") and her husband, Dorian, confess to the murder. Batman's not buying that the elderly Mrs. Melburn has the muscle to put him on his back. In the end, it's yet another of Seven Star Pics' old legends of the screen that turns out to be the culprit.

PE: Things are slow around the DC story offices in early 1970. Only explanation I can see for getting Batman involved in a mystery involving a thinly veiled Jacqueline Susann. The fire usually reserved for child molesters and drug runners is laughably here on display when Bruce Wayne becomes irate over his corporation's dealings with a film studio about to greenlight a movie based on the shocking expose. The sequence where he bursts into his board meeting to preach to his underlings the horrors of a book he's never read is pure camp. It's also a subtle stab at censors, but isn't Batman supposed to be on the side of right? Could the Caped Crusader have taken a bite of hypocrisy and found it tastes bitter? Hmmm... there may be more here than meets the eye in this story after all. Umm, no. That's about all the brain food you'll find here as the story quickly descends into bottom-of-the-barrel drivel.

Jack: Bad story, bad art. Not worth reading! My favorite page is the one where the old film stars' butler shows up--colored yellow, no less (but he is Oriental, Jack!!-PE).

PE: Jack, you're being too kind with the word "bad." This is awful art, generic and devoid of any life or character, the kind you'd find in advertisements or on cereal boxes. I will say I was taken by the panel (reprinted below) showing a nonplussed Bruce Wayne trying to figure out his passenger in the seat next to him. For one panel, there's a spark of life. Ironically, it's a scene lacking any action. Immediately thereafter, Wayne goes back to looking like a multitude of actors himself, chiefly Hal Holbrook. Imagine a playboy millionaire who looks like an aging character actor. The story is almost Ed Wood-ian in its stupidity. Halfway through the story, Dorian Melburn flips Batman over his shoulder and remarks that its the second time today he's done it. This despite the fact that Bruce Wayne and not Batman was in the store for the first flip. This would mean Melburn knows that Wayne and the Caped Crusader are one and the same. Though Batman brings the odd statement up, the matter is dismissed. By the end of the story, I defy any reader to make heads or tails of this story. Suddenly, "Return of the Bat-Mite" isn't so awful anymore.

Jack: Bat-Mite? I kind of liked him! I would like to see Neal Adams draw Bat-Mite.

PE: Everyone's talking about this sizzling best-seller (in fact, the stewardesses have copies) and yet later we find out that it's just been released that day! My goodness, there seems to be a leak at the publisher. Maybe Batman should be investigating the black book market in Gotham. But then is Batman/Bruce Wayne such a great detective after all? Just after the author is poisoned with a pen, Wayne tries to help an old woman who's dropped her book. The woman flips the playboy over his shoulder and his reaction is basically "Huh, I don't think that was an old woman!" But the best is saved for shortly after when Wayne finds out Melanie is dead and asks people in the crowd if they have any idea who did it. Surely not the muscleman disguised as a granny? And hold on to your hat for this coincidence. The killer had the "advance reading copy" of the book stolen from Seven Star Pictures!

"Moon-Struck"
written by Frank Robbins
art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

Has one of Dick Grayson's fellow students been exposed to a big dose of radiation thanks to a moon rock? It's up to Robin to find out.

Jack: Sure, the story is dopey, but those Kane layouts! I don't think Colletta's inks are quite as luxurious as Murphy Anderson's were last issue.

PE: I'll agree the art is Kane-tastic but wouldn't it be great if it had something readable accompanying it? I'm taking away from these Batgirl and Robin solo stories that these sidekicks are useless without the big guy. They're constantly being stomped into the ground. From the climax of this story (to be continued next issue) I've a feeling we're gonna be exposed to more of that hip-talkin' Dick and the student body clashing with "the man." Makes you wish for the good old days of the 60s when it was the commies that held such disdain with comic book writers.

Jack: You are so square! Dick was in touch with the kids who were now and happening (I'm square? All I have to say is "Yo!"-PE)!

PE: On the letters page are contributions from future DC writer Mike Barr, who chronicled Batman's adventures in Brave and the Bold for several years, and Howard Leroy Davis, who wrote several critical pieces on comic series for a wonderful fanzine called Comic Effect.

Batman in the 1970s Part 2: January and February 1970

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook and

Peter Enfantino

January and February 1970

Detective Comics #395 (January 1970)

"The Secret of the Waiting Graves"

written by Denny O'Neil

art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano

"Drop Out... Or Drop Dead"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson

"A bleak hillside in central Mexico ... a pair of open graves ... and the shadow of the dread BATMAN"

So begins our first look at The Dark Knight of the 70s, 31 years after he was created for Detective Comics #27. A well-to-do couple, The Muertos, are hosting a balloon race at a huge shindig in a novel setting: a graveyard. One of the participants, Pedro Valdes, is attacked by trained falcons high above the ground. Only the athletic skills of the Batman can save Valdes from a nasty death on the rocks below. Batman is only present because Bruce Wayne is one of Juan Muerto's honored guests. As he does his millionaire playboy routine, dancing with Muerto's wife, Dolores, Bruce thinks to himself how beautiful the senorita is, but that there's "a strange feeling of mustiness about her." Just then, another attack on Pedro Valdes by riflemen on a nearby hill convinces The Dark Knight that Muerto is behind the assassination attempts. But why? Turns out that Valdes is actually a government agent sent to spy on the Muertos, who have been cultivating the dangerous (and apparently illegal) Sybil flower. Legend has it that the flower can grant immortality but at the cost of the user's sanity. Juan and Dolores take Valdes prisoner and, when Batman comes to the rescue, he discovers just how dangerous the Sybil can be. He is overwhelmed by the fumes of the flower and hallucinates, becoming an easy target for the shackles of Juan Muerto. But, as we've come to learn, nothing can restrain the Batman and, once loose, he burns the Muertos' stash of Sybil flowers. The destruction of the drug spells death for the couple, who age in a matter of moments, falling conveniently into their respective open graves.

The back-up is a solo Robin story, detailing the Boy Wonder's squelching of a communist-backed campus uprising.

PE: When I think of the 70s Batman, I tend to look at him with rose-colored glasses. The '70s was my peak comic book reading time. Just about anything I picked up was worth reading. Or so it seemed. I've always remembered the era of Neal Adams' Batman as being very realistic. That is, the adventures of Batman didn't rely on misguided aliens, talking apes, or Bat-shark repellent. Judging by the nicely choreographed but wholly fantastical river rescue that opens Detective Comics #395, my memories may be challenged very quickly. Not a criticism, merely an observation. What would a comic book be without a helping of the fantastic? Speaking of fantastic, let me just say those magical two words once again: Neal Adams!

Jack: Just seeing the cover of this issue brought a flood of memories. This is about as good as Batman gets. I got this in my stocking for Christmas 1969, when I was 6 years old, and this is really when I started getting excited about comics.

PE: An atmospheric tale is ruined by a convoluted expository but we're never told why the government agent is there to arrest the Muertos. We know it's for growing the Sybil but not whether it's illegal in Mexico or how the flower is administered to attain the immortality. I assume the Sybil is a stand-in for the poppy since the Comics Code forbade drug use in a kiddies' four-color. Writer Denny O'Neil simply substituted the fictional Sybil for the all-too-real poppy. We are told (by Dolores) that G-men in Mexico aren't all that bright since the undercover agent accidentally shows off his badge in front of his targets!

Jack: Did you notice how outrageously long Batman's cape is when Adams draws it? It looks cool but he'd trip as soon as he took a step!

PE: A dash of the fantastic certainly works in O'Neil's favor in our climax, an ending suitable for a visit to the House of Mystery, with the appropriately christened Muertos disintegrating into dust following the burning of the Sybil. The two shamble their way to their open graves like the rotting corpses who returned to exact "poetic justice" in Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror, two titles that were obviously an inspiration in the opening of the new-look House of Mystery.

Jack: This ending is really creepy! I like how Batman fills in the missing death year on their tombstones with his gloved finger.

PE: If Batman is the epitome of cool, Robin is an icon of square. The back-up feature, written by Frank Robbins (who would ruin two of my favorite 1970s titles, The Invaders and Captain America and the Falcon, with his hideous artwork) with nice art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, attempts to redefine the Boy Wonder as a hip, with-it cool cat on campus and fails miserably. "Robin solo is deadly dull rather than deadly" would be the message I glean from this back-up. Dated euphemisms such as "the fuzz" don't help either. I'm afraid we'll probably be subjected to quite a bit of the topical story lines in the early 1970s.

Jack: I didn't mind it so much, mainly because of the dynamic art by Kane and Anderson. I think Robbins was a better writer than artist.

Batman #218 (January-February 1970)

"Batman and Robin's Greatest Mystery"

(reprinted from Detective Comics #234, August 1956)

"The Hand from Nowhere"

(reprinted from Batman #130, March 1960)

"The Man who Couldn't be Tried Twice"

(reprinted from Batman #118, September 1958)

"The Body in the Batcave"

(reprinted from Batman #121, February 1959)

"Four Hours to Live"

(aka "Death Row's Innocent Resident")

(reprinted from the Sunday Syndicated Batman, June 11-July 30, 1944)

"The League Against Batman"

(reprinted from Detective Comics #197, July 1953)

PE: I suspect that the reason reprints were being stuffed into "Giant Batman"s was because they were cheap and easy. Nothing more than a quick mock-up cover was needed to slap together a batch of old stories. In the letters page of Batman #218, we learn that some of the stories reprinted from the very early days of Batman are being censored because "in the original version, the Dynamic Duo occasionally acted in a way contrary to their code." Editor Julius Schwartz "made a few minor changes and put in some new details" to make the old classics more palatable for eight year-olds in 1970. The fact that there are two issues cover-dated February 1970 must have played havoc with collectors at one time.

For some reason, this big,
green, disembodied hand
always stuck with me!

Jack: This issue also blew my mind, because I remember it so fondly. Back in the early 70s, reprint comics were about the only way to get to read the old stories. Sure, they can be silly, but it was exciting to see this stuff. Another interesting tidbit from the letters column: they lost the original art from the 1940s and only had negatives from the early 50s, so they were limited in what they could reprint and still make it look good. This same problem cropped up later with The Spirit reprints, but the plethora of high quality Golden Age reprints in the last 10-15 years makes me think they figured out a solution—probably a digital one!

Batman #219 (February 1970)

"Death Casts the Deciding Vote"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

"The Silent Night of the Batman"

written by Mike Friedrich

art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

In "Death Casts the Deciding Vote," Bruce Wayne is invited to visit Washington by a maverick senator who's hoping to get a tough anti-crime bill passed. It'll be a close vote (ostensibly, because there are a lot of crooks in Washington), so if the senator misses the meeting, his bill will go down. A masked underworld boss has decided that the senator should be elsewhere when the voting begins and hijacks his plane. Trouble is, Bruce Wayne is on board with the senator and anywhere Wayne goes, Batman can't be far behind. The Caped Crusader puts the kibosh on the boss's scheme and gets Senator "Silver Mane" to his destination in time.

In the back-up feature, Batman is convinced by Commissioner Gordon that Christmas Eve will be crime-free and that he should let his cowl down a little and come caroling with the cops. Batman smiles and imagines that Gordon's a little off his rocker but accompanies him anyway. Unknown to the pair, there actually is crime and misery in Gotham but it's all headed off at the pass in various ways and the city rings with the sound of singing voices.

You be the judge.

Cheat?

PE: A by-the-numbers job with unimaginative story and passable art. You really have to wonder (as we did while watching the Batman TV series) how stupid can the public really be? Bruce Wayne is on the plane and taken hostage. He's put in the hold by himself and five minutes later out pops Batman. No one, in particular this brainy senator, thinks to themselves, "Hold on a minute! Where the hell did he come from? Why would he be on this plane and hidden?" I'd ask. The climax, where we see a deflated Batman suit exiting the high-flying plane, is a cheat of the highest order. At the beginning of the story, we're shown essentially the same panel, drawn to clearly show Batman falling from the plane.

Jack: I can live with the splash page cheat because it's from behind and kind of looks like a costume stuffed with inflatable pillows if you squint. What is really a cheat is the cover! That scene is totally misleading, though any art by Adams is welcome.

PE: Irv Novick (1911-2004) grew to prominence in the DC ranks with his art on Our Army at War. He would do tons of jobs on Batman and Detective Comics throughout the 1970s.

Jack: I like his art here more than Bob Brown's in the Feb. 1970 Detective. Maybe it's the inks by Dick Giordano.

PE: "The Silent Night of Batman" is a nice series of vignettes portraying a carol-singing Batman taking the night off during a Christmas Eve blissfully free of incidents. Other than the opening (where the usually stiff Gordon convinces the equally stiff Dark Knight to blow off a little steam with him) and the finale (Batman meets the Christmas spirit), this strip is blissfully free of dialogue and captions, letting Neal Adams do what he does best. Guy's got real broad shoulders. If anybody can pull off something that could easily be cornball and maudlin (where's the crippled kid who's begging on the street?), it's Adams. How was this not the lead feature this issue rather than the unimaginative and clumsy "Deciding Vote"?

Jack: This really is a beautiful piece, one that reminded me of the Green Lantern work.

PE: On the letters page, a 17 year-old Klaus Janson writes in with praise for Joe Giella's penciling. A decade and a half later, Janson would ink the most influential Batman story of the 1980s, The Dark Knight Returns.

Jack: Heck, he was inking Marvel comics within 4 years of this letter! I knew I should have written more letters . . .

Detective Comics #396 (February 1970)

"The Brain Pickers"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Bob Brown & Joe Giella

"The Orchid Crusher"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Gil Kane & Murphy Anderson

Wall Street whiz kid Rory Bell becomes the target of underworld bosses wanting to pick his brain to get a jump on the next big investment. But Rory's even smarter than his business knowledge lets on. He leads the bad guys on a wild goose chase while phoning in clues to his assistant. Coincidentally, one of Rory's best clients is Bruce Wayne and when the millionaire playboy gets wind of some of the clues Rory's dropping, he gets into his long underwear and investigates.

In the back-up story, Barbara Gordon has a terrible dream involving the notorious Orchid Killer, a serial killer who specializes in redheads. Next day, coincidentally, as Barbara works her job at Gotham Library, she comes across a computer dating card belonging to the latest victim. Thinking she's on to something, Barbara joins the dating service to bait the killer. Will she find true love or a mad killer on the first blind date?

PE: More of that hellish hipster talk that mucked up all the comic books (and all the world actually) in the early 70s. Protesting the mobsters who want to drag him off to their hideout, Rory exclaims: "Uh-uh -- you don't dig my style! I can't make market decisions 'less I've got this throbbing heap under me ... and the wind blowing my mind -- so we play it my way -- or no play!" The wind blowing my mind? Well, that's an obvious nod to the fact that Rory is a smart cookie and wears a helmet but I've never heard of a Moped addressed as "a throbbing heap." And how long after 1970 did we have to put up with the whole "You dig" scene? This could get ugly.

Jack: Man, you are too square! Get with the scene!

PE: Holy stretch of the imagination, Batman. How the heck am I supposed to believe that, not only is Bruce Wayne a big-time client of Rory's and is in the right place at the right time to get the clues the motorcyclist is phoning in, but our hero then takes meaningless initials and stitches them into a quilted map leading them right to Rory? One of the dumbest Batman stories I've ever read and easily one of the worst artistic depictions of millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Millions or no, looking like this he doesn't land all the models he likes to gather on his arm. Klaus Janson may have found Giella's pencils to be outstanding, but this Bat-fan finds him sorely lacking.

Jack: Wasn't Bob Brown the penciller? Either way, the art is not great--except for the Adams cover, which depicts a scene completely opposite to what happens in the story!

The Lamborghini. Much less conspicuous.

PE: The Batgirl story is highlighted by the always reliable Gil Kane and it's capped by a genuinely puzzling cliffhanger that could go either way: humorously (Barbara flips her date over her shoulder when he leans in for a kiss) or violently (all the evidence points to this guy). We'll just have to find out in the next issue. As a trivial side note, it's interesting that, in the TV series, Barbara Gordon is actually a brunette and wears a red wig to disguise herself. In the comics, with that gorgeous flaming top, how could anyone not put two and two together when Barbara disappears and Batgirl comes into view?

Jack: Gil Kane sure draws one sexy Batgirl, and Barbara Gordon is no slouch either. This librarian is much hotter than the one on TV, courtesy of the long red hair. But is she wearing a wig as Batgirl? If not, does she include a stint with the curling iron as part of her quick change? Her hair goes from long and straight to shoulder-length and curly.

PE: I wasn't familiar with the Jason Bard character who was hitting on Barbara this issue. Turns out he'll remain a semi-regular in the Bat-titles throughout the 70s, usually when Batgirl is around.

Jack: If the librarian at my local library looked like Barbara Gordon, my card would get a workout!

Robert Bloch on TV Part Seven-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Gloating Place"

2012-01-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Susan Harrison as Susan

by Jack Seabrook

“The Gloating Place” marked the second time that Robert Bloch adapted one of his own stories for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The first had been “The Changing Heart.” The story is one of subtle horror, where Bloch uses slang and the perspective of a teenager’s mind to diffuse the terrible things that are happening. This has two effects—it makes the events more palatable while demonstrating the callous evil of the vapid teenage girl who is the story’s protagonist.

The masked killer approaches.

Susan Harper, a high school student, goes to her gloating place, “a small ravine at the far end of the park where she could sit without being noticed or disturbed.” Right away, we learn what kind of person she is: she wishes that her parents would die in a plane crash so that she could receive insurance money. “She was alone and nobody ever paid any attention to her,” so a week before she had claimed that a man had attacked her in a vacant lot. The result “had been a real gasser,” since she began to receive attention from classmates, her family and police. When she had to identify a suspect in a police lineup, it was “the dreamiest-creamiest of all.”

When a car accident results in “three cars wrecked and two people killed,” she is upset because it diverts attention from her. Bloch describes her: “the fat, foreshortened body, the plump, pimply face, the hair the color of the brown, muddy water.” She admits to herself that the biggest reason for her lie was “to get Tom Reynolds to notice her.” In order to regain the attention she craves, she hatches a plan and murders Marjorie, Tom’s girlfriend. Bloch does not describe the actual murder; what happened only becomes evident later, as the story is filtered through Susan’s shallow, teenage mind.

Susan reaches out to grab Marjorie.

Once again the center of attention, Susan wants some time to herself, so she sneaks off to the gloating place, where she recalls carrying out Marjorie’s murder, strangling the girl until she was “just a big, boneless pig doll that was no good to Tom Reynolds or to anybody.” She gazes at her own reflection in the water, certain that she has not changed, now comforted by her familiarly ugly appearance. Just then, she sees the reflection of a man behind her, as his gloved hands “closed over her throat.”

Bloch's story is one of subtle but powerful horror, in which a killer gets her comeuppance in a twist ending. He had a difficult challenge in adapting the story for television, since the tale is told mostly through the thoughts of the main character. The script is passable, but there are some problems with the program that make it one of the less successful Bloch/Hitchcock efforts thus far. The first, and probably the biggest, problem is the casting of the lead. Susan is played by Susan Harrison, an actress probably best known for playing the ballerina on the Twilight Zone episode, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." She was born in 1938, making her 22 or 23 years old when “The Gloating Place” was filmed in the spring of 1961. Harrison is too pretty to play the Susan of the story, and her acting abilities are not equal to the task of explaining why such an attractive young woman would be so psychologically damaged as to commit the crimes she does. In the story, Bloch describes her as ugly and unpopular, but in the show, she just seems odd. The rest of the cast is not much better. Worst of all is Erin O’Brien-Moore, as Susan’s mother, whose histrionics seem out of place with the rest of the low key acting on exhibit.

The most interesting cast note is that Marjorie, the girl Susan kills, is played by a very young Marta Kristen. Born in 1945 and aged 15 or 16 when this was filmed, Kristen’s coltish beauty is perfectly suited to her role. She would later become famous as Judy Robinson on Lost in Space, and she still makes appearances and has her own website. One other interesting cast note is that one of the other high school girls is played by Monica Henreid, daughter of actor/director Paul Henreid, who directed "The Landlady," Bloch’s prior script for this series.

“The Gloating Place” was directed by Alan Crosland, Jr., who lived from 1918 to 2001 and directed scores of episodes of series television, including 20 for the Hitchcock series. The first time I watched the show, I was disappointed in how it had been adapted from the printed page, and I thought that the director might be to blame. However, on re-watching it, I noticed a number of interesting camera setups and lighting choices. The scenes at the gloating place are filmed by contrasting shots of Susan with shots of her reflection in a pool of water. When she first has the idea to fake having been attacked, the voices of her classmates echo around her as the camera cuts and pans from one eerie, leafless tree to the next. The effect shows just how alone Susan feels.

Marta Kristen in "The Gloating Place"

Marta Kristen on Lost in Space

Susan reflected in the glass at the lineup.

Another nicely filmed sequence is the lineup in the police station. Susan and the policemen sit behind one way glass and the room is lit in a high contrast, noir style.

The last sequence is effectively planned, shot and edited to show a brutal attack on a young woman without really showing anything, and it is thus very effective and almost daring for a network television program in 1961.

The final twist.

“The Gloating Place” was first published in the June 1959 issue of Rogue and it was reprinted in Blood Runs Cold (1961) and Bitter Ends (1990). The television adaptation was broadcast on NBC on Tuesday, May 16, 1961, at 8:30 on the East Coast. It was up against The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, another teen-oriented show, on CBS, and at 9 o’clock on NBC, the “Terror in Teakwood” episode of Thriller aired, directed by Paul Henreid, whose daughter had appeared in “The Gloating Place.”

The show was remade for the 1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and broadcast on January 5, 1986; it can be viewed here. The original episode is not yet available on DVD but can be viewed here.

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "The Gloating Place." Bitter Ends: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch, Volume Two. New York, NY: Citadel, 1990. 257-64. Print.

Galactic Central. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://philsp.com/>. "The Gloating Place." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 16 May 1961. Television. Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>. Marta Kristen - The Official Website. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://martakristen.com>. Wikipedia. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Batman in the 1970s Part 1: The Dark Knight Extinguished

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Before Neal Adams helped bring The Dark Knight (after years of sugar-coated crap and alternate world madness) back to relevance, he stomped his foot all over DC horror, inventing the look of the "Mystery Line" (Tales of the Unexpected, House of Mystery, House of Secrets) after those comics had also fallen out of favor. Previously spotlighting science fiction tales (and not very good ones, at that) and the occasional series (Dial 'H' For Hero, Martian Manhunter, Mark Merlin, Eclipso, Ra-Man, etc.), the titles were near-unreadable and, we would assume, never far from the axe. Enter Neal Adams in 1968. His covers for House of Mystery #174 and #175 are arguably the most iconic in horror comics. At about this time, he and Denny O'Neil produced one of the most controversial strips in comics history, their run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow (#76, April 1970- #89, April 1972), a kind of roadshow of America's faults and shortcomings (faults which continue to this day, we should add). But this new column is actually about 1970s Batman and not a history of Neal Adams. There are several fine studies of Adams out there on the net and in print.

To understand the instant impact Neal Adams made on Batman, we need to go back a bit further to what he walked into. In 1964, Julius Schwartz revamped the Batman titles, creating the "new look," to help stall dwindling sales (we suspect the new Marvel titles were siphoning readers from the established DC titles at a very high clip). Now, we've read the last batch of the "old look" and the first dozen of the "new look" and honestly can't find a difference. Batman #163 (March 1964), written by Bill Finger and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff, features "The Joker Jury," in which the Clown Prince of Crime uses a giant vacuum cleaner to suck up priceless gems (and Robin) at the International Fair. The story, dialogue, and props all predict the upcoming TV show. We can imagine this issue in the stack of comics that inspired William Dozier to launch the project. While #163 is the last of the "old look," #164 (published the following month) purports to be the premiere of the "new look." "The Two-Way Gem Caper," written by France Herron and drawn again by Moldoff, introduces the new, sportier Batmobile, the yellow circled Bat on the Caped Crusader's chest, the elevators to the Batcave (previously the Duo had to walk down a flight of stairs), and the exit from the Batcave (made famous later on the TV series). Other than these new angles, it seems to be just the "old Batman" as far as the story goes. This one concerns a villain named Mr. Dabblo, who's attempting to steal "The Pearl of the Orient" from the Gotham Museum, and Dick Grayson's obsession with hootenanny music. Sales took a slight bump up but nothing earth-shattering. The real bump would come thanks to ABC-TV two years later.

The sales of Batman in the late 1960s mirrored the success (and quick downfall) of the campy ABC-TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward as The Dynamic Duo. Made by men with an obvious disregard for the source material (and its fans), the show magnified the ludicrous aspects of the 1960s Batman titles (Batman and Detective Comics) and eliminated any of the mystery and peril that rose to the top of the swill now and then. In 1965, the year before the show went on the air, Batman was selling an average of 454,000 copies a month (good for #9 in the Top Ten of the Year). The following year, riding the coattails of Batmania, the title skyrocketed to become the best-selling comic book in America (an average of 898,000 copies a month!). Contrast that with today's sales, of course, and it was still a huge hit. Recently, DC relaunched its entire line and the biggest-selling single title of the year became Batman #1, with sales of 188,000! Until this reboot, the title had been selling south of 52,000 copies.

Two years later, the show was dead and sales began to slide until, by 1970, Batman was selling under 300,000 a month. In today's numbers that would be a blockbuster but in the 1960s, it could spell cancellation. Many feel a title that's been going for 30+ years would surely be kept around as a badge but let's not forget that DC had no problem axing Adventure Comics after 45 years and 504 issues.

Typical of the comics published while the show was on the air is "Mystery of the Missing Manhunters" (Batman #184, September 1966). Missing for 13 days and suffering a form of amnesia, Robin must hypnotize Batman to find out where they've been and what they've been up to. Seems they've been babysitting a thug named "Slippery" Sam Lorenzo, until recently "the brain behind Robbery Incorporated," a syndicate terrorizing Gotham, but now persona non grata and tossed out a skyscraper window. Luckily, Batman happens by and, like a scene from the TV show, uses the "bat-spring ejector" in the Batmobile trunk to fly up and save the falling gangster. Time constraints here, as in the show, make no difference. It's all in the delivery. The amnesia comes after Lorenzo escapes by rigging an electric charge to the Batmobile, shocking the Duo and erasing their memory of the past two weeks. The art (credited to the notorious robber baron, Bob Kane, but actually penciled by Sheldon Moldoff and inked by Joe Giella) is typically generic, unspectacular mid-1960s DC and the story (by Gardner Fox) is lazy and predictable. Many cues seem to be right out of the television show, including a cameo by Aunt Harriet (who, to be fair, had been introduced in the comic two years before the show aired) and the enlarged sound effects (POW! THWAAPP!).

Now, make no mistake, there were the occasional edgier stories peppered in with the pablum. "Death Knocks Three Times" (Batman #180, May 1966) is a nonsensical tale with a ghoulish twist. Batman must deal with a new menace, Death-Man, a skeletal wraith who has Batman questioning his own sanity. Each time the Caped Crusader manages to nab the spectre, Death-Man dies, only to rise again from his grave. Of course, there's a logical explanation for the resurrections: Death-Man has mastered the art of "yogi," which enables you to hold your breath and slow your pulse to simulate death. Written by Robert Kanigher and penciled by Moldoff, the story elicits the kind of vibe created by the 1950s pre-code horror published by companies such as ACG.

Neal Adams's first Batman work was the cover of The Brave and The Bold #75 (January 1968), illustrating a team-up of The Dark Knight and The Spectre. His first interior art featuring Batman would be "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" (Detective Comics #395). Which brings us to this new feature of bare•bones: Batman of the 1970s. Each post will cover two months' output of Detective Comics and Batman, the two flagship Batman titles. We're avoiding the other Bat-titles (Batman Family, Brave and the Bold, and World's Finest) as well as umpteen other short-lived comic books. If anything, the month Neal Adams arrived to extend a hand to the sinking Caped Crusader should be designated "the new look." But what about the other artists and writers who were given the plum assignment of creating new adventures for The Dark Knight? We'll have a look at every artist/writer team to work on the titles. Was Neal Adams the cream of the crop or was he just the flashiest? Stay tuned!

Starting Monday

2012-01-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

This is going to be fun!

Robert Bloch on TV Part Six-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Landlady"

2012-01-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

Dean Stockwell, on his way to being stuffed.

For his third teleplay of the sixth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Bloch was assigned to adapt Roald Dahl's short story, "The Landlady," which had won the 1960 Edgar Award for best short story. Originally published in the November 28, 1959 issue of The New Yorker, the story follows 17 year old Billy Weaver as he arrives in Bath from London by train on a cold night, looking for a place to stay before taking his place in the business world. Young and naive, he imitates the brisk walk he has observed in successful businessmen.

He sees a sign advertising Bed and Breakfast in a cozy setting; through the window he sees a comfortable room. He starts toward a pub, the Bell and Dragon, for more congenial companionship, yet feels compelled to ring the bell at the house. A middle-aged woman welcomes him in as if she had been waiting for him and offers him a room at the "fantastically cheap" rates of five shillings and sixpence a night. "She looked exactly like the mother of one's best school-friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays." There is no evidence of another lodger, as she guides Billy through her "little nest" and shows him his room.

After washing up, Billy goes down to the living room, thinking "this is a bit of all right." He signs the guest book and notices that the two entries before his were made by Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple. The names sound familiar but he can't recall why. The landlady fixes Billy tea and a biscuit as he tries to remember where he had heard those names before. Billy notices a faint odor emanating from the landlady, who admits that Mulholland and Temple are both still there, on the third floor. She adds that Temple was 28 years old and had not "a blemish on his body." Billy notices that the parrot in the room's birdcage is stuffed. The landlady takes credit, and points out that the dachshund on the floor is stuffed as well. "I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away." Billy notices that his tea tastes of bitter almonds.

The story ends with the landlady telling Billy that there have been no other guests beside Mulholland and Temple in the last two or three years. The subtle message is that Billy is about to join them, as another of the pets she will kill and stuff for her collection.

Roald Dahl has been celebrated as a writer of wonderful stories for adults and children for decades. As Jeremy Treglown writes, in his introduction to the Everyman's Library collection of Dahl's stories, "his work is part of the mid twentieth century revival of gothic, particularly the vogue for 'sick humor.'" Dahl was born in 1916 and lived till 1990.

It was fitting that Robert Bloch was assigned to adapt "The Landlady" for television, since he shared an affinity for the gothic style and sick humor. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version aired on February 21, 1961, just a week after Bloch's last contribution to this series, "The Greatest Monster of Them All." Watching the show and comparing it to the story demonstrates Bloch's knack for making small changes to fit the material to the medium.

The setting of the tale is changed from Bath to "a provincial town in England," according to a superimposed title at the beginning of the show. This town is soon identified as Bramley by Wilkins, the bartender at a pub at which the first scene takes place. Bloch added this entire scene to help establish the English location and also to set up a red herring that will continue throughout the episode--the bartender and three patrons discuss a burglary in Bramley. Billy Weaver enters the pub, having just arrived by train, and soon uses a Swiss Army knife to open a jammed cash register. Billy, bespectacled and seemingly erudite despite his youth, stands out in the pub. The men in the pub exchange glances and the inference is that Billy's skill at opening locks could mean he is the burglar.

Burt Mustin, George Pelling, Barry Harvey, and Laurie Main

Billy then leaves the pub and walks around a foggy corner, immediately finding the landlady's home. There is no sign of the strange compulsion that draws Billy to ring the doorbell in the story; perhaps Bloch reasoned that it would be difficult to portray this internal motivation on film. Bloch then follows the story closely, even using lines of dialogue from Dahl's original, such as having the landlady refer to her "little nest." Billy mentions the rumor about a burglar that he had heard in the pub (keeping the red herring alive), but the landlady asks, "who'd want to harm an old lady like me?"

Alone in his room, Billy reads aloud a letter he has written to a friend, allowing Bloch to express directly some expository details that had been narrated in the story. He again mentions the burglary scare. Bloch cleverly added the idea of a burglar to the tale to divert attention from what is really going on. Unlike the story, which takes place in the course of an evening, the teleplay has Billy stay the night in his room and join the landlady downstairs the next morning for breakfast. It is raining and she advises against going outside.

In another change from the source, the landlady invites Billy to find out if the other two lodgers are still there. She shows him their coats and hats hanging in the hall and remarks, "you see, they did come back." In a lovely sequence, she tells Billy that they get together every Sunday afternoon and she plays the old hymns. Temple's favorite, she says, is "All Things Bright and Beautiful"--ironic, since the next line of this hymn is "All creatures great and small," creatures she kills and stuffs!

Patricia Collinge as the landlady

Billy notices that the overcoats are dry, even though it is raining outside. The landlady disappears upstairs and begins to play the organ; to the strains of the hymns, Billy ascends the stairs and investigates another lodger's room. This is filmed by alternating point of view shots with shots of Billy's reactions; the directorial trick is unusual for this series, which typically utilizes standard closeups and middle distance shots to tell ts stories. Billy finds a suitcase with some valuables inside, but otherwise the room is strangely empty.

The final scene takes place in the first floor parlor, as the landlady announces that she heard on the radio that the burglar has been caught. The burglar thread of the story thus is closed, and the viewer is slowly led to the horror of the tale's real denouement. Bloch's final addition is very subtle. The landlady asks Billy if the silly register is in his way, referring to the guest register. Yet a careful viewer will realize that, in the opening pub scene, Billy was able to unlock the cash register, yet his subsequent inability to unlock the mystery of the landlady's guest register will prove fatal.

The end of the television adaptation is more demonstrative than the end of the story--the landlady tells Billy that "I stuff all my little pets when they pass away," and he seems to slip into paralysis. As he sits on the sofa, immobile, she announces: "Well, my pet, time to join the others!" as the camera cuts between her stuffed, dog, Basil, and Billy, who will soon be stuffed. While not as understated as the story, this is very subtle for a television program, and brilliantly done.

Jill Livesey as Rosie, in the pub

"The Landlady" was directed by Paul Henried (1908-1992), who was best known as an actor for playing Victor Laszlo, Humphrey Bogart's rival in Casablanca (1942), but who became a director, mostly of episodic TV, in 1952. He directed 28 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and one of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour. "The Landlady" stars Dean Stockwell (born 1936) as Billy and Patricia Collinge (1892-1974) as the landlady. Stockwell began his career as a child actor in Hollywood and played many memorable roles, but for me he will always be remembered for the TV series Quantum Leap (1989-1993). Collinge was on stage from 1904 and in movies from 1941; she appeared on the Hitchcock series six times and had a role in Hitchcock's film, Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

The other five cast members appear in the initial pub scene. Most memorable was Burt Mustin (1884-1977), who doesn't say a word but who plays an old man as he did in so many other TV shows from 1951 to 1976.

The Hitchcock episode of "The Landlady" is not yet available on DVD but can be viewed online here. The original short story has been reprinted often, most prominently in Dahl's 1960 collection Kiss Kiss, his 1979 collection, Tales of the Unexpected, and the posthumous 2006 Collected Stories.

"The Landlady" was adapted for TV a second time, as the April 21, 1979 episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Robert Bloch did not write the teleplay. The episode is available on DVD and can also be viewed online here.

Sources:

Dahl, Roald. "The Landlady." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. 635-44. Print.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"The Landlady." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 21 Feb. 1961. Television.

"The New Yorker" A Web Site for New Yorkers. Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.thenewyorker.com>.

Tales Of The Unexpected Episode Guide to Tv Series. Web. 04 Jan. 2012. <http://www.tales-of-the-unexpected-episodes.com>.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Appendix." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. 849-50. Print.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Chronology." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. Xxiv-xxvii. Print.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Introduction." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. Ix-Xxi. Print.

Wikipedia. Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat

2012-01-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat by Andrez Bergen

Another Sky Press, 2011, 208 pp.

I never really knew the old Melbourne before the Wall, with its sundry pub music, its boutique club glamour, and vaguely dissident art, a not-so-contaminated Yarra River, all-night warehouse rave parties, superlative eateries, and its easy multicultural charm—I was still only a kid then.

This is the opening paragraph of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, by Andrez Bergen, a novel that recently came over my virtual transom. I was intrigued by the brief write-ups I read online and downloaded the novel for free, as a pdf that I was able to read on my Kindle.

Bergen’s novel is a science fiction detective story set in a dystopian Melbourne, which is the repository of what’s left of humanity in the not so distant future. The narrator is named Floyd, and he is a Seeker, whose job is to track down and arrest Deviants. The twist is that, in this world where acid rain falls constantly and quickly destroys even a new fedora, anyone can be labeled a Deviant. Floyd has had to kill his target only once, and that is the one mission he cannot remember; this unrecalled mission provides the catalyst for a trip into his own heart of darkness.

The government and a powerful corporation work hand in hand in this world, using fear to control what’s left of the population. Floyd sees everything through a haze of references to film noir, hard-boiled detective novels, Japanese films, you name it—all the things that bare*bones readers love to read, watch and quote!

The prose is solidly tough-guy style, more noir than sci-fi, with technical terms kept to a minimum, yet the Blade Runner-like futuristic world of corruption is never too far away. This novel has enough twists and turns to keep a Raymond Chandler fan happy. There are echoes of Total Recall, and any novel where the main character goes in search of another character named Wilton Parmenter and instead finds one named Agarn is bound to entertain fans of 1960s TV.

The book is published by Another Sky Press, an alternative publisher out of Portland, Oregon. It can be downloaded for free online; contributions are requested but not required. For old-fashioned lovers of paper, a printed copy can also be ordered. The novel is followed by several handy appendices that include a guide to pop-culture references in the novel, a glossary, etc.

--Jack Seabrook

2011 Was The Year That...

2011-12-31T06:42:00.000-08:00

by Peter Enfantino

I started off writing a "Bestest Stuff of 2011" piece this morning before realizing that a list of my favorite things of 2011 would be embarrassingly predictable to anyone who read last year's bestest list. I'm a creature of habit and I tend not to try new things (just ask my beautiful, long-suffering girlfriend) so it would be no surprise that three superhero films make my top ten movies list (Number One, for those who care, would be 13 Assassins, a film that transported me back to the first time I saw Once Upon a Time in the West) and that the best music I listened to in 2011 was not Arcade Fire or Radiohead (in fact, the only music on Rolling Stone's annual list of "The Best Albums by Groups You've Never Heard" that I'd spin on my turntable would be Adele's 21) but the deluxe edition of The Rolling Stones' Some Girls featuring the same kind of pillaging of the Stones' vaults that made Exile on Main Street my choice for best cd last year.

So, instead of one of those boring "This is what I thought was the most stimulating, please choose to agree or disagree" exercises, I thought I'd opt with the possibly-just-as-boring list of happenings in 2011 that stimulated me:

2011 Was the Year That... four superhero movies were released in one summer and only one of them sucked. You knew I had to work this in somewhere, right? It was a divine coincidence that Marvel characters would get the lavish treatment three times in a two months span at the same time we were rediscovering Marvel Comics' dawn. Thor, X-Men: First Class, and Captain America: The First Avenger all packed good acting, mature script, well-staged action sequences and, above all, a respect and almost reverence for its subject matter. Of course, it's all just a prelude to this fanboy's wet dream, The Summer of 2012, when we finally get to see how Joss Whedon intends to give ample screen time to seven Marvel characters and two super-villains and still squeeze in an interesting plot. The trailer doesn't do it for me but I'll still give Whedon the benefit of the doubt and turn up on opening day. I'm also interested to see how screwed up the reboot of Spider-Man will be with a completely CGI-ed Lizard as its villain. Then there's that 500 pound gorilla that will put all of them in the rear view mirror very quickly on July 20.

2011 Was the Year That... I finally buckled and bought a blu-ray player and HD tv. Scoleri had been gently prodding me for years (just as he had to do with the computer, the cd player, the dvd player, the itouch, the dishwasher, and every other relevant electronic device of the last twenty years--I said I was a creature of habit) but I'd been resisting. Just how much better could this be than my big screen non-HD tv and my dvd player? Gulp! What finally pushed me over was seeing The Dark Knight on blu at a buddy's house. Well, that, and the cheap prices on Amazon. Sadly, I find it near-impossible to pop in a dvd now. The $5 dvds in the bins at Wal-Mart now remind me of the $1 VHS tapes at the garage sales I once frequented. My wallet has taken a hit in the last month thanks to the afore-mentioned Amazon and their Gold Box deals. I've added blu boxsets of The Bourne and Jurassic Park Trilogys, The Alien Quadrilogy, and the Complete Dirty Harry, as well as all of Christopher Nolan's films to my collection. Anybody want to buy a bunch of dvds of those films?

2011 Was the Year That... I discovered comics files. I'd seen these things offered up on the net but had never given them a try until we decided to tackle the Marvel Universe, one issue at a time. After buying every single Essential volume (yep, I sure did) and being disappointed with the black and white reproduction, I took a chance and ordered a couple of discs from a dealer. Now, I'll never try to convince you that reading your comic books on a computer is a more rewarding experience than lovingly and carefully turning the original dusty pages themselves. No dice. I will say that it's quite a bit cheaper. Just to give you an idea, the forty or fifty B&W reprint volumes cost me upwards of $500 and files of those same comics set me back about a hundred clams (and that's not even considering what the original comics would cost you!). I also picked up several hundred files of public domain pre-code horror comics. A lot of this will translate into blogs we're working on. I doubt our Marvel University blog would be as readable without these files.

2011 Was the Year That... Stephen King remembered how to entertain his readers again. I read a Stephen King novel all the way through and enjoyed it for the first time in about twenty years (the last time was The Dark Half, if I recall correctly). I've had to replace my living room window several times thanks to King's annoying habit of drawing me in only to piss me off halfway through a novel with those fucking italics, annoying catchphrases and pop culture references (how many times, in that dopey slasher flick novella in Full Dark, No Stars, did he mention that soda pop sign?), and goofy colloquialisms like cockadoodie. King more than redeemed himself with his latest, the time travel novel 11/23/63, a rip-roaring "what if?" that puts the spin on his Johnny Smith character from The Dead Zone. What if you could go back and prevent JFK's assassination? Would it make the world a better place? It's not as easy a question as it seems, argues the author and the outcome may be a little predictable if you've read much of King's fiction but its final image of the central character dancing with his lover is haunting and will stay with me a long time.

2011 Was the Year That... HBO proved yet again that it's the place to go for the best TV programming with Game of Thrones, a thrilling fantasy series based on the novel by George R. R. Martin. Juggling several main characters, plot lines, and cliffhangers deftly, it proved that fantasy can be more than elves, unicorns and soft-focus fairies. Indeed, it's tough to view Thrones as a fantasy since there are only a few fantastical winks in its ten-hour running time to prove this isn't a dramatic piece based on historical occurrences. Beheadings, political shenanigans, and in-breeding? Sounds like modern-day Alabama to me. I was so lost in Thrones' universe that, a few days after I watched the last episode, I bought the five books that (so far) chronicle the "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga. We're talking over 5000 pages for a guy who finds it hard to find the time to read his e-mails. Bravo to George R. R. Martin (or "little Georgie," as Stan Lee would call him on the letters pages of the early Marvel Comics) for creating such a fully developed and entertaining landscape for a reader to lose himself in.

2011 Was the Year That... I spent more time listening to movie podcast than music on my iTouch. First time that's happened. I've listened to a few podcasts regularly (man, do I miss Mondo Movie!), but it's only been in the last six months that I've become near-obsessed with film discussion by fans rather than scholars. In particular, the laugh-out-loud observations by the crews of Filmjunk, 35mm Heroes, and The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnight Cinema. Junk and 35mm tend to stick to what's going on at the local cineplex but GGTMC eschews the current fare (for the most part, so do I) and opts to enlighten the uneducated (me) to the joys of Supervixens (1975) and Django the Bastard (1969), always in an entertaining and respectful fashion. All three podcasts have sent me running to Netflix, in the hopes I'll find salvation.

2011 Was the Year That... John and I met and befriended quite a few hard-working individuals. Make no bones about it, Jack Seabrook, Jim Barwise, Matthew Bradley, and Tom McMillion work long hours to help us produce Marvel University and all they get out of it is a sense of satisfaction (I hope) and a plea for "More, more, more!" A huge thank you to these gentlemen for making our part-time hobby that much more enjoyable. Just wait 'til you see what we've got planned for 2012! Speaking of which...

2012 Will Be the Year That... I'll finally get to hear new music from Van Halen (after an absence of 28 years!), Aerosmith (11 years) and The Rolling Stones (well, we hope so, anyways). We'll thrill to (or groan at) the long-awaited final film in the Christopher Nolan/Batman trilogy. Pre-code horror comics will continue to be reprinted and re-assessed between hardcovers. The producers of Game of Thrones will have the unenviable task of adapting an 1100 page second volume that's long on character and a long time between action bits (and I loved it all the same). We'll be providing lots of entertainment here at our series of blogs. You already know about the Kolchak: The Night Stalker dissection we'll be undertaking for the next four weeks but let me give you a sneak preview of some other goodies we have planned: Jack Seabrook and I will be unveiling "Batman in the 1970s," a MU-style travel through Batman and Detective Comics from January 1970 through December 1979 that'll run from January 15th on through the end of 2012. Sometime in '12, bare*bones will be home to multi-part looks at DC's mystery and war comics. MU will continue to count down to December 1969 (and its authors' smiles will grow when Gi-Ant Man and The Torch lose their regular series slots). Then there's the matter of the follow-up to Kolchak, which will be...

Nope, some stuff has to remain a surprise!

Happy New Year!

Kolchak: The Night Stalker

2011-12-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

Just in time to celebrate the New Year, we'll be starting up our latest TV-show-a-day blog, this time following the exploits of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

If you enjoyed our blogs on Thriller, The Outer Limits, and Batman, you won't want to miss this one! Expect to see several of the same panel of experts adding their two cents on a daily basis, and along for the ride this time out are Mark Dawidziak, author of The Night Stalker Companion, and Matthew Bradley, author of Richard Matheson On Screen.

We hope you'll pop over to It Couldn't Happen Here... to check things out, and watch for our official launch on January 1st!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

All of us at bare•bones want to wish our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We hope you all woke up to a nice surprise under the tree this morning (with special thanks to Ken Mitchroney for sharing an example Christmas surprise!).

Ann-Margret

Robert Bloch on TV Part Five- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Greatest Monster of Them All"

2011-12-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

Robert Bloch’s second teleplay for season six of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was “The Greatest Monster of Them All,” broadcast by NBC on February 14, 1961. As the show opens, Hal Ballew sits in his office in a run-down Hollywood studio, reading a book on entomology and trying to find a new insect around which he can build a cheap monster movie. Director Morty Lenton chides him for his cheapness, suggesting a giant cockroach. Tipsy screenwriter Fred Logan arrives and, in place of a giant bug, Ballew suggests that he write a horror movie with a high school angle—playing youth against death. Logan brings up the name of Ernst Von Kroft, an old-time monster movie star.

Later, Ballew brings Von Kroft to his office and introduces him to Logan. Von Kroft takes his job seriously, wanting to create a horror picture “in the great tradition.” Ballew and Lenton don’t have the same aspirations; Lenton even suggests a toothless vampire.

The scene then shifts to the movie set, where the young cast takes a coffee break as Logan brings in new dialogue for the scene about to be filmed with Von Kroft. Von Kroft acts out a scene with starlet Lara Lee, putting his all into it, and Logan applauds his efforts. Lenton insists on close-ups of Von Kroft but won’t say why.

The great Sam Jaffe.

Once the movie has been released, Ballew sends Logan to a theater to take notes on audience reaction to his new picture; he mentions that Von Kroft will also be attending. As Logan watches the movie unfold, Von Kroft sits nearby, in a theater otherwise filled with teenagers. They appear to be frightened by the events onscreen until Von Kroft’s scene begins. Lenton dubbed a Bugs Bunny voice for all of Von Kroft’s lines, and the theater explodes with laughter. Logan is shocked and Von Kroft is angry and mortified.

William Redfield

Logan, drunk, visits Von Kroft at his apartment, only to find the old man distraught, wondering why Lenton made him look like a fool. Von Kroft pulls out his old makeup case and Logan passes out. On awakening, Logan goes to Ballew’s office and finds it empty. He continues on into the studio, exploring the darkened set of the recently-filmed motion picture. He finds Lenton dead, with two puncture wounds in his neck. Nearby, he finds Ballew injured. Ballew tells him that Von Kroft killed Lenton and is still on the loose.

Von Kroft, in full vampire makeup and with knife in hand, leaps from a catwalk above Logan and Ballew but breaks his neck in the fall and dies. Says Logan, he was “the greatest monster of them all.”

Bloch’s teleplay was based on a story of the same name by Bryce Walton. Comparing the story to the teleplay demonstrates Bloch’s talent for solving dramatic problems in a way that utilizes the medium of television to improve upon a source.

The monster, shrouded in fog.

Walton’s short story features the same characters and plot, but Bloch’s teleplay expands it, adding more humor and making significant changes. The banter between Ballew and Lenton is new, and actors Sam Jaffe (as Ballew) and, especially, Robert H. Harris (as Lenton), play their scenes broadly, with Yiddish/Brooklyn accents and misplaced words (“Edgar Albert Poe,” for example). At one point, Lenton vigorously massages his bald head in what appears to be an attempt to stimulate hair growth. Watching this program, it’s clear that everyone involved was having fun, going well beyond Bloch’s script in order to be entertaining. One suspects that the subject matter was quite familiar to all of them.

Robert H. Harris tries to promote hair growth.

The opening scene, where Ballew and Lenton try to come up with a new insect for a giant bug movie, is not in the story, nor is the scene where Von Kroft visits the producer’s office and spontaneously tries out for the part by attacking Lenton like a vampire. As he has done in other scripts, Bloch uses foreshadowing here, anticipating the later murder of Lenton by Von Kroft in a manner made to look like that of a vampire.

Best of all is the movie set. The show’s third scene opens with a close-up of a fog-enshrouded monster that looks like the monster from Night of the Demon (1957); the camera pulls back to reveal a woman dressed in black, who moves in to kiss the monster before they both take a coffee break. The blonde starlet, Lara Lee, chews gum incessantly until Lenton tells her to get rid of it; she takes it out of her mouth and tosses it disdainfully on the floor of the set, saying “yes, master” in a voice like that of a mad scientist's hunchbacked servant.

Director Robert Stevens, who directed 44 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (this was his last, until the series expanded to an hour), also deserves credit for this wonderful episode. He uses an extreme close-up of Von Kroft’s eyes during the informal tryout in Ballew’s office to show that Von Kroft has talent of the sort that is sorely lacking in the contemporary movie business.

One aspect of the story that Bloch chose to play down is the detail about Von Kroft’s rooming house, which Logan visits prior to seeing the movie. Describing the ancient Hollywood rooming house, Logan tells us:

It was really very old, with cupolas and a bell tower, and surrounded by untended masses of rose bushes, wisteria, and untrimmed palm trees whose branches hung dry and brown, like dead grass skirts.

Bloch chose to replace these evocative details with humor and action. In Walton’s story, Von Kroft is clearly an amalgam of Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, and Boris Karloff. He was a matinee idol in Hungary (like Lugosi), he became famous in Hollywood for playing a monster in heavy makeup (like Karloff), and he always did all of his own makeup (like Chaney). In Bloch’s teleplay, Von Kroft’s background is not discussed, beyond stating that he had been a great horror film star in the old days.

Meri Welles and Richard Hale

The biggest differences between the story and the teleplay involve Lenton’s betrayal of Von Kroft and the story’s ending. In the story, Lenton films Von Kroft in close-up, focusing on his toothless mouth. When shown on the big screen, a toothless vampire gumming a starlet evokes audience laughter. In the teleplay, Lenton instead dubs what has to be an uncredited Mel Blanc reading the lines in a Bugs Bunny voice. The effect is much more dynamic onscreen, both funny and cruel.

At the end of the story, Von Kroft uses his makeup to turn himself into a summary of various monsters he had played. When Logan arrives at the studio, he finds Lenton lying in a grave with a broken jaw and Ballew hanging dead from a gibbet, replacing a dummy that had been there before. In the teleplay, Von Kroft dresses as a vampire, as in the movie he had just filmed, kills Lenton with a knife to make it look like a vampire’s bite, and leaves Ballew in a grave with unspecified injuries. At the end of the story, Von Kroft is found lying dead under the gibbet from which Ballew is hanging; in the teleplay, he leaps to his death from a catwalk.

Bloch’s adaptation of Walton’s story is very creative, using sound and pictures to turn the story into a real send-up of low-budget monster movie making around 1960. Bryce Walton was a prolific pulp author who wrote over 1000 short stories in his career and lived from 1918-1988. “The Greatest Monster of Them All” was first published in the May 1959 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and it was reprinted in Ellery Queen’s 1967 Anthology.

The cast of the Hitchcock show features William Redfield as Logan. Redfield lived from 1927-1976, and was in many TV shows and movies. He had a key role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and helped found the Actor’s Studio, but I will always remember him as Floyd Unger, Felix’s brother, in the “Shuffling Off to Buffalo” episode of The Odd Couple, broadcast February 8, 1974. Floyd ran a bubble gum factory in upstate New York and briefly hired Felix, whose unsuccessful ideas included Opera trading cards for kids who didn’t like sports.

Playing Hal Ballew was Sam Jaffe (1891-1984), who had a long and brilliant career in Yiddish theater, on Broadway, in movies and on TV. He was blacklisted in the 1950s but spent 50 years in the movies. Robert H. Harris played Morty Lenton; Harris lived from 1911-1981 and appeared in 9 episodes of the Hitchcock series, including “The Dangerous People.”

Richard Hale played Ernst Von Kroft. Hale lived from 1892-1981 and appeared in many movies and TV episodes. Much to my surprise, as I was recently watching All the King’s Men, Richard Hale turned up in a crowd scene early in the film and then later had a key role playing the father of a girl killed in an auto accident. His character’s name? Richard Hale!

Other minor payers in the cast included Baruch Lumet, who also had a small role in “The Cuckoo Clock,” and Meri Welles (as Lara Lee), who appeared in “Madame Mystery.”

Sources:

EBooks-Library.com - Your Best Source for EBooks, Historical Documents and Sheet Music - All in PDF Format. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://ebooks-library.com>.

Galactic Central. Web. 21 Dec. 2011. <http://philsp.com/>.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

"The Greatest Monster of Them All." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 14 Feb. 1961. Television.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Walton, Bryce. "The Greatest Monster of Them All." 1959. Ellery Queen's 1967 Anthology. Ed. Ellery Queen. New York: Davis, 1966. 146-57. Print.

Wikipedia. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Four- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Changing Heart"

2011-12-10T05:30:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

Have you ever had the experience of reading a story that really excited you and then being disappointed at the filmed adaptation? Such was my reaction to “The Changing Heart,” adapted by Robert Bloch from his short story, “Change of Heart.”

After having a hand in three episodes of season five of Alfred Hitchcock Presents¸ Robert Bloch’s first episode for the sixth season was “The Changing Heart,” broadcast on January 3, 1961. During the first five seasons, the series had been shown on CBS on Sunday nights. For season six, it moved to Tuesday nights on NBC. “The Changing Heart” was the first time Bloch adapted one of his own stories for the Hitchcock program.

“Change of Heart” was first published in the winter 1948 issue of the short-lived magazine, The Arkham Sampler. It is set in New York City and narrated by a young man who inherited an old watch from his uncle. After learning that the jeweler at an expensive shop does not think it worth fixing, the young man happens on the small Greenwich Village shop of watchmaker Ulrich Klemm. Clocks are everywhere in his basement shop.

Bloch’s writing in this story is lyrical. The clocks are described as if they were living things: the narrator tells us that “the face of the grandfather’s clock leaned forward.” Klemm agrees to repair the watch and his beautiful granddaughter Lisa emerges from the back of the shop. The narrator compares her voice to those of the chiming clocks, and she is described as having “golden hair and silver flesh,” two metals used in watches.

The narrator also feels like a timepiece, writing that “something leapt in rhythm deep in my chest.” This is Bloch’s way of foreshadowing the story’s shocking dénouement. The narrator accepts a dinner invitation and listens as Klemm talks of clocks and his beloved home country of Switzerland. Lisa cuts her finger and the narrator bandages it, demonstrating by her flowing blood that she is a human being, something we will wonder about at the end of the story.

Abraham Sofaer as Ulrich Klemm

The narrator goes home and dreams of Lisa, then returns to the shop often, listening to Klemm’s stories for hours on end and learning that the old man’s father had wanted him to be a surgeon but that he preferred repairing clocks. The narrator begins to take Lisa out, soon falling in love and proposing marriage. She says that she cannot leave her grandfather because he depends on her; Bloch writes that she shook her head no, “like an automaton.” When the narrator tells the old man that he wants to take Lisa away, the clocks say no and so do Klemm and Lisa. She was “the old man’s masterpiece. He had spent years perfecting her pattern of obedient reaction.”

The narrator leaves and accepts a job in Detroit. Months later he returns to New York and hears that Lisa is dead. A friend had seen Klemm, who told him that his granddaughter had had a heart attack and was dying. The friend later saw a wreath on the door of Klemm’s shop.

Nicholas Pryor as Dane Ross

The narrator goes to the shop, knocks on the door, and is let in and welcomed by Lisa, yet all of the clocks are strangely silent. Lisa tells him that Klemm saved her but that the stress of doing so caused his own death. She has not eaten or slept since the old man died. The narrator turns on a light and sees that the girl is “white and waxen, her eyes blank and empty, her body wasted.” He takes her in his arms and puts his head to her chest, only to run screaming from “that shop of shadows and silence.” From her chest he had heard “not a heartbeat, but a faint, unmistakable ticking.”

“Change of Heart” is a beautifully written story of love and horror, one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read by Robert Bloch since I began this project. I was excited to watch Bloch’s own adaptation for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which begins (coincidentally?) with Hitchcock emerging from a grandfather clock that cuckoos! Recall that Bloch’s last episode of the series, the prior spring, had been “The Cuckoo Clock.”

In adapting his story for television, Bloch did a very good job of expanding it and opening it up, setting scenes outside the little clockmaker’s shop and contrasting the claustrophobic interior with more open exteriors. The most disappointing aspect of the filmed episode is the casting. As Dane Ross, the narrator of the story, the producers cast Nicholas Pryor, who was 25 years old at the time. Seeing him today I cannot help but think of his roles in Risky Business (as Tom Cruise’s father) and, especially, Airplane!, as a sick airline passenger. He tries to be earnest but he just doesn’t look like someone who would sweep the lonely granddaughter of an old clockmaker off her feet.

Also problematic is the casting of Abraham Sofaer as Ulrich Klemm. Sofaer was born in 1896 in Burma and was of Burmese and Jewish ancestry. Despite his efforts at a German accent, his olive complexion, protruding eyes and unkempt hair do not fit my mental picture of an old Swiss clockmaker.

Bloch’s script for the show is outstanding. The plot generally follows that of the story with some minor changes: Klemm, not the young man, bandages Lisa’s finger, and the friend only referred to in the story appears in the filmed version and goes to a Bavarian-themed restaurant with the young lovers. Bloch uses foreshadowing again, and clock phrases and imagery are pervasive—when Lisa cuts her finger, she says she cut her “minute hand.” The young man is transferred to Seattle, rather than Detroit (there is no explanation for this change—perhaps Detroit was thought to be too close to New York in the world of 1960, where air travel was more affordable and common than it had been in 1948, when the story was published).

Anne Helm as Lisa

Dane (the young man is named Dane Ross in the television adaptation) asks Lisa if her grandfather “can carry her around on the end of a chain, like this watch” and says that “he’s turned you into a piece of clockwork that he can wind up.” Most different from the story is the way Klemm seems to exert a hypnotic influence over Lisa. When he speaks to her, the background music sounds like a clock striking, and she obeys as if in a trance. Dane remarks: “you’ve turned her into an automaton.” Earlier in the show, Klemm had mentioned leaving his automatons behind when he left Europe.

Near the end of the story, the teleplay dramatizes Dane’s friend’s visit to Klemm’s shop, where Klemm tells him “I will not let her die!” as he refuses to consider calling a doctor. At the end, when Dane visits the shop for the last time, he has to break a window in the locked door to let himself in. Lisa does not welcome him and speak to him; instead, he first finds Klemm dead at his workbench, then goes behind a curtain into a back room where he finds Lisa, sitting immobile in a wheelchair, a doll-like smile on her face. She neither speaks nor moves, and we hear a loud ticking. Dane puts his ear to her chest and looks up in shock; the camera then pulls back to reveal Klemm’s masterpiece.

Robert Sampson

This final scene of “The Changing Heart” must have been pretty shocking when it first aired in early January 1961. The horror of the beautiful young woman with a clockwork heart is reminiscent of similar horrors that were airing on NBC's Thriller, which had debuted the prior fall and to which Robert Bloch also contributed many episodes. In fact, Thriller followed Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Tuesday evenings. The prior week, Thriller had aired "The Cheaters," based on a story by Bloch, and on January 3, 1961, Thriller aired "The Hungry Glass," which guaranteed a terrifying evening for viewers lucky enough to tune in to both programs.

"The Changing Heart", was directed by Robert Florey, born in Paris in 1900 and working in films from the early 1920s. Some of his efforts in the thriller genre included Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), and “The Incredible Dr. Markesan” on Thriller. "The Changing Heart" was the first episode of the Hitchcock series that he directed; he also directed three episodes of The Twilight Zone, including “Perchance to Dream” and “The Fever.” His work with shadows often created an uneasy world that seemed like a bad dream.

Baruch Lumet

Also in the cast were the lovely Anne Helm, born in 1938 and 22 when this was filmed. She is perfectly cast as the young and innocent Lisa, though her innocence may have been long gone by the time she appeared with Elvis Presley in Follow That Dream (1962) and briefly moved into his house right after filming ended.

Robert Sampson played Dane’s friend; he appeared in many episodes of various TV series and was seen on TV as recently as 2008. Finally, Baruch Lumet (1989-1992) makes a brief, non-speaking appearance playing the concertina in the Bavarian restaurant; he was well known in Yiddish theater but is probably best known as the father of director Sidney Lumet.
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“Change of Heart” was reprinted in the 1962 paperback collection of Bloch stories, Atoms and Evil, as well as in the fall 1984 issue of Weird Tales.

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "Change of Heart." Atoms and Evil. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1962. 129-34. Print.

"The Changing Heart." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 3 Jan. 1961. Television.

Galactic Central. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://philsp.com/>.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://isfdb.org/>.

Wikipedia. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Three - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Cuckoo Clock"

2011-11-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

Robert Bloch recalled that “The Cuckoo Clock” was his first assignment to write a teleplay for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He said that, starting with this episode, he adapted his own stories and those of others except when he was busy writing for Thriller or working on screenplays—then other writers would adapt his stories for TV.

“The Cuckoo Clock” was broadcast on April 17, 1960, during season five. It stars Beatrice Straight, who would later win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Network (1976), and Fay Spain, who was in Roger Corman’s Teenage Doll (1957). As the story begins, Ida Blythe and her daughter Dorothy (Pat Hitchcock) arrive at a General Store in the mountains, where they purchase groceries before heading to their isolated cabin. Ida’s husband died suddenly the year before and she has not been back since then; she returns now only to prepare the cabin to be sold.

Bert the shopkeeper tells them that a patient recently escaped from the asylum just outside nearby Ardmore, and Dorothy is worried about her mother staying alone in the cabin overnight, especially since the telephone service has not been turned on yet. But Ida insists that she’ll be fine, and Dorothy leaves her at the lonely cabin after darkness has fallen and a steady rain has begun.

Beatrice Straight and Pat Hitchcock as
mother and daughter

Ida’s watch is broken, so she sets the time on the cabin’s little cuckoo clock. After tidying up, Ida goes outside to the shed for some firewood, returning to the cabin to find a young woman inside. The woman, whose name is Madelene Hall, is worried about the escaped lunatic. She had spent the afternoon walking and painting on Hunter’s Ridge. At sunset, she saw a man in a raincoat on the hill staring into the sunset. Sure he was the lunatic, she dropped everything and ran until she saw the light from Ida’s cabin.

Fay Spain

Hall is sure that she hears the man outside and there is a knock at the door. She and Ida ignore it out of fear and the knocking stops. Hall begins to express pity for the lonely, misunderstood man outside alone in the rain and the darkness. She seems to empathize a little too much with someone who is sick and alone and wants to lash out and hurt people. Hall tells Ida about her Aunt Dora, who kept a canary until one day she lopped off its head with her pinking shears. She tells Ida that even ordinary people can snap. She admits that her doctor told her to quit her job, and her bizarre behavior makes Ida suspect that Madelene is the escaped lunatic. Hall denies it. Ida suspects that she invented the man in the raincoat, but suddenly there is another knock at the door. Opening it, Ida sees a man in a raincoat who tells her that she should watch out for the escaped lunatic, whom he describes as a clever, dangerous woman. Ida notices blood on Madelene’s arm and throws her aside, letting the man in.

Donald Buka

He turns and locks the door, then explains, with a crazed look in his eye, that he followed Hall and guessed where she might be. Pleased that his trick has worked, he has a violent reaction to the striking of the hour on the cuckoo clock, tears it from its place on the wall and smashes it to the floor. “It was mocking me!” he cries—“I can’t stand being mocked!” The telephone rings, its connection finally made, but it is too late for Ida.

The lunatic instructs her to look at the clock, and we see the cuckoo on the floor, having been ejected from its place of safety, its head severed from its body. The lunatic plunges his knife into the body of the decapitated, mechanical bird, and we suspect that Ida’s fate will mirror that of the poor cuckoo.

“The Cuckoo Clock” is directed by John Brahm without his usual noir reliance on shadows. The program is instead rather high contrast, with several bright close-ups, and reminded me a bit of the videotaped Twilight Zone episodes made in that program’s 1960-1961 season.

This episode, like “The Cure” and “Madame Mystery,” was among the 26 programs selected for the 1981 PBS series The Best of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Notably, most of the episodes picked for that series were from the fifth season of the original series.

Jack Black

Beatrice Straight lived from 1914 to 2001, making her 46 years old when this show was broadcast in April 1960. Pat Hitchcock, Alfred’s daughter, was born in 1928 (and is still living), so she was 32 years old at the time of the broadcast. Straight looks a bit younger than 46 and Hitchcock looks a bit older than 32 in the show, making it difficult to accept them as mother and daughter. Fay Spain only lived from 1933 to 1983, so she was 27 at the time of broadcast. Rounding out the cast were Donald Buka (1920-2009) as the lunatic, who has a passing resemblance in this show to Jack Black, and Don Beddoe (1903-1991) as Bert, the shopkeeper, one in a long string of small roles he played over the course of almost 50 years in the business.

The original story on which this show was based was difficult to track down. The title card credits Frank Mace with the story. Mace was born in 1931 and was a “young British author who writes primarily in the general field of mystery-from ‘old-fashioned “straight” horror to semi-humorous detective stories,’ as he puts it,” according to the Internet Book List. It was also noted that “writing is not his primary occupation, thus far” and that he “lives in Liverpool, England.”

Monthly Murders lists the following seven stories by Mace:

“Cum Grano Salis” London Mystery Magazine 27 (March 1955)

“After Sunset” London Mystery Magazine 32 (March 1957)

“The Man in the Raincoat” London Mystery Selection 39 (December 1958)

“Happily Ever After” London Mystery Selection 43 (December 1959)

“Impromptu Part” London Mystery Selection 46 (September 1960)

“Punter’s Tale” John Creasey Mystery Magazine March 1961

“The Fixers” John Creasey Mystery Magazine Spring 1963

An exhaustive internet search turned up one more story:

“The Ideal Type” collected in Dark Mind, Dark Heart, Arkham House, 1962

Finally, there is an erotic novel called The Sensualists that is credited to Frank Mace, though it appears to be a retitled reprint of Tender Buns, by someone named P.N. Dedeaux. I find it hard to believe that this Frank Mace is the same Frank Mace who wrote mystery short stories.

Where does that leave the story supposedly called “The Cuckoo Clock” that was adapted by Robert Bloch for Alfred Hitchcock Presents? There are two sources that say that the original Frank Mace story was titled “The Cuckoo Clock.” The first is Bloch himself, who was quoted as saying that he adapted “The Cuckoo Clock” by Frank Mace. The second is an Internet post by Ramsey Campbell (called “Britain’s most respected living horror writer” by the Oxford Companion to English Literature), who wrote in February 2011 that Frank Mace was a pseudonym used by John Owen of the Liverpool Science Fiction Society. Campbell added that Owen only learned that his story, “The Cuckoo Clock,” had been adapted for television when the producers of the 1980s remake of Alfred Hitchcock Presents contacted him about the rights. Apparently, Norman Kark, editor of London Mystery Selection, had sold the rights for the 1960 adaptation and kept the money.

One of John Wood's line
drawings accompanying
"The Man in the Raincoat"

Now, according to Monthly Murders, there were five stories published in London Mystery by Frank Mace and two in John Creasey Mystery Magazine. As far as I know, John Creasey edited the magazine with his name in the title and Norman Kark edited London Mystery Selection. Campbell’s post also mentions London Mystery in this anecdote, so one may assume that the Frank Mace story appeared there—yet none of the five stories listed in Monthly Murders is titled “The Cuckoo Clock.”

Logically, we can eliminate “Impromptu Part,” since it was not published until September 1960, after “The Cuckoo Clock” had already aired. That leaves four stories as possible sources for Bloch’s teleplay, assuming he and Campbell are remembering incorrectly that the original story was called “The Cuckoo Clock.” Using internal evidence from the program, I began to suspect that the story it was based on was in fact “The Man in the Raincoat,” published in the December 1958 issue of London Mystery Selection.

Fortunately, there was a copy of issue 39 for sale on eBay recently, and it arrived in my mailbox today! A quick read confirmed that "The Man in the Raincoat" is in fact the basis for "The Cuckoo Clock."

The Man in the
Raincoat

Bloch did quite a bit of revising and expanding to adapt the story for television. He added the initial scene at the General Store and he invented the character of Mrs. Blythe's daughter. The story takes place entirely in Mrs. Blythe's house, which is not described as a lonely mountain cabin. Instead, Mrs. Blythe is an old woman who lives alone by a moor. She lets in the young woman voluntarily, and later she is tricked by the man in the raincoat, who convinces her that the young woman is the escaped lunatic. In Mace's story, Mrs. Blythe does not suspect the young woman on her own.

Most surprisingly, the anecdote about the canary getting its head cut off with pinking sears is nowhere to be found, and there is no mention of a cuckoo clock at all! Bloch expanded the source by opening it up, adding characters, and building suspense. The canary story foreshadows the fate of the cuckoo at the end of the show, and the cuckoo clock's occasional striking of the hours adds a sense of foreboding and insanity (one character is thought to be "cuckoo" and another actually is). The closing image of the mechanical bird with a knife in its belly is a successful way of showing violence on television without actually portraying anything offensive.

I suspect that the reason Bloch and Campbell recalled the story as "The Cuckoo Clock" was because Bloch's changes to the original were so powerful that the televised tale replaced the original in the memories of those recalling it.

Sources:

Cook, Michael L. Monthly Murders: a Checklist and Chronological Listing of Fiction in the Digest-size Mystery Magazines in the United States and England. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982. Print.

"The Cuckoo Clock." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 17 Apr. 1960. Television.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. 304, 572. Print.

Internet Book List : Home. Web. 24 Nov. 2011. <http://iblist.com/>.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 24 Nov. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.
"Jack Black | Hot Celebrity Photos." Hot Celebrity Photos | Celebrity News in Pictures. Web. 26 Nov. 2011.
<http://hot-celebrity.name/tag/jack-black/>.
"London Mystery Magazine." Wikipedia. Web. 2011. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Mystery_Magazine>.
Ramsey Campbell. Web. 25 Nov. 2011. <http://www.ramseycampbell.com>.
Vault of Evil. Web. 24 Nov. 2011. <vaultofevil.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=perturbedspirits&action=print&thread=4088>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Two - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “Madame Mystery"

2011-11-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

by Jack Seabrook

"Madame Mystery" was broadcast March 27, 1960, during the fifth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was the second Robert Bloch story to be adapted for this anthology program, and it was based on a short story titled "Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?" that was first published in the April 1958 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Both story and teleplay concern Steve, an unsuccessful Hollywood writer who rents a cottage at the beach to write and meets Jimmy Powers (Dolan in the teleplay), a young and successful public relations man in the movie business. Steve is jealous of Jimmy's inexplicable success at the young age of twenty-three. Betsey Blake, known as the Screen's Blonde Baby or Miss Mystery, has been killed in a speedboat accident. She had just finished filming Splendor, an expensive movie scheduled for release in several months.

The studio is worried that her death will hurt the picture's chances for success, so Jimmy pitched a publicity campaign idea that the studio loved--lots of news about her life and death will create interest in the upcoming film, and the news campaign will include a rumor that she is still alive. Jimmy asks Steve to work on the campaign but Steve refuses.

As the months go by, the publicity campaign around Betsey Blake is a huge success. By the time Splendor is ready to open, Betsey Blake fever has gripped the nation. Jimmy visits Steve to boast about his success, when a dumpy, drunken woman appears in the doorway. She is Betsey Blake, back from an extended trip. She explains that she survived the boat accident and spent some time in South America. She came home when she ran out of cash.

Audrey Totter as Betsey Blake

Betsey has been following her rise in popularity and now wants to reveal to the public that she is still alive. However, instead of the mysterious blonde siren, she has become a fat, drunken brunette. She goes home with Jimmy, who later returns to Steve's cottage alone, explaining that the woman who had claimed to be Betsey Blake was really just a fraud trying to cash in on the dead star's sudden fame.

Joby Baker as Jimmy

Jimmy tells Steve that there was an accident near Jimmy's house and the woman fell off of a steep cliff to her death. Jimmy is in no hurry to tell the police and doesn't want any mention of the woman's claim to be Betsey Blake, fearful that it would ruin the publicity machine he has so successfully engineered. Steve calls the police. Jimmy admits that he never liked Betsey Blake and offers to pay Steve to keep quiet about the dead woman's claims. Steve realizes that the woman's death was no accident and that Jimmy killed her. "You'd murder your own mother for a story," he says, and Jimmy replies: "How'd you guess?"

Harp McGuire as Steve

When William Fay adapted "Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?" for television, he made some changes. The story begins with a young, blonde starlet named Lois stumbling into Steve's beach cottage as he works at his typewriter. Lois is on a date with Jimmy, who soon arrives. Her character adds nothing to the plot, but she does set up a nice contrast with the aging, faded Betsey Blake who appears at the end of the first act. Lois is the "before" picture in the arc of a Hollywood starlet; Betsey is the "after."

Instead of "The Screen's Blonde Baby" or "Miss Mystery," as in the story, the TV Betsey has the nickname, "Madame Mystery," presumably because Fay thought "Madame" was more exotic and mysterious. The biggest change in the teleplay is that Jimmy is successful in convincing Steve to work on the publicity campaign by putting three one hundred dollar bills down in front of him. In the story, Steve remains pure and does not succumb to the lure of easy Hollywood money. In the teleplay, there is no such resistance.

When Betsey appears, she looks frazzled but not quite as slovenly as she is described in the story. When Jimmy takes her home and she dies in the story, the action is described in rather vague detail by Jimmy when he returns to Steve's cottage. In the teleplay, we see it all, and it is different. Jimmy walks Betsey back to his house, which is reached by a long set of steep wooden stairs on the outside. At the top of the stairs, they fight bitterly, as Jimmy insists that he made her movie a guaranteed hit and Betsey reminds him that it was she who got him a job at the studio in the first place. Jimmy violently shoves Betsey through the landing's flimsy wooden railing and she falls to the beach below. We see her lying on the beach, dead.

The teleplay then ends as does the story, with Steve calling the police and telling Jimmy, "You'd kill your own mother to be a big man at Goliath Studios, wouldn't you?" and Jimmy replying, "My mother? That's right, Stevie. But how did you know that's who she was?"

William Fay, who adapted the story for television, was born in 1918 and is still alive. He wrote for many TV shows from 1954 to 1967, including 16 episodes of the Hitchcock series. He was also a writer of short stories and the editor of Popular Publications starting in 1935.

John Brahm directed "Madame Mystery." Brahm directed ten episodes of the Hitchcock series and his dark, brooding style has been discussed before on bare*bones and also on A Thriller A DayBrahm of the chance to show something moody and mysterious.

Betsey did not survive a fall from a not very great height.

The star of the show is Joby Baker, as Jimmy. Baker was born in 1934 and is still alive. He appeared in four episodes of the Hitchcock series and was on TV and in movies from 1952 to 1984, including a regular role on the series Good Morning, World (1967-1968). In "Madame Mystery," Baker chews the scenery in his attempt to portray a brash, young Hollywood publicist who covers up his feelings of self doubt with loud talk and a flashy style.

Harp McGuire plays Steve as a slightly older, more mature writer. He lived from 1921 to 1966 and was on TV from 1953 to 1963. His performance is low key and not very memorable.

Best of the cast is Audrey Totter as Betsey Blake. She was born in 1918 and appears to be alive today and living in a Hollywood nursing home. She had a small part in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and a lead role in The Lady in the Lake (1947). She appeared in numerous TV episodes and movies from 1945 to 1987 and was a regular on four different TV series. As Betsey Blake, she is brash and loud, looking every bit the aging starlet who still has a thing or two to say to anyone who will listen.

Meri Welles

Rounding out the cast as Alfredo the plumber is Mike Ragan, who was born Hollis Bane and who appeared in countless movies and TV shows starting in 1924. Playing the part of Lois, the starlet, is Meri Welles, who had a role in Little Shop of Horrors (1960) as the blonde who Seymour meets by a park bench, accidentally knocks out with a rock, and then feeds to his carnivorous plant.

"Madame Mystery" will be available in January 2012 when Universal releases the DVD set of Alfred Hitchcock Presents season five. The short story, "Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?" was reprinted in the Robert Bloch collections Blood Runs Cold (1961), Bitter Ends (1990), and in the multi-author anthology, Silver Screams: Murder Goes Hollywood (1994).

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?" Silver Screams: Murder Goes Hollywood. Stamford: Longmeadow, 1994. 253-67. Print.

Galactic Central. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. <http://galacticcentral.org/>.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 12 Nov. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.
"Madame Mystery." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 27 Mar. 1960. Television.
Wikipedia. Web. 12 Nov. 2011. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part One - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Cure”

2011-10-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

Beloved horror writer Robert Bloch’s fiction was the source for no less than 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and its successor, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. The first of these to air was “The Cure,” based on Bloch’s story of the same name that had been published in the October 1957 issue of Playboy.

Nehemiah Persoff as Jeff

As the story begins, it is after midnight when Jeff awakens to see Marie standing next to his bed, naked. She attacks him with a machete. He grapples with her until Luiz, an Indian, grabs her and pins her to the wall, his own machete pressed to her throat. Jeff tells him not to kill her. Mike arrives and he and Jeff agree that Marie is sick in the head. They are all waiting for money to come. Luiz is loyal to Jeff and protective of him. Mike and Jeff discuss Marie, and Jeff says she needs to go to Belém, the big city, to see a headshrinker. Mike plans to go with Luiz to take Marie to Santarém, then on to Belém.

Mike and Marie plan to kill Luiz

Mike and Luiz leave with Marie while Jeff stays behind to let his ankle wound heal. He recalls robbing an armored truck with Mike before hiding out in the Brazilian jungle until their associate, Gonzales, could launder the money in Cuba and send them their cut. They took a freighter to Pòrto de Moz and met Luiz. Jeff also met Marie, a TV singer, and brought her along with promises of cash and the good life. Yet life in Brazil is unbearable. Jeff waits for the others to return as his ankle heals and his fever breaks.

Luiz finally returns, alone, and tells Jeff that Mike had the money already. It turns out that Mike was planning to kill Luiz and run off with Marie. Mike failed in his goal, however, and Luiz killed him instead. The money fell in the river, but Luiz took care of matters himself. He took Marie to see his friends in the jungle and she saw a headshrinker after all—Luiz unwraps a bundle and out rolls Marie’s shrunken head, the size of an orange.

The three cities in the story.

"The Cure" first appeared
in the October 1957 Playboy.

“The Cure” is an atmospheric little story with a great twist ending. It takes place somewhere deep in the Brazilian jungle, along a river. The three cities mentioned—Belém, Santarém, and Pòrto de Moz—are all in the province of Para in the northern region of Brazil. Both the Amazon and the Tapajos Rivers border Santarém and, judging from internal evidence in the story, Jeff’s camp was further inland than Santarém.

“The Cure” was adapted for television as an episode during the fifth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and broadcast on CBS on Sunday, January 24, 1960. The teleplay was by Michael Pertwee, brother of Jon (Dr. Who) Pertwee and the director was Herschel Daugherty. Michael Pertwee (1916-1991) had an undistinguished career, mostly in British television, and this was his only Hitchcock episode. Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), on the other hand, had a long and wonderful career from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s, directing 24 half-hour and 3 hour episodes of the Hitchcock series among many other well-remembered shows. His work was notable for its atmosphere—he worked best in black and white.

The television version of “The Cure” sticks closely to the short story, with some exceptions. In the first scene, when Marie attacks Jeff, she wears a flimsy nightgown but is not naked. She attacks Jeff with a knife rather than a machete and injures his arm, not his ankle. On television in 1960, a woman could not appear naked, and perhaps the producers thought a machete too horrifying. As played by Cara Williams, Marie never really seems mentally ill—just annoyed and cruel. At one point, she laughs at Jeff, who is played by Nehemiah Persoff as a very primitive man, naïve and stupid.

Jhean Butler as Chita

A fifth character is added to the four-character story in the person of Chita, an Indian who essentially babysits Marie during the night. The relationship between Mike and Jeff is more fleshed out in the TV show, with Mike suggesting that Marie doesn’t love Jeff and that he should have allowed Luiz to kill her. The reason that they are all in Brazil is also changed. In the story, they were crooks hiding out with a TV singer. In the show, they are looking for oil and Jeff suggests that Marie was something like a prostitute when he met her. Also, Mike and Marie embrace at one point, showing that they have a secret relationship even before they head off to the city to find a headshrinker. On TV, we get to see Mike, Marie and Luiz take off on the river in a small motorboat, stop on the river bank for the night, and fight. Luiz kills Mike rather brutally onscreen, though the actual slaughter is not shown. The twist ending is the same, and it is beautifully executed. Luiz tells Jeff that he took Marie to the “best headshrinkers in the world,” and he pulls her shrunken head out of his bag. We are treated to a final close up of the impressive shrunken head prop, complete with hair that looks like Marie’s.

Mark Richman as Mike

Nehemiah Persoff (Jeff) was born in 1919 and is still living today. He started acting in movies in the late 1940s and usually played ethnic roles, in such genre series as The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and The Untouchables. He has a website to sell his paintings and it includes what looks like a recent photograph of the 92 year old actor. Mark Richmond, as Jeff, was born in 1927 and is also still alive. He as appeared on countless television shows and last turned up in 1999. He starred in the series Cain’s Hundred (1961-1962), was on The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, and had starring roles on Dynasty and Santa Barbara. He also has a website . There is an interesting interview with him in which he discusses some of his work in genre TV shows at cultfilmfreak.com.

Cara Williams, as Marie, was born Bernice Kamiat in 1925 and is also still alive. She started in movies in 1941 as Bernice Kay, and acted until 1978, starring in two series: Peter and Gladys (1960-1962) and The Cara Williams Show (1964-1965). TV producers tried to market her as a Lucille Ball type due to her red hair, but she never caught on.

Leonard Strong as Luiz

Leonard Strong (1908-1980), as Luiz, is familiar to Twilight Zone fans as the title character from the episode, “The Hitchhiker.” He appeared on three episodes of the Hitchcock series, and a woman claiming to be his daughter has posted that reports of his Eurasian heritage are incorrect—he was of British heritage and got roles as Eurasians because he was short, had an olive complexion, and Japanese actors were interred in camps during World War Two when he first started acting in films, leaving a void to be filled by white actors who looked the part!

Last of all, Jhean Burton (1928-1992) played Chita, the female Indian. Her career is notable for a role in Roger Corman’s cheapo camp classic, A Bucket of Blood (1959).

“The Cure” as been collected in Blood Runs Cold (1961), Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of (1979) and Bitter Ends: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch, Volume Two (1990). The television program of “The Cure” on Alfred Hitchcock Presents has not yet been issued on DVD by Universal, but it has been scheduled for release on January 3, 2012.

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "The Cure." Bitter Ends: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch. Vol. Two. New York: First Carol Group, 1990. 91-96. Print.

"The Cure." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 24 Jan. 1960. Television.

Galactic Central. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

Google Maps. Web. 26 Oct. 2011.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 26 Oct. 2011.

Wikipedia. Web. 26 Oct. 2011.

Richard Matheson: Duke Magazine's Author of the Issue, December 1967

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

by John Scoleri

In a spin-off from my ongoing annotated index of Richard Matheson's original short fiction appearances, this installment reprints a late 60s Men's Magazine feature on the author. Duke was published by M. F. Enterprises, who anyone who collects oddball magazines from the late 60s through the 80s will recognize as Myron Fass. While Myron's name is nowhere to be found amongst the editorial team on Duke, brother Irving is the Executive Art Director. It's interesting to note that the other authors profiled in Duke (that I've been able to confirm) include Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Ed McBain/Evan Hunter. Certainly a more diverse group than we're used to seeing Matheson associated with.

Duke

Volume 1 No. 5

December 1967

75¢

Author of the Issue: Richard Matheson

For those who believe that science-fiction deals only with complicated machines and far-out gadgets, with robots and rocketships, the bizarre and terrifying world created by Richard Matheson in his novels and short stories, will come as a revelation. He has the ability to take a simple situation, twist is slightly, and then develop it to its logical conclusion.

Consider, for instance, the idea of a normal man who, because he has been exposed to a peculiar combination of radiation and chemicals, slowly, gradually begins to grow smaller. Too slight an idea for a science-fiction novel? Not the way Matheson handles it. Like all really talented writers of fantasy and science-fiction, Matheson emphasizes the human element, the impact of the frightening, the unknown, upon man's mind. ow does a man feel, what does he think about, how does he relate to those around him when little by little he diminishes in size, and no doctor, no scientist, is able to reverse the process?

The Shrinking Man, which was later made into a movie, can be considered on two levels, and this is typical of all good science-fiction. First, as an adventure-suspense story, the novel keeps the reader turning pages as the hero grows smaller and smaller. There is a horrifying scene in which he is living in a doll house, the only comfortable place his wife can find for him, and he is attached by the family cat. He must pit his human brain and his will to survive against the predatory animal instincts of his former pet.

Again, when he has grown smaller still and has taken refuge in the basement of his home, he is attacked by a spider, and once more it is a duel between a man and the blind force of nature. He defeats the spider and then awaits his death, believing that when he grows small enough he will cease to exist, but he discovers that there are dimensions besides our own in the universe, that the spirit of man is indestructible.

Illustration by Bruce Hall

In his short story, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," Matheson again takes a familiar, if fantastic idea and develops it into a study in terror and suspense. Everyone has read about gremlins, the little men who were supposed to have plagued the Allied pilots when they went aloft in World War II. A humorous idea? Not the way Matheson develops it in this short story. Wilson, the hero of the story has just taken off in a commercial airliner, when he glances out the window to see a creature—presumably a gremlin—walking along the wing. He knows he is not insane, but the problem is that no one else aboard, none of the other passengers, the pilot or the stewardess is able to see the nightmare figure who is trying to wreck the plane. Once again, it is a situation of man's intelligence and courage against the forces of the unknown.

Although all good science-fiction must be entertaining, the really skilled writers in this genre do far more than entertain their readers. Because of the absence of limitations in this type of fiction, the ability to move unhampered through time and space, to write of the future as if it were already here, and of possible civilizations on other planets, the science-fiction writer has a unique opportunity to hold a mirror up to our own culture. He can put a spotlight on certain aspects of our civilization, and can show the dangers we may face in the future, if certain trends in the present are permitted to continue.

One problem that has always concerned the science-fiction writer, from the time of H. G. Wells to the present, is the danger that if things continue as they have been going, the machines may take over civilization. Men may lose all initiative, all their inherent will to survive, and become slaves to the very machines they created. In his story, "When the Waker Sleeps," Matheson has presented such a society, with one great difference. The machines that used to do all the work have ceased to function, but at the same time, the human race has lost its drive, its desire to keep the civilization going.

The doctors and scientists have therefore had to create a dream world for these people, to make them believe, through the use of drugs and suggestion that they were engaged in glamorous adventures, when they were really performing the mundane chores that were necessary to keep the race from extinction. The story is told from the point of view of one of the doctors, who wonders why he should work to keep the human race going at all.

"Why visit them every month, fill their veins with hypnotic drugs and sit back and watch them, one by one, go bursting into their dream worlds to escape boredom? Must he endlessly send his suggestions into their loosened brainwaves, fly them to planets and moons, crowd all forms of love and grand adventure into their mock-heroic dreams?"

Is this a far-fetched idea, a too-grim picture of man's future? When we consider that a great number of Americans today spend most of their leisure time, which they have gained as a result of the perfection of complex machines, in watching TV, going to movies and viewing spectator sports, we must admit that Matheson's fears about our future are not so far-out after all.

With few exceptions, most science-fiction writers are opposed to prejudice in any form whatsoever; it is logical that men who write of Martians and Venusians tend to think of the human race as being united in its goals and desires, not split into factions by petty differences. The theme of prejudice is handled in many ways, depending on the author.

In "Full Circle," Matheson makes the Martians the victims of prejudice on the part of the people of Earth. Since few Earthmen have ever spoken to a Martian as an equal, their view of the Martian race is distorted and contemptuous. Then a young reporter is sent out on a routine assignment, to review a puppet show of sorts, in which the Martians are used as puppets to entertain the children of Earth. After the performance the reporter goes backstage and finds himself drawn into a serious coversation with one of the Martian actors.

"Larg (the Martian) seemed a brother then. Not an Earth-brother or Mars-brother. I mean a brother—a person possessing that nonracial, universal trait which is separate from feature or environment. That sense of being which may exist in the savage and not in the priest.

"Or in the Martian and not in the Earthman. A dignity, a self-respect, a soul."

Of course it is an allegory, but so skillfully and imaginatively handled that there is no sense of objectionable "preaching" on the part of the author. This is the acid test of all good science-fiction, and Matheson passes it with flying colors. He combines a deep concern for the future of the human race with the ability to tell an exciting and suspenseful story.

P.S. Shortly after I sat down to write this up, I found a reprint of the article in the March 1970 issue of Jaguar (which I assume is another M. F. Enterprises publication), with a different illustration designed to fit into the already formatted text-wrap!

New Collection of Rare Fredric Brown Items!

2011-10-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

Fredric Brown fans, rejoice! Phil Stephensen-Payne, master of the invaluable Galactic Central website, has published The Proofreaders' Page and other Uncollected Items by Fredric Brown!

This brand new book, available on line for only $20, collects all of Brown's "Proofreaders' Page" columns from The American Printer, written and published on an almost monthly basis from 1937 to 1946. Living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and two sons during the Great Depression, Brown worked as a proofreader, first for the Fowle Printing Co. and then for Cuneo Printing Co. Beginning in 1937, he also proofread for the Milwaukee Journal, a job he would continue on and off until 1945.

Brown's expertise as a proofreader led to a job as columnist for the trade magazine The American Printer, and his columns, written in a question and answer format, provide advice to readers about proofreading and editing, often in a humorous fashion. Brown knew his stuff, both grammatically and from the standpoint of one who had spent plenty of time in a press room. The columns are worth reading both for the advice, which still holds true today, and for the excellent writing.

Only a very small sample of these columns has ever been reprinted before, in Dennis McMillan's limited edition collection, The Gibbering Night (1991). While the Proofreaders' Page columns take up nearly 300 pages of this new volume, including a helpful index to topics and column titles, there is a lot more included. The Proofreaders' Page also features about 70 pages of Brown's Colonel Cluck columns, reprinted from trade magazines that Brown wrote for in the late 1930s. These columns are pure humor, with made-up questions that set up funny, often punning replies. It's easy to see Brown beginning to grow as a writer in this early work, and the funny side of his fiction would last to the end of his career.

A few of the Colonel Cluck columns were reprinted in the McMillan collection, The Pickled Punks (1991), but Stephensen-Payne has done Brown completists a favor by collecting and reprinting all of the columns that have survived.

One might think that nearly 400 pages of columns from The American Printer and Colonel Cluck would be enough for a single volume, but that's not even close to all that readers will find here! Also included is the first reprint of "Fatal Facsimile," a lost short story featuring Henry Smith, Brown's intrepid insurance salesman who had appeared in six previous stories in the 1940s. Bibliographers to date (including me) had missed this story due to its title's similarity to another story, "Fatal Error"). A discussion of this lost story can be found here; read the story for yourself in the new volume!

Stephensen-Payne's dedicated research has uncovered items by Fredric Brown that no one has ever seen before, including three stories from Feedstuffs featuring the character of Ernie. A number of other Ernie stories were collected in The Water-Walker (1990), but the ones reprinted in this new volume had been lost for over 70 years.

Finally, Stephensen-Payne uncovered two stories that Fredric Brown wrote in high school in the 1920s, and they're not bad! There is also poetry reprinted from children's magazines and Brown's high school magazine, children's games (I dare you to solve them!), and various introductions and short pieces Fredric Brown wrote for anthology volumes.

To complete this essential volume, Stephensen-Payne has provided an essay on items that still remain missing, and there is even an article by yours truly that discusses Brown's novels and their magazine versions, comparing them and telling the reader where they can be found and what's worth seeking out.

The book is almost 450 pages long and can be ordered for the bargain price of $20 (paperback) or $32 (hardcover) directly from Lulu. It's a must-have for fans of Fredric Brown.

E-Man Part Ten--The Witch of Hog Wallow

2011-10-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

The tenth and final issue of E-Man features another painted cover by Joe Staton, a sixteen-page E-Man Story, and a seven-page Rog-2000 story.

In "The Witch of Hog Wallow," we learn for the first time that E-Man spent some time on our planet before he first met Nova Kane. Nova comes home and finds a note tacked to his mailbox from a woman named Maisy-June, promising to visit at noon. Jealous, Nova demands an explanation and E-Man tells her how he met Maisy-June.

When he arrived on Earth, he took the form of a fawn, copying the shape of one of the first creatures he saw. He lived among forest animals until seeing a beautiful blond country girl walk by. He transformed himself into a handsome prince from a fairy tale book she carried, and his demonstration of his own limitless powers led her to call him her genie.

The local hicks saw her in the woods "conjurin' up all sorts of things," and decided she must be a witch. E-Man protected her by transforming into a super hero like the ones he'd seen in her comic books. When the locals captured Maisy-June and tied her to a stake for burning, E-Man scared them away by transforming into the Devil. Maisy-June was not sane, though, and E-Man had to use his powers to convince her that the local asylum was actually his castle, where she would live happily ever after.

Today, she has been cured and is on her way to visit an old friend. Nova hates her on sight because of her beauty, but quickly warms to her once she meets Maisy-June's husband. The story ends on a happy and humorous note.

The final E-Man story of the 1970s series is a good one, demonstrating that the title had really run its course by issue #8 and had nowhere else to go once Nova had died and been reborn as an energy being. The story in issue #10 is a flashback, which avoids having to figure out how to handle Nova's new powers and any corresponding change in her relationship with E-Man. Cuti and Staton comment wryly on the super-hero genre, as E-Man initially transforms himself into a costumed hero with a cape until he trips over the cape and dispenses with it.

The rural setting is also an opportunity for E-Man's creators to quote from Al Capp's L'il Abner comics; Maisy-June is a takeoff on Daisy Mae, and a small sign in one panel reads "Capp's Little Acre," a nod to Capp and also to the popular 1933 novel, God's Little Acre, by Erskine Caldwell. In one panel, a sign tacked to a tree features a caricature of Al Capp and the slogan, "Capp for Dawg Catcher." In another, a comic book on the ground features Capp's satirical detective, Fearless Fosdick. Finally, the last panel reveals Maisy-June's husband to be none other than L'il Abner himself, here renamed Dabney Slocum.

The backup story in this issue again features the wisecracking, cab-driving robot, Rog-2000. A living garbage heap named The Sog threatens New York City as it consumes garbage and citizens at random. The city is evacuated and Rog is deputized to help the Army; The Sog is finally defeated by its own desires, when it dies from overeating--as Rog comments, "there was too much garbage in New York even for The Sog---!"

"Rog 2000 vs The Sog" is a short, entertaining story that spoofs the creatures like Man-Thing and Swamp Thing that were popular in the mid-1970s after the Comics Code had relaxed its rules and monsters returned after having been absent since the early 1950s purge.

Unfortunately, the letters page of E-Man #10 includes a note to the readers from the editor stating that this is the last issue of E-Man. Poor sales are given as the reason for the cancellation, though I suspect this had more to do with Charlton's spotty distribution and the general glut of comics on the market. E-Man's adventures were promised to continue in Charlton Bullseye, though only one short tale was subsequently printed in that fanzine.

E-Man remains one of my favorite comics of the 1970s. Nicola Cuti and Joe Staton created memorable characters, from the humorous and heroic E-Man to the sexy and smart Nova Kane. The supporting cast was good, as well, including seedy private eye Michael Mauser, and villains The Brain and Samuel Boar. While the backup stories were forgettable during the first several issues of the series' run, once Cuti and John Byrne introduced Rog-2000, those short tales were also worth reading.

Cuti would leave Charlton soon after E-Man ended in 1975. Joe Staton moved on the DC, where he became a popular artist on several titles. John Byrne went on to fame with Marvel drawing X-Men and other hero books. They all served their time at Charlton, the low-paying publisher in Derby, Connecticut, where Steve Ditko toiled on and off for decades, a company that never quite broke through to the top tier of comics but which, nevertheless, was responsible for many memorable books.

Shock Mystery Tales! The Digest

2011-10-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

by Peter Enfantino

Naked women and big ugly men.
Sado-masochism.
Torture chambers.
Whips and chains.

I know what you're thinking: Hugh Hefner's house, right? Wrong. These were just a few of the wonderful elements that made up the sleazy package published in 1961 and 1962 as Shock Mystery Tales (SMT).

Important note: Unlike my previous entries, the individual stories of SHOCK MYSTERY TALES are not awarded any star rating, simply because none deserve a star rating. If the story rises above the bilge, I'll note it (in fact, I'll scream it).

Volume 2/#1 December 1961

Brides for the Devil's Cauldron by Don Unatin (7800 words)
Three young beauties accidentally run over a mountain girl and the girl's father vows the three will burn in hell. Shortly thereafter, the girls disappear. When next we meet up with them, they're hanging naked over a burning pit. Lots of naked blistering flesh and whip burns.

I Am the Monster by Art Crockett (9000 words)
Barry dreams he becomes a beastly character named Avram at night and ravages his fiance while she sleeps. This escalates to murder and Barry finds it very hard to enjoy his sleep. This story and the preceding story perfectly illustrate the problem that SHOCK MYSTERY TALES' editor (whoever the hell he might have been) had in discerning a novelette (as BRIDES was labelled) from a short story (which was what I AM THE MONSTER was designated in spite of the fact that I AM is actually over 1000 words longer than BRIDES).

Curse of the Serpent Goddess by Bill Ryder (8100 words)
Newspaper reporter falls under the spell of a nightclub performer, Conchita, the titular serpent goddess. Seems Conchita wants Greg to join her merry band of zombie slaves, but true love wills out and Greg fights off Conchita's hypnotic powers before burying a dagger into the naked quivering flesh of his fiance. Throughout the story we're led to believe that Conchita may just be of serpent background, but the finale's laughable explanation (one that would have made Velma of SCOOBY DOO proud) points to Conchita as just another love-lust hussy. Everything about this story cries out "Low-budget Universal horror of the 1950s," such as :

"I looked up again. I staggered backwards in my chair. The clock's face had been replaced by the vision of Conchita. Her blood red lips curled back in a mirthless smirk of victory."

Vengeance of the Undead by Anthony Stuart (4700 words)
Salim's got a torture chamber (who doesn't?) and he intends to put it to good use when he captures the last remaining member of the family that put to death his great-great grandparents. The naked blistering flesh adds a nice unique approach.

Hell's Photographer by Jim Burnett (5600 words)
Curt Simpson is the most revered photographer in the United States. He's also a bondage freak who loves to torture his favorite subjects until they're naked, bleeding and dead. Enter Merilee, a beautiful model with no brains and big plans. One of the few SMT stories that doesn't include blistering nakedness (I kinda missed it actually).

The Damned of Terror Island by Jim Arthur (7500 words)
Ace newspaper photog Chet Morgan is convinced that eccentric millionaire Jason Trundle is up to something fishy on his private island. Turns out Trundle is kidnapping hookers and burning them alive as sacrifices to his hooded followers.

Her Killer's Waiting by Seymour Shubin (1400 words)
When a woman shows up at his precinct voicing the concern that her husband plans to kill her, Detective Stone has no choice but to agree to talk to the man, little knowing the woman has actually set a trap to rid herself of her abusive husband.

Volume 2/ #2 March 1962

Soft Hands of Madness by Bill Ryder (8000 words)
Margaret Dillard, the new nurse at dr. Gruber's mental institution, begins to suspect something's up when the patients keep screaming gibberish about hands and the basement. Gruber's assistant Greta Himmelsdorf is a Nazi war criminal conducting experiments on Gruber's patients. A rare tale told in first-person from a female perspective. Liberal doses of the typical s&m, torture chambers, and mad scientists, with a twist of subtle lesbianism thrown in for good measure.

Satan's Mistress by Craighton Lamont (7400 words)
Theo and Margie O'Malley manage to make a wrong turn somewhere in Ireland and end up in the small town of Bynagh. Ignoring speed limit signs, Theo is pulled over by the local constable and the couple is hauled off to jail...or what they think is a jail. The police actually take Theo and Margie to a castle, where hooded Nazis prepare a SMT version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. A rare good story, despite the necessary breast implants and lacy panties. The story does have its' sense of humor:

"His eyes were hooded and cruel and his whole expression was theatrically sardonic as though he'd just been advised by prepaid cable that the late Adolf Hitler had been his uncle."

The Devil's Carress by William H. Duhart (3400 words)
Mafia man George Sebold is bound and determined to get Gloria Hanson, MD in the sack. Gloria sidesteps him, but when Sebold attempts rape, the woman cracks.

Lust of the Jungle Goddess by Bob Shields (8200 words)
Rider Morrison and his Psychical Research team are combing the jungles of North America in search of voodoo. What they find is voodoo queen Ormulu and her vicious Hawk Men. What they're up to, I can't tell you, other than to reiterate that SMT has a lot of naked glistening flesh amidst its crumbling pages.

Brides of Pain by Jim Burnett (8400 words)
Gary and Ruth spend their honeymoon in hell with the sadistic Senor and Senora Mureda, cabin owners who add a little something to a couple's weekend: torture. Incredibly gory tale which exists only to titillate those who live on stuff like Jeffrey Dahmer trading cards.

Black Chapel by Larry Dickson (800 words)
Docu-drama about witch sightings in Salem in the 17th Century.

Horror Island by Anthony Stuart (8700 words)
A botanist and his crew happen to crack their boat up on the reef of an island belonging to the famous Japanese war criminal (proof that SMT was indeed politically correct) Dr. Kimpei Sueyoshi, who's concocted a killer fungus to destroy the world (think Fool Manchu). "Horror Island" is a lot of fun, with heaping ingredients of what makes shudder pulps popular even today: the crazed scientist (who "resembles a human Praying Mantis") with steel pincers in lieu of hands, a blood-sucking squid, and giant centipedes. Stuart's descriptions of the florid horrors the men discover on the island tend to be a bit descriptive:

"Huge, man-thick trunks soared fifty feet in the air, trunks warted and noduled with masses of parasitical fungi. Great fluted fangs of smooth-surfaced umber spread on either side of us. Vast fungoid eruptions and excrescences loomed beside us like monstrous boils on the leperous-colored earth. Things spread out in venomous splotched yellow greens like enormous fungivorous octopi, waiting with thousands of warted suckers to trap the unwary."

Volume 2/ #3 May 1962

Terror Castle! by Craighton Lamont (7300 words)
Craig Saxon marries into millions when he courts ex-prostitute Bunny Moscowitz Murray. While vacationing abroad, the couple is kidnapped and tortured by Bunny's angry uncle, angered about being left out of the will.

Curse of the Undead! by James Barnett (9400 words)
Way back in 1925, the otherwise gentle townfolk of Middlebury lynched the murdering rapist known only as "Young Gower." Beside his twisting, mutilated corpse, his old crony witch mother swears vengeance on the virgin daughters of her son's executioners. Nearly 40 years later, the town's new school teacher sees the old lady's curse unfolding before her supple glistening eyes.

Black Chapel! by Larry Dickson (1600 words)
In the second installment of this psuedo-history of sadism through the ages, we're enlightened to the benefits of burying one's victims alive, as well as the fine arts of boiling, pressing, and crucifixion.

Death's Cold Arms! by Bill Ryder (7300 words)
It's apparent that Ilene Masters is the latest victim of the Masters curse, which has killed off all of the Masters, save one, Lynn, who has all but resigned herself to death. Of course, we readers know by page 3 (at least those of us who have read any of the SMT stories) that two facts are apparent: that Lynn will feel the chill air on her naked flesh and that it's really Uncle Malcolm who's killing off the Masters so that he may (all together now) claim the Masters inheritance.

Bride of the Serpent Demon! by Stuart Wood (7300 words)
The nameless narrator has dame problems. First he picks up Angelina, a "sultry, unusually developed teen-aged girl" with a fondness for snakes. When he gets over her (the next day), he falls madly in love with Nanette, who (coincidentally?) turns out to be Angelina's roommate. When the stud confronts Angelina with the news that he and Nanette will soon be married, the vixen drops a bombshell right on his manhood:

"Do you mean to say she hasn't told you," she sneered into my face.
"Told me what?"
"Nanette's a lesbian. We - "
"O, my god!"

But it doesn't matter to this Romeo because "when she was in my arms, she behaved normally." Turns out though that Angelina is not only an Anne Heche admirer, but a devil snake worshipper to boot and intends to make Nanette her latest sacrifice. Pretty risque mix of lesbianism, three-way sex, and snake charming. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a sequel to "Curse of the Serpent Goddess."

Lovely Maiden From Hell! by Anthony Stuart (7000 words)
What is the secret of Karamaneh Siva, the famous actress known for her steamy role in SATAN'S MISTRESS? She seems to be older than her years, and our hero finds out that's because Siva drains and drinks the blood of kidnapped girls to retain her beauty and youth.

Lust of the Vampire Queen! by Alan Lance (4100 words)
Newlyweds Dan and Darla stop off at the Museum of Hollywood Horrors owned and operated by the famous Monica Le Vine, star of 27 vampire movies. Evidentally the vampire stuff finally got to Monica, because now she just sits in her museum and waits for young beauties to come along so she can slaughter them and drink their blood, ensuring the continuation of her good looks.

Volume 2/ #4 July 1962

Soft Brides for the Damned! by James Barnett (8900 words)
Covering society for The Clarion, ace newspaperperson Judy Townshend witnesses first hand the cruelty inflicted upon Dr. Snipe (of the Wilmer Home for Crippled Men) by the women of the Midview Country Club. The last laughs belong to Dr. Snipe, however, when he commands his merry men to kidnap and torture all the women who mocked him. This includes our ace reporter, who deep down had felt sympathy for the doc, but will get naked and tortured regardless. The SMT Theatre version of Tod Browning's FREAKS, "Soft Brides" is filled with wonderfully pulpish sentences:

"This couldn't happen. This was the 20th Century. A group of freaks couldn't suddenly descend on an apartment development, hogtie a woman, and carry her off into the night."

"I knew this phase of my abduction was like nothing which was to come."

"Her magnificent breasts strained upwards towards the ceiling"

Black Chapel! by Richard Shaw (2400 words)
The third and final installment takes a look at poltergeists. No raw naked flesh in sight.

Vengeance of the Devil's Mistress! by Art Crockett (6400 words)
Rod Porter, a "television scenic developer," and his main squeeze, are scouting backgrounds for an upcoming TV show on witchcraft when they stumble onto a mysterious old woman on a dark country road.

Handmaidens of the Monster! by Alan Lance (4500 words)
Evil Professor Demal has been creating frog-girls and rat-men for Hollywood monster movies. Special effects man is on to him though, and soon brings the walls crashing down on the mad scientist's film career. So where are the handmaidens?

Evil Stalks the Night! by F. X. Fallon (3000 words)
Psychopath Billy wanders from town to town, murdering young girls and dumping their bodies in the forest. His travels lead him to the farm house of kindly Ma and Pa Pembley, a wonderful old couple, still grieving the loss of their son, also named Billy. Before Billy can realize what's going on, he's locked in the cellar, doomed to be the Pembleys' little boy forever. Not bad, but definitely out of place in SMT since there are no threatened couples or torture devices. I suspect that this was a story originally slated for SMT's sister publication, WEB DETECTIVE STORIES until the DETECTIVE was dropped in favor of a TERROR.

Night of the Walking Dead! by Jim Arthur (4600 words)
Cataleptic George Peterson is nearly buried alive by his wife and her lover. When George's servant grows suspicious and digs George up in the proverbial nick of time, George (naturally) emerges with a large chip on his shoulder (understandably). He buries the two lovers alive but (ironically) is struck with a bout of catalepsy just as he's unloading the last shovelful of dirt. Lying seemingly dead, George is eaten (gruesomely) by vultures. Like the preceding story, a change of pace for SMT, "Night" most resembles an oft-told EC horror comics story.

In the Name of Terror by Larry Dickson (2200 words)
The Crypt Speaks! by Harvey Berg (1300 words)
Two companion pieces to "The Black Chapel," "In the Name of Terror" tells the story of voodoo in Haiti, while "The Crypt Speaks" of ghostly visits.

Satan's Ballet! by Bill Ryder (9800 words)
The maestro himself, Antoine Duval, has conceived of the ultimate dance show, The Mephisto Ballet, and beautiful Mercedes St. Clair is trapped amidst the orgy when all hell breaks loose. Now this is more like the SMT we've come to expect - "burning brimstone on naked flesh" and "the sensuous undulation of unfettered hips."

Some collectors have put forth the theory that Shock Mystery Tales grew from a digest called simply Shock!, published by Winston. Only three issues saw print (May, July, and September 1960). I have a hard time connecting the two digests as the contents are polar opposites. Whereas Shock Mystery published lurid fantasies, Shock! was filled with classy material by writers such as Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and Theodore Sturgeon. Shock Mystery Tales also saw two bedsheet-sized issues, October 1962 and February 1963. These two zines are highly collectible and very seldom seen for sale. Heritage auctioned off the pair last summer and fetched $143 and $155 respectively. I've never had them so can't critique the contents (listed below) but they sound as though they're filled with all the delights of their little brothers. If anyone out there in Readerland has these, please write in and fill in the blanks for us.

October 1962

Art Crockett - Temptress From the Black Pit
Bill Anthony - The Devil Wants Blood
Jim Arthur - Lust of the Undead
Richard Shaw - In the Name of Terror
James Rosenquest - Dreadnight
Bruce Chandler - Soft Captive of Terror Mountain
Renee Kessler - Voice from the Grave
Bill Ryder - Horror’s Handmaidens
R. Martin - Black Chapel
Larry Dickson - The Crypt Speaks
Andrew Blake - A Lovely Bride for Satan

February 1963

Jim Arthur- Soft Virgins of Horror Island

Mark Brand- Hell's Pit

Bill Ryder- Portrait of the She-Devil of Lust

Brad Singleton- Maidens for the Monster's Revenge

Richard Shaw- The Crypt Speaks

James Barnett- The Dolls of Death

Stuart Wood- Satan Claims a Bride

Larry Dickson- From Beyond the Grave

Andrew Blake- Terror Gallery

Steve Lawton- The Lovely Be Damned

E-Man Part Nine--The Genius Plant

2011-10-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

After attending a softball game where E-Man played first base (the actual bag, not the position), Nova visits Professor Wright in order to conduct an interview for the Xanadu Gazette. Wright has an enormous cranium and an elongated forehead, and he tells Nova that he needs a supply of genius plants to stay brilliant. Before Nova's eyes his head shrinks and his intelligence shrinks along with it.

A flying robot bursts through a window and kills the professor; Nova dispatches the robot and transforms into her superhero garb. After meeting up with E-Man, they visit Michael Mauser, who is working on a case he calls Highbrow. Professor Wright was only one of several prominent men whose large foreheads coincide with their genius. General Dove tells them that all of the men belong to an organization that plans to take over the world from its base on an island. E-Man and Nova agree to investigate.

Energy being or not, Nova
always looks great!

Part two finds E-Man and Nova reaching the island in the form of dolphins and then birds. Captured and brought to see Genius One, they learn that he had been a scientist who discovered a new species of plant with the late Professor Wright. The two men ate the plants and became geniuses, with elongated foreheads and massive brains. Genius One plans to conquer the Earth and make it a paradise.

E-Man and Nova enter the island's computer and cause it to destroy the genius plants; the army follows and attacks the island. Deprived of brain food, Genius One's head shrinks back to sub-normal size, making him a moron and ending the threat.

After the excitement of E-Man #8, which featured Nova's death and rebirth as an energy being and which was the first full-length E-Man story, "The Genius Plant" is a disappointment. The first page is a rehash of the duo's origin stories. The rest of the story doesn't make much sense. Now that Nova is no longer human, it seems like she should not need to go to college anymore, yet she is suddenly interviewing a scientist for the school newspaper. The menace of the genius plants is never very clearly explained, and E-Man and Nova have little trouble defeating them. The story is, unfortunately, a series of cliches strung together.

Teddy is now a regular character
in E-Man, having accompanied
E-Man and Nova back home from
the North Pole in issue #8.

Although I was disappointed that the E-Man story was not full-length, at least the second story features Rog-2000, the wisecracking robot. This is his third appearance and, as always, Nicola Cuti writes and John Byrne draws. In "The Wish," Rog breaks up a mugging and is rewarded by the victim, who turns out to be a witch. Without his knowledge, she turns him into a human being! Rog as a human is funny, looking like a flesh and blood version of his robot self, and he also happens to resemble someone named "Duck" Griffin. There is a contract out on Duck, so the unsuspecting Rog becomes the target of murderous gangsters. Only a chance encounter with the old witch on the subway allows him to turn back into a robot, just in time to bash the bad guys.

"The Wish" is another entertaining Rog-2000 story, highlighted by the very 1970s hip human version of the robot protagonist. As usual, John Byrne's art is cartoonish and fun, making a nice complement to Joe Staton's similarly lighthearted approach in the E-Man tales.

Rog as a human, with shaggy mop
and bell bottoms.

This ad appeared in E-Man #9 for
Charlton Bullseye, a very good fanzine!

E-Man Part Eight--In the Inner Sun

2011-09-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

When two cops on the beat respond to a call reporting a disturbance at the old Boar Electronics Company building, they are surprised to discover an eight foot tall blond Amazon, who escapes by crashing through a window. Meanwhile, Michael Mauser is teaching E-Man how to play poker when Nova arrives, followed closely behind by the Amazon, who collapses on the floor of Mauser's office.

On awakening, she murmurs something about needing to return to the North Pole and an evil man named Boar. E-Man travels by short wave radio waves to the North Pole, where he meets an Australian named Alfie Alcott and his pet Koala, Teddy. They are soon joined by Samuel Boar and The Battery.

In part two, Boar explains that he has made improvements to The Battery; E-Man's attempt to fight the machine ends quickly with our hero being absorbed into The Battery's glass cell. Boar and the Battery journey across the frozen wasteland to a deep pit, which Boar says is the entrance the the center of the Earth. They travel down and come to Nuclia, a Lost World populated by dinosaurs and an Indian-like race of extra-large people. The blond Amazon is their chief's daughter, and Boar plans to hold her hostage on the Earth's surface while he steals power from the small sun that lights their landscape. E-Man takes advantage of a dinosaur attack to escape by turning into a small, orange dinosaur himself.

Part three opens with Nova, Mauser and the Amazon in Mauser's office. On the street outside, Nova is chased by fake FBI agents straight into the waiting arms of Alfie, who transports her to Nuclia, where she is lashed between two pillars near the small sun. Boar tells her that she will die unless E-Man agrees to help him steal the sun's power. E-Man arrives to rescue Nova but the sun erupts---and Nova is killed.

E-Man grieves over her death and vows revenge on Boar, but Nova returns quickly--this time as pure energy, just like her partner! She assumes her human form, but this time she wears a costume similar to that of E-Man. Together, the two energy beings destroy the battery and defeat Boar once again. As the story ends they kiss, setting off an atomic blast.

E-Man #8 features another painted cover by Joe Staton, and it is the first time that an E-Man story has been full-length (23 pages). The death and rebirth of Nova are surprising, since they occur without any warning. Through the first seven issues of the series, we had grown used to E-Man saving the day, and it is a shock when he fails. It is even more of a shock to see the character of Nova transformed into an energy being with the same powers as E-Man!

Staton's playfulness really goes wild in this issue. On page one, Plastic Man is seen hitchhiking at the side of the road. A newspaper headline reads, "Capt. Atom Promoted." On page two, Michael Mauser's desk is strewn with telegrams from various private eyes requesting his aid--"Mike, can you help me, baby" writes Mike Hammer; "Mauser-request your aid" writes Philip Marlowe, etc. A boy who operates a ham radio and helps transport E-Man to the North Pole has a poster on his door featuring The Blue Beetle, and so on.

The return of Boar and The Battery is welcome, as they make a particularly evil and dangerous team. Cuti and Staton really go all out in this story, moving from the gritty, grimy streets of New York and the slovenly interior of Mauser's office, to the frozen landscape of the North Pole, to the lush, dinosaur-populated lost world of Nuclia. The characters are so busy that Nova doesn't even have time to dance, though she does look stunning in the costume she creates for herself.

I remember this as a really cool booklet!

"In the Inner Sun" is the beginning of the end for the 1970s E-Man series. No longer is Nova a college student working as an exotic dancer; now, she joins E-Man as a bonafide superhero. The Teddy character is introduced, and Mauser becomes a more regular character. Finally, the story is full-length, eliminating the need for a second story. E-Man's last two appearances in his original run would continue to develop all of these new ideas.

This all seemed so innocent in those
days before Rocky Horror!

E-Man Part Seven--TV Man

2011-09-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

by Jack Seabrook

The seventh issue of E-Man features the first of Joe Staton's painted covers!

Inside, the story begins as Nova ends another night working as an exotic dancer. "You are doomed to die, Ms. Kane--Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" reads a message scrawled on the back of a poster in her dressing room. The words ring true minutes later, when E-Man transforms into Mr. Hyde as they walk through a dark alley, his hand a gleaming meat cleaver!

Not Jack the Ripper, but Mr. Hyde

E-Man changes back to his familiar form just in time to receive a sock to the jaw from his frightened and angry companion. A hooded figure on a nearby rooftop changes channels on a strange gun and E-Man transforms into The Brain Eater From Planet X! The hooded villain retires to a lonely basement apartment to make a telephone call that gives a clue to his identity.

Xanadu University!

Part two of the story is called "The Duel." It begins with the return of Michael Mauser, the seedy private detective last seen in E-Man #3. The hooded villain threatens Mauser at gunpoint, seeking information about the location of E-Man, who has not been seen for almost a week. Nova is busy studying at her university (Xanadu!) when she is approached by Juno, the female member of the Entropy Twins, last seen in E-Man #2. She explains that her lover Michael is behind E-Man's strange transformations; he has invented a microwave gun that uses TV signals to make E-Man change into whatever character is on TV at the time.

The next day, E-Man and Mauser appear at New York's Rockefeller Plaza for a showdown with the bitter twin. E-Man is suddenly transformed into Konga and, with Nova as his Ann Darrow, he re-enacts the conclusion of King Kong. All ends well, however, when Michael relents at Juno's urging, and the story ends with E-Man promising to reunite the separated lovers.

"TV Man" has something for everyone! We get a glimpse of Nova's act, followed by a reference to a classic episode of Thriller that must have been airing on New York's WOR-TV as Nova and E-Man walked home. It matters little that our hero is involuntarily transformed into Mr. Hyde rather than Jack the Ripper--the visuals are effective and the idea is the same. "The Brain Eater From Planet X" is not a real movie, but it allows Joe Staton to draw another full-page monster, as he did in "City in the Sand" (E-Man #4). Things never get too serious in E-Man, however: the monster has E-Man's "E=mc2" emblem displayed prominently on its forehead!

E-Man comics usually
include jokes like this
in one or more panels.

The return of Michael Mauser and the Entropy Twins is welcome, adding to the increasingly complex mythology that Cuti and Staton had begun to develop in the first six issues of the series. Konga, from the movie of the same name, allows E-Man to play another classic scene, again with his emblem on his hairy chest.

Finally, E-Man's promise to cure the problem he had created previously for Juno and Michael resolves one of the few inconsistent actions taken by our hero in the series to date.

This month's letters column includes a letter by Bob Rodi of Oak Brook, Ill., who was featured regularly in 1970s letters columns of DC and Marvel titles. He calls Alec Tronn and Nova Kane "the most wonderful comix couple in existence."

To boldly go . . .

The second story in E-Man #7 is also the second in a row to feature the wisecracking robot, Rog-2000. He drives a purple Volkswagen Beetle with the license plate "NCC-1701," and in "Withering Heights" he runs out of gas and spends the night at a haunted hotel. The young woman behind the reception desk looks remarkably like the robot in last issue's tale, but this time she is the daughter of a very hungry transparent monster that oozes out of a closet to devour its victims.

John Byrne's girls
all look the same--
at least so far!

E-Man #7 is a great comic, mixing horror, humor, science fiction, detective fiction, and satire into a very satisfying melange.

No post would be complete without Nova!

Revisiting the Wages of Fear

2011-09-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

TheWages of Fear by Georges Arnaud, is hard-boiled suspense at it’s best, anovel loaded with hard-luck characters and dripping with intense atmosphericsuspense.

Itis 1952 and the white riff-raff living in a small Guatemalan port town -- allex-patriot Europeans and Americans, lonely and lost after trials endured duringWorld War II -- find themselves trapped by despair and poverty, just like mostof the locals. Each man has his own sad story and each one is lost in adead-end existence. These men are not of the local native Indians -- they are despised foreigners unableto leave the country without the proper cash stake, unable even to afford aticket home. Their story is as dark a tale of noir desperation as has ever beenwritten, but that background merely sets the stage for an even more hauntingstory of tense pulse-pounding suspense that is to come.

GeorgesArnaud was a French writer whose books were originally published in his nativeFrance, but The Wages of Fear was his masterpiece and it has beentranslated into English and published in America and the UK. The firstEnglish-language edition was a British hardcover from the Bodley Head in 1952,translated from the original French edition. Both editions are scarce andpricey today. The first U.S. edition was the hardcover published by Farrar,Straus and Young in 1952. Thefirst U.S. paperback edition was published by Avon Books (# 531) in 1953;reprinted by Avon in 1958 (#804) under the new title, Flesh And Fire.The first UK paperback edition was published by Guild Books, (#469) in 1953.There are many later paperback reprints which can be found on internet booksites. This book is well worth seeking out.

Many fans will remember the book because it was madeinto two fine films. It was the basis of the 1953 film The Wages of Fear withYves Montand, made by Henri Georges Clouzot. This is a taut classic noir, ablack & white film masterpiece, sadly not shown these days on TV as much asit used to. I still remember being riveted by the film when I first watched iton late night TV in the 1960s. Years later, Wages was the basis of the1977 film, Sorcerer,starring Roy Scheider, with a screenplay by Walon Green, produced and directedby William Friedkin. While the films capture much of the raw intensity andsuspense of the story, reading the book offers so much more depth to the livesof these desperate men that is missing in the films. The book really fleshesout these men as men, starkly illustrating their dire situation, and theintense pressure each one is under.

Thestory concerns this motley crew, hopelessly stranded in a foreign land. There’sGerard the Frenchman, Liugi the Italian, Johnny the Romanian, and Juan Binbathe Spaniard. These four men form the core group, who along with their fellowslive a hap-hazard existence of whoring, gambling and drinking themselves intomindless oblivion. They dream of escaping the heat-infested swamps andclaustrophobic jungles of these Central American villages, but are trapped fromever going home. Some are wanted men. Others are too wasted, too far gone toeven care. There seems to be no way out, no salvation, for any of them. So theyrot away, some slowly dying of syphilis from the wretched whores of the town,others drinking themselves to death on poison rot-gut rum, some murdered in thedark of night by the Guatemalan military or secret police whom they fear andwho hate all foreigners with a passion. These are men without money, withoutposition or power, and they are all fair game. Arnaud’s characters are hopelessand desperate, existing hand-to-mouth at the lowest level of this dirt-poor,bloody-violent alien society.

Onthe top of this Dantesque world and controlling it all, is the all-powerfulCrude Oil Corporation which owns the oil wells in the country and most of thepeople and wealth. And sitting atop the corporation is O’Brien, their man inGuatemala, who runs it all like some banana republic despot. Gerard and hisfellows exist at the largesse of O’Brien, occasionally doing odd jobs for him.Some legal, some not so legal. There’s is a story as dark as anything Jim Thompson or David Goodis everwrote.

Atthe time of publication in 1952, Time Magazine called this book,“Brutal, violent and good storytelling. The Wages of Fear makes a lot ofhard-boiled writers look like children writing for their maiden aunts.”

TheTime reviewer hit it pretty close. However, this is no Dashiell Hammettor Raymond Chandler clone, and certainly not a private eye novel. It’shard-boiled, but more in the style of James M. Cain’s brutal, dark, noir. Infact, while there is a lot of crime committed, this is not a crime novel, perse. What it is, is a depiction of these men’s lives as they live them on thosemean alien streets, a dark desperate story full of atmospheric doom that hitsits stride when four men attempt to change their fortunes. They do this byagreeing to drive two trucks full of volatile nitroglycerin over rough mountainroads to be used to put out a raging oil well fire.

DRIVERSWANTED. DANGEROUS WORK. HIGH PAY.

Thejob is actually a death sentence.

Thecorporation offers four men a wad of cash that is a princely sum for any man intheir sorry situation. No man can pass it up. The money would be enough to payfor passage home, enough to start a new life. It’s escape money and they allwant it.

Everyman seeks the job. Four men are chosen.

O’Brienand the corporation men have a cynical plan. The nitro is necessary to blow outthe oil well fire and end a serious emergency in the country. However, theydare not hire local Guatemalans because the natives and Army would come downhard on them for using local people in such an obvious suicide mission. Insteadthey use the riff-raff foreigners who are all expendable. So they make an offerto these men who have nothing to loose. They offer a thousand dollars per manfor this dangerous job, which seals the deal as well as the fate of all fourmen.

Thingsget tense even before the trucks leave the town on their mission. Gerard soondiscovers that his partner, Johnny -- the man he relies on most and must trustwith his life -- is an utter, abject coward. Johnny looses his nerve and is awreck. Then when the first truck goes up in a ball of fire killing Luigi andhis partner, Gerard realizes that they’re not only hauling explosive nitro butthat the trucks have been sabotaged by one of their own fellows. It seemssomeone else wants to take their place on the next run should this one fail --and get all that cash.

Gerarddrives with desperate care over the broken roads, fearing every pothole, eachcrevice and bump which could mean instant death -- catastrophic obliteration ina huge explosive fireball.Arnaud’s writing puts the reader in the front seat right beside Gerard; hearinghis toughs, seeing his growing tension, feeling his unbridled terror. Just whenit looks as if things could not get any worse -- they do.

Johnny’sfragile reasoning, which so far has held together by mere threads from theintense pressure and fear, is eating him up. He has become a useless wreck.Gerard knows he needs his partner to hold up his end, in frustration he beatsJohnny mercilessly to force him to pull himself together. This works, for awhile.

Whenthe two men encounter a field of quicksand, it is Johnny who notices that thedark mud is actually oil -- oil that is highly volatile, easily ignited --possibly even ignited by the exhaust of their truck. Johnny, who has beeninjured tries to hang on as Gerard bulls his way forward -- lurching the truckdangerously through the oily quicksand before they finally end up getting stuck.Now, after all they have been through, the truck gets stuck in the quagmire andeven Gerard finally admits defeat.

Atthat point, at their darkest and most desperate moment, Johnny suddenlyremembers that similar situations were dealt with when he worked in the oilfields back home in Romania. He tells Gerard he knows a way he can get them outof their mess. However, Johnny is severely injured, he is going into shock,losing his memory, so Gerard is frantic to get the information out of himbefore he dies. Johnny fights to stay conscious and at the last moment tellsGerard what to do. The suspense and tension never flags in these desperatescenes.

Usingthe information Johnny has given him Gerard gets the truck safely through thequicksand field. He delivers the nitro and becomes a hero. Johnny doesn’t makeit. Gerard is given a thousand dollars for his part in the nitro delivery aswell as another thousand that was Johnny’s share. So Gerard is now up two grandand planning to make a new life. Things are looking good.

Thisis always the most dangerous point in any noir story.

Thenitro delivered, Gerard is naturally more relaxed on the lonely drive back totown. He is finally free of the monumental stress experienced driving this veryroad a short time ago when making the nitro delivery. Now he is making plansfor a new life. He has some money and is thinking about how to spend it. He’sgoing to buy that boat he’s always wanted, then get out of Guatemala leavingthis life behind him forever. He sees himself living in Paris, enjoying thegood life.

Theprevious run on these roads had been a nightmare, done at an infuriatingly slowpace, only five miles per hour -- with the threat of a nitro explosion over hishead every second. Now the winding mountain roads call out to Gerard. It’s afar different ride going back. It’s even pleasant. He’s relaxed and can drivefaster now. Gerard opens up the engine of the truck, increasing his speed. He’sin a rush to get back to town with his cash so he can get out of Guatemalaforever.

Themountain roads loom ahead, steep and winding, narrow and always dangerous. Onthe way down Gerard knows he must slow his speed, but becomes frantic when thebrakes do not answer his footfall. The brakes don’t work! In desperation hequickly tries to downshift the truck, to slow it any way he can. Thetransmission moans and groans and then suddenly locks at high speed. The truckis now speeding downward out of control towards a curve. It hurls through afence -- then shoots over a cliff.

“Gerardis still at the wheel, victim of his own obstinacy, his obstinate resolve tolive”

Andso ends this classic and very dark noir novel. No one wins in this gloomy taleof dead-ender desperation -- no one, except readers and fans of tough,unadulterated noir suspense. This one is well-worth a revisit.

GARY LOVISI is a Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Nominatedauthor for his crime fiction. His latest books are Ultra-Boiled (RambleHouse) a collection of his most intense hard crime and noir fiction; DrivingHell’s Highway (Wildside), a surreal noir novel about a lone man drivingthe back roads of darkest America; and Bad Girls Need Love Too (KrauseBooks), a celebration of sexy paperback cover art and wild blurb teasertext that is great fun. Lovisi is the founder of Gryphon Books, editor of PaperbackParade and Hardboiled magazines, and sponsors an annual bookcollector show in New York City. To find out more about him, his work, orGryphon Books, visit his web site at: www.gryphonbooks.com.