The Warren Report Issue 24: June-July 1970

The Critical Guide to 

the Warren Illustrated Magazines

1964-1983

by Uncle Jack

& Cousin Peter

Boyette

Creepy #33 (June 1970)

"One Too Many!" ★
Story by Buddy Saunders
Art by William Barry

"Royal Guest" ★★★
Story and Art by Pat Boyette

"Blue Mum Day"  ★★
Story by R. Michael Rosen
Art by Reed Crandall

"Dr. Jekyll Was Right" ★
Story by Bill Warren
Art by Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico

"I'm Only In It For the Money" ★
Story by Al Hewetson
Art by Juan Lopez Ramon

"The Full Service" ★
Story by Nicola Cuti
Art by Jack Sparling

"Boxed In!" ★★★★
Story and Art by Tom Sutton

Peek-a-boo!
("One Too Many!")

Clyde scours the universe for animals to stock his zoo back on Earth but a discombobulated fratastat leaves him stranded on a distant world. As per intergalactic rules, Clyde zaps all his animals dead so they won't escape onto a "Class K planet." Well, at least he thinks he gets them all but... a Kron manages to escape and, one year later, when Clyde and a small party return to the planet to salvage the wreckage, Clyde discovers it only takes one Kron to populate a planet.

I hate to complain about the brevity of a really bad story but it seems writer Buddy Saunders forgot to write a climax to "One Too Many!" The action comes to a screeching halt and we're left in the middle of a scene shortly after the not-so-remarkable twist. Bill Barry's art also remains unremarkable. For no apparent reason other than to inject cheesecake, the female member of the salvage party wears what appears to be a one-piece bathing suit (which she doffs in one peek-a-boo panel)!

"Royal Guest"

As the Black Plague sweeps through Europe, decimating the population, the King of Koenigstahl must hide his wife away in a remote castle, watched over by a kindly old man and his grandson. The Queen has been sequestered because she is a carrier of the plague who, unfortunately, infects the young man. He later spreads the disease through the village. A really bad synopsis, I'll grant you, but that is the gist of the story. It's a well-told one and, more importantly, a gorgeously-rendered one as well. That amazing style Pat Boyette first hinted at in "The Rescue of the Morning Maid" way back in Creepy #18 finds itself maturing with each successive contribution. Boyette's castle reminds one of the great crumbling behemoths found in the Corman/Poe flicks of the early 60s and his scenes of the destruction wrought by the Plague are grim and memorable. Boyette and Sutton are keeping this boat afloat until help arrives.

"Blue Mum Day"

Yet another pack of blithering archaeologists unearth the tomb of mummy Arem-Bay, put to living death thousands of years before. What's more fascinating than a crumbling mummy to a bunch of culotte-clad eggheads? Why, the "blue spirit stone from the sky" found within close proximity of Arem-Bay's sarcophagus; a glowing hunk of rock that may or may not be a radioactive meteorite. As with most of these expeditions, the members begin dying off one by one, with the only clue a strange blue powder found on the throats of the victims. Is it the mummy, arisen to bring forth the prophecy of death to any who desecrate the tomb?

Well, kinda. The twist itself is not a bad one but the reveal (that one of the survivors was infected all along) is trite and unconvincing. But, then again, "Blue Mum-Day" is about a killer rock from outer space so some leeway may be given. The art reminds one that Reed Crandall is just about the only thread left from the EC gang who made up the first batch of Warrens a few years before.

Frallarico nails an ogre...
no, wait, it's Mr. Hyde, sorry.
("Dr. Jekyll Was Right")

Next up is the abysmal "Dr. Jekyll Was Right," wherein genre film expert Bill Warren (who would have torn something like this a new one if it had graced the silver screen) does absolutely nothing with that old "my grandfather was misunderstood" trope Universal used to trot out every year for one of their monster rallies. The art is hideous (as usual) with the requisite Frallarico ogre popping up on page two as the not-so-fearsome Mr. Hyde.

The script and art woes continue on "I'm Only In It For the Money," about the selfish host of "That's My Line," a TV show that takes its viewers where they've never been before. Emcee Ted Williams travels into the jungle to bring back photographic proof of voodoo rituals but (surprise! surprise! surprise!) finds himself part of the shrunken head ritual. The twist is telegraphed from afar and Lopez Ramon looks like he studied Joe Orlando at art school (not a good thing). This is another story that brings to mind the Eerie Publications output at about the same time.

Who's on First?
("The Full Service")

After a car accident leaves his beloved wife, Laurine, dead, Wes Brookfield is not certain he can go on, but the Mortz Brothers Funeral Home may have a solution to the man's agony. That night, while walking home, Wes is punched in the face by a mysterious man and then has visions of death. Upon returning home, he's somewhat surprised to see Laurine waiting for him! Somehow, the Mortz Brothers managed to send Wes back in time to before the accident but now he must be sure he doesn't make the same mistake twice. "The Full Service" is a confusing and sloppy mess with a head-scratcher of an ending and typically garish visuals from Jack Sparling (poor Wes looks like he ages back and forth from panel to panel); I have no idea what message writer Cuti is trying to put across in the final panels and I don't care.

"Boxed In!"

Bert chooses Jim-Jim to be "It!" and the other kids never argue with Bert since he's the biggest kid in the group. So Bert thinks it would be cool to stick Jim-Jim in a coffin-shaped wooden box and who's to argue? Then, why not nail the "coffin" lid shut? Sounds great! Luckily for Jim-Jim, just as Bert decides it would be neato to actually bury the box, a group of adults comes along and breaks up the fun. The kids scatter, leaving Jim-Jim in the box. Bert thinks this is hilarious but, hours later, decides he'd better go back and let the little guy out of the box. He arrives just in time to see the garbage man toss the wooden box in the grinder. Terrified, Bert runs home to contemplate his next move.

His next move is interrupted by the ghost of Jim-Jim, who howls "let me out of the box, Bert!" as the terrified kid does an exit, stage right. Bert runs down to the dock where he hides in an abandoned refrigerator but the door locks and, in a panic, the boy begins to rock his prison back and forth. The fridge tips off the pier and into the water just as Jim-Jim and his friends walk by, astonished that Bert fell for their prank.

"Boxed In!"

The first certified "classic Warren" since Phase One ended, "Boxed In!" is a sick and delightful piece of madness with a brilliant script and graphics. Obviously inspired by Ray Bradbury (and featuring a cast eerily similar to the ghoul-kids Sutton created for "No Fair" back in #22) in the script department and Eisner, art-wise (that final panel could have been pulled whole cloth from a Spirit tale), "Boxed In!" features a boatload of classic images. Bert's demented grimace while he nails the coffin lid; his "ulp" when he witnesses the box lifted and tossed into the back of the grinder; Jim-Jim's moaning "corpse"; and especially that fridge heading for the drink. Jim Warren wisely awarded Sutton the "Bradbury" at the 1971 Warren Awards, realizing that the artist was his Bradbury.-Peter

Jack-I agree that "Boxed In!" is the best of the bunch in this issue. Sutton seems to be at his best with stories involving kids, though I did not make the Bradbury connection, which is a good point. Reed Crandall's art on "Blue Mum Day" is not his best work but it's still great, though the story is muddled. "Royal Guest" features a haunting story and art to match. The rest of the stories are not worth a mention. In the letters column, there is a missive complaining at length about the proofreading, something we've complained about as well. Uncle Creepy identifies the proofreader as Noah Moresky, though our host claims Noah has trouble with English and his eyesight is failing. Despite this colloquy, the very first story has problems with proofreading! The fan page features a bio of Pat Boyette that reports that he made three movies and, lo and behold, a search on IMDb shows this to be true!

Kelly & Frazetta

Vampirella #6 (July 1970)

"The Curse of Circe"★★
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Jerry Grandenetti

"The Brothers Death"★
Story by Nicola Cuti
Art by Jack Sparling

"Darkworth!"★★
Story by Nicola Cuti
Art by Mike Royer

"New Girl in Town!"★
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Dan Adkins

"Victim of the Vampyre!"★★
Story by Vern Bennett
Art by Frank Belle

"One Way Trip!"★
Story by Larry Herndon
Art by Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico

"The Wolf-Man"★1/2
Story by Buddy Saunders
Art by Frank Bolle

"The Curse of Circe"

When a Mediterranean cruise ship strikes an invisible wall, Paul Madden is thrown overboard. Washing up on an island, he meets a beauty named Helen, who warns him that the island is unsafe. He ignores her warnings and is drawn to the beautiful Circe, who feeds him and sleeps with him. Unfortunately, the next morning he wakes up to find he has been transformed into a boar by "The Curse of Circe." Helen gives him an antidote and the two try to escape by swimming into the ocean, but they drown and their corpses wash up on another island, where fishermen marvel at their odd garments.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess, since I was happy to see a story drawn by our old punching bag, Jerry Grandenetti. I quite enjoyed the art, which is definitely an acquired taste, and the story is reasonably entertaining until it ends with a thud.

Ever since her father died, pretty Marie has been obsessed by death. She buys a book at an old bookstore and out of the book comes Christiana, a blonde who takes Marie to the Plains of Death and the Castle of Clove. There she meets "The Brothers Death," who include Clove, the man who will make Marie his queen. The brothers ride out on the Plains and kill Mink, Digester of Souls, but this act brings upon them the wrath of Gurn, Mink's master. Clove slays Gurn, allowing lost souls to make their way to Paradise, and he is reunited with his beloved Marie.

"Lanes"?
("The Brothers Death")

I think that's what happens in this godawful story, which has some of the worst proofreading yet. The plot makes little sense and Sparling's art is really starting to get on my nerves. I had always thought Nicola Cuti was a great comic writer, based on E-Man, but his Warren work is pretty bad.

"Darkworth!"

A shy, aging magician named "Darkworth!" hires a beautiful stripper named Sandy Churchill to be his new assistant but, while he falls in love with her and proposes to her, she betrays him and plans to disclose the secret of his greatest trick to his rival. Darkworth's caveman-like helper, Togo, murders Sandy and Darkworth goes ahead with the performance of his big illusion: escaping from an underground grave! Too bad the trick depends on his being able to crawl through a subterranean tunnel and emerge from an empty grave, since that very grave has now been filled in with the recently-buried Sandy.

Somewhat more coherent than the story that immediately precedes it and featuring more skilled art by Mike Royer, "Darkworth!" is good enough for most of its length but again suffers from a rather confusing climax. Perhaps Cuti was still learning how to plot and tell a story as of 1970?

The not-so-scary climax of
"New Girl in Town!"

The "New Girl in Town!" walks the streets looking for some action, but the guys are creepy and everything looks broken and run down. Why did her parents move here? As she approaches home, it turns out to be the graveyard and she is dead.

Gardner Fox must have pulled out an old EC comic when he tossed off this four-page waste of time, which Dan Adkins draws with such little verve that the payoff isn't even a shock. It's obvious something's wrong when the main character keeps her back turned throughout the story, but the payoff panel in which we see her supposedly decaying face is a complete letdown.

Soon after Kurt Bukov returns to his family's castle in the Carpathian Mountains, his wife Lisa falls ill. Father Koenig visits and Lisa is soon a "Victim of the Vampyre!" The priest knows the foul fiend and helps Kurt set a trip to end the blood sucker's reign and save Lisa's life.

"Victim of the Vampyre!"

A mediocre story with no surprises, Bennett and Bolle present a tale that seems like an adaptation of an old story and reminds me of the entries that Warren reprinted awhile back from Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror.

Mike Davis is in the hospital, suffering from a bad drug trip. The doc gives him a shot to try to bring him out of it but, meanwhile, Davis is trapped inside his own mind, where he comes face to face with a horrible monster that represents the evil born in every man. Just as the creature is about to destroy Davis, Mike comes out of it and awakens. The doctor gives him something to make him sleep, but later that night Davis wakes up to find that the monster has been freed from his mind and now menaces him in reality.

Frallarico Tusky-Thing Take 27

Fraccio and Tallarico's art is so uninspired that it makes Grandenetti look like a master. The idea of a bad trip--or a "One Way Trip!" as the title tells us--is corny and the monster from Mike Davis's mind is more silly than scary.

Mavis Deering tells her lover, David Stewart, that she wants him to kill her husband Roger. They go to Roger's house with a rifle but Mavis is upset when she sees that Roger is cheating on her with another woman. Mavis and David follow Roger and his "'bit of cheap fluff'" to Roger's mountain cabin, where Mavis convinces David that Roger is a werewolf. David shoots a wolf, thinking it's Roger, and Mavis shoots Roger's girlfriend. It turns out that Roger discovered a way to transfer his mind to the body of a wolf and vice versa; the body of Roger with a wolf's mind kills David and advances on Mavis.

"The Wolf-Man"

And thus ends a pretty poor issue of Vampirella. Buddy Saunders tries so hard to surprise the reader that he ends up writing a confusing mess. Mavis thinks Roger is a werewolf and has David shoot him (don't even ask if the bullet was silver), but then she finds a tape recording of Roger discussing his experiments with wolves, and as she is killed we hear the tape explaining the idea of mind transfer. Frank Bolle's art is nothing special, either. Peter may disagree, but the best thing about Vampirella is the good-looking female characters. I think anyone plunking down two quarters for a mag named Vampirella with a hot, half-naked female vampire narrator has good reason to expect a lot of hot chicks in the stories inside.-Jack

Peter-The problem I have with a lot of the scripts that make up Vampirella is that most of the men come off as chauvinistic and all the chicks have big boobs. Were these the #1 and #2 requirements listed on Jim Warren's Writer's Guidelines handout? A typical string of dialogue (lifted from this issue's opening act, "The Curse of Circe") goes something like this:

Circe: Helen! Bring the young man to me!
Helen: It's too late now... too late!
Paul: Man--what a dish!

Gardner Fox's script is typically pulpy and goes nowhere sloooowly. JG manages to contribute a few keeper panels but the whole thing is confusing as hell. "The Brothers Death" lost me somewhere around the part where Clove had to fight Gurn for the globe of life. This goofy, nonsensical fantasy crap is just not floating my boat. And do I need to bring up the editing--or lack thereof--again (The whole purpose of life is to producing (sic) plump soul (sic) to be fed to this protoplasmic blob.)?

Hard to believe Warren was paying professional rates for tripe such as "New Girl in Town!" (oh no! I've been dead the whole time!) or "Victim of the Vampyre!" Frallarico manage to top themselves each issue and I'm almost looking forward to each trip into their nightmare ghoulash. There is, of course, the obligatory Tusked-Demon-Thing present in "One Way Trip!" "Victim of the Vampyre!" and "The Wolf-Man" both have the same kind of bland and boring art that "graced" those awful Christopher Lee Treasury reprints we had to wade through a few months back. You almost expect to see numbers in all the white spots. But I laughed out loud at the panel where Roger/Wolf catches a bullet. "Darkworth!" is not too bad... well, when compared to the rest of the issue that is. At this point, Vampirella is still a showcase for very bad horror stories but a change is on the horizon.

Boyette

Eerie #28 (July 1970)

"The Hidden Evils!"★★
Story by James Haggenmiller
Art by Dan Adkins

"The Beast in the Swamp!"★★
Story by Bill Warren
Art by Billy Graham

"The Rescue Party!"★★
Story by Buddy Saunders
Art by Jack Sparling

"Follow Apollo!"★★1/2
Story by R. Michael Rosen
Art by Tom Sutton

"Ice Scream"★
Story by R. Michael Rosen
Art by Bill DuBay

"Pit of Evil"★
Story by Al Hewetson
Art by Dick Piscopo

"The Last Train to Orion!"★★
Story and Art by Pat Boyette

In the Spanish town of Los Flores, the mayor's son has been possessed by a demon! The townsfolk ask Padre Lorenzo to drive out "The Hidden Evils!" but the demon is too powerful for the man of God. Along comes another man named Astan, who says he can do the deed. The mayor's son is captured and Astan performs an exorcism that succeeds in driving the demon out of the mayor's son. When the demon advances on Astan, it is revealed that Astan is really Satan, who was mad at the demon for possessing the mayor's son. Satan wanted the mayor, not his son.

Of late, the Warren mags emit a lot of evil gas...
("The Hidden Evils!")

Nine pages and that's the best conclusion they can come up with? Having Satan use an anagram of his own name (Astan) was a dead giveaway, but I was hoping for something more. Haggenmiller's script and Adkins's art are both adequate, nothing more.

Peter does not appreciate this
gratuitous display of female flesh.
("The Beast in the Swamp!")

Sorik the Barbarian is not a popular guy after killing a sorceress, yet a hot chick wearing next to nothing asks him for help after her Pop has been fried to a crisp by a flamebeast. Returning to her village, he is soon blamed for another flamebeast barbecue and thrown into a pit, where he uses his big sword to kill a scary swamp creature. Eventually he discovers that the flamebeast was really an Earth astronaut, who has been killed by some monkeys.

Obviously, there are many people who like Conan etc., but I've never been one of them. I just can't be bothered to pay attention to all of the weird names and apostrophes. Billy Graham continues to demonstrate his mastery of human anatomy, and his art is much better than any number of other folks toiling in the Warren bullpen at this point, but the whole thing is a chore to read and seemed much longer than eight pages.

"The Rescue Party!"

A greedy coal mine owner named Verlin Dayke sits alone at the bottom of a mine, trapped and fearing for his life. He thinks back to all of the times he neglected to ensure the safety of his workers and laments having been at the bottom of a mine conducting an inspection when it collapsed. He hears digging and has a spark of hope, yet his enthusiasm is dimmed when "The Rescue Party!" breaks through the rock wall and he sees that it is comprised of the skeletons of workers who had died due to his callousness.

Where do they get these names? Verlin Dayke? This is not a bad story and I must admit I did not see the end coming in advance, which is somewhat rare in a Warren story. Jack Sparling's art is as usual, though for a change there are no busty young ladies in the mine. The only women in the story are a trio of miner's wives, all of whom are fully clothed and whose faces look like they were drawn by Jack Davis, of all people.

"Follow Apollo!"

The first mission to the moon goes awry when one of the astronauts rips open his space suit and freezes to death in the moon's harsh environment. On the trip back to Earth, the astronaut comes back to life so, after the module lands, the astronauts are quarantined to make sure they did not bring home any moon germs. After a second astronaut dies and returns to life, it is revealed that the two spacemen are actually walking corpses harboring moon germs. The scientists finish testing the trio and find nothing wrong, so they let them out of quarantine, unaware that the moon germs will soon emerge and attack, spreading all over the planet.

Tom Sutton's art is the best thing about this one, which continues to demonstrate a distressing trend in Eerie: too much warmed-over science fiction and sword and sorcery and not enough horror! Of course, moon stories were all the rage in the wake of the real moon landing the summer before, but "Follow Apollo!" is not very original or interesting.

"Ice Scream"

Bodies are disappearing from the cryogenics unit at an alarming rate and the press and public demand to know who is responsible! The director blames poor Dr. James and gives him a daily dressing down, but when the director develops a sudden blood clot on his brain he has to be frozen until a cure is developed. He begs Dr. James not to let his body be stolen, but to no avail. No one suspects the kindly janitor of wheeling out stiffs in the nightly trash to take home to the graveyard and feed his family of ghouls!

"Ice Scream" is dreadful, with weak art by Bill DuBay and a lame script by R. Michael Rosen. The janitor appears on and off throughout the story and is obviously set up to be the culprit, and the ending, where he and his family turn out to be ghouls, comes out of left field but should have stayed there.

In the middle of a championship boxing match, Bert Meredith knocks down his opponent and suddenly finds himself whisked away to another planet, where he fights another boxing match with a huge alien. He again kayos his opponent and is rewarded with command of the planet for a year, until it's time for the next match. He resists so mightily in his mind that he finds himself back on Earth as the ten-count concludes.

Another unnecessary display to aggravate Peter from "Pit of Evil."

Ignore Dick Piscopo's art (I wish I could) and the swipes from the sci-fi classic "Arena" and what do you have left? Not much. I'm not sure why this is called "Pit of Evil" but it's the pits, alright.

Everything is groovy in
"The Last Train to Orion!"

In the year 3250, the beautiful young people of Earth have spread throughout the solar system as they multiply rapidly and banish anyone over 40 to another dimension. A colony of beautiful people traveling through space runs into an atomic storm and is destroyed; soon, the destruction spreads throughout the universe and removes every trace of Earthlings. But wait! It seems all of the humans were just germs in the body of an alien who came down with a bad case of humanitis.

I give up. I don't know what the heck was going on in this story and the final page got even more confusing. "The Last Train to Orion!" is another mysterious title for a bad story. And so ends another bad issue of Eerie. Peter, when will these mags improve?-Jack

Peter-I thought "The Hidden Evils" was chugging along (despite some stilted writing) until Haggenmiller dropped the ball with his clunky twist. Another one of those "surprise" reveals that makes no sense whatsoever. Adkins puts in some decent work. The first few pages of "The Beast in the Swamp" give the impression that Bill Warren is writing a parody of Conan and Kull but, painfully, it soon becomes obvious the guy is serious. The prose and dialogue are infantile (Into the swamp of dread Y'Bane--the girl of Pollat, leading Sorik from Phorgey...) and suffer from the dread science fiction disease known as Dopus Alternitivus  (in layman's terms: "let's call a cow a mordock"). Then Warren grows bored of cliched sword and sorcery and throws in one of those cliched SF twists at the end.

Boyette! ("The Last Train to Orion!")

"The Rescue Party!" is microwaved EC, complete with a twist ending only the writer thought was original. I enjoyed the Alien ancestor, "Follow Apollo!," but the art looks so heavily inked to the point of muting Tom Sutton's power. Perhaps Sutton was paying homage to Wally Wood. The inordinate amount of typos is the least of your worries should you sit through the truly wretched  "Ice Scream." Holy cow! You mean it was Willy the whole time? Fooled me.

"Pit of Evil" (an awful title if there ever was one) is an amiable rip-off of Fredric Brown's "Arena" with a Twilight Zone vibe to it (and some very TZ-esque narration as well) and some fair-to-middling art by Dick Piscopo (in his Warren swan song). I'm not sure what was going on in Pat Boyette's "The Last Train to Orion!," a variation on Bill Nolan's Logan's Run, but I liked it anyway. That's due mostly to Boyette's unique art style rather than a cohesive script.

Kenneth Smith

Creepy 1971 Annual

"Beast Man"
(Reprinted from Creepy #11)

"A Curse of Claws"
(Reprinted from Creepy #16)

"The Mountain"
(Reprinted from Creepy #8)

"Grave Undertaking"
(Reprinted from Creepy #5)

"Castle Carrion"
(Reprinted from Creepy #14)

"Image in Wax"
(Reprinted from Creepy #17)

"The Rescue of the Morning Maid"
(Reprinted from Creepy #18)

"Skeleton Crew"
(Reprinted from Creepy #11)

Kenneth Smith

Eerie 1971 Annual

"Hatchet Man!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #4)

"Wolf Bait!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #8)

"It!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #10)

"The Defense Rests!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #7)

"Island at World's End!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #4)

"The Swamp God!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #5)

"The Changeling!"
(Reprinted from Eerie #6)

Next Week...
The moment Jack has been waiting for!

Now shipping! The Best of The Scream Factory Trade Paperback

Following the sold-out on publication release of The Best of The Scream Factory last year from Cemetery Dance, Cimarron Street Books is pleased to announce a new, 590-page trade paperback edition The Best of The Scream Factory! Here are the contents of this huge 8.5" x 11" tome:

Table of Contents:
Introduction

Issue #6
"People Who Love Life" by Douglas Clegg

Issue #7
How We Saw It: The Scream Factory Editors Pick Their Top Ten
The Top Ten Horror Titles of the 1980s, based on a poll of 100 Writers & Editors

Issue #8
Things That Go Boom! in the Night: A Look at Giant Monster Novels
by William Schoell
Natural Horrors and Killer Critters by Randall Larson
Godzilla Viewing Guide by John Scoleri

Issue #9
The Esoteric Order of Dagon by Ben Indick
The Horror Pulpit column by Stefan Dziemianowicz

Issue #10
The Worst Horror Novels in the World by Don D'Ammassa
Curse of the Fanthorpes by Mike Ashley
A Comprehensive Look at The Frankenstein Horror Series by Peter Enfantino
How Bad are Lovecraft's Revisions? by S.T. Joshi
A Partial Guide for Horror Movie Fans Who Have Way Too Much Free Time
by Gary Braunbeck
The Horror Pulpit column by Stefan Dziemianowicz

Issue #11
Gold Medal Days by Ed Gorman
Jim Thompson: The Killer Inside Him by Max Allan Collins
The Horror Pulpit column by Stefan Dziemianowicz
Precursors of Psycho: The Early Crime Novels of Robert Bloch by Randall Larson
Serial Killers: The Fathers and Sons of Hannibal Lecter by Dale Walker
Deja's Domicile of Dread column by Thomas Deja
A Mythos Theogeny by Robert M. Price

Night of the Living Dead Special
Night Eternal by Douglas E. Winter
Nights, Dawns, and a Day That Might Have Been by John Scoleri
Zombies and Other Obsolete Creatures: An Overview of Zombie Novels
by Don D'Ammassa
Working Class Stiffs: A Survey of Zombie Short Fiction by Robert Morrish
Simon Garth, Jericho Drumm, and The Shambling Deaders:
Do Comics Really Give a Fair Portrayal of Rotting Folk? by Peter Enfantino

Issue #12
The Overlook Library column by Don D'Ammassa
Still Cutting It? A Review of the First Two-and-a-Half Years of the Dell Abyss Line
by John Brower
Things That Go Bump on the Air: Part 1 of a 6-Part Series on the Radio Horror Genre
by Shawn Danowski
The Sound of Horror, Part 1: A Capsule Survey of Music in the Horror Film
by Randall Larson
The Art of Darkness column by Rodger Gerberding

Issue #13
Fantasy, Horror...and Sex: The Early Stories of C.L. Moore by Everett Bleiler
Horror in Science Fiction Novels Through 1960 by Brian Stableford
They's Comin'! They's Comin'! The Aliens is Comin'! by Ed Gorman
The Dark Side of Light: A Survey of Horror in SF Anthologies From Poe to King
by Mike Ashley
Inside, Outside: Horror in SF Novels 1960 to the Present by Rob Latham
What the Hell Ever Happened To...? column by Robert Morrish

Issue #14
Half-Breeds: Western/Horror Hybrids by Bill Crider
Mummy Motifs: An Overview of Contemporary Mummy Novels by W.D. Gagliani
Eau de Nile: Oh Denial! Deconstructing, or at Least Unraveling, Mummy Short Fiction
by Ken Houghton
The Mummy Walks: A Film History of Kharis and his Kind by Lawrence McCallum
Once is Not Enough: A Look at Series in Horror Fiction column by Derek Hill
Deja's Domicile of Dread column by Thomas Deja

Issue #15
Shepherds of Shadow column by Mike Ashley
Lyncanthropic Literature: An Overview of the Best Modern Werewolf Novels
by John Brower
The Rest of the Pack: A Mini-Guide to Lesser-Known Werewolf Novels
by Don D'Ammassa
Four-Colored and Furry: A Brief, Selective Look at Werewolves in Comics
by Peter Enfantino
Derleth's Lament to Love by Sam Moskowitz

Issue #16
The Hunt for Australian Horror Fiction
by Bill Congreve, Sean McMullen & Steve Paulsen
Killer Koalas: An Overview of Austrlian and New Zealand Horror Films
by Robert Hood
Yeti Yarns, Sasquatch Stories by W.D. Gagliani
Abominable Creatures: The Sasquate and the Yeti Go to the Movies
by Lawrence McCallum
Return to Sauk City by Sam Moskowitz

Issue #17
Hidden Horrors column by William Schoell
Dark Awakenings: A Brief Survey of British Horror Fiction up to 1940
by Richard Dalby
In Transition: British Horror Fiction 1940-1959 by Mark Valentine
It's Alive: The Re-Birth of Horror Fiction in Britain, 1960-1979 by Mike Ashley
BritShock: British Horror Fiction, 1980-1995
by Chris Morgan, Pauline Morgan & Joel Lane
On the Fringe for Thirty Years: An Overview of British Small Press Horror
by David Sutton
Chamber of Horrors: British Horror Films, Before and After Hammer
by Kim Newman
"A Nervous Disposition": A Short History of Horror on British Television
by Mike Wathen

Issue #18
The Horror Pulpit column by Stefan Dziemianowicz
Blood on the Snow: A Survey of Canadian Horror Fiction
by Don Hutchison & Peter Halasz
Anne of Green Gables Has Risen From the Grave: An Overview of Canadian Horror Film
by Michael Rowe & Robert Thomson
Once is Not Enough: A Look at Series in Horror Fiction column by John Brower

Issue #19
Graham Ingels: The Artist Who Refused His Destiny by Don Vaughan
The Best of Warren by Peter Enfantino
Through the Comics Darkly: An Overview of DC Comics' Mystery Lines of the 1970s
by James G. Kingman
On the Trail of the Supernatural with Dr. Spektor by John Scoleri
The Alien Wore Boxer Shorts: Marvel's '70s Horror Anthologies by Don Vaughan
Here Came the Monsters: The '70s Marvel Monster Mags by Lou Mougin
Deja's Domicile of Dread column by Thomas Deja
Night Stalking with the Dark Knight: Batman and Horror by Sean Farrell

The Best of The Scream Factory is now available through Amazon at this link: https://tinyurl.com/BestofTSF

We hope you'll check it out, and consider leaving a review to let others know what you think! And remember, bare•bones is coming back with an all-new print zine this year!

The Hitchcock Project-Stirling Silliphant Part Three: A Bottle of Wine [2.19]

by Jack Seabrook

Published in the very first issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (December 1956), Borden Deal's short story, "A Bottle of Wine," opens as a man known as the judge sits alone in the house his father built, waiting for his wife Grace to return. When she does, she tells him that she came to get her clothes and confirms that she is leaving him; her lover waits in a car outside. She heads upstairs and the judge takes a pistol from his pocket, looks at it, puts it back, and walks out of the house, approaching a car parked in the street and greeting a young man named Wallace. The judge insists that the man come inside, out of the summer heat, and Wallace takes a seat in the living room while the judge goes to the cellar and selects a dusty bottle of sherry.

The judge joins Wallace and opens the bottle while telling the young man that he had planned to shoot and kill him and that no one in town would convict him for it. Yet he is a lawman who "'never believed in violence.'" Pouring glasses of sherry for himself and Wallace, the judge reveals that he and his wife had been saving the bottle for their 25th wedding anniversary. Grace had smuggled the "'rare old amontillado'" out of Spain on their honeymoon and it has been in the cellar for ten years. The judge tells Wallace that he was 50 years old when he met Grace, who was his secretary and first love. The judge was older and established, while she was 25 and new in town; after a year, she agreed to marry him.

"A Bottle of Wine"
was first published here

They have a son, "'away in school now,'" and the judge knew that Grace had lovers. He insists that he and Wallace finish the bottle together and the judge concludes that Wallace's youth is what makes him attractive to Grace. Wallace insists that he loves her and thanks the judge for his "'reasonableness.'" As Wallace finishes his sherry, the judge takes out his pistol and shoots his rival in the head. The judge goes to the stairs and Grace rushes down, shocked. The judge tells her that they "'killed the bottle of old wine we were saving,'" drops the pistol, and turns toward the telephone. He still holds the bottle, which no longer contains "the magic of old wine within it."

Deal capitalizes "The Judge" throughout the story; this is how the man is known and how he thinks of himself. He and his house represent tradition and stability; at one point, he refers to himself as "Carter" and to the town as "Cartersville," suggesting that the town was named after his family. Even his wife calls him "Judge"; his first name is never revealed. When he first takes out the gun and looks at it, the seed is planted in the reader's mind--will he use it?--and when the judge tells Wallace, "'This heat will kill you,'" it is not the heat that represents danger for the visitor. More clues are planted when the judge tells Wallace that he had planned to kill him and would not be convicted for the crime and when the judge tells Wallace, "'You'll never taste the like again.'"

Herbert Marshall as the judge

Borden Deal toys with the reader's suspicions by having the judge mention that the sherry is amontillado, recalling Poe's famous story of revenge and murder, and for the first time we suspect that poison may be involved. Throughout the story, tension builds as we wonder if the judge will kill Wallace and, if so, by what method? The murder is done suddenly and without hesitation: "He hadn't believed he was going to do it until the last moment ..." and when the judge tells Grace "'We killed it between us,'" referring to the bottle of wine, he is also referring to the love he had shared with his wife. At the end of the story, the bottle is "empty now, and ordinary; just old glass" and we know that the judge's love affair has come to an end.

Borden Deal (1922-1985) was born Loyse Youth Deal in Mississippi and most of his work was set in the Deep South. He wrote over 100 short stories and 21 novels from 1946 to 1979, though he was most active from 1950 to 1967. He became a full time writer in 1956, the year "A Bottle of Wine" was published, and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents adaptation was one of a handful of TV shows and films based on his work. This was the only time that one of his stories was adapted for the Hitchcock series.

Stirling Silliphant had a challenge when turning "A Bottle of Wine" from a story on the printed page into a dramatic half hour of television; he solved it by following the source closely up to a point before taking it in a completely new direction at the climax.

The show begins with an overhead shot of a hand taking a revolver out of a drawer; director Herschel Daugherty uses this perspective a couple of times during the episode to inject variety into what is essentially a two-character play. The camera pulls further up so we can see a God's-eye view of the judge as he walks slowly across the room examining the gun. The judge puts the gun away in a different drawer after making sure it is loaded; presumably, he is putting it in a particular place to have it handy for later use. Moving this bit of business to the very start of the show adds a sense of menace to the short story, which begins more quietly, with the judge sitting and waiting for Grace to arrive.

The scenes then play out much as they do in Deal's original, with Silliphant taking lines of dialogue  off the page but adding many more. The judge does not go down to the cellar to retrieve the wine, which is instead in the room adjacent to where Wallace sits; this allows the two to continue talking while the judge gets the bottle. The judge does not tell Wallace that he had thought about killing him, at least not yet; he does, however, mention that he bought the wine in Spain on his honeymoon. He quotes Aristotle and takes the gun out of the drawer; as he speaks, Wallace stares at the gun and the camera focuses on it in the judge's hands with Wallace in the distance paying more attention to the weapon than to the judge's words.

Suddenly, the judge points the gun at Wallace and insists that he keep drinking the wine, which they will finish together. By having the judge hide the gun at the beginning and brandish it in the middle of the show, it becomes more effective dramatically. Now is the time when the judge tells Wallace he could shoot him and get off scot-free; Silliphant has rearranged events from the story to increase the suspense.

The two-character play continues with small changes; there is no mention of the judge's son and the judge is 64 years old rather than 60, surely a change that was made due to the age of Herbart Marshall, the actor playing the judge, who looks every one of his 66 years. The camera again returns briefly to the Godlike perspective above the ceiling fan, looking down at the two men as they converse, and the judge moves from discussing Aristotle to reading from a book about the death of Socrates, who took poison. It is at this point that the TV show diverges completely from the short story.

The judge tells Wallace to sit down to lessen the pain from the wine, and there is a cut to a low angle shot looking up, with the bottle front and center and the men farther off. Like the earlier shot with the gun in the foreground, the bottle is now in the position of importance and Wallace stares at it as the judge speaks, suspicious of another weapon. The judge claims that he poisoned the bottle and that Wallace has two or three minutes to live. Wallace grabs the telephone but the judge tells him it's too late to call a doctor. He locks Wallace in the room and tells him, through the door, that he has prepared an antidote for himself.

Wallace pulls at the door and yells for help; Grace descends the stairs and Wallace promises to go away and leave them both if the judge will save his life. The judge tells Grace he's just having fun and had to prove to her that Wallace is just a child. Suddenly, Wallace shoots four times through the door and hits the judge, who was standing in front of it; was Wallace's intent to kill the judge or just to shoot out the lock? It is never made clear. However, Wallace opens the door, sees the judge lying dead on the floor, and is not alarmed at the sight. Grace tells her lover that the judge could not have poisoned him, remarking that "'in 20 years he never once sentenced a man to death.'"

Robert Horton as Wallace

Wallace says that the judge told him that he had poisoned the bottle of wine that he bought for Grace in Spain on their honeymoon, but she replies that they never had a honeymoon in Spain and "'there was nothing wrong with that bottle of sherry.'"

Silliphant must have decided that the story lacked the excitement necessary to sustain a half hour of suspense, and I think he's correct; Deal's short story builds quietly to the sudden explosion of violence, yet when the judge shoots Wallace in the head it happens so quickly that it has little dramatic effect. The story's conclusion is subtle and undramatic. The show, on the other hand, plods along in a fairly dull way as the judge and Wallace talk, with some interesting camera angles added to spice things up. Silliphant wisely creates tension by having  the judge pull out the gun at a key moment, but the climax, where Wallace believes he's been poisoned and shoots the judge, is much more exciting than anything on the page. I'm not sure it all makes sense, though, since the judge seems to change suddenly from a man of thought to a man of action, and the final sting of Grace telling Wallace that there never was a honeymoon seems an unnecessary attempt to add a surprise twist.

"A Bottle of Wine" was directed by Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), a prolific TV director from 1952 to 1975 who also directed a couple of movies. He directed 27 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in all, including "The Blessington Method," and he directed 16 episodes of Thriller. I find his work on Thriller to be more interesting than his work on the Hitchcock show; he seems to have more success with the macabre than with suspense.

The great Herbert Marshall (1890-1966) plays the judge. Born in London and the child of two stage actors, Marshall fought in the trenches in WWI and lost his right leg after being shot in the knee in 1917. His long stage career had begun back in 1909 and he overcame his disability to become a respected and beloved actor on film, starting in 1927, on radio, starting in 1936, and on television, starting in 1950. His many film roles included Hitchcock's Murder! (1930), Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932), Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940), Crack-Up (1946), which was based in part on a Fredric Brown novelette, and The Fly (1958). "A Bottle of Wine" was one of his two appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Jarma Lewis as Grace

Television stalwart Robert Horton (1924-2016) plays Wallace. He was in a handful of films but made his mark in television from 1951 to 1989, starring in Wagon Train  (1957-1965) and A Man Called Shenandoah (1965-1966). This was one of seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in which he was featured, including "Crack of Doom," and after his television career ended he spent many years on stage.

Finally, Jarma Lewis (1931-1985) appears briefly as Grace. She played minor roles, often uncredited, in a short screen career from 1952-1957; she married an heir to the Brunswick bowling fortune and retired from acting to raise a family.

Borden Deal's short story, "A Bottle of Wine," is available to read for free on the Internet Archive here. You can order the DVD of the TV show here or watch it for free online here.

Sources:

"A Bottle of Wine." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 19, CBS, 3 Feb. 1957.

Deal, Borden. "A Bottle of Wine." Alfred Hitchcock's Tales to Send Chills Down Your Spine, The Dial Press, 1979, pp. 1–9.

The FictionMags Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.

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

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

Jarma Lewis - The Private Life and Times of Jarma Lewis. Jarma Lewis Pictures., www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/163/Jarma+Lewis/index.html.

Stephensen-Payne, Phil. Galactic Central, philsp.com/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: The Perfect Crime, starring Vincent Price!

2019 in Review - Some of our Favorites

Happy New Year from all of us at bare•bones! 2019 was particularly exciting for us in that we finally saw the release of The Best of The Scream Factory from Cemetery Dance, which we then followed up with the surprise publication of bare•bones —the best of— (order your copy today on Amazon!) and the announcement of the return to print publishing with an all-new bare•bones starting in 2020! No need to worry—the bare•bones e-zine isn't going anywhere. You'll just be seeing new content in print periodically in addition to the regular pieces you've come to know and love on the blog!

Of course these new projects have been keeping us busier than normal, and we apologize in advance for the lighter year-end wrap up than usual. But we wanted to at least share some lists of our favorite things rather than nothing at all. And you're in luck—Gilbert has managed to put the rest of us to shame by providing a very detailed review of some of his favorites of the year. Plenty of good stuff to check out. And as always, please add your comments letting us know anything that we may have missed... or where our lists are right or completely wrong!

Peter's Picks

FILM

1. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
2. Joker
3. Marriage Story
4. Knives Out
5. Spider-Man: Far From Home
6. Rocketman
7. Downton Abbey
8. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story
9. Yesterday
10. The Irishman

TV

1. Money Heist
2. Manhunter
3. Bodyguard
4. Line of Duty
5. Killing Eve
6. Game of Thrones
7. Watchmen
8. Animal Kingdom
9. Homeland
10. Unbelievable

John's Picks

FILM

Apollo 11
I was lucky to catch this during its all-too-brief theatrical engagement in the IMAX format. It reminded me of the original IMAX films I saw as a kid—documentary footage on an epic scale. What made it all the more amazing was that it was long-forgotten large format footage shot decades ago in the time leading up to the Apollo 11 moon landing. What a fantastic way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that grand achievement. While it's still worth your time to see it at home, I highly recommend watching it on the largest screen possible. It can't match the theatrical experience, but the majesty of seeing a Saturn V rocket making the slow trek to the launchpad on NASAs crawler transporter is more amazing than most sci-fi CGI extravagances you might see.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
As much as I have enjoyed Quentin Tarantino's films, I must admit that the first trailer for Hollywood left me wanting. I certainly couldn't have guessed that it would surpass Jackie Brown as my favorite of his films on a single viewing. While I still regard the late Robert Forster's performance in Jackie Brown as the best in any Tarantino film, everything else about Hollywood blew me away. There was so much to explore and enjoy, I found myself returning again and again to see it again. I think Brad Pitt steals the show, giving the finest performance of his career, in a film filled with amazing performance. I feel sorry for those fans who mistakenly believed that Quentin Tarantino was going to deliver a Manson family bloodbath, and can't appreciate what a spectacular achievement the film is. In my opinion, despite an intensely violent (if cathartic) final act, it's Tarantino's most accessible film. And perhaps the greatest gift the film gives viewers is a memory of Sharon Tate as something other than a tabloid headline.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
A lot of Star Wars fans learned a lesson in 1999 about managing expectations. But just as many did not. They long for each new film in the 42 year-old saga to bring them back to that moment of their youth when Star Wars changed everything. I still love the original trilogy that I grew up with, and appreciate the prequels and sequels for the things they get right. For me, The Last Jedi was the first film since Return of the Jedi that I walked out of after the first viewing with an undeniably positive reaction. I wasn't completely surprised to find that many fans hated the film for the exact reasons I liked it... because it defied conventions and breathed new life into the franchise that was reborn with the entertaining and yet all-too-familiar The Force Awakens. Two things they got right were the hiring of Daisy Ridley, who does an amazing job across the three films, and Adam Driver, who I'll be the first to admit was my biggest concern going into the sequel trilogy. Of course, based on the rift the last film caused, and the return of JJ Abrams as director, it should come as no surprise that The Rise of Skywalker manages to 'right' many of the perceived wrongs of The Last Jedi in the mind of the disenfranchised. Fortunately, I found the roller-coaster ride of a film to be a satisfying one, and while it's not a film without flaws, it's the most entertaining and emotionally weighted of the sequel trilogy. It brought the series back to its cliffhanger serial roots, and whether you love it or hate it might depend on how willing you are to accept some of the tropes of those period inspirations.

Yesterday
This film could have easily been a disaster, but the combination of the cast (including the lovely Lily James of Baby Driver fame) and the fine renditions of so many Beatles classics by Himesh Patel adds this to the list of enjoyable British romantic comedies (no surprise that it was written by Richard Curtis, who has made a name for himself with such films as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love, Actually and About Time). But what truly elevates this film to this list was a startling revelation late in the film, one that hits the audience as strongly as it does the main character. In some ways, this film paved the way for the emotional payoff in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

VIDEO

Godzilla Criterion Set
Criterion delivered an early Christmas present this year in the form of a collection of the 15 Showa-era (1954-1975) Godzilla films on Blu Ray. Currently available on Amazon at a price that's less than $10 a title, this is a G-Fan's dream. Longtime readers of TSF may recall my marathon viewing article in issue #8, which was completed at a time when VHS was pretty much the only game in town for these titles - and the original aspect ratio wasn't even a consideration. Though I've since advanced through LaserDiscs, DVDs and some early Blu Rays for a handful of these titles, I'm looking forward to sitting down for another marathon viewing, for the first time as they were all truly meant to be seen!

The Stand
I first read Stephen King's The Stand when I discovered the mass market paperback noting that it was soon to be a major motion picture from George A. Romero. While I was long disappointed that it never came to pass, I was excited when it was announced that Mick Garris would be producing a 4-part mini-series adapted by King himself. Featuring a solid cast and a pitch-perfect leading performance by Gary Sinise as Stu Redman, I was amazed Garris was able to pull off a fine and faithful adaptation of the book. Considering the TV movie was shot on 16mm film, with visual effects rendered in standard definition, the odds of seeing a Blu Ray release seemed to be slim at best, and even if possible, most likely an up-conversion of the SD content. So imagine my surprise when over the summer a remastered Blu Ray release was announced, scanned from the original film elements with newly enhanced visual effects. So it's not hyperbole to say that the mini-series has never looked this good before. If you've never seen it, now is the perfect time, before the 10-episode Josh Boone mini-series lands later this year...

Twin Peaks: Z to A Box Set
I consider Twin Peaks to be the greatest TV series of all time, and the film Fire Walk With Me is also in my top 10 films, so it's no surprise that I would double, triple, quadruple-dip (and more) this series. Released last month as a limited edition box set containing the original two seasons, the film (and feature-length collection of outtakes from the film), the Showtime Limited Event series and a smattering of new bonus features (including 4k versions of the pilot episode and episode 8 of the Showtime series), it was a must-have for this Twin Peaks fanatic. While I am completely satisfied with what we have been gifted by David Lynch and Mark Frost (as I was after the original series went off the air, and also after the release of the film), I would welcome any continuation of this story from the creators if they ever choose to do so. 

Ultraman, Ultra Seven and Ultra Q
As if it weren't enough to have gotten an ultimate Godzilla Blu Ray set in 2019, Mill Creek has delivered not one, not two, but three(!) original Ultra-series on Blu Ray, with more to come. And for anyone who has ever priced out the untranslated Japanese Blu Rays would set them back, the notion of picking up entire series for a fraction of that price is extremely appealing! While I expect the original Ultraman series will be familiar to most viewers, we also got Ultra Seven and the extremely cool black and white series that preceded Ultraman - Ultra Q. While you won't find your silver-suited hero in that, you will find it chock full of cool kaiju! It's a series that I acquired on Japanese DVD, not expecting it would ever be released on DVD in the US (much to my surprise it was in 2013!), let alone a Blu Ray release. For about the same price of a single A-list feature release on Blu Ray, you can get an entire series of these shows. If you're already an Ultra-fan, you won't need my convincing, but if you're on the edge, I'd recommend the original series for men-in-suit combat, and Ultra-Q if you're less interested in the hero side of things, but intrigued by the thought of a few dozen mini Giant Monster movies!

TV

Deadwood: The Movie
While I enjoyed Game of Thrones, some of the missteps of the final season (and not the Targaryen twist that upset so many) have kept it off this list. But the other reason I held on to my HBO subscription paid off, and it paid off in spades. I had long given up on the thought of getting closure on Deadwood, so it was quite a surprise when the movie finally went into production and was scheduled for release. While I went in with low expectations, they were wildly exceeded. David Milch was able to create a story using our favorite characters that addressed the fact that time had passed since our last visit to Deadwood, and yet managed to resolve storylines and give characters fitting send-offs.

BOOKS

The Big Crush by David J. Schow
Subterranean Press brings us the latest Hollywood-based thriller from David J. Schow, who in case you've been asleep for the past several years has dropped a number of excellent, similarly-themed books (including Internecine and Upgunned, both also worth your time!). Schow once again weaves an intricate tale with fascinating characters, and along the way we get a lot of interesting Hollywood history and insider info that only someone with Schow's experience can provide. This time out, we follow a DVD quality reviewer who opens up a large can of worms when he reaches out to an old school crush through social media--and she agrees to meet him. Just when you think you've figured out where everything is headed, Schow pulls an emergency-break spin, and the next thing you know, you're going 100 miles an hour in a new direction. Fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride. And be thankful you're on a closed course with a professional driver. 

Elevation by Stephen King
When I first heard that Stephen King had written a short novel with a character named Scott Carey (the name of the protagonist of Richard Matheson's novel The Shrinking Man) who begins to rapidly loses weight... let's just say I was concerned that King had perhaps slipped too far. The book's dedication, "Thinking of Richard Matheson," made it clear that he wasn't attempting to hide the similarities, but readers of both works would quickly discover that King had an original tale to tell, and anyone concerned about his attempting to replace The Shrinking Man in anyone's mind is quickly washed away. King delivers a touching tale that had a heart to it which had me wondering if perhaps he had once again incorporated feedback from his son, Joe Hill. And in one way it's quite similar to many of Richard Matheson's works—it's an ideal single-sitting read.

MUSIC

Abbey Road Anniversary Blu Ray
Yes, I've already got all of the Beatles released albums, and I've got the Anthology sets, but I'm a sucker for two things only available in these deluxe anniversary sets: even more undressed tracks and surround sound remixes of the albums (this follows 50th anniversary releases of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heats Club Band and The White Album). The discrete audio makes for an all-new listening experience (I've developed a new appreciation for "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" from this release), and the booklets that come with them are nicely designed and have a lot of interesting historical information. Hopefully some day the multi-channel audio mixes will get a standalone release for those who wish to experience them without the high cost of the deluxe set.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
I've already sung the praises of the film, so now let me comment on the soundtrack. Fans of Tarantino soundtracks may initially be disappointed that this one doesn't feature the inclusion of dialogue from the film - there's certainly a lot of great bits that would have fit perfectly. But as with the film, Quentin has done something a little different here. This time out, the interstitial bits we get are from actual radio broadcasts. Bumpers, jingles, news and weather reports... which make listening to the soundtrack more of a living, breathing experience. And it's really effective. While I'm sure some folks will be disappointed that certain songs weren't included (The Rolling Stones "Out of Time," The Mama's and the Papa's "Straight Shooter" featured prominently in the film's trailer), a lot of fans (myself included) were inspired to seek out additional tracks used in the film. As of this writing, I have assembled just over 50 tracks, including numerous needle-drops from Spaghetti Westerns used in the film's Lancer sequences, Bernard Herrmann's Have Gun Will Travel cues that became Bounty Law music, and some of Herrmann's unused Torn Curtain score (used for the 14 Fists of McCluskey as well as Cliff Booth's long walk down the hall  in search of George Spahn at the ranch).


Jose's Picks


"A Short List of a Few of My Favorite Things"

1. Guru the Mad Monk (Andy Milligan, 1971)
2. Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974)
3. Poor White Trash (Harold Daniels, 1959)
4. This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (Jose Mojica Marins, 1967)
5. The Magic Sword (Bert I. Gordon, 1962)
6. The Toys That Made Us, Season 3 (Netflix)
7. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 3 (Amazon) - I'm not even finished, but we all know this series rocks!
8. Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud
9. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
10. The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx
11. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
12. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Radio)
13. I'm a children's librarian, and I read a *ton* of picture books this year. Some absolute favorites include:
1. The Rough Patch by Brian Lies 
2. Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brosgol
3. Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
4. The Diamond and the Boy by Hannah Holt
5. Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley
6. 7 Ate 9: The Untold Story by Tara Lazar
7. The Iridescence of Birds by Patricia MacLachlan
14. I'm a father of a two-year-old, and I watched a *ton* of Sesame Street this year. My biggest takeaways were:
1. There's a reason this show is going 50 years strong
2. Many of the songs are infectious
3. Grover is the funniest character

Gilbert Colon’s Picks

FILM:

The Irishman (Netflix), in limited theatrical release to qualify for Oscar consideration while also streaming, is being hailed as director Martin Scorsese’s swansong masterpiece, and you half-expect to hear Scorsese and his old crew starring in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel, say in chorus, “I’m not dead yet!” But it is good to see De Niro, Pesci, and Keitel back in a Scorsese picture after all those years when Leonardo DiCaprio became his new De Niro after De Niro went off to do films like Dirty Grandpa and The Intern, and Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg took over for Keitel and Pesci.

Still, The Irishman is more than a reunion or an encore performance. Utilizing his old actors De Niro, Pesci, and Keitel for scenes spanning different decades presented The Irishman with a unique challenge that it met with an even more unique solution – the digital manipulation of the aging process. Through the use of state-of-the-art technology usually reserved for space battles and exotic aliens, courtesy of George Lucas’ ILM, The Irishman ironically recreates the past rather than creating a futuristic world. The more traditional Scorsese acclimated to the newfangled tools by simply thinking of it as “[u]sing the CGI as make-up.”

Adapted from Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses by Steven Zaillian (Gangs of New York), The Irishman has grander ambitions than Scorsese’s past gangland fare. While the film’s main character is labor union official and mob enforcer Frank Sheeran (De Niro), at the heart of the gathering storm is Teamster labor boss Jimmy Hoffa (played by Al Pacino) – his tumultuous life and times and fall. (This is only the third time Pacino and De Niro have shared screen time together – the first a brief exchange in Michael Mann’s Heat and then in the widely panned cop thriller Righteous Kill – and the first time he has worked with Scorsese.)

The Irishman’s depiction of Hoffa, while technically flattering, is not the adoring portrait in the David Mamet-scripted Hoffa (1992). Whereas Mamet lionizes the man as an unstoppable force of nature, Scorsese shows him as a less imposing figure when not giving his rousing speeches at labor rallies. He bumbles, miscalculates constantly, yet is driven and fearless – foolhardy some might say – and always maintains his iron grip on the union he built from the ground up.

Besides reuniting his old troupe, the film contains many of Scorsese’s signatures – a voiceover like in Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Mean Streets that takes us inside the protagonist’s head and world, an overhead shot of an arsenal of guns neatly displayed on a bed à la Taxi Driver, a Copacabana stand-up routine the likes of the ones in Raging Bull or King of Comedy, the wall-to-wall golden oldies soundtrack, etc.

Other familiar Scorsese faces populate the film. There is Bobby Cannavale and Stephen Graham, Gyp Rosetti and Al Capone respectively, from the Scorsese-produced series Boardwalk Empire. There is NYPD cop-turned actor Bo Dietl from Scorsese’s Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street. Comedian Jim Norton has a cameo playing the legendary Don Rickles, the actual Rickles having played a pit boss in Scorsese’s Casino. Behind the scenes is Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family upon which Scorsese based Goodfellas, executive produces. Also Thelma Schoonmaker returns for her 24^th Scorsese picture. 

Not having to recast the older ensemble with younger actors gives the film an elegiac quality that deepens the film’s thematic elements (i.e., a soul’s journey through a life of violence climaxing in last things like repentance, damnation, deliverance, death). These are the kind of profound themes once so present in Scorsese films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull, but almost wholly absent from Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, and Gangs of New York. It was as if after Mean Streets Scorsese reserved his deeper themes for more “arthouse” fare like Kundun, Hugo, and Silence. In this way, The Irishman is something of a return to form.

The King (Netflix). “Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown.” So goes the saying, paraphrased from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2. Wearing the crown in Netflix’s The King is Timothée Chalamet, and great a weight it is for a young actor. In some ways The King is a dress rehearsal or audition for playing the messianic Paul Atreides in the upcoming Denis Villeneuve Dune remake, a critical role whose demands will have Chalamet carry an entire epic on his shoulders.

In The King Chalamet is a mopey presence, and while he conveys callow youth in his Prince Hal scenes, he struggles to project the charisma that kinghood demands once he ascends the throne. Ofttimes stealing his thunder is his trusted royal counsel William Gascoigne (Sean Harris). For those who remember Harris as stone-cold killer Micheletto Corella, Cesare’s iceman from Showtime’s The Borgias, there are times it feels like the soft-spoken Gascoigne might suddenly throw off his cloak of nobility and cut someone’s throat. Gascoigne patiently navigates the idealistic young king through the byzantine world of court politics and foreign intrigue until he can come into his own, which by the end he does in an unexpected way. (The Shakespeare source material serves only as an outline for The King – there is no father-son rapprochement as there is in Shakespeare, no St. Crispin’s Day speech, no untimely death for forsaken Falstaff, etc.)

Battle scenes in The King are as gritty and grimy as those from Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight, and there are parts of The King that could be called “Falstaff Rehabilitated.” No longer the drunken fool or corrupted night, this Falstaff rises to destiny’s occasion and accompanies his crowned Prince Hal on his French campaign.

While The King dispenses with the Bard’s blank verse, it remains an impressively literate script. The upcoming Ophelia, told from the perspective of Hamlet’s star-crossed lover, is expected to do the same with Shakespeare’s material. It is a risky move, but a better alternative than retaining the Bard’s words only to set the story in a world of biker gang wars and drug deals as did the Ethan Hawke vehicle Cymbeline (2014). Seen in that light, the reinterpretations of classic characters and events in The King may be questionable but preferable to what some poetry purists do to the Bard’s stories.

TV:

Bodyguard (BBC/Netflix). Assigned to guard Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes, her character based on former Home Secretary Amber Rudd) is PTSD-scarred David Budd (Richard Madden from Game of Thrones), a Principal Protection Officer who suffers debilitating flashbacks resulting from a traumatic tour of duty in Afghanistan. The two are case of opposites attracting. She is the hardline Home Secretary, which puts her literally in the crosshairs of an assassination plot, and he the war-weary combat veteran who does not share her hawkish War on Terror politics. (It is a subplot very similar to that of another recent series on Netflix, the French import Marseille, wherein a moderate mayor makes a right-wing populist his deputy mayor and lover, despite his disdain for her nativism.)

Bodyguard is good at wringing the tension out of trope scenes that in lesser hands would otherwise feel long, and the disorienting opening credits coupled with a jarring score only add to the tension. It also has a clever twist to its ending that, while it may feel like it comes out of left field, is in fact a well-thought-out and logical resolution that will challenge a variety of political assumptions (in spite of Netflix comedian Hasan Minhaj’s parochial criticism that Bodyguard “is so good, you almost forget about the Islamophobia”).

Bodyguard, from Line of Duty writer (and former RAF officer) Jed Mercurio, was nominated by the Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series and won Madden the award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama.

The Alienist (TNT). This ten-part series, based on Caleb Carr’s mystery novel set in late 19^th-century New York, aired in late January 2018 and debuted on Blu-ray and DVD in September of this year. At ten parts, it sometimes meanders, but the period world it recreates is so absorbing in its own right that it handily sustains viewer interest over its many hours.

First the (mostly mild) misgivings. If The Alienist has any debilitating flaw, it is the anachronistic psychologizing that far surpasses anything found in the engrossing but similarly flawed Netflix series Mindhunter. Much of the modern theory it propounds is cover for the sensitive nature of the story’s politically incorrect crimes, namely the murder, mutilation, and molestation of young boy prostitutes, some of them done up as cross-dressers, by a male serial killer stalking the slums of turn-of-the-century New York. This sordid plot, while legitimate subject matter, compounds the problematical material with boy actors attired in ways that will have audiences calling into question the parents and filmmakers who would subject child actors to these scenes, especially in light of the Hollywood scandals exposed in the Amy J. Berg documentary An Open Secret.

Carr has before wrestled with this third-rail issue in a related way whenever he has had to make the case for his father, the famous Lucien Carr. An early figure of the Beat Generation, Lucien,was neither homosexual nor homophobic, asserts his son Caleb, when at age 19, in response to unwanted sexual advances, he killed 32-year-old David Kammerer, the teacher who had been stalking Lucien since he was 12. In 2013, actor Dane DeHaan played Lucien Carr, with Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg, in Kill Your Darlings, a film that brought this particularly disturbing chapter from Beat history to life (as did Beat novels such as And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, The Town and the City, and several others).

Kill Your Darlings sparked a rebuttal from Caleb who disputed the film’s interpretation of his father Lucien and events. In a like manner The Alienist, after choosing its touchy topic, goes to great lengths to distance itself from the controversy it creates.  It deflects away from the main issues by implicating the usual roster of convenient suspects inhabiting the murderer’s world (corrupt police, poor parenting, political structures, the ruling elite, etc.) as even greater evils than the torture and slaughter of young boys. The blaming of societal forces and institutions is more, well, sociology or critical theory than it is psychology, a problem for a story called The Alienist (the archaic word for psychiatrist).

The Alienist manages to brilliantly overcome these self-inflicted wounds with two indelible characters, the “alienist” Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl) and, enlisted to sketch crime scenes, New York Times illustrator John Moore (Luke Evans). Individually the two are compelling and compassionate crime solvers, and doubly so when partnered. Carr’s publisher must wholeheartedly agree – Carr’s novels have been retroactively rebranded “the Kreizler series” as he picks up after his Alienist sequel Angel of Darkness with 2016’s Surrender, New York and two future installments, The Alienist at Armageddon and The Strange Case of Miss Sarah X. TNT definitely agrees – Brühl and Evans will reunite in the sequel series that adapts Angel of Darkness.

Carr is celebrated for weaving historical figures into his period narratives as characters, in this case the future U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, here the New York City police commissioner. It is a stage of Roosevelt’s career probably never committed to film, and a welcome addition to films covering his San Juan Hill days and a gunboat-diplomacy incident during his presidency (John Milius’ Rough Riders and The Wind and the Lion, respectively). After actor Brian Geraghty’s weasley stint on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, it takes a little getting used to him as the young and impeccable Teddy, but memory of that fades once this performance grows on viewers. This, fortunately, is not a revisionist TR – it is the Roosevelt of unbending idealism who we have all (or most) come to know and love. (The Angel of Darkness sequel series will also feature a welcome return of Teddy Roosevelt, reprised by Geraghty.) Tycoon J. P. Morgan (Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers) features in The Alienist, and yellow journalism magnate William Randolph Hearst (Matt Letscher of The Flash) will be a character in Angel of Darkness.

I Am the Night (TNT) concerns the infamous Black Dahlia case, but not the murder itself. It is set in 1965, not the 1940s like the more prominent fictionalizations True Confessions (1981) and The Black Dahlia (prosaically adapted in 2006 from the great James Ellroy novel). Instead the six-part miniseries revisits the infamous case from the perspective of the next generation with eerie menace, and it may be the first time a drama documenting Elizabeth Short’s murder pointed the finger at a real-world culprit. (Although maybe the 1975 TV movie Who Is the Black Dahlia? did.) I Am the Night’s hypothesis has been endorsed by Ellroy, even though his 1987 novel necessitated a fictional resolution. Because true crime podcasts are all the rage these days, the miniseries is based on the multipart podcast Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia which elaborates upon its hypothesis, though told from the point of view of the prime suspect’s son Steve Hodel, a former LAPD homicide detective, rather than from Hodel’s granddaughter Fauna (played by India Eisley) as in the miniseries.

Knightfall (History Channel) enters its second season with a changing of the guard. Aaron Helbing (writer for Starz’ Spartacus) takes over from first season showrunner Dominic Minghella (writer on the 2006 BBC series Robin Hood), and the difference is instantly apparent.

Before it aired, History Channel’s head of programming Eli Lehrer said to expect “a grittier, darker Knightfall” in the second season, a mandate these episodes fulfill without sacrificing heroism the way so many gritty dark dramas do. One critic of the first season over at TV Overmind rightly complained that Knightfall tried to be too many things at once and could not make up its mind what it was. While the first season did indeed get off to a clumsy but honorable start, it has, in its second, finally found its focus.

Knightfall is set in the 14^th-century France during the time of the Order of the Knights Templar, a powerful medieval Catholic military order formed to protect persecuted pilgrims in the Holy Land and promoted vigorously by St. Bernard of Clairvaux himself.

Mark Hamill – Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars films – joins the cast as a new character named Master Talus, “a veteran Templar who trains initiates at the Chartres Temple.” It is a fun piece of stunt casting considering how Hamill’s Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, and Star Wars creator George Lucas, inspired by the Templars as well as the samurai and rōnin of feudal Japan, originally named his science-fictional knightly order “Jedi Templar” in early screenplay drafts. (Lucas’ “guardians of peace and justice” are even headquartered in a “Jedi Temple” and are exterminated in a blood purge ordered by the head of state they serve, an act mirroring King Philip the Fair’s final persecution of the Templars.) Even back during season one, before Hamill was part of the cast, Minghella said of the Templars, “[Y]ou’re a Jedi Knight. The Templar are literally the inspiration for the Jedis.”

Having fled the Paris Temple, the former disgraced Master, Landry (Tom Cullen of Downton Abbey), must begin again as an initiate at the Chartres Temple. There he struggles to remake himself and restore his honor and standing before God and the Order. Hamill’s role proves to be more than good stunt casting – he nearly steals the show, and gets the best lines. Besides undergoing Talus’ grueling drill instruction acted out beneath the Temple’s massive crucifix – “After your sacred training is complete, you will be transformed into soldiers of Christ, men ordained as God's executioners!” Talus barks – some of the recruits join veteran Templars in a local crusade against the Luciferians, a Satanic cult making human sacrifice in the forest and historically based on the followers of a 12^th century woman named Lucardis. Later in the season, Philip’s open persecution of the Templar Order intensifies beyond the confines of Paris.

Something else season two wisely does is tone down the esoterica of the first season so that it can concentrate on the theme of brotherhood, especially in the basic training scenes. Explored in these episodes is the historical Order of Saint Lazarus, its “Leper Knights” righteous, humble, and brave in their affliction. Knightfall’s Templars and Lazarists embody the romanticism of the French warrior ethos found in the French Foreign Legion, combined with that in The Song of Roland and The Three Musketeers.

When popular culture is not conflating Templar Order with Freemasonry, it tends to portray them as either religious hypocrites or the Christian equivalent of jihadists rather than Sir Galahads. In Knightfall, however, the Templars are knights in shining armor with chinks in that armor (ordinary failings like lust, envy, etc. which they strive to conquer). While fervent in their fight to free the Holy Land from infidel invaders, Knightfall’s Templars are also exemplars of tolerance. At Acre the Templar Brothers have “in our care not just Christians, but Jews, Saracens, all faiths.” Before battle their Master commands them, “Take every life you must take, but no more, and remember that we answer to God, just as we fight for God. And we win by the grace of God.” Also in the first season they come to the aid of Paris’ Jews to prevent a pogrom. Cullen, who plays Landry, says the series depicts the knightly Order as they saw themselves, “trying to do the right thing, and living by a very strict code, which revolves around faith,” and states unequivocally of the Templars that “in our show they are absolutely the heroes.”

So the tides are turning for Templars. After centuries of abuse at the hands of literature and popular entertainment, starting with the villainous depictions of Templars in the Walter Scott novels The Talisman and Ivanhoe, through to the Templar diabolism in the Blind Dead Spanish horror films of the 1970s and the unflattering representations in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and the Assassin’s Creed videogame series, all the way up to the perverse distortions of the Templar role in history found in Dan Brown’s novel Da Vinci Code (including the 2006 film adaptation) and the mass-market knock-offs it spawned (Raymond Khoury’s The Last Templar, Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, C. M. Palov’s The Templar’s Code, Jack Whyte’s Knights of the Black and White, and countless others), the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon are finally experiencing a public relations rehabilitation in the popular culture.

Former showrunner Minghella says that Knightfall owes a good deal to Arn – The Knight Templar (2007) and Arn – The Kingdom at Road’s End (2008), a pair of Swedish films (based on author Jan Guillou’s series of novels) that are another example of Templars in a positive light. At MovieZine he states that he “thought [Arn] was epic” and, after seeing how many people “wanted to see more of Arn,” began to look at those films as “a good starting point for us.” (He was quick to qualify that “we are not trying to copy anything.”)

Even on HBO’s Tolkien-subverting fantasy series Game of Thrones, Templars receive oblique praise. Amidst the multitudinous antiheroes and malefactors populating that series, one of the few noble characters, Jon Snow, belongs to the Night’s Watch, a military brotherhood which author George R. R. Martin, along with Knightfall’s historical advisor Dan Jones, author of The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors, explicitly likens to the Knights Templar on the DVD/Blu-ray featurette “The Real History Behind Game of Thrones.” Jones calls Throne’s 700-foot high rampart that the Night’s Watch patrols “a place where all the brothers are equal, where your past doesn’t matter, where you can get on in life by the power of your sword [like] the warrior monks of the Middle Ages.”

Knightfall’s last episode of season, “While I Breathe, I Trust the Cross,” concludes in flagrant defiance of recorded history, or so it seems come the final scene. It is a dénouement practically daring viewers versed in history to tune into the next season to see if the writers can cleverly paint themselves out of their corner. Do they have a trick up their sleeve to right the course of history as we know it, or will they rewrite history?

As of press time, History Channel has made no formal confirmation or denial for a returning third season, but if it is not renewed, the finale will at the very least give Templar sympathizers the same type of wish-fulfillment catharsis Quentin Tarantino gave Hitler-haters in Inglorious Basterds.

PLAYS:

King Kong (Broadway). Forget Cats. Like a traveling circus animal, Kong has been touring the world, originating the summer of 2013 in Melbourne, Australia, and he is far more fun than a clowder of frolicking felines. Years in the mounting, King Kong the musical almost inevitably arrived on the Great White Way, much like the Eighth Wonder of the World himself, in November of 2018 and played through August 2019. Despite its detractors, it won one of the four Tonys it was nominated for.

The songs are inoffensively familiar-sounding, and the appropriately-period song-and-dance numbers energetic, elaborate, and entertaining. Kong’s recurring musical motif, however, is a major misstep – it is pure modern metallic discordance and does not fit with the rest of the score.

Suffice to say Kong does no singing himself, but that never stopped Richard Wagner from composing lines for Fafnir the bass-voiced dragon in his Siegfried opera. 

While based on the 1933 film, Ann Darrow’s love interest Jack Driscoll is gone from the narrative. Either this is because young audiences have no patience for romance, or more likely the book writer thought that in the age of Frozen heroines, there can be no damsels in distress. Yet losing Jack means destroying the “love triangle’ comprising Kong, Jack, and Ann, with Kong and Jack thinking they are saving Ann from their rival when in fact both have Ann’s welfare at heart. In other words, in the name of rewriting Ann as a modern independent woman in no need of a man, the tragedy of the tale has been subtly weakened. (Naturally Carl Denham is still there as the human foil.)

Nevertheless, for sheer spectacle, King Kong cannot be beat. There is not a bad seat in the house, thanks to a towering animatronic puppet that is the true star of the show. If in the coming years Kong makes his way to your city’s playhouse, do not miss him.