Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Hitchcock Project-Total Loss by J.E. Selby [4.17]

by Jack Seabrook

Jeanette's Dress Shop is in trouble, and the owner, pretty widow Jan Manning, doesn't know what to do. She and her assistant are marking down prices in hopes of increasing sales when handsome Mel Reeves walks in; he usually takes orders from Jan for dresses and he listens to the laments of her and her assistant, Evy, before following Jan into the store's back room. He is jocular and flattering, commenting on the gizmo she has rigged up to remind her to make tea: it's a tea kettle on an electric hot plate that is connected to an alarm clock set to go off at one o'clock.

Jan goes to the bank to ask for an increase on her loan, only to have the bank manager refuse. Mel is waiting for her in the lobby and he takes her to a bar, where they share a table and she has too much to drink. He points out how badly overstocked her store is and suggests that a good fire could solve all of her problems. Continuing to feed Jan drinks, Mel explains that he has a friend who could burn down her store so that she could collect the insurance money. This friend will break through the skylight and rob the store before dropping a lighted cigarette that starts a fire, seemingly by accident. Mel explains that, after the fire, he and Jan could go into partnership.

Nancy Olson as Jan
Jan is drunk and not thinking straight. Before they leave the bar, Mel tells her to be sure to remind her accountant to take the books home with him so that they can prove what the store had in inventory before the fire. Later that afternoon, Jan returns to the store, suffering from having had too much to drink. She takes out the account books and tells Evy to remind the accountant to take them home.

Late that night, Jan is awoken by a telephone call and told that the store is on fire. She rushes to the scene, where firemen are busy fighting the blaze. The fire chief tells Jan that the store is a total loss and adds that Evy, her assistant, received a telephone call after the fire had started to remind her to get the account books. She went into the burning store and successfully retrieved at least one book, but she sustained third-degree burns in the process.

Ralph Meeker as Mel
After the fire has been extinguished, Jan enters the ruined store and observes the broken skylight. Mel walks in and congratulates her, but she is upset and orders him to leave. As she walks through the debris, she meets Frank Voss, an insurance investigator, who comments on the size of the store's inventory and the large claim that will result. He does not seem to suspect arson until she confesses that the fire was not an accident, beginning to explain that he can trace the man who broke through the skylight. He corrects her, saying that the heat blew out the skylight and no one came through it. However, Voss says that the evidence of arson is clear: the clock was set for one a.m. and turned on the hot plate automatically, igniting cleaning fluid and wrapping materials nearby. Jan tries to explain that the gizmo was only used to make tea and the fire was an accident but, in light of her confession, Voss refuses to believe her story.

Jan Manning is a stereotypical helpless woman of the late 1950s. Since her husband's death, she has tried to run his dress shop, but she does not know how to make the business succeed. She goes to the bank to beg for more money, but the bank manager talks down to her and she fails to increase her loan. Jan then goes to a bar with Mel, who makes no secret of his lust for her; she is unable to stop drinking and unable to hold her liquor. When he suggests arson, she puts up weak resistance, but the idea sticks in her head and, when she returns to the store, she follows Mel's instructions regarding the account books. In the final scene, Jan's conscience gets the best of her and she tries to confess to the insurance investigator, but even this goes wrong and he is certain that her gadget to make tea is evidence of arson. In the entire episode, Jan is taken advantage of by the men she encounters and unable to stand up for herself.

Ruth Storey as Evy
The teleplay sets everything up nicely, planting clues early on that will become important later. In the first scene, Mel observes a card on the shop's front door that lists both Jan and Evy's names and telephone numbers as contacts to call in an emergency. When Jan later speaks to the fire chief, she learns that someone called Evy after the fire had started to remind her to get the account books. Who could it have been but Mel?

In a similar way, when Jan and Mel are in the back room of the store early in the show, he makes a point of commenting on her alarm clock/hot plate/tea kettle setup, so that at the end, when the insurance investigator identifies it as the cause of the fire, the viewer knows just what he is talking about.

Dave Willock as Voss
Helpless though she may be, Jan has ethics and appears to have no hesitation about confessing in the show's final scene. As a result, she is suspected of arson and will likely be punished, both with a criminal complaint and with the loss of her business and the insurance money that should have been paid. In contrast, Mel is an unlikeable character, whose smile and sunny disposition mask a lack of ethics. He openly lusts after Jan, recommends arson to solve her business problems, and presumably is the person who calls Evy to get the books, causing her to be badly injured. In the final scene, he visits Jan at the store and is utterly unconcerned with any of this, looking forward to being partners in a business. The difference between Mel's approach to life and business and Jan's approach is stark but, in 1958 (when the show was filmed), it was a man's world.

Barbara Lord as Susan
"Total Loss" is an original teleplay written by J.E. Selby, a pen name used by Robert Lees (1912-2004) during the blacklist. Lees began as a dancer and actor in the early 1930s before becoming a writer at M-G-M. He wrote shorts and feature films and he was co-writer on several Abbott and Costello movies, including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). He wrote films from 1935 to 1952, when he was blacklisted; he then wrote for TV, starting around 1957, under the name J.E. Selby. His last credit was in 1983 and his papers are at the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sadly, he was murdered in 2004 in a particularly gruesome incident.

Ray Teal
Director Don Taylor (1920-1998) was in the Air Force in World War Two and was also an actor, first in film and later on TV, from 1943 to 1969. He acted in one episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Silent Witness." In 1956, Taylor started directing TV shows, and he continued directing, mostly for the small screen, until 1980. He directed seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents between 1957 and 1959, including "The Deadly," and he later directed two episodes of Night Gallery.

Nancy Olson (1928- ) stars as Jan; she was on screen from 1948 to 2014 and appeared in Sunset Boulevard (1950). This was her only appearance on the Hitchcock TV show.

Jack Bryan as the bank manager
Ralph Meeker (1920-1988) co-stars as Mel; he was born Ralph Rathgeber and served in the Navy in WWII. He started on Broadway after the war in 1946 and was on screen for thirty years, from 1950 to 1980, appearing both in film and on TV. Key roles include Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and Paths of Glory (1957), as well as the TV movie, The Night Stalker (1972). He appeared on The Outer Limits and in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Revenge."

In smaller roles:
  • Ruth Storey (1913-1997) as Evy, Jan's assistant; she was on screen from 1953 to 1981 and appeared in Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia (1953). She was in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Profit-Sharing Plan."
  • Dave Willock (1909-1990) as Frank Voss, the insurance investigator; he wrote for and acted on radio and he had a long screen career that lasted from 1939 to 1983 and that included voice work. He was seen on The Twilight Zone and he was also in one episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Wally the Beard."
  • Barbara Lord (1937- ) as Jan's sister, Susan, who appears in a few scenes; she appeared mostly on TV from 1957 to 1989.
  • Ray Teal (1902-1976) as the fire chief; he played many authority figures in a long screen career that stretched from 1937 to 1974 and he was busy as a character actor in the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents eight times, including a role in "Revenge"; he was also seen on The Twilight Zone and Thriller.
  • Jack Bryan (1908-1964) as the bank manager; he had a brief TV career from 1959 to 1963.
"Total Loss" aired on CBS on Sunday, February 1, 1959. Watch it online here or buy the DVD here. Read the GenreSnaps review here.

Sources:

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

IBDB, www.ibdb.com.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

RadioGold Index, radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu.

"Total Loss." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 17, CBS, 1 February 1959.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "Martha Mason, Movie Star" here!

In two weeks: "The Children of Alda Nuova," starring Jack Carson!

Monday, February 3, 2025

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 130: Atlas/Marvel Science Fiction & Horror Comics!

 


The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics
Part 115
August 1956 Part II
by Peter Enfantino
and Jack Seabrook


Mystery Tales #44
Cover by Bill Everett

"Lost in the Labyrinth" (a: George Roussos) ★1/2
"Menace from the Stars!" (a: Al Williamson & Ralph Mayo (?) Roy Krenkel (?)) 
"Danger in the Desert!" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★1/2
"The Unsuspected!" (a: Herb Familton) 
"Foolproof!" (a: Mike Sekowsky & Carl Burgos (?)) 
"Don't Let Them Catch Me!" (a: Paul Hodge) 

Explorer Dirk Kenyard will not stop until he finds the Temple of Rahshina where, deep within its dusty bowels, lies a fortune in jewels! Kenyard enters a small village close to where the Temple is supposed to be located and starts swinging his pistol, threatening the locals with death if they don't spill the beans.

Not wanting any trouble, the village's ruler agrees to provide a guide to Kenyard, a "glowing mass of luminous, pulsating light" that lures Kenyard right to the stairs of the temple. Elated, Kenyard enters and beholds the fabled treasure. Then the light goes out and the pushy explorer is left to find his way out all by himself. After all, the villager agreed to lead him in... but not out! Simple, quick, and enjoyable, "Lost in the Labyrinth" feels like a riff we've heard several times before but the Roussos graphics are a definite plus.

Ever since he was a child, Commander Kit Boyd has had one motto: "If it ain't human, kill it!" Now, with bombs falling on Earth, launched by Mars, Boyd grabs a few good men and scientists and heads to the angry red planet to bomb some stuff but finds out someone else got there first. Mars is dead. And now Boyd and his men are trapped, far from Earth, with lots of time to think about how peace and love are the only solutions. Take my word for it, the only reason to read "Menace from the Stars!" is to gaze upon the awesomeness that is Al Williamson. There's a page of soul-searching by Cmdr. Boyd that could easily have been excised but then we wouldn't have Al's visuals to salivate over.

Henri has given forty years (and his right hand) to the Foreign Legion but now regulations state that the old man must retire back to France. But Henri's sleep is disturbed by a feeling of foreboding and, despite the fact that he is a thousand miles away, he comes to the aid of his former colleagues back at the fort. The climax to "Danger in the Desert!" makes absolutely no sense; I'm not sure, but another page of exposition might have helped. Despite the botched climax, I still enjoyed the tale, which reminded me of the kind of story John Severin used to illustrate for EC.

In "The Unsuspected," Mace feels neglected by the professors in the archaeological dig and sets out to create tension between the eggheads. Literally no tension is trapped in these four pages.

Two dolts plan a bank robbery based on info given them by a machine that predicts odds, unaware they're in front of a live audience when they ask the gizmo their question. "Foolproof!" is three pages of dopiness.

Pay attention... there will be a test later. Tom wants to marry beautiful Andrea Gilbey but his overbearing brother, Lester, won't allow it. Lester has inherited their dead dad's money and hidden it away and now sits in fear of the locals who are surely plotting to get their grubby mitts on his moola. Andrea's brother, Jim, has made a servant of her and won't allow her to get her own job. It becomes way too much for Tom and Andrea and they decide to elope. Tom picks up Andrea at her place but Jim (who's having a poker party) grabs his buddies and they give chase to the couple.

Tom and Andrea arrive at Tom's place but Lester won't let them in as he's convinced it's all a plot to steal his money. That is, until he sees the three goons at his door and he exits the back door with the crazy kids, money-filled briefcase in hand. While in the woods, Tom picks some "herbs for a meal"(!) and the trio chow down. Next thing they know, they've faded away for a moment and reappear a full day ahead of their attackers. Musta been the herbs!

Lester spazzes out when he realizes he doesn't have the briefcase, eats an herb, and disappears back into the past. Why he goes backwards instead of forwards is anyone's guess. Tom doesn't have time to tell his brother that Andrea has the case of dough and the couple decide to live in the future, always one step ahead of everyone else. "Don't Let Them Catch Me!" is one of the most nonsensical tales we've run across in some time, pinballing from one inanity to another. I wonder if pulpmeister Carl Wessler was enjoying some herbs in the Atlas breakroom one afternoon when he typed this one out.-Peter


Mystical Tales #2
Cover by Bill Everett

"What Lurks Out There" (a: Joe Orlando) ★1/2
"The Black Blob!" (a: Kurt Schaffenberger) 
"The Lizard!" (a: Dave Berg) 
"Footprints in the Snow!" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) 
"No Way Out!" (a: John Forte) 
"Behind the Veil" (a: Herb Familton) 

With nothing and no one to hold him on Earth, Lt. Perry Lane volunteers for the first manned flight into space. Once he gets "beyond the wave length," Lane is on his own and that's just how he likes it. Reaching the point where he's supposed to return to Earth, Lane begins doubting the U-turn and yearns for further exploration.

At that moment, Lane receives a startling message over his radio: "Do not return to Earth or you will die! Land here!" The message's origin is planet Rigel-II and Lane does what he's ordered. Expecting the worst, the lt. lands and exits his ship, only to be welcomed by smiling faces. The leader of Rigel-II explains that cosmic rays have altered Lane's DNA and now he can only breathe ammonia, the compound that makes up Rigel's oxygen. Eyeing up the leader's curvy daughter, Lane sighs and decides to make the best of never seeing Earth again.

The script for "What Lurks Out There" is not mind-blowing but I thought Lane's attitude toward spending life in space was refreshing. He was all set to drift through space until his oxygen ran out instead of returning to a world he had no interest in. The Orlando art is sketchier than his usual stuff but still easy on the eyes.

Miner Dennis Metcalf digs miles under the Earth's surface and stumbles upon "The Black Blob!" Stymied by the organism, Dennis slaps it in a crate and brings it to super-brain Prof. Oliver Parnell but the substance somehow escapes its prison and cannot be found. At the same time, around the world, an hour seems to go missing, playing havoc with executions and government coups. Metcalf finally locates the blob, sitting on a pub stool enjoying a lager, and trucks it back to the egghead's lab. 

Parnell, suspecting that the lost time has something to do with the blob, orders Dennis to show him the spot where it was found. After a lengthy trip down on a mine elevator, Parnell suddenly realizes that the blob is the Earth's "center of gravity" and... well, removing it wasn't a good idea. Center back in place, Earth regains its spin. You have to give writer Carl Wessler at least a little credit for trying here, even if his science makes little sense (Metcalf informs Parnell that the hole they've dug is over 3.7 million feet deep!). It's dopey but fanciful.

New grandpa Harry Lansfield sits on his son's porch, depressed he can't afford to buy little Frank a "welcome to the world" present when a telepathic plea for help slams into his brain. A man is running from a mutated lizard in Florida of 1983 and his elephant gun seems to be having no effect. Neither are his pleas for help. 

Harry does what any good citizen would do; he grabs up the family shotgun and starts blasting lizards in the front yard. The effect is the one desired and 27 years in the future the giant lizard vanishes. Supremely grateful, the voice in Harry's head introduces himself as... yep, you guessed it... Frank Lansfield! What are the odds? "The Lizard!" has some oddball Dave Berg graphics but not much else.

Equally dull is "Footprints in the Snow!" Poor Danny Wyatt is so poor (how poor is he?) that he can't even afford to pay for a night out with his best girl, Hazel. He promises Hazel that if he ever strikes it rich he'll marry her. That night, while walking home, Danny runs into a Plutonian named Zig and his fortunes change. Zig asks Danny to hide him from the suspicious government authorities and in exchange Danny will be rewarded with riches beyond his imagination.

Danny agrees and suddenly has enough dough to hit the town with a different dame every night. When Hazel comes calling, reminding Danny of his promise, the dolt tells her that now that he's rich he's going to play the field. Zig smiles and tells Hazel he knew Earthmen were no good. "You're right, dad...," she sighs, "take me home!" Indeed.

In "No Way Out," a man fights for freedom from a valley that won't allow him to escape. No explanation is given and none is needed. A truly wretched issue of Mystical Tales comes to a much-anticipated finish with the dreadful sci-fi soap opera schmaltz of "Behind the Veil." Throat-cutting tycoon Theodore Moss has stepped on a human ladder all the way to the top, stealing inventions and leaving poor and destitute scientists in his wake. Now, blasted with isotopes, Moss gets his just desserts from his victims. Well, no, actually he doesn't. In the final panels, Moss sees the error of his ways and swears to make good on all his past bad deeds. Sheesh. Bring back the scumbag lechers who populated the Atlas business world pre-CCA. Please!-Peter


Mystic #50
Cover by Carl Burgos

"Man of Mystery!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) 
"The Thing Called... X!" (a: Ross Andru & Mike Esposito) ★1/2
"Creature in Hiding!" (a: Manny Stallman) 
"The Master!" (a: Ed Moore) 
"When the Door Opens" (a: Paul Hodge) 
"In the Darkness" (a: Hy Fleishman) 

Thomas Beeres is a nebbish who is gazing in a shop window at a poster advertising the quiz show, Hit the Top, where the top prize is $50K. A "Man of Mystery!" stands next to Thomas and encourages him to fill out an entry blank, promising a fortune if Thomas listens to the man. Thomas enters and soon receives the news that he'll be on the show. Outside the studio, the man of mystery tells him to choose the "mythology" category and provides the answers to the first round of questions.

Thomas gets all the answers right and immediately his personality changes; he thinks his family members are only after his money and he is certain that the only person he needs is the mysterious stranger. Thomas goes on the show again and wins again. When he appears for the third week, the mystery man tells Thomas that he will give him the answer to the $50K question for half the money, but Thomas declines, certain that he knows it all. Of course, he fails to answer the question, which asks the name of the Norse God of Evil; outside, the man of mystery begins to look for another victim and reveals that he is Loki.

I enjoyed this look at the mid-'50s mania for TV quiz shows, well-illustrated by Vince Carrabotta. I'll overlook the fact that we've seen similar personality changes before (see "Footprints in the Snow," above, for example) and that the end is typically mild; most of the story's four pages are entertaining and I was intrigued to learn how Thomas would fail in the conclusion.

Professor Dodd has invented a powerful insecticide--"The Thing Called...X!"--and wants to test it in the Louisiana bayou. Jeff Martin takes the prof  and another man up in a plane and sprays X over a large swatch of bayou below. The trio land and check out the area they just sprayed (with no masks or protective equipment), finding that all of the vegetation and insects have grown to giant size! They manage to avoid being eaten by a beetle and, the next morning, they find that everything has returned to normal. Prof. Dodd decides X is too dangerous to market, never realizing that it was the three men who shrank!

Prof. Dodd is a moron, as are his cohorts. I knew they had shrunk to tiny size right away. Don't these people read Atlas comics?

A man climbs Mt. Everest and finds the Abominable Snowman, only to discover that he is a man as well. The Abominable tells a story of how he was born over 500 years ago and was the handsomest guy in the land. Fearing the ravages of old age, he created and drank an elixir of immortality; he subjected himself to many tests but could not die. Eventually, he went to Mt. Everest to live out his endless days alone, a "Creature in Hiding," because all of the tests he put himself through ravaged his handsome face.

Stallman does a decent job with a thin plot, but the lack of a final shot of the Snowman's ravaged face kills any momentum the story had built. Instead, we get a close up of the mountain climber's wide eyes as he looks at the Abominable's face.

Royce Grimm is a pipe-smoking creep who treats his dog cruelly. He doesn't much like it when he suddenly finds himself in a doghouse in the rain. Ed Moore's rudimentary graphics match the throwaway quality of this three-page filler.

By 1989, most people owned a rocket ship and had vacationed on the moon. Not Anton Dwolak! The poor street sweeper can't afford it, so he keeps promising his kids that one day they'll fly to Sirius and be given souvenir puppies by the kind creatures who live there. Anton's prayers seem to fall on deaf ears, so he has an idea: he and his neighbors will rig up a fake spaceship and pretend to fly the kids to Sirius, where costumed neighbors will hand out puppies from the pound.

Everything goes off without a hitch and the kids love the flight and their cute l'il doggies, but the neighbors can't understand how it happened, since the ship went nowhere and they hadn't boarded it yet! Every reader of this issue has to raise their hand if they didn't see this coming right after Anton had his big idea. The old bit about flying to space in a fake ship that turns out to be real has seen so many versions by this point that they're running out of ideas.

Ed Knight, host of the TV show, "This Strange World," talks General Brewer into letting him hitch a ride on a bomber jet flown by Captain Roark in order to record the full fury of a storm. Up they go, and Knight rolls the camera as Roark fires cannons into the hurricane to try to break it up. Surprisingly, the shells come right back and the plane is torn to pieces by the raging winds. The men bail out and Knight rushes to the studio to develop his film. That evening, viewers of "This Strange World" are treated to film of alien ships flying through the hurricane; when Roark's cannons fire on them, they abandon their plan to attack Earth!

We need to coin a new term for these endings--perhaps "Wesslerian"--where the writer attempts to pull off a twist but it comes from so deep in left field that it lands with a mighty thud. Such is the fate of "In the Darkness." The highlight of this story is the art by Hy Fleishman; either he or the colorist made a good choice to depict the scenes inside the hurricane in blue/black and white, which works well.-Jack



Spellbound #29
Cover by Joe Maneely

"The Man in the Cellar" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★1/2
"He Walks Among Us" (a: Al Hartley & George Roussos) ★1/2
"They Meet By Night!" (a: Tony Mortellaro) 
"Someone is Following" (a: Robert Q. Sale) 
"The Hole in the Ground" (a: Bill Draut?) ★1/2
"None Are So Blind" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

Jim works hard at his job all day and then comes home and works on his time machine in the cellar till midnight, ignoring his devoted wife, Vera, and their kids. After tireless effort, he sends a guinea pig ten years into the future but realizes that he can't prove it. One day, Jim comes home from work to find that Vera and the kids have sent themselves ten years into the future. Jim joins them and discovers that his machine was a success!

Forgione and Abel don't seem very inspired by "The Man in the Cellar" and neither was I. Vera is so supportive of Jim's hobby that she and the kids never see him. The end where he discovers that his machine worked and now, he's a successful member of the board of directors at his factory is yet another example of Carl Wessler writing a sunny finale that has zero effect on the reader.

Robert Mace is a young actor playing a robot in a movie. One evening, he goes home and finds industrial magnate Carleton Forst waiting for him. Forst explains that Mace is the last of five robots built by a now-dead scientist; Forst plans to use Mace to control industry. After the man leaves, Mace is convinced he's wrong, but his investigation leads to the conclusion that he is, in fact, a robot. When Forst returns to take control, the magnate accidentally falls out a window to his death and Mace realizes that Forst's brain was linked to his own by mental waves. Now that Forst has died, Mace will die as well.

"He Walks Among Us" has an absurd premise and the story unfolds in such a clunky manner that it has to be by Wessler. The pointless ending makes me certain of that! The art, by Al Hartley and George Roussos, is competent but no more.

Al Mortell is a bungler who repeatedly screws up at his uncle's factory. Even worse, he's embezzled money and the accountant is coming tomorrow to check the books! On his drive home, Al encounters a group of aliens who give him a bag full of money to provide them with examples of scientific progress that they can take home. He wonders why they refer to him as a kindred spirit and discovers when he gets home that the money is confederate--the aliens were just as bungling as Al!

Titling this terrible story "They Meet By Night!" doesn't make it the least bit exciting, and Tony Mortellaro's sub-par art continues this issue's trend of pages not worth perusing. Take a look at the panel I've reproduced here, in which Al is smoking a cigarette.

Fred Brown is an ordinary guy who has saved $200 and plans to spend it on a trip to Mexico. He's walking home through dark alleys when he realizes that "Someone is Following" him. His pursuer reveals himself to be a man from the future, who cautions Fred not to give his $200 to Lester Marlin, an old school chum who has invented a matter duplicator. Doing so would wreck the future world economy! Fred agrees, but instead of giving Lester the money he uses the machine to duplicate his own wad of cash and soon becomes one of the richest men in South America.

By default, this is the best story so far in this dreadful issue. Robert Q. Sale's art is a bit of an acquired taste, but it's decent enough and the twist ending actually makes sense for a change.

While walking in the woods one summer day in 1865, mathematician Charles Dodgson sees an elf disappear into "The Hole in the Ground." Dodgson falls through a similar hole and discovers an underground community of elves who keep wonderful creatures in chains and ask him to plead their cause to his brethren, since they want to live on the surface. Dodgson thinks them cruel and, when he returns to the world above the ground, he writes Alice in Wonderland as a coded warning, hoping someone will read between the lines.

The GCD suggests that this is Bill Draut's work, and I can see it in the close up of the elves on page two. Some of the shadows make me think of Mike Sekowsky, too, such as panel three on page three, where Dodgson sweeps away the elves.

Dave Miller is a kind-hearted guy who runs the Flying Carpet ride at the amusement park and gives free rides to smiling kids. The ride isn't making money, so he's forced to shut it down; he also has to listen to his shrewish girlfriend, Jean, who won't marry him until he gets a steady job. Walking home one evening, Dave encounters a flying saucer and sees green-skinned aliens emerge from it. No one believes his story, so he confronts the aliens, who explain that their planet died and they need a new home. Dave insists that they come into town with him to show everyone that he was not making them up. Just then, smiling green alien kids emerge from the ship, and Dave has a change of heart. Soon his ride is up and running again, and crowds come to see the funny green aliens who now work the ride.

Steve Ditko keeps this issue from being one for the recycling bin with "None Are So Blind," which features an uncharacteristically cogent script by Wessler and art that is a mix of classic Ditko (the main characters) and what looks to me like an imitation of Al Capp's style, in regard to the smaller pictures of the backup characters. It's not a bad little story and it's easily the best in the issue.-Jack

Next Week...
A Gen-You-Wine Mystery!

Monday, January 27, 2025

Batman in the 1960s Issue 40: July/August 1966

 

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


Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #353

"The Weather Wizard's Triple-Treasure Thefts!"
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

Tired of being foiled by the Flash in Central City, the Weather Wizard travels to Gotham to stage a brilliant heist. Actually, three brilliant heists! "The Weather Wizard's Triple-Treasure Thefts!" begins when WW causes it to rain on Gotham's empty reservoirs (there's been a drought going on for four years but no one stopped all the action to let us know). Elated Gothamites look towards the sky and see a message from WW, claiming he's paying the good folks for allowing him to steal three "great treasures." Further, he adds that the thefts have already occurred. That's news to slumbering Commissioner Gordon and his crew, who claim no reports have come in.

Millionaire Felix Bayard fears his Golden Cup (not the one he wore when he played linebacker for the Gotham Gladiators, but the solid gold drinking cup he keeps in a vault) may have been stolen and replaced with a cheap fraud. Not being an expert in priceless antiquities, he calls art expert Haverford Mimms and asks him to evaluate the goblet for him. Mimms show up, quickly declares it's the real deal, and then takes off his Mimms mask to reveal... the Weather Wizard!

Crafty devil that he is, WW wrote that note in the sky to get itchy billionaires to check their hidden storage facilities and expose the treasures to the criminal element. He exits stage left, golden goblet in hand, and wishes Mr. Bayard a good day. Gordon spends no time handing off the robbery to Batman, who's at home consoling Dick Grayson, who can't patrol for a few nights due to a basketball injury. Bats considers his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, to be a candidate for the next target since he owns the "fabulous" Rajah Ruby (the world's most perfect ruby!), bought by his father in India decades before. That night, sure enough, a trench-coated figure (gosh, who could it be?) snatches the ruby out of Wayne's wall safe and runs into the night. Next morning, Bruce and Dick discover the theft and report it to Gordon.


Monitoring the police airwaves, Weather Wizard hears of the theft and grows angry that someone else made off with such an incredible treasure. Using some of his magical weather tricks, the fiend traces the thief's footprints to a local cave and finds the ruby unprotected. Well, almost. Batman leaps out of the shadows and attempts to corral WW, but the villain is too quick and entraps the Caped Crusader in a large ice cube, explaining that the box will melt in two hours unless Batman attempts an escape. Then his oxygen will quickly be depleted. WW excuses himself, explaining he still has one more treasure to nab.

Being the hero that he is, Bats decides waiting two hours is for wimps and uses his boot heel to whip up some heat. The cube quickly melts and Batman is a free man! Luckily, our hero had the foresight to have Robin follow WW by car to his next stop, "The Mayan Room of the local museum," and there the Duo put an end to the Weather Wizard's attempted triple crown heist.

"WW's TTT!" is an entertaining enough little adventure, but it's got some silliness going on as well. I'm not sure if WW is about to make another appearance over in the Flash's mag and DC thought it a good idea to hype, but the line "Only the Flash can stop me!" is used at least a half-dozen times. Yeah, we get it. Then there's the weird panel where both Bruce and Dick act as though someone has broken in and stolen the ruby when at least one of them knows better. If Bruce hasn't told Dick that it was actually he himself who staged the robbery, why not? And if both are in on the act, who are they foolin'?  They're the only ones in the room! And there's even more expository word balloons than usual, telling us all stuff we had guessed pages before. Anyway, the Carmine/Joe graphics always make me smile even if there are some gaps in logic.-Peter

Jack-From the cover, I thought the Flash would be a guest-star in this issue, but it was not to be. I always thought the Weather Wizard was a cool villain, who seems to have unlimited powers but who is always defeated in the end. I especially like the panel where he's just sitting in a cloud, up in the sky. Why not? He can control the weather! The art is terrific, as usual.


Various
Batman #182

"The Villain of 100 Elements"
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #294, August 1961)

"Batman, Junior and Robin, Senior!"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Stan Kaye
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #218, April 1955)

"Batman, Robot"
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #281, July 1960)

"The Experiment of Professor Zero"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Dick Sprang & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #148, June 1949)

"The Rainbow Batman"
Story by Edmond Hamilton
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Stan Kaye
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #241, March 1957)

"The Joker Batman!"
Story by David Vern
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Batman #85, August 1954)
(Original title -"Batman--Clown of Crime")

Peter-These 1950s Batman reprints prove that, at one time at least, Sheldon Moldoff was a capable penciler. Should we blame the inkers who came after Stan Kaye? Of the four new to us, the silliest is "The Rainbow Batman," a story that would fit in well with the 1960s installments. Goofy script with a truly inane reveal. Who knew Bats kept multi-colored costumes for just such an occasion?

Jack-It has to be Stan Kaye's inks that make Moldoff's pencils look so good. My favorite story this issue is the one drawn by Dick Sprang in 1949, "The Experiment of Professor Zero." I love that the Prof's henchman is named "Beefy"! "Batman, Junior and Robin, Senior!" is also lots of fun, especially when the bad guy is wandering around Gotham City with two heavy gas canisters under his arms! They saved a goodie for last--"The Joker Batman!" is a hoot, when the Clown Prince of Crime and Batman switch personalities due to an accident. The sight of Batman laughing madly like the Joker and acting like a prankster is worth a look.


Infantino/Giella
Detective Comics #354

"No Exit for Batman!"
Story by John Broome
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

Evil Dr. Tzin-Tzin has obviously become bored of spreading pandemonium throughout Asia and has moved his business to Gotham. His number one goal is to kill the Batman! When the corpse of Strip Bander, one of Tzin's henchmen, turns up at the morgue, Commissioner Gordon puts down his pitching wedge and calls the Dynamic Duo to the building to have a pow-wow. The coroner's verdict: death by fright!

At that point, Gordon proves to Batman that he's not just another pretty face and gives the scoop on Dr. Tzin-Tzin's swath of terror, which led to him eventually becoming Interpol's Most Wanted Man! Back at Gordon's office, the Commish shows Batman a strange object: a red ball. Experts are stymied. Since the orb was found at the site of a bank robbery, it has to be something more dangerous than a dog's ball. Gordon tasks Batman and Robin with discovering just what the device is capable of and how it can lead them to the mysterious Tzin-Tzin. 

The boys head back to the Batcave, where the orb suddenly lights up and shows them the deadly visage of Dr. Tzin-Tzin! The fiend has a message for the Caped Crusader: "stay out of my way!" The orb then explodes. Bats puts Robin in charge of examining the fragments of the red ball and heads out of the cave on patrol. A burglar alarm leads him into a dark alley, where a gang of thugs jump him and gives our hero their best. Unknown to Bats, the whole episode is being filmed for Tzin's enjoyment. 

After a terrifying and lengthy fight (one of Tzin's henchmen labels it "a gory fist battle"), Bats emerges victorious, watching as the thugs run away in defeat, tails between legs. Pooped, Bats heads back to the cave, where he has a quick meal and some well-deserved rest before declaring that the red orb must be rebuilt if they are to track Tzin. Working strictly from memory, Batman uses duct tape and super glue to piece the ball back together. Miraculously, it works and is able to help the boys locate Tzin's secret hideout: the top floor of a Gotham skyscraper!

After battling their way in, the Dynamic Duo finally get a face-to-face with their brand new arch-nemesis, who attempts to hypnotize Batman. Using his quick wits and a Batarang, the Dark Knight puts Tzin's hypnotic eye out of service and the Asian villain behind bars. But is this the last Batman and Robin will see of Dr. Tzin-Tzin? 

Well, it's the last we'll see of him in the 1960s, but with a little digging you can read about his next appearance here. An obvious knock-off of Fu Manchu (or maybe even the more timely Mandarin over at Marvel), Tzin-Tzin sure doesn't seem like an international menace. He's got an evil eye that hypnotizes (and is used effectively in this story exactly once), but he's also got big, strong henchmen who could have killed Strip Bander just as easily. There's not a lot going on in this one. The character is definitely better utilized in the 1970s by Wein and Wolfman, when Tzin becomes a member of the League of Assassins. I do like how Batman was able to rebuild Tzin's red orb and make it work just the way it did before the explosion. World's Greatest Handyman! For some reason, the Moldoff/Giella art annoyed me less this time out; the characters' faces are still amateurish at best but at least there's a bit of detail surrounding the doodles.-Peter

Jack-Moldoff continues providing us with more dynamic page layouts and Giella's inks help make the art palatable. Dr. Tzin-Tzin didn't put up much of a fight, did he? One question comes to mind: was Carmine Infantino the best cover artist who ever drew for the comics? I'm hard-pressed to think of anyone who could make me want to buy and read a comic book more than he.


Infantino/Giella
Batman #183

"A Touch of Poison Ivy!"
Story by Robert Kanigher 
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"Batman's Baffling Turnabout!"
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

No matter which luscious beauty Bruce Wayne dines or dances with, he can't get Poison Ivy out of his mind. The only thing that seems to distract him is fighting crime. Meanwhile, from her prison cell, Poison Ivy sends Batman a gift of a pocket mirror that she made in the machine shop. He gazes into the mirror and keeps thinking of her promise that he will set her free. The Caped Crusader has to smash the mirror to break the spell.

Poison Ivy hears about the mirror and fakes sickness, dying of a broken heart, in order to be moved to the prison hospital, but when Batman pays a visit she reveals that her hairs contain explosives! Batman carries her out to freedom in order to prevent her from blowing up the hospital. She and her goons take Batman for a ride, blowing up the police cars that are in pursuit and putting the Dark Knight to sleep with a jab of "bye-bye syrup." Back at her hideout, Ivy keeps Batman on a leash and he fights back with a hunger strike. After days of this, she brings an IV tube to force feed him but he fights back, aided by Robin, who appears out of nowhere. The Dynamic Duo quickly defeat Poison Ivy and she returns to jail.

The publishing schedule must have been getting close to catching up to the hit TV show, since the TV screen on the cover shows the TV Batman logo, while in "A Touch of Poison Ivy," Batman watches TV in the last panel but only sees Poison Ivy in her cell. I enjoyed the campy story, though it represents unusual behavior for Batman, something we've been seeing more and more of recently. Bruce Wayne certainly gets around, doesn't he? In the space of one page, he goes on dates with Trina ("as delicious as angel cake"), Vickie (they "make beautiful music together"), and Gilda (whose kiss "will break any thermometer").

In the middle of knocking around some goons in a waterfront warehouse, Batman falls through a trap door and finds himself stuck on a gooey net suspended above the river. A voice taunts him; a crook he sent to jail five years before will leave Batman to drown as the tide comes in. Above, in the warehouse, a substitute Batman joins the Boy Wonder and complains of a twisted ankle. Robin recognizes the fake right away and drives him to the auxiliary Batcave, where Batman relaxes in front of the TV. Robin heads off in the Batmobile and watches on closed-circuit TV as the fake Batman sets a bomb to blow up the hideout. Robin discovers another bomb under the hood and dismantles it before trailing the faux-Dark Knight back to the waterfront warehouse. Fake Batman is surprised to encounter the real Batman, who is alive and kicking. Their fistfight ends as expected and Batman explains to Robin how he escaped a watery grave.


"Batman's Baffling Turnabout!" scrapes the bottom of the barrel. There's yet another reference to watching TV, and Robin uses the "Bat-Noculars" to watch the duplicate Caped Crusader, something that sounds suspiciously like an influence from the TV show, which always featured "Bat-This" and "Bat-That." I must admit that I did not notice that the fake Batman's chest emblem was old style, missing the yellow oval around the bat, which is how Robin knew right away that he was a phony. In the last panel, Batman refers to his "New Look," a touch that is a bit meta. The best thing about this issue is the cover. Again.-Jack

Peter-The script for "A Touch of Poison Ivy!" is so awful it's hard to believe it was written by Big Bob Kanigher. The faux hip lingo almost made my eyes bleed; particularly egregious was Robin's "Big Daddy" nickname for Batman. At no time, in no place, should a teenage boy call a grown man "Big Daddy!" Where's Wertham when he's really needed? The entire affair has a camp sheen to it that I'm positive isn't accidental. So many panels in this one made me cringe. "Baffling Turnabout!" is just as dopey but at least it's entertaining. Odd that we never find out who the faux-Bats is. Is this the first appearance of Bat-Cave II? Never knew there was a second hideout until now. Property taxes must be a nightmare for Wayne.

Next Week...
More Ditko Sci-Fi!

Thursday, January 23, 2025

The Hitchcock Project-The Motive by Rose Simon Kohn [3.17]

by Jack Seabrook

"The Motive," which aired on CBS on Sunday, January 26, 1958, is the first of two episodes credited to writer Rose Simon Kohn (1901-1985). Unlike the second, "The Morning After," which is based on a short story by Henry Slesar, this teleplay is original.

Kohn began her writing career as a playwright and the earliest play I have found attributed to her dates to 1936. She wrote several more in the years that followed, including one that was produced on Broadway in 1943, and two films were based on her work. From 1954 to 1959, a handful of TV episodes were either based on her stories, written by her, or co-written by her; the two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents represent her last credits. She also had a pair of short stories published in digests in the late 1950s.

"The Motive" is an outstanding half-hour show, well acted, well directed, and with an ending so unexpected that the viewer is compelled to go back over the story to confirm how a trap could have been so carefully laid. The show opens with two young businessman and a young woman, who may be a secretary, relaxing after work in the living room of one of the men, Tommy Greer. All are drunk and continue to drink as Richard, the other man, prods Tommy to explain his theory to Sandra, the woman.

Greer displays a large chart he has made that tracks the number of murders in 1957 and so far in January 1958, along with the number that have been solved and those where a motive is known. Richard remarks sarcastically that Tommy's chart will prove that "'a motiveless killing is a hundred to one shot.'" Sandra leaves and the men continue to discuss Tommy's theory, with Greer claiming that Richard got him started on his hobby. Tommy's research has led him to the conclusion that "'perfect murder is a cinch if you have no reason for committing it,'" but Richard continues to goad his friend, who reminds Richard that he was the one who told Tommy to get a hobby to get Marion, the ex-wife who left him, off of his mind.

Skip Homeier as Tommy
Richard accuses Tommy of going overboard again, pointing out that the young man still has a closet full of Marion's dresses, as well as her record album and a book of photographs. Richard also remarks offhandedly that, before Marion left Tommy, she had chosen Tommy over Richard. Asking his friend how he knows that the murders on the chart were motiveless, Richard points out that all that Tommy knows for sure is that the police were unable to uncover a motive for each crime. Richard drunkenly challenges Tommy to prove his own theory by committing a motiveless murder.

The pair take a crowded elevator down to the building's lobby, continuing their discussion in the lobby bar. In the lobby, Richard sees a bank of telephone books near a phone booth; he chooses the Chicago phone book, opens to a page at random, closes his eyes, and points to the name and address of Jerome Stanton, whom he calls a "'sacrificial lamb picked by the finger of fate to be your victim.'" Tommy tears out the page and Richard suggests killing Stanton with a blow to his cervical vertebra.

Although Richard and Tommy spend the first half of the episode drunk, when the second half opens, it is the next day and they are sober. Richard joins Tommy at a busy restaurant for lunch and, when Tommy brings up the idea of murdering Stanton, Richard says that he was "'stoned last night'" and recalls little of what was discussed. Richard remarks that he has to leave to go to a convention for a couple of days and Tommy writes the word "Chicago" on a menu in big letters.

William Redfield as Richard
There is a dissolve to Tommy in a Chicago hotel room; a bellboy brings him a city map and he quickly locates Ridgely Road, where Stanton resides. There is another dissolve to Tommy walking down that very road, past suburban homes. When he sees Stanton's house, #1661, he hurries off. Later, back in his hotel room, Tommy telephones Stanton's house and speaks to a maid who tells him that his target is not at home. Tommy pretends to be conducting a poll and asks about Stanton's favorite TV program.

That evening, Tommy visits Stanton's home, where the man is alone and welcomes him inside. Greer and Stanton go into Stanton's study, where Stanton confirms that they will have twenty uninterrupted minutes together since his wife is at the movies. Tommy, wearing glasses and looking studious, explains that he is engaged in a research project to determine if emotional traits can be assigned to a specific gender. He sets out buttons, a needle and thread, and a hammer, and Stanton obligingly begins to sew a button on a handkerchief while answering a series of questions.

When the questions end, Tommy asks Stanton to take a tape measure, get down on all fours on the floor, and open the tape measure near Tommy's foot. Tommy calmly picks up the hammer and hits Stanton in the back of the head, offscreen, killing him instantly. Quickly gathering everything up, Tommy rushes out and catches a bus; back at his apartment, he adds to the lines on his chart tracing the number of murders and those without a motive.

The next morning, a bellboy brings Tommy the morning newspaper and he pores over it as Richard enters from the apartment across the hall. Tommy reads an article out loud about Stanton's murder and discovers that the police have a suspect: it seems that Mrs. Marion Stanton told the police that her former husband, Tommy Greer, must have discovered that she left him for Stanton and killed the man. Tommy realizes what he has done and Richard coolly admits that he knew that Marion had married Stanton and that he planned the whole thing as revenge against both men for stealing his girl. Tommy gets angry and attacks Richard, who pulls away and opens the door to admit the police, who enter and take Tommy away. The show ends with Richard, alone in Tommy's apartment, gloating over his success and throwing Tommy's chart on the floor before the screen fades to black.

Carl Betz as Stanton
The ending of "The Motive" is such a surprise that it is worth re-watching the episode to see how Richard pulled it off and whether everything holds up when one knows the truth. Assuming Richard was pretending to be drunk in the first half of the show, one sees that it was he who brought up Marion in conversation, admitting that she chose Tommy over him. At the time it seems like an offhand remark, but in the end it turns out to be the reason for everything that follows.

In the lobby, it is Richard who chooses the Chicago phone book, seemingly at random. We don't see him open it to a particular page, but he closes his eyes and appears to point to a name by chance; he clearly had this all planned in advance. When Tommy gets to Chicago, he walks by Stanton's home and we see that it is in a suburban neighborhood. Having a maid answer Tommy's call seems to suggest a level of wealth inconsistent with the home's exterior, but a maid has to answer for the story to work: Stanton is at work in the middle of the day and, if his wife answered the phone, Tommy would recognize his ex-wife's voice and the plan would fail. 

One puzzling aspect of "The Motive" is where Tommy and Richard live. It looks like Tommy has an apartment on an upper floor of an apartment building in a city that might be New York, yet when he and Richard take the elevator, it is very crowded, as is the building's lobby, which has a bar. Both the elevator and the lobby seem like they are in a hotel and the fact that a bellboy brings Tommy the newspaper in the morning seems more like what would happen in a hotel than an apartment building. For the pieces of the story to fall into place, there needs to be a reason to have telephone books from other cities in the lobby.

Another question that springs to mind is how Tommy could not know where Marion is and to whom she is married if he is so obsessed with her that he keeps her dresses in his closet even after enough time has passed for them to be divorced and her to have remarried. Perhaps time has stood still for Tommy and he does not want to know how Marion has moved on, hoping instead that she will walk back into his life as if she never left.

Carmen Phillips as Sandra
The attitude toward women shared by the men in "The Motive" is troubling when seen today, but it may not have been so unusual in 1958. In the first scene, Sandra is little more than window dressing, seeming to be a secretary having drinks with two of her male colleagues after work; she looks at her watch and sees that it is almost seven p.m. right before she leaves. A woman near the phone booth asks to use the Chicago phone book and is portrayed as a nuisance, while Marion, around whom the entire episode rotates, is never seen, but is presumably so desirable that she is worth committing murder over. Finally, when Tommy and Stanton are chatting and Tommy is pretending to conduct a survey, they share a laugh about the idea that women could be "'logical.'" "The Motive" portrays a man's world, with its two lead characters seeming like they would fit well in the milieu of the TV series Mad Men. Is it any surprise that this episode was written by a woman, whose male characters seem to display so many unlikeable traits?

Of course, the murder is impossibly clean and simple, the type of uncomplicated, instant killing that was familiar to viewers of the time and that Hitchcock would later discredit in the famous murder scene in the kitchen in Torn Curtain. "The Motive" is an excellent episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, moving swiftly from start to finish, entertaining, and with a truly surprising conclusion. This was one of the 49 episodes of the Hitchcock series that Robert Stevens (1920-1989) directed; he won an Emmy for "The Glass Eye."

Starring as Tommy is Skip Homeier (1930-2017), who was born George Vincent Homeier and who began his acting career as a child on radio and successfully navigated his way through growing up on camera into a long career as an adult. He appeared in films from 1944 to 1982 and on TV from 1950 to 1982; he was on The Outer Limits, two episodes of Star Trek, and one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Momentum."

William Redfield (1927-1976) plays the devious Richard. On Broadway from 1936 and on screen from 1939, Redfield appeared in Fantastic Voyage (1966) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and he was seen on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including "The Greatest Monster of Them All." He also played Felix Unger's brother Floyd in a memorable episode of The Odd Couple.

The affable but doomed Jerome Stanton is played with good humor by Carl Betz (1921-1978), who would soon become famous as Donna Reed's husband on The Donna Reed Show (1958-1966). Betz was on screen from 1952 to 1977, mostly on TV, and also appeared on Night Gallery. He was in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "On the Nose."

Finally, Carmen Phillips (1937-2022) plays Sandra, who appears in the first scene. On screen from 1958 to 1969, she had a bit part in Marnie (1964); her role in "The Motive" was her first credit. She was in four episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, including "Consider Her Ways."

Watch "The Motive" online here or order the DVD here.

Sources:

The FICTIONMAGS Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/0start.htm.

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

IBDB, www.ibdb.com.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

"The Motive." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 3, episode 17, CBS, 26 January 1958.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "Martha Mason, Movie Star" here!

In two weeks: "Total Loss," starring Nancy Olson and Ralph Meeker!