The Hitchcock Project-Diagnosis: Danger by Roland Kibbee [8.22]

by Jack Seabrook

"Diagnosis: Danger" aired on CBS on Friday, March 1, 1963, and is a good example of how The Alfred Hitchcock Hour had difficulty figuring out its identity during the first season. The show is written and produced by Roland Kibbee and it was the only episode he wrote for the series.

Roland Kibbee (1914-1984) started out writing for radio in the early 1930s, when he was still a teenager. He wrote for Fred Allen and Groucho Marx and served in the Air Force during WWII. He briefly acted on Broadway in the mid-1930s, but writing and producing were where he would make his mark. After the war, he began writing films, including A Night in Casablanca (1946) for the Marx Brothers, and in 1957 he also began writing for TV. He added the role of TV producer in 1960 and continued until the early 1980s, sharing Emmy Awards with other writers for the TV shows Columbo and Barney Miller.

Michael Parks as Dr. Dana

Perhaps Kibbee should have stuck to comedy, because "Diagnosis: Danger" is one of the weaker episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. It begins with a scene where a woman is driving a car with a pickup truck bed along a California highway. In the back, a man writhes in pain; he is very sick and clutches a bongo drum. A sign on the car door reads "The Harry Slater Sextet" and, as we will later learn, the sick man is Harry Slater. The woman driving also begins to show signs of illness and suddenly swerves to avoid hitting another car. As a result, the man is thrown from the back and rolls down a hill into a ditch, along with the bongo drum.

Charles McGraw as Dr. Oliver

The scene then shifts to the County Health office, where Dr. Dan Dana is summoned to see the chief, Dr. Simon Oliver. After giving an injection to a little girl who has been bitten by a rabid dog, Dana and a deputy sheriff named Judd head to the morgue, where the coroner is examining the body of Harry Slater. A look through a microscope confirms that the man died of anthrax and Dana quickly instructs everyone that they need to be given penicillin and to burn their clothes because the disease is deadly and fast-acting. Meanwhile, in the ditch beside the highway, a man cleaning up trash picks up the bongo drum and takes it with him.

Dr. Dana calls a news reporter named Huntziger and asks him to spread the word about the danger posed by anthrax, but Dr. Oliver grabs the phone and tells the reporter that Dana was mistaken. Oliver then delivers a heavy-handed lecture about the need to avoid creating a panic. Elsewhere in the city, the trash collector sits on a bench by the side of the street with the bongo drum next to him. Three young men pull up in a convertible and spy the drum, so one of them uses a fishing pole to hook the item and pull it into the car. More heavy-handed irony is displayed when the trash collector stands up and the bench is revealed to feature an advertisement for a funeral home.

Berkeley Harris as Deputy Sheriff Judd

A police sergeant named Boyle finds the vehicle that Slater fell out of, abandoned on the side of the road, and sees evidence that the musician had been returning from a trip. Huntziger, the reporter, shows up and realizes that Dana's report of anthrax was correct. Outside a bar, the trio of young men wait for a drunk to emerge so that they can rob him. One of the men is named Gordie and he passes the time by playing the bongo drum. The episode's best sequence follows, as Gordie and one of his cohorts, Doug, attack the drunk in an alley and the viewer only sees the attack in intermittent shadows on an alley wall due to a light that blinks on and off. The scene is silent but features an appropriately jazzy score by Lyn Murray. The third young man, Alf, chose not to participate in the attack and is left behind by Gordie and Doug.

Douglas Henderson as Huntziger

At the health office, Oliver, who represents the establishment, explains to Dana, the angry young man, why he kept the anthrax story out of the news. Both men rush to the county hospital, where the trash collector has died of pulmonary anthrax. Dana tries to interrogate his widow, who is in shock, and Judd, the deputy sheriff, realizes that the dead man must have picked up something contaminated at the site where Slater's body was found. Meanwhile, Gordie and Doug are relaxing by the ocean, starting to feel sick and worrying that Alf might turn them in to the police.

Sergeant Boyle tracks down Helen Fletcher, a married woman who was driving the vehicle that Slater fell out of. She had also been sick but was cured by antibiotics given by an old doctor who did not realize that she had anthrax. Dana visits her at her home and, while she is initially resistant to admitting anything out of fear that her husband will learn of her affair, she eventually confesses to Dana that she spent the weekend with Slater in Mexico, where he bought a bongo drum from a street corner peddler. The drum was made from the hide of a dead burro, the source of the outbreak.

Hellena Westcott as Helen Fletcher

As Oliver finally tells a newscaster to spread the word to the public, Dana finds another victim at the hospital--the drunk who was attacked by Gordie and Doug. Dana is called to the morgue, where Doug's body is found to have anthrax, and he realizes that he needs to find Gordie. The police break down the door of Alf's house and Dana interrogates the very sick young man in order to find out Gordie's location. Dana and Judd then go to Devil's Cove, where Gordie tries to hold them at bay with shots from a rifle. He retreats into a cave and then onto the beach, while Dana uses his foot to push the bongo drum into a campfire, eliminating the source of the outbreak. After Dana and Judd catch up with Gordie, the final scene finds Dana in a police car with Judd and Oliver, who tells Dana that he'll be back at work the next morning.

Marc Cavell as Alf

Unlike most episodes of the Hitchcock TV show, "Diagnosis: Danger" features no twist ending and has very little suspense. The story is dull, the direction is uninspired, and the acting is second rate. The musical score by Lyn Murray mostly distracts from the events onscreen, except for the brief scene in the alley where it fits the action.

In The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion, director Sydney Pollack comments that this episode was meant to be a pilot for another series, one that never materialized. It's puzzling that the crew of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour would be enlisted to make a pilot, especially when this episode seems so unlike most other episodes. What would the new series have been about? Presumably, it would have featured the adventures of Dr. Dana and the rest of the men and women of the county health department, though it's hard to imagine that they could have faced a serious crisis week after week.

"Diagnosis: Danger" was directed by Sydney Pollack (1934-2008), who had a long and successful career as a director and sometimes an actor. He began as a TV director from 1961 to 1965, then switched to movies from 1965 to 2005, winning an Oscar for Out of Africa (1985). He directed two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, neither of which is very good. His other episode is the Cornell Woolrich adaptation, "The Black Curtain."

Gus Trikonis as Gordie

Starring as Dr. Dan Dana is Michael Parks (1940-2017), whose career onscreen began in 1960 and continued until his death. He starred in the TV series Then Came Bronson (1969-1970) and also had a singing career. He played Jean Renault on Twin Peaks (1990-1991) and was in both parts of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (2003-2004). "Diagnosis: Danger" was one of his early roles and displays unfortunate tendencies toward method acting.

In his only appearance on the Hitchcock TV series, Charles McGraw (1914-1980) plays Dr. Simon Oliver as a know-it-all establishment figure. Born Charles Butters, McGraw had a long career on film and TV from 1942 to 1977, appearing in such films as The Narrow Margin (1952) and Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), as well as on Thriller and in The Night Stalker TV movie. McGraw also starred in a couple of TV series in the mid-1950s: Adventures of the Falcon (1954-1956) and Casablanca (1955-1956). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Marc Rambeau as Doug

Berkeley Harris (1933-1984) plays Deputy Sheriff Judd; he was on screen from 1956 to 1981, mainly on TV, and this was one of his two appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; the other was "Wally the Beard."

Huntziger, the reporter, is played by Douglas Henderson (1919-1978), who served in the Marine Corps in WWII and who was on screen from 1944 to 1976. He was seen in three episodes of The Outer Limits and had a recurring role on The Wild Wild West as Colonel James Richmond, appearing in ten episodes between 1966 and 1969.

Clarke Gordon as Dr. Miller

Hellena Westcott (1928-1998), born Myrthas Helen Hickman, plays Helen Fletcher, the cheating wife. Westcott started out in vaudeville at age two and had a long career on screen from 1934 to 1977. She also appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Alf, the young man who decides not to participate in the attack on the drunk, is played by Marc Cavell (1939-2004), who was on screen from 1949 to 1978. He appeared in Cool Hand Luke (1967) and on many TV shows, including The Twilight Zone, Thriller, two episodes of Batman, and one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "I Saw the Whole Thing."

Gordie, who engages in the standoff with Dana and Judd at the end of the show, is played by Gus Trikonis (1937- ), who acted on screen from 1961 to 1968 before switching careers and becoming a director from 1969 to 1983.

Stefan Gierasch as Sgt. Boyle

The third member of the trio, Doug, is played by Marc Rambeau (1942-1985), who had a brief TV career from 1962 to 1966 that included three appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; one of the others was "Death of a Cop."

Clarke Gordon (1918-2004) plays Dr. Miller, the coroner. He was on radio, appeared on Broadway, and was on screen in a career that lasted from 1946 to 1993.

Finally, Sergeant Boyle is played by Stefan Gierasch (1926-2014), who trained at the Actors Studio and played countless roles on screen between 1951 and 2009, including a role in the 1980s remake of "Breakdown" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Watch "Diagnosis: Danger" online here. It is not available on U.S. DVD.

Sources:

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

"Diagnosis: Danger." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 1, episode 22, CBS, 1 March 1963.

IBDB, www.ibdb.com.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Old Time Radio Downloads, www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

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

In two weeks: "Final Arrangements," starring Martin Balsam!

Batman in the 1960s Issue 36: November/December 1965

 

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

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #345

"The Blockbuster Invasion of Gotham City!

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

After a wonderful day off in his cabin cruiser goes awry, Bruce Wayne finds himself diving into the swirling sea, thankful that he saw a well-placed deserted island off to the right. He swims ashore and is immediately (and I do mean immediately) taken aback by cries for help. He follows the pleas to a nearby quicksand pit (!), where he finds a troubled lad up to his neck in muck.

Bruce reaches out a stick and pulls the kid out of the sand. He puts a warm arm around his shoulder and walks him inland, where he stumbles over the youngster's worried brother, Desmond. Bruce spends the night and is given a fond farewell by Desmond in the morning.

Months later, Batman and Robin answer a call to arms from the laziest laid-back bunch of donut shovelers

in the DC Uni, the Gotham police. While Commissioner Gordon is off at the local golf course, the boys in blue are investigating a gaping hole in the wall of a bank. One of the cops relates a startling story: they arrived, powdered sugar marring their wrinkle-free uniforms, and observed a violent, red-headed goliath busting through the bank wall and, minutes later, emerging with knapsacks of $$. Bullets only slowed the behemoth down a bit before he escaped into the Gotham night. Could Batman please take this case off their hands?

Robin tells the press that, sight unseen, the giant fought like a "Blockbuster" and the moniker sticks. The Duo head back to the Cave and, again without even laying eyes on their new nemesis, build a set of Blockbuster-Bandit-Control-Gear ("Bling" for short) in case their paths should cross. Three nights later, the cops call and the Caped Crusaders arrive at the Tolliver Art Gallery to find yet another gaping hole. They head inside to get a gander at Blockbuster and, for once, the hype is justified! None of their Bling works against the massive redhead and he quickly gets the best of them, hurling their forms at the cops, who were waiting outside the Gallery at the lunch wagon.

Batman decides that the only way to defeat this ogre is to trace him back to his lair. He instructs Gordon to lay off the next time his officers get a call about the giant (as if they were doing anything but...) and he and Robin will follow BB back to his secret hideout. They do just that and Bats is amazed to see that the trail leads back to the deserted island where he saved a young boy from death in quicksand. "Holy Cow!" exclaims the World's Greatest Detective, "This brute looks kinda sorta like the kid I saved!" 

A strange high frequency brings the copter down and the boys are reduced to running from the big lunk. Bats heads for Desmond's house, where BB conveniently breaks the door down for them. Bats disrobes and changes into the same clothes he was wearing when he landed on the island months before. He tells Robin to find Desmond, since he's sure the brother knows what's going on, and turns to run through the forest with the red-headed monster just a few feet behind.

Bruce jumps into the quicksand and attempts to dislodge a memory from BB's big head; could the behemoth remember being saved by this guy? Yep, he thrusts the same stick out to Bruce and pulls him from the sand. Meanwhile, Robin is laying into Desmond with a barrage of upper cuts and right crosses. Bruce arrives just in time to give the Boy Wonder the skinny. Desmond explains that his brother, Mark, was tired of having sand kicked in his face and wanted to be a big man, but the potion he concocted played havoc with his endocrine glands and he became a raging beast. 

The Dark Knight tells Robin that they need to grab Desmond and leave the island immediately. They do so, heading to Gotham, where they deposit Desmond in the pen. Bruce dresses as Desmond and the Duo head back to the island, hoping to fool BB into surrendering. No luck; they find the island empty, footprints in the sand leading into the sea.

"The Blockbuster Invasion..." isn't horrible but it sure is hokey. Once again, coincidence plays a big part in events that occur later. The scientific explanation Desmond gives the Duo about his brother's drastic change ("[Mark] worked out a serum that would affect certain endocrine glands to make him grow big and strong. But he was over-anxious--he never bothered to test his discovery first! An over-active anterior lobe of the pituitary gland made him shoot up like a giant--with tremendous strength! But simultaneously, a faulty endocrine gland retarded his mental development...") made me spit my Diet Coke all over the page. Here we are thinking Desmond was just a puppet-master, making his brother commit evil crimes (and never explaining to us why), but he was just as much a medical genius as little Mark. We'll discover what happened to BB in 'tec #349.-Peter

Jack-I've never liked Blockbuster as a villain. He just fights and grunts. This is his first appearance and there's too much fighting and too little story. The art by Infantino and Giella is competent but I'd rather see their every other month Batman story be something more interesting.

Infantino/Giella

Batman #175

"The Decline and Fall of Batman"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

While out on a hike with his pals, Dick Grayson's photo is snapped in front of the Old Carver Place. When he develops the film, Dick notices the figure of Robin, The Boy Wonder, standing in a window of the house! With Batman away on a case with the Justice League, Dick suits up to investigate and heads to the old house, where he is interrupted by the arrival of the Cowled Crusader, who speaks not a word but delivers a sock to Robin's jaw!

The real Batman returns and finds a note from Robin that says he was going to the Old Carver Place. Batman follows and finds Robin nursing a sore jaw. The Teen Thunderbolt wonders if a ghost Batman and Robin are on the loose.

Meanwhile, at his hideout, Steve Jobs Eddie Repp demonstrates his new invention: an electronic keyboard that allows him to control holograms of Batman and Robin. He came up with the idea in prison when he saw ghostly images on a TV screen. Repp figures out how to have the holograms become solid with the press of a key on his keyboard and he sends them out to capture criminals at a rapid clip!

Soon, the real Dynamic Duo witness the fake Dynamic Duo defeating evildoers faster and more efficiently than the real Dynamic Duo ever could and then fading away like ghosts. Batman and Robin's reaction is to feel embarrassment and jealousy! Batman invents some radioactive powder that, in addition to possibly causing temporary paralysis, will stick to the duplicates and make them easy to follow. This brilliant plan fails because powder doesn't stick to ghosts! Gleeful that he has broken the spirit of Batman and Robin, Repp now plans to wreck them physically.

Batman catches up with his duplicate, but the all-too-solid hologram nearly beats the real thing senseless. The next step for Repp is to have holographic crooks start robbing banks, which is also a great success. Batman and Robin encounter the crooks after they have stolen emeralds from a yacht and the battle goes as badly as have all of the others. This time, however, Batman sprinkled some radioactive dust on the solid loot and he and Robin follow the trail to Repp's lair.

"I would have gotten away with it if it
weren't for those meddling kids."

Repp's plan to have the holographic crooks battle the Dynamic Duo quickly fails when Repp is temporarily paralyzed by the radioactive dust after touching the stolen loot. Batman and Robin cart him off to the pokey and resume their nightly bashing of robbers with glee. About ten years later, Repp is fully rehabilitated and founds Apple with Bruce Wayne's cousin Ronald.

After a great cover, the 24 pages drawn by Moldoff and Giella are an artistic disappointment. Repp resembles a Scooby Doo villain. The story is the usual fight, talk, fight, but the concept of using an electronic keyboard to create holograms is ahead of its time. Leave it to the old sci-fi pulpsmith to come up with this invention! The only thing about "The Decline and Fall of Batman" that has not yet come to pass, as far as I know, is the ability of the holograms to go back and forth from a solid state. In that way, they're like Marvel's Vision character, who had the same ability.-Jack

Peter-I'm finding these one-and-done villain stories to be intellectually draining (and if you knew how limited my intellect is...), as if Gardner can't get it up for any support character other than the Rogues. This art is truly bottom of the barrel and I can't imagine Julie got the finals and thought otherwise. The four-page expository is especially numbing; I love how Repp is in the big house but they allow him to wear a suit. Repp's reign of embarrassing the Caped Crusaders goes on for, it seems, months and I don't really get the point in the first place. Foil the good deeds of Batman and Robin? What a super revenge plot!

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #346

"Batman's Inescapable Doom-Trap!"

Story by John Broome

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

A series of odd robberies has the World's Greatest Detective stumped. Why would a thief steal exactly $100,000 and not a penny more? Well, boys and girls, Batman isn't reading this inane script, but I am so I can tell you why.

Seems the "World-Famous Magician and Escape Artist," the Great Carnado, has an evil genius building his stage props for him. Yes, Eivol Ekdal charges Carnado exactly $100,000 for each prop and they are worth every greenback. But now Ekdal has thrown a slider at Carnado; he's created a prop that has no escape plan!

"Well, how the hell can I use the f*$#in' thing?!" exclaims Carnado, twirling his sinister mustache and staring at the huge plexiglass square. "Simple," sighs Evel, "we trap Batman in the box and watch how he does it!" Plan plotted, Carnado heads out to rob the Herald Loan Company, knowing Batman and Robin will be driving by on night duty. Carnado deliberately makes a heck of a racket and, sure enough, B&R arrive to investigate.

Disguised so that no one could possibly recognize him, Carnado throws a punch at Bats and ensures his interest. The magician exits stage left and races home where he's set up the plexiglass tomb. Batman stumbles into the trap and Carnado and Ekdal explain that a deadly gas will be pumped into the box and Bats must use any means necessary to escape... or perish!

The Caped Crusader deduces that scratching his utility belt across the box's electrified grate will, with the aid of the gas, create an explosion. Hoping his quick math is correct and that he won't blow himself to hell, the Dark Knight goes to work and, seconds later, the trap goes ka-blooey! Not waiting around to count the Bat-pieces, Carnado and Ekdal call the experiment a success and head back to Gotham.

Next day, after reading of the explosion in the Gotham Tattler and finding no mention of blood 'n' guts, Ekdal surmises that the Batman is alive and will soon be coming after the bad guys. Brilliantly, the mad scientist calls two underworld hoods and assures them that, for a hundred thousand bucks, he can deliver Batman to them. The hoods, having just that amount lying around, are happy to pay the finder's fee. Ekdal has the two hoods hide in his lab and, soon after, Batman and Robin burst through the door. 

Immediately smelling a trap, Bats tells Robin to hit the deck and the boys barely miss being ventilated. They make quick work of the mob hoods and then slap the cuffs on Ekdal and Carnado. Bail for each is set at, you guessed it, $100,000. Carnado smiles at Ekdal and says "Relax, the Joker was out in six months and he murdered half the Women's League with Smilex. We'll be out in no time!"

As Jack notes below, this installment was an inspiration for two of the better season one episodes of the '66 show. This comic book story is not one of the better strips of 1965, that's for sure. This is about as juvenile as it gets (bring back aliens and taking gorillas, please!), with Carnado's motives extremely suspect. One, if he's the most popular magician in the world, why does he have to steal the dough for Ekdal; and two, why not steal a little bit over the hundred grand for a rainy day? Carnado wastes valuable time in the vaults counting out one hundred thousand bucks!

I was, to say the least, a bit skeptical about Carnado's magnificent disguise when he's trapping Batman and, ostensibly, wanting to have a career post-armed robberies. Some skin-colored wax to cover his Snidely Whiplash mustache and a grey wig? Well, then I remembered this is the DC Universe, where no one connects the dots from Dick Grayson to Robin or Clark Kent to Superman. But my favorite element of the strip would have to be Eivol Ekdal, who immediately brought to mind the old Monster Scenes Dr. Deadly model. Brilliant!-Peter

Jack-After reading this story I went back to the blog post covering "Zelda the Great" and "A Death Worse Than Fate" to see how the TV version of this story compared to the print version. It looks like they had a lot in common, though the comic book sadly lacks the cliffhanger with Aunt Harriet dangling over a vat of boiling oil. Aunt Harriet has been little used to date in the comics; I wonder why her role was so much bigger in the TV shows?

Various Artists

Batman #176

"The Parasols of Plunder"

Story by Bill Woolfolk

Art by Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Batman #70, May 1952)

"The Fox, the Shark, and the Vulture"

Story by Dave Wood

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Detective Comics #253, March 1958)

"The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero"

Story by Dave Wood

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Batman #121, February 1959)

"Catwoman's Grasshopper Chase"

Story by Al Schwartz

Art by Jack Burnley, Fred Ray & Win Mortimer

(Reprinted from the Batman syndicated newspaper strip, April 28, 1946-June 16, 1946)

"The Caveman at Large"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Batman #102, September 1956)

"The Challenge of the Calendar Man"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Detective Comics #259, September 1958)

"The Joker's Utility Belt!"

Story by David Vern

Art by Dick Sprang & Charles Paris

(Reprinted from Batman #73, November 1952)

I remember this issue's cover because I used to own a copy of Batman #176. There are a few highlights inside, the first of which is "The Parasols of Plunder," an entertaining story with the Penguin and some nice old-fashioned Bat art. The GCD credits Kane with the figures; I don't know if that's true, but if it is, he was darn good. I suspect Lew Sayre Schwartz drew the whole thing.

"The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero," despite the uninspired art by Moldoff and Paris, introduces the villain we'd come to know as Mr. Freeze and includes a scene where Batman and Robin are traveling on jet-powered skates for some unexplained reason.

As in the last giant issue, there's a sequence of Batman Sunday pages from the 1940s newspaper strip that is a delight. This time it follows Catwoman's exploits and includes a hilarious section where Batman and Robin go undercover as a Southern plantation owner and his daughter, Lulu Belle, a mischievous little girl with blond braids who is actually Robin in disguise!

Finally, "The Joker's Utility Belt!" is a fine finish to the issue with terrific art by the great Dick Sprang. Well worth a quarter!-Jack

Peter-The scripts might be loony (how about, Mr. Warden, you make the Penguin's release dependent on his abandoning the love of umbrellas rather than birds?) but the art is exquisite in many of these adventures. Even Moldoff seems to have still had excitement for his craft.  My personal fave this time around would be "The Fox, the Shark, and the Vulture," combining dazzling visuals with a great science fiction-based strip. Add to that the looniness of three grown men wandering around with huge, cumbersome helmets. Give me more!

In an age before comic book stores, Masterwork reprints and (especially) digital files, these twice-yearly Giant Batmans must have been heaven on Earth for funny book readers. I can visualize teenage Jack Seabrook strolling down to Marge's Newsstand in 1965 for his fifty cents of nirvana.

Infantino/Anderson

Batman #177

"Two Batmen Too Many!"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"The Art Gallery of Rogues!"

Story by John Broome

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

Ed "Numbers" Garvey stole the Kimber gem collection and is certain that Batman is waging psychological warfare against him in an effort to make him confess. Numbers sees Bats and Bat symbols everywhere! Escaping to his mountain lodge, he sees bats fly out of a cavern and explores the interior, where he sees two clay figures--one big and one little. His torchlight reflects off of a crystal mounted on the ceiling and the clay figures come to life; one is a very big Batman and the other is a very small Batman, both of whom call him master and await his commands.

Numbers plays a joke on his fellow crooks by leading the Batmen to the crooks' hideout; some punches are exchanged before Numbers reveals the truth. He orders his Bat-slaves to find and destroy Batman but they respond that, because Batman fights evil, they can't obey any evil command. The little Batman adds that his powers must be recharged by placing a blue-white gem to his forehead and Numbers obliges. Numbers then tricks little Batman into helping him rob the Bangle Bros. Carnival, but the real Dynamic Duo show up mid-theft and the plan fails. For some reason, Batman lets the hoods get away.

Back at the hideout, Numbers has to hold an emerald to big Batman's forehead to recharge his juices. The crooks then knock out the fake Batmen and unmask them as Elongated Man and the Atom. It seems Numbers was suspicious and used a fake ruby as a test. Just as the Atom is about to be unmasked, Batman and Robin burst in, knock out the other hoods, and catch Numbers before he can escape. Batman spends several panels explaining that the whole setup was a ruse to trick Numbers into revealing the location of the Kimber gem collection and, after some quick deductions, Batman locates the missing jewels.

"Two Batmen Too Many" is an overly complicated story that is dragged down by the artwork. I'm not sure why Batman felt the need to go to such lengths to locate the stolen loot. What ever happened to a good old rubber hose and harsh lights at the police station? It's awfully sporting of Elongated Man and Atom to go along with this nonsense.

Bruce and Dick are driving across a bridge when they hear a cry from the water below and spy a damsel in distress! Bruce does a high dive and saves the gal, leaving quickly to avoid unwanted publicity, but an article in the paper the next day praises the millionaire hero and plugs the Alfred Foundation. Bruce realizes that the whole thing was orchestrated by PR man Roy Rennie, who had tried to get Bruce to hire him to do publicity for the foundation.

Bruce speaks to the girl, Marylene Haworth, and confirms that Rennie hired her to pretend to drown when Bruce's car passed overhead. Bruce and Dick head to Rennie's place, where they find the publicist unconscious. Switching to their Batman and Robin outfits, the Dynamic Duo investigate and find a clue that leads them to the Lathrop Art Gallery. At the gallery, they gaze at the modern paintings by James Porter and encounter a nervous Lathrop.

That evening, Batman and Robin return to the gallery, where they are attacked by a pair of hoods. Pages of fisticuffs ensue with the usual result. Inside, they confront Lathrop, who has a gun. Batman knocks him out and, when the cops come, the Cowled Crusader explains it all to Commissioner Gordon. Lathrop stole the paintings from a talented young artist and passed them off as the work of someone else in order to get a large grant from the Alfred Foundation. Bruce and Dick visit Rennie and tell him that, as a reward for being knocked out, they'll hire him to do publicity after all!

Sid Greene manages to get a slightly better result from Moldoff's pencils than Joe Giella did in this issue's first story, and "The Art Gallery of Rogues" is a tad more straightforward and less far-fetched than the story that precedes it, but that hardly qualifies as praise. The New Look is seeming pretty similar to the Old Look at this point.-Jack

The teenaged tornado has a point.

Peter-"Two Batmen Too Many" is one too many scripts in two months that deals with multiple Batguys. Ed "Numbers" Garvey is just like every other small-thinking small-time hood in Gotham who stumbles onto unlimited power and has no idea how to use it. His big heist? A carnival! The reveal, that the Batman staged the whole thing, right down to the landslide, exposed cave, and disguised superheroes, is the biggest load of hooey since the "death" of Alfred. 

And talk about far-fetched. How about Roy Rennie having an actress ready to jump in the river while seemingly assured that a spoiled billionaire would leap off Gotham Bridge to rescue her? Not a great publicity stunt if your boss breaks his neck in the dive. Count me officially checked out of this decade until Neal shows up.

Since most of these 1965 adventures do nothing for me, I pay attention to the little details. You can tell. My goal is to discover the exact issue when Julie proclaimed that badly-drawn henchmen would no longer wear suits, ties and hats. I'll sound the alarm when the big day comes.

Next Week...
Travel Back With Us To
The Summer of '56 For
24 More Tales of Wonder!

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

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 110

June 1956 Part IV

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Uncanny Tales #44

Cover by Carl Burgos

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

(r: Uncanny Tales #2)

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

(r: Dead of Night #2)

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

"Beyond Belief!" (a: Harry Lazarus) ★

(r: Weird Wonder Tales #4)

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

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

(r: Dead of Night #2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World of Mystery #1

Cover by Bill Everett

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

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

"Man Hunt!" (a: Bob Powell) ★

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World of Suspense #2

Cover by Joe Maneely

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

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

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

"Hiding Place" (a: Lou Cameron) ★★1/2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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