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

by Jack Seabrook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carole Eastman

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

William Schallert

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

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

Robert Duvall and David Lewis

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Peter Enfantino

& Jack Seabrook

Detective #401 (July 1970)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this move possible?

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

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

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

Batman #223 (July/August 1970)

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

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


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

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

Of course! How simple!

Detective #402 (August 1970)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Batman #224 (August 1970)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOME ADVERTISING HIGHLIGHTS FROM 1970

DC ad: bad news for MU professors in 1970

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

by Jack Seabrook

& Peter Enfantino

                                                       Detective Comics #399 (May 1970)

"Death Comes to a Small, Locked Room"

written by Denny O'Neil

art by Bob Brown & Joe Giella

"Panic by Moonglow"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

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

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

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

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

Gil Kane!

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

Batman thinks very hard!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Batman #221 (May 1970)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack: At least give DC points for trying!

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

Detective Comics #400 (June 1970)


"Challenge of the Man-Bat"

written by Frank Robbins

art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

"A Burial for Batgirl"

written by Denny O'Neil

art by Gil Kane & Vince Colletta

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

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

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

Our first look at Man-Bat!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Batman #222 (June 1970)

"Dead . . . Till Proven Alive!"

written by Frank Robbins
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

"Case of No Consequence!"

written by Mike Friedrich
art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Jack Seabrook

Diana Dors as Irene

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

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

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

Angel and Devil?

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

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

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

Hugo the Great

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

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

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

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

Larry Kert as George

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:


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

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

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

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

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

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