Fredric Brown on TV Part Seven - Tales from the Darkside: The Geezenstacks

by Jack Seabrook

    “The Geezenstacks” was the first of three Fredric Brown stories to appear in Weird Tales (September 1943).  The others were “Come and Go Mad” (July 1949) and “The Last Train” (January 1950).  In “The Geezenstacks,” nine-year-old Aubrey Walters is a normal little girl whose Uncle Richard gives her a box of four dolls that he found on the sidewalk after they seemed to have fallen from nowhere.

    Aubrey names the dolls The Geezenstacks, the four of them corresponding to herself, her parents, and her uncle.  Her parents buy her a doll house, and all is well until Sam, her father, begins to notice that what happens to The Geezenstacks happens to his real family soon after.  Sam wonders if his daughter is clairvoyant, but as the coincidences begin to pile up, he becomes obsessed with the dolls, alarming his wife and her brother.

    Edith, his wife, decides to give the dolls away, and Sam panics when Aubrey decides to play funeral.  The family decides on an evening out, and Edith gives the dolls to an old woman who happens to pass by in the back hall—the old woman “looked like a witch.”  The family takes a taxi, enveloped in fog, and the driver goes too fast.  The driver is a woman, and when she turns, Edith screams.

    The story ends there, on a note of weird menace.  Was the taxi driver the woman who received the dolls?  Was she a witch?  It’s not clear, but what is clear is that the end is not a good one for Sam’s family.

    “The Geezenstacks” has been collected many times, including in Nightmares and Geezenstacks (1961), The Best of Fredric Brown (1976), And the Gods Laughed (1987), and From These Ashes (2000).  It was adapted for television as the October 26, 1986 episode of the anthology series Tales From the Darkside, which ran in syndication from 1984-1988.

    The TV adaptation is faithful to the story up to a point.  Rather than finding the dolls in a box that mysteriously fell on the sidewalk, Uncle Richard finds them in an empty house that he is showing in his job as a real estate agent.  The house had been vacated suddenly and mysteriously, and all that remained inside was the large dollhouse with the spooky, old-fashioned dolls.

    Aubrey in the story becomes Audrey on TV, but Sam, Edith and Richard are much the same.  On being viewed today, the show suffers from the 1980s hairstyles and clothes, as well as from what appears to be low-budget, videotape production.  However, scenes end with interesting blackouts, and the score is unnerving, alternating between pizzicato plucking of violin strings and a more lush string arrangement toward the end.  The direction features many close-ups and successfully establishes a feeling of claustrophobia in the family’s home, as if they are in a doll house all along.

    The ending of the story is changed, and it actually works better on TV than does the ambiguous ending of the story.  In the show, the family awakens one morning to discover that they are now miniature dolls inside the doll house and that their home is otherwise empty.  Uncle Richard finds them, to his horror.  A second twist occurs when another real estate agent arrives on the scene to find a doll of Uncle Richard lying dead inside the doll house, next to another, even smaller doll house, which contains The Geezenstacks.

    “The Geezenstacks” stars Craig Wasson as Sam, looking exactly the same as he did in his starring role in Brian DePalma’s Body Double, two years before.  His wife is played by Tandy Cronyn, the unfortunately-named daughter of movie stars Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.  The teleplay is by Nancy Doyne, and the episode is directed by Bill Travis, who directed three other episodes of this series.  The evocative score is by Charlie Morrow, who now creates “sound design environments,” according to his website.

Sources:

Brown, Fredric. "The Geezenstacks." And the Gods Laughed. W. Bloomfield, MI: Phantasia, 1987. 421-30.

"The Geezenstacks." Tales From the Darkside.  DVD. 2010.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 29 May 2011.

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

The Caroline Munro Archive: Parade, July 1967 & August 1970

by John Scoleri

Welcome to the latest installment of another one of our semi-regular features on bare•bones, in which I feature rarities from my Caroline Munro collection. Once again we're featuring some very early Munro appearances in Parade magazine, at ages 17 and 20.

Parade
No. 1438
July 1st, 1967

CAROLINE MUNRO has only been in show busines a year, yet she has already cut her first disc and appeared in two films.

Parade
No. 1597
August 1st, 1970

Just Try Telling Her To Belt Up

You ain't gonna believe this, but that lush dish pictured right and left once had this thing about chastity belts. Well we think we should start right at the beginning.

Her name is Caroline Munro, and if you feel her face is a little familiar, then it probably means you've been to see a film called "Where's Jack?" which also starred Tommy Steele. Now for some reason or other which escapes us, Caroline just had to wear one of those durned steel girdles at the film's premiere, but of course, held onto the key. There was another one in existence just in case things got out of hand, and that was in the safe custody of Caroline's boy-friend.

Apart from taking part in such bizarre activities, this girl has also appeared in films with such stars as Richard Widmark and Topol.

Be sure to let me know if you'd like to see more of Caroline Munro in bare•bones!

Fredric Brown Lost Stories - Part One: "Compliments of a Fiend"

by Jack Seabrook

In the May 1945 issue of Thrilling Detective, the first story by Fredric Brown entitled "Compliments of a Fiend" was published.  This story was reworked and expanded into the novel, The Bloody Moonlight, published in 1949.  The Bloody Moonlight was the third novel to feature Brown's nephew and uncle detective team of Ed and Am Hunter.

The serial rights to The Bloody Moonlight were sold, and a condensed version of the novel was published in the November 1949 issue of Two Detective Mystery Novels magazine.

Meanwhile, Brown liked the title "Compliments of a Fiend" so much that he used it again for an entirely different story, the fourth novel in the Ed and Am Hunter series, Compliments of a Fiend, published in 1950.  The story follows young detective Ed Hunter, now living in Chicago and working with the Starlock Detective Agency, as he races against time to find out what happened to his missing uncle.

None of this information is new, and the stories and novels have been included in bibliographies of Brown's work and discussed in my book on Brown, Martians and Misplaced Clues.

What is new is the discovery of a previously-unknown magazine version of the novel Compliments of a Fiend, published in Two Complete Detective Books (March 1951).  This magazine was discovered by Philip Stephensen-Payne in the course of research for his upcoming reference work, The Crime Fiction Index .

Two Complete Detective Books is a very tame example of a pulp detective magazine.  The cover, while featuring gaudy colors, shows a scene that has a tenuous relationship to the book-length story contained in the magazine.  There is an illustration on the table of contents page, but the long story itself features no illustrations at all.  Even the advertisements are tame—they are mostly house ads or public service announcements.

                         

The condensed version of Compliments of a Fiend does not follow the 17-chapter format of the novel.  Instead, it is divided into seven sections, each of which combines two or three chapters from the book.  About three pages are cut from chapter one, while cuts from chapters two and three are each less than a page.

Important cuts begin in chapter four, where the last two pages are cut; they contain a conversation between Ed and his landlady about Estelle, a beautiful girl with feelings for Ed.  There is a big, jarring cut in chapter seven, where the last three pages are removed.  This section includes a scene where Ed goes to a bar and sees Estelle sitting with Augie Grane, who runs a numbers racket.  Another cut involving Estelle comes in chapter ten, where more than two pages are missing.  Here, Ed visits Estelle while she works as a cigarette girl.

Ed dances with Estelle in chapter 11, but readers of the magazine wouldn't know it, since another two pages have been cut.  This scene is as close as anything in the story comes to the painting on the magazine's cover, though the man and woman there do not look much like my mental portraits of Ed and Estelle.  And speaking of the cover, what are we to make of the green hand with orange fingernails pointing a gun at the happy couple?  There are no green-skinned characters in "Compliments of a Fiend."

                

Another page involving Estelle is cut from chapter 14, and in chapter 17—the book's last—the magazine version cuts the last 2 ½ pages of the book!  This results in a very abrupt ending, leaving out several important details.  In the book, Ed and Am decide to open their own detective agency, Ed learns that Estelle has decided to marry Augie Grane, and Ed recalls reading a science fiction story called "Pi in the Sky," which he forgets to mention was written by Fredric Brown!

The novel ends with a lyrical passage, as Ed thinks:  "I left the streets and walked across the building tops, and then across the sky."  Overall, the condensed version of Compliments of a Fiend cuts 10% to 15% from the novel.  The main cuts involve Ed's relationship with Estelle and the conclusion, which sets up the next book.

"Compliments of a Fiend" is not very different than the novel version, since the cuts don't affect the plot very much.  The book is not one of Brown's best, so cutting pages here and there does not affect the story quite as badly as it does in the short versions of The Screaming Mimi or Knock Three-One-Two.

Sources:

Brown, Fredric. "Compliments of a Fiend." Two Complete Detective Books Mar. 1951: 67-144.

Brown, Fredric. Hunter and Hunted: the Ed and Am Hunter Novels. Hermitage, PA: Stewart Masters Pub., 2002.

Seabrook, Jack. Martians and Misplaced Clues: the Life and Work of Fredric Brown. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular, 1993.

Fredric Brown on TV Part Six – Tales of Tomorrow: Age of Peril

by Jack Seabrook

    “Age of Peril” was first broadcast in New York on ABC as the February 15, 1952 episode of the anthology series, Tales of Tomorrow.  The teleplay was written by A.J. Russell, who adapted it from the Fredric Brown story, “Crisis, 1999.”
    “Crisis, 1999” first appeared in the August 1949 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.  It is a science fiction-detective story set 50 years in the future.  Bela Joad, master of disguise and the greatest detective in the world, is called in by Chicago police chief Dyer Rand to help discover how the city’s major criminals are beating the lie detector test.  Joad goes undercover and arranges to fake his own murder.  His killer is arrested but successfully beats the lie detector test.
    Joad suspects that this disturbing trend is somehow connected to the disappearance two years before of criminology professor Ernst Chappel and goes undercover a second time, rising quickly to the top of the underworld as a powerful criminal.  When his worst enemy is killed, he receives a visit from Dr. Chappel.
    The story ends as Joad tells Rand that he plans to retire in order to work with Dr. Chappel, who has perfected a method of hypnotizing professional criminals into thinking they are innocent.  The by-product of this is that they are no longer criminals!  Joad convinces Rand to keep it a secret and they drink a toast to the imminent end of professional crime.

    “Crisis, 1999” is a detective story dressed up with science fiction touches.  People don’t shave, they use “facial depilatory.”  Newspapers are “micronews” and coffee comes by conveyor belt.  The conclusion is not all that far-fetched, though—Dr. Chappel simply hypnotizes professional criminals into becoming innocent people.
    When the story was adapted for television, the title was changed to “Age of Peril” and major changes were made.  In the televised version, which is set in 1965 rather than 1999, Larry Calhoun is sent by the Bureau of Scientific Investigation to San Jose, California, where a portion of a top-secret guided-missile plan has been stolen from a plant.  He tests the plant’s 580 employees with a lie detector, but finds that they are all telling the truth.
    Calhoun tips off the thief that there are more secret documents in a wall safe, then rigs up an automatic camera to catch him in the act.  Even with photographic proof, the thief still beats the lie detector test.  Calhoun learns that this has become a trend and that 48 criminals in the last six months have successfully passed the test.  If the problem can’t be solved, the country is headed into “a new age of peril, in which the criminal will have the upper hand.”

    Calhoun finally deduces that Dr. Chappell is using a machine he invented, in conjunction with hypnotism, to turn criminals into innocent men.  At the end, Calhoun agrees to let Chappell and his colleagues present their findings to the government, hoping to wipe out crime once and for all.
    The televised version of “Crisis, 1999” was broadcast live and then filmed off of a television set as a kinescope that could be broadcast in the western parts of the country.   That kinescope is what survives today, and its quality suffers from the primitive technology used in the early days of TV.  Dennis Harrison stars as Calhoun; he would later change his stage name to Dennis Patrick and have a long TV career, highlighted by a regular role on Dark Shadows.

    Dr. Chappell is played by John McGovern, who would appear as a postal clerk in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.  Phyllis Kirk “stars” in the program as Chappell’s daughter Irene; she had memorable roles in House of Wax (1953), as Nora Charles in The Thin Man TV series (1957-1959), and as Kennan Wynn’s shrewish wife on the Twilight Zone episode, “A World of His Own.”

    Behind the scenes, teleplay writer A.J. Russell would later write nine episodes of The Honeymooners and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Director Don Medford would have a 40-year career as a television director, including five episodes of The Twilight Zone and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.    His son, Jeffrey Wright, wrote a Master’s Thesis on the director, whose nickname was “Midnight Medford”, using his long career to study how TV direction changed from the era of live TV through the filmed shows of the 1980s.
    Most surprising of all was the Director of Graphic Art on Tales of Tomorrow—Arthur Rankin, Jr., who would later found Rankin/Bass and make the animated Christmas specials that were a part of our childhood (Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, etc.).  The only graphic art on Tales of Tomorrow appears to be the end credits, which are typed on a transparent roll of film that is hand-rolled over an image of a watchband.

    The show is sponsored by Kreisler watchbands, and a very entertaining look at the Kreisler Kids and their in-show singing advertisement for the product can be found here
    One interesting tidbit about the TV show’s title:  the phrase “Age of Peril” was made famous by President Eisenhower in a May 9, 1953 radio address when he said, “We live in an age of peril.”  He used the phrase again in his 1954 State of the Union address.  Is it possible that his speechwriter recalled this phrase from the February 1952 television program?
    “Crisis, 1999” was reprinted in Fredric Brown’s short-story collection Space on My Hands (1951), and again in the collection From These Ashes (2001).
    “Age of Peril” can be seen on Hulu and is included in the Tales of Tomorrow DVD Collection One of 1st Season Shows.

Sources:

"Age of Peril." Tales of Tomorrow. ABC. New York, New York, 15 Feb. 1952. Television. Collected on Tales of Tomorrow, Collection One of 1st Season Shows.  DVD.  2004.

Brown, Fredric. "Crisis, 1999." Space On My Hands. 1951.  New York: Bantam, 1980. 15-35.

Galactic Central. Web. 07 May 2011. <>.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 07 May 2011. .

Wikipedia. Web. 07 May 2011.

The Return of Robert McCammon - The Five

review by John Scoleri 

The Five
Robert McCammon
Subterranean Press
May 2011

In the late 80s, people were quick to proclaim the latest heir to Stephen King's throne. Of the many candidates none resonated quite like Robert R. McCammon, who delivered a 1-2-3 punch of Swan Song, Stinger, and The Wolf's Hour. He followed those up with the amazing psychological thriller Mine (featuring what remains one of the most powerful opening chapters ever written), the coming of age tale Boys Life, and the wild adventure Gone South.

And then whoosh. Gone amidst rumors that Pocket Books tried to force his hand to stick to conventional horror novels, when his inner drive was leading in different directions. For all intents and purposes, it would appear that McCammon called their bluff. He walked away from what had to have been lucrative publishing offers, and readers saw no new McCammon fiction for the next 10 years.

And then one day the announcement came. A small press in Alabama, River City Publishing, released a monstrous colonial era thriller, Speaks the Nightbird. The middle initial 'R.' was gone, as if to signify that we were witnessing a birth of a new author. At the time it was not clear if it would be a one-shot effort, after which McCammon would recede into shadows once more. But the book was good. Damn good. And readers responded. Pocket picked up the paperback rights, split it in two, and apparently did well enough to make a hard/soft offer on the follow up in 2007, The Queen of Bedlam. They didn't go out of their way to do anything special with it, producing a pulp trade paperback and a short run hardcover edition that basically was a case bound trade paperback. But quality of production aside, the book was another winner. And audiences yearned for continuing adventures of Matthew Corbett. Enter Subterranean Press.

I have long sung the praises of Subterranean, run by Bill Schafer. Their books are beautifully produced, reasonably priced, and with relatively few exceptions, released according to schedule. As small presses go, the combination of all three of those traits is very rare and welcomed.

Bill stepped in when it came time to publish the third Matthew Corbett adventure, Mister Slaughter last year. Another excellent read—this one finally presented in a manner the prior books had so richly deserved. Their trade edition went into multiple printings, and was available through major retailers including Amazon. I recall sitting across from someone on the train one day reading a copy and thinking, this person has no idea that they're reading a book from a specialty press. I would say that I hope the success Subterranean Press had with Mister Slaughter would lead to more from McCammon, but it already has:

• A sold out reissue of The Wolf's Hour coupled with a brand new Michael Gallatin novella.
• a collection of additional Gallatin stories on the way.
• reissues of McCammon's first four horror novels (beginning with Baal) are on deck.

I hope they don't stop there—I'd love to swap out my Dark Harvest Swan Song with a handsome Subterranean Press edition (not to mention the first two novels in the Matthew Corbett cycle). And now, for the first time in 20 years, a new contemporary supernatural novel, The Five.

This time out, McCammon's love for music takes center stage as we follow the struggling band of the title on a tour of small venues across the American Southwest. Only this is a Robert McCammon novel, so you can assume all does not bode well for our rockers, and not just their inner squabbles about whether to stick together or break up. An off-hand anti-war remark in an interview sets off a disturbed Iraq war veteran, who embarks on a mission to kill all the members of the band.

After one of the bandmates is shot, the attention The Five receives leads to a sudden rise in their popularity. Torn between calling it quits or completing what will likely be their farewell tour, they decide to work with the authorities in the hope of flushing out the killer before they're all dead.

Readers expecting a 'supernatural' novel from Robert McCammon are likely to be kept on their toes.  I think he plays upon the readers expectations rather deftly. A little more than halfway through the book I thought I had finally figured out where he was going and yet he no sooner surprised me with a much different supernatural experience than I was expecting.

If you've been waiting for McCammon to return to contemporary fiction, I don't think you will be disappointed by The Five. I will say that it's a challenge for an author to convey music to a reader using words alone; I wish I had an accompanying album from The Five to listen to, so that I could hear the music that was playing in McCammon's head as he was writing those scenes. Thankfully, the characters are so compelling that this is not a significant distraction. In his afterword, McCammon dedicates the book to a list of literally hundreds of bands and artists, and I expect readers will scan for their favorites (I confirmed that Crowded House is on the list) to see if they were in some small way an influence on the author.

Since picking up Swan Song in 1987, I've read every book Robert McCammon has written. I am thrilled that he is firmly back in the game, and I anxiously await whatever he does next, regardless of the period or genre. That's the true testament of a great writer.

The House of Mystery: I, Vampire Part 2

by Peter Enfantino

 

            With #304 (“The Night Has Eyes”) artist Ernie Colon steps in for a two-issue stint. Colon’s most notable credit at the time was probably the DC sword and sorcery comic Arak, Son of Thunder. Colon’s art was dreadful, with several panels looking rushed and unfinished, characters resembling stick figures on bland backgrounds. The art fits the story though, as Bruce Jones seems to be on cruise control already, just four installments in, perhaps sensing a brick wall with the Andrew Bennett character. Where else could this story go since every conceivable vampiric plotline had already been played out in Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula.

            “The Night Has Eyes” concerns Mary’s efforts to kidnap the granddaughter of a millionaire. I repeat my silly question “Why would a vampire have to stoop to petty crime to get what it wants?” The plan itself is worthy of a Donald Westlake Dortmunder novel: the vampire and her goons intend to kidnap the girl form a high rise building and toss her onto a nearby ferris wheel. Andrew gets wind of the high concept crime and thwarts the efforts of Mary and her minions. There’s a laughable stop on his way to the theme park when Andrew needs to fill up on blood from an ambulance. He flies in as a bat and comes out of the vehicle as a man, just in time to be interrogated by a cop:

Cop: Okay fella! What’s going on? Where’s the bat?

Andrew: Bat? Uh…it flew off that way, officer! If you hurry…

            The beauty of the panel is that the vampire is very clearly holding a dripping bottle of blood in his left hand and wiping the liquid from his mouth with his right! Jones changes a bit of the vampire mythos in that when Bennett is staked by Mary he doesn’t turn into a skeleton or dust or a rotted corpse. He can still think and feel and when, later in the story, the stake is removed, Bennett feels only a bit weak. In the “I,Vampire” universe, a wooden stake seems to be nothing more than a nuisance.

            That’s a Mike Kaluta cover by the way. Kaluta would contribute 13 snazzy covers to the series (Well, actually 12, but we'll discuss that in a bit).

            “Blood and Sand” (#305) finds Andrew Bennett traveling to Egypt, hot on Mary’s scent. A scientist has discovered a cure for cancer but for some reason the serum transforms human blood into a deadly cocktail for vampires. Once in Egypt, Mary convinces Andrew to search for two ancient rings that will transport them back to a time before they were vampires. Bennett, still hopelessly in love with the evil vampires, falls for the woman’s cooing. He finds the rings, but is tricked by Mary, who uses her ring to transport back to 1880s London.  Andrew is left to battle with a mummy, guardian of the rings, not much of a guard dog it seems since it’s dispatched in three panels with a simple rock. Bennett uses his ring to follow Mary to London, where he arrives at the scene of her latest slaughtering. Colon’s art this issue shows a marked improvement over the last, though it’s still not great. Andrew Bennett looks like a different man from panel to panel, in some cases he’s Chris lee, in some Robert Quarry.

            An interesting note (just about the only interesting thing about this installment actually) is that “Blood and Sand” is tied into the previous story in the issue, “The Rings of Kur-Alet,” also written by Bruce Jones (with an assist from wife April Campbell). The story tells the origin of the rings and the mummy bodyguard.

            In “Rip in Time” (#306), Andrew Bennett comes face-to-face with Jack the Ripper. As is the case with most Jack the Ripper stories, Bruce Jones feels the need to give him another cover story. This time, Jack is  kindly doctor Jonathon Kelsey, who stumbles across a depleted Andrew. His time travel has taken its toll on him and he needs blood fast. For reasons known only to Bruce Jones, Kelsey knows Bennett is a vampire and nurses him back to health. The fact that Kelsey is Jack is kept a secret until the story’s final panels even though any reader worth his horror IQ knows right from the start. Mary has zapped herself back to 1880s London to try to stop the birth of the doctor who has cured cancer. Mary fails at her task when she murders the wrong girl. It’s, in fact, the victim’s sister who is the mother of salvation. Tom Sutton is back but it’s a double-edged sword: it’s Sutton but it’s rushed Sutton. Some of his panels stand with those classic Charlton horrors but quite a bit of it looks unfinished.

            Since the rings are cursed to follow each other, Andrew finds himself transported to 1964 Maine in “Lovers Living, Lovers Dead” (#307). What he can’t deduce is why Mary wants to be here in this time and place. Even when he meets a cute little redhead girl named DeeDee near her cliff house, the vampire is obviously too dense to figure it out (even though, again, we can very quickly). Turns out that little DeeDee is actually Bennett’s human romantic interest, Deborah Dancer (DeeDee??) and Mary has come to trade Deborah’s life for the vampire’s ring. Mary’s become weary of hiding from Bennett and she’s ready to toss the little girl to her death. Andrew relents and hurls his ring out to sea. Never one to keep her word, Mary drops DeeDee off the cliff. Andrew is able to save the girl but is impaled on a tree branch. While all this action is going on, the adult Deborah is being hypnotized to see if she can find where Andrew is (they seem to have a psychic bond). She watches in horror as the vampire is run through but is able to exert mental power over her younger self and the little girl, in an impossible show of strength, frees Andrew.

            Whew! I’m tired from just typing about all that action. Unfortunately, this is one of the only times you’ll see my loopy synopsis topping Bruce Jones’ story. This story literally begins nowhere and ends nowhere. In addition to the story problems, the page count is padded with two pages of “what has come before.” Easy money for Mr. Jones. As for the art, Sutton seems to be easing into a high level of mediocrity. Andrew Bennett now resembles the 2011 incarnation of Aerosmith’s guitarist, Joe Perry. Sutton must have been prescient. The wise thing here would have been for Bruce Jones to set up  a battle between his vampire and  Cthulhu. We know Sutton would be up for that task.

            With story pages down to 12 (and 2 of those taken up for the obligatory recap), there’s not much that Bruce Jones can do to drum any suspense, horror, or even a tad of excitement. A synopsis of “Mirrors That Look Back” (#308) might summarize the story as “Andrew Bennett, Vampire fights Nazi skeletons at the bottom of the ocean” but since that battle only lasts for about a page and a half that would be misleading.

            It’s revealed that the ring Andrew hurled into the sea found its way onto the skeletal finger of the remains of a Nazi sailor. Yep, there’s a Nazi U-boat right there off the cliffs of Maine. The ring resuscitates the crew and, as noted, Bennett has his hands full for a few panels but manages to steal back the ring and is teleported to the home of a pre-vampiric Mary. Now, here’s where it gets complicated. Vampire Andrew bumps into pre-vampiric Mary on the morning of their engagement costume ball. As he’s kissing her, his non-vampiric self rides up on a horse. Not up for a long expository, he pats Mary on the fanny and tells her to get ready for the costume ball. He then kidnaps his younger self and steals his clothes, masquerading as himself! On the way back to Mary, Bennett is distracted by a group of witchfinders who ask him to rate their abilities. Not one to pass up a good dunking, he agrees. Meanwhile, a vampiric Mary swoops in and conks her pre-vampiric self on the head. What she’s got in mind will have to wait until our next installment.

            I haven’t lavished enough praise upon Joe Kubert’s covers for House of Mystery. These gems are the saving grace of this dying money-grabber. Kubert’s Andrew Bennett is evil and suave at the same time. There’s good new and bad news to the Kubert cover for #308. Bad news is that it’s his last for “I, Vampire.” Good news is that he hands the reins over to the more-than-capable Mike Kaluta the rest of the way.

             Well, actually those fabulous Kalutas would begin next issue. We get a Kaluta this issue, but it’s not among the artist’s best work. Young Andrew resembles a very effeminate Prince Valiant (complete with dove) and vampiric Andrew is a dead ringer for Bea Arthur. As for the insides of Issue #309 (“Witch Hunt”): The vampire hangs around the dunking long enough to save the accused (which comes back to haunt him later) and then hoofs it to the masquerade ball. There he discovers that vampiric Mary has captured young Mary and taken her place at the party. Why she does this is not explained. She just does it. As the two vampires dance, their moment of bliss is disrupted by the gang of witch finders, now searching for Andrew. The girl he rescued has ratted him out. As with most of these stories, the climax sees Mary invoke the secret words of her ring and disappear. Each chapter grows increasingly bare of any kind of plot twists or characterization. We merely get a synopsis of our story thus far, a few pages of Andrew chasing Mary and then Mary pulls a vanishing act. 

            According to “Cain “ in the letters page, “I, Vampire” is a “red-hot hit among the readers of the House.” Not sure why it would be such a favorite but I’ve a feeling that HOM’s editor, Karen Berger, might have been doing some cherry-picking among the few fan letters the title would receive. It’s also noted that House of Mystery, with the recent axing of Unexpected (with its 222^nd issue), was left as the only title in the DC “mystery line” to remain standing during the big comics recession of the early 1980s. Also gone were House of Secrets (after 154 issues), Ghosts (112), The Witching Hour (85), Secrets of Haunted House (46), Weird Mystery Tales (24), and the line's bastard stepchild, Plop! (24 issues), which melded horror and humor in a very nice package. House of Mystery would follow them in just over a year.

TO BE CONTINUED

Fredric Brown on TV Part Five - Star Trek: Arena

by Jack Seabrook

Fredric Brown’s classic science fiction story “Arena” was first published in the June 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.  There is some controversy over whether it was a source for the “Fun and Games” episode of The Outer Limits (see my February 8, 2011 post on this site, along with the responses), but there is no disagreement that it was acknowledged as a source for the “Arena” episode of Star Trek, which was broadcast on January 19, 1967.

Briefly, the story concerns Bob Carson, an Earthman in space, who is whisked off to a strange planet to fight a representative of an enemy, alien race.  The planet has blue sand and the battle occurs beneath a blue dome; Carson is naked, and his opponent is a red, rolling sphere with tentacles that can retract when not in use.  An invisible barrier separates the combatants, and Carson must use his ingenuity to cross through the barrier and kill the enemy.  As a result, an omnipotent alien destroys the entire race of the loser, thus avoiding a catastrophic interspace battle.

According to the producers of Star Trek, Gene L. Coon handed in the script for that show’s adaptation of “Arena” unaware that it was similar to Brown’s short story. This time (unlike on The Outer Limits) the source was identified and permission was sought and granted by Fredric Brown.

Star Trek was hitting its stride by this episode and the characters had already fallen into familiar patterns.  This required considerable revision of the original short story.  The show begins as Captain Kirk & co. visit an outpost, “isolated, exposed, out on the edge of nowhere.”  They beam down to the planet, only to find that the colony of Cestus 3 has been destroyed.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are joined by three expendable crewmen.  As they explore the ruins of Cestus 3 they come under attack, as does The Enterprise, which is orbiting the planet in space.  Kirk does some nice serpentine running (reminiscent of Alan Arkin in The In-Laws), before getting the upper hand and driving the attackers back to their spaceship.  Kirk and crew return to their ship as well and he decides to act as space policeman and chase the enemy ship into a “largely unexplored section of the galaxy.”

The chase proceeds into deep space at high speed, until both ships approach an unknown solar system, where they are scanned by an unknown entity.  It is here, almost halfway through the episode, that parallels with the short story began to appear.  A race known as The Metrons holds both ships in place and announces that they will take each ship’s captain and transport them to a planet where they can engage in a fight to the death.  The winner’s ship will be spared; the loser’s will be destroyed.

Unlike the short story, where Carson finds himself on a strange planet and the alien voice tells him what is going on, the Star Trek crew gets the news in advance but cannot do anything about it.  Also, instead of destroying an entire race and preserving another, only the spaceships will be destroyed.  The Metrons say that they want future ships to stay away from their area of space; the omnipotent alien in the story has more altruistic goals, wanting to ensure that the surviving race is left strong enough to develop to its full potential.

Television special effects in 1966 (when “Arena” was filmed) did not allow for a rolling red ball with retractable tentacles, so Kirk’s enemy is one of the Gorn, who looks like a man in an alligator suit.  He has shiny silver eyes and wears a tunic, and he moves about as quickly as a zombie, which makes it hard to believe that Kirk is racing for his life to defeat the creature.

Kirk’s interior monologue is provided in two ways—through voiceover, and by means of a hand-held “microphone” that is supposed to preserve a record of the events.  Kirk speaks into the microphone and talks about what he’s doing, not realizing that the Gorn can hear every word he says through his own device.

Kirk and the Gorn throw some rocks at each other, as in the story, but on Star Trek there is no invisible barrier between them.  This removes one of the key plot points in the tale and makes the televised contest a bit silly, as Kirk runs off into the rocky hills and the Gorn lumbers around.  The Gorn actually appears to be more ingenious than Kirk, when it sets a trap for him and appears to play dead, much as Carson does in the story.

However, Kirk finally discovers various minerals and other items on the planet that allow him to construct a makeshift cannon and shoot the Gorn.  In the middle of all of this, the program takes a turn that reflects a mid-sixties, Vietnam-era sensibility.  In the short story, the battle between Carson and the Roller can be interpreted as an allegory of the US versus Japan in World War Two.  The enemy is totally alien and Carson does not hesitate to kill it when given the chance.

On Star Trek, Kirk learns that the Gorn may not have been the cruel invaders he had first thought them to be, and he suspects that they may have been natives defending their planet from what they saw as human invaders.  When given the chance to kill the Gorn captain, he refuses, announcing to the omnipotent alien that “you’ll have to get your entertainment someplace else.”  This is a clear reference to the anti-war feeling that was brewing in America in 1966, as some people began to question whether the war in Vietnam was justified. 

The Metron appears at the end of the episode and allows both ships to depart in peace.  He is surprised by Kirk’s demonstration of mercy and states that “there is hope” that our race will mature.

“Arena” takes the general theme of Brown’s short story and adapts it for a television series with recurring characters, whose personalities must be included and who must share screen time with the original, limited number of characters.  It is hard to believe that Gene L. Coon, the author of the teleplay, had not read Brown’s story, but it is also hard to believe that he was not familiar with The Outer Limits episode, “Fun and Games,” since the Metrons allow the crew of the Enterprise to watch the events unfolding on the planet below on their giant view screen, which looks an awful lot like the big-screen TVs of today.  In “Fun and Games,” the omnipotent alien broadcasts the competition for the inhabitants of his planet to watch as entertainment.

Gene L. Coon lived from 1924-1973.  He wrote 12 episodes of Star Trek (including the infamous “Spock’s Brain”) and was also the show’s producer for a portion of its run.  He also wrote many other TV series episodes.   Joseph Pevney, director of “Arena,” lived from 1911-2008 and began his career in vaudeville.  He directed movies in the 1950s, including Man of a Thousand Faces, before moving to TV, where he directed many episodes into the mid-1980s, including 14 episodes of Star Trek.

The cast of “Arena” is well-known.  William Shatner is North America’s Greatest Living Actor, and Leonard Nimoy recently came out of retirement to appear as a cartoon on Fringe.   The Gorn was played by Bobby Clark, a stuntman who has been appearing at Star Trek conventions.  Ted Cassidy provided the Gorn captain’s growls and chuckles.

Was there ever a more exciting time to be a kid than the 1966-1967 television season?  This was the first year that most of the shows were in color, and the colors were exploding off of the screens!  “Arena” is awash in reds, blues, yellows and greens, and it is clear that, to the designers at the time, the advent of color TV was an excuse to stuff as many colors as they could into a frame.  A quick look at the TV schedule for September 1966 reveals that the following shows were all available for the young viewer who liked adventure and excitement:

Sunday-Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Monday-The Monkees

Tuesday-The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and The Fugitive

Wednesday-Batman, Lost in Space, I Spy

Thursday-Batman, Star Trek

Friday-The Green Hornet, The Time Tunnel, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Saturday-Get Smart, Mission: Impossible

Had I been older than three in 1966, I doubt I would ever have left the house!

 
    Finally, if anyone has a copy of “Curtains for Me,” by Anthony Gilbert, please let me know. I need to read this story to write about the last episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that Fredric Brown worked on, “A True Account.”  The story appeared in the London Evening Standard on October 3, 1951, then in John Creasey Mystery Magazine for February 1958, and finally in The Mystery Bedside Book, 1960, edited by John Creasey.

 
Sources:

"Arena." Star Trek. 19 Jan. 1967.  Star Trek: The Original Series, Season One, Disc Six.  CBS Paramount International Television, 2004.  DVD.

Brown, Fredric. The Best of Fredric Brown. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1976.

Galactic Central. Web. 23 Apr. 2011.

The Internet Movie Database . 23 Apr. 2011. 

Wikipedia. 23 Apr. 2011.