Friday's Favorite OTR

Escape: "The Shanghai Document" 4/21/50

An American reporter trying to through war-torn China to Shanghai becomes unknowingly involved in a plan to smuggle an important document into that same city. As is typical of scripts by John and Gwen Bagni, this story interweaves great characters with a strong story.

Click HERE to listen or download.

If It Includes a Riverboat, Then It MUST Be a Good Movie!

Queen of the Yukon (1940) was made on the cheap by Monogram Studios (which made everything on the cheap), but they somehow managed to include a cool-looking riverboat and some really nice black-and-white location photography. So I am, of course, predisposed to like it.

Loosely based on the work of Jack London (I can't find a reference to a specific London story in the credits), the movie tells the story of Sadie Martin (Irene Rich), who runs the titular riverboat carrying men to and from their claims in the Yukon Territory. She also has a small casino on board, featuring either poker or faro, which represents her main source of income.

Sadie, though, is not a ruthless gambling queen. An important moment at the beginning of the movie shows her banning a passenger from further gambling after he's lost over a thousand dollars. Sadie knows he's taking his money back to his wife and kids, so cuts him off before he blows it all.

Ace Rincon (Charles Bickford) is a gambler that helps her run the boat and it is Ace who tells her that she practices noblesse oblige--her honesty and class have made her de facto Queen of the Yukon herself and, without really thinking about it, she takes her responsibilities seriously.

Ace, by the way, is in love with Sadie, but she was abandoned by a gambler husband in the past, so insists they just stay friends and partners. This doesn't stop Ace from watching out for Sadie pretty much 24/7, though.

The situation changes when Sadie's 18-year-old daughter shows up and is enamored by Sadie's rough-and-tumble life-style. She also develops a crush on Ace and decides she wants to learn how to deal faro and join her mother in running the gambling ship.

Sadie doesn't want that for her daughter, so she sells her boat to a mining company with the intention of moving back to the city with her daughter. But the mining company immediately uses their monopoly on river travel to crush the independent miners and soon begins a program of violent claim-jumping.

Sadie's noblesse oblige rears up again and she quickly organizes the miners with a plan to take the company to court, using her money and the miners' claim certificates to make their case. But when a man is murdered and the claim certificates vanish, the situation escalates quickly...

Monogram was a Poverty Row company, but Queen of the Yukon (like much of the studio's output) gets a lot out of its limited budget, with Bickford and Rich bringing class to their roles as the protagonists. Particularly nice is the scene in which the two believe they are finally going their seperate ways, with both of them too reticent to just say how they feel about each other.

And then, of course, there's that nifty riverboat and some nice scenery. Riverboats are like dinosaurs. By default, they make any movie better.

SIDENOTE: It's interesting that the movie's Big Gambling Scene features a faro game rather than the more commonly portrayed poker game. Faro was very common in the real life Old West, but doesn't get shown that much in Western films or TV shows.

Here's the movie from YouTube, though Amazon's print seems to be of a little better quality:

The Outlaw Kid Becomes... an Outlaw? Part 3

As we've seen in the last couple of issues of Outlaw Kid, the Kid is having a rather bad time of it. Wealthy Jack McDaniels has moved into Caliber City and used his money like a club to put the town under his thumb. He's raising railroad rates, which is crushing the farmers financially, and has forced the sheriff to declare the Outlaw Kid to be a real Outlaw.

With Outlaw Kid #12 (October 1972), writer Mike Friedrich and artist Dick Ayers pick up with the Kid on the run, embittered that so many people in a town he's frequently saved now see him as a crook because of McDaniels' influence. But that doesn't stop him from being a hero when called upon to do so. The Red Vest gang (the same gang that blinded his father and set him on the "masked vigelante" path) is making a come-back with an attempt to rob a train. The Kid intervenes and captures two of the bad guys.

The gold he saves, though, belongs to McDaniels. The Kid makes a spot decision to go the "Robin Hood" route. He takes half the gold and leaves it for a farmer who has been driven into poverty by McDaniels' ruthless business practices.

McDaniels, by now, is pretty desperate to catch or kill the kid, so he's brought in a recently created Marvel Western hero named Bounty Hawk (changed from Gun Hawk) to track the Kid down. Bounty Hawk is pretty straightforward in his dislike of McDaniels, but freely admits that he'll catch the Kid and take McDaniels' reward for it. He's in it for the money, though (as we'll see) he's not without his moral standards.

The two meet when the increasingly bitter Outlaw Kid puts in an appearance in town to warn everyone to lay off him. The Kid really can't make up his mind how to react to the events around him. One moment, he's playing Robin Hood. The next, he's threatening to destroy the whole town. I actually like this aspect of the story. Up to now, Outlaw Kid has been able to play the straightforward hero role. Now, he's a wanted man and (though some of the farmers support him) many of the townspeople seem to have turned against him.

All this gives the tale some effective emotional tension. but it is the extended action sequence that begins here that really makes this issue shine. Bounty Hawk and Outlaw Kid go at it in a fist fight that evolves into a gun fight that evolves into a chase out of town on horseback. Dick Ayers is at the top of his game as he provides us with a truly exciting set piece.

Once outside town, the situation changes rapidly when the two men run into the Red Vest Gang, whose leader blows a bridge and sends both the good guys tumbling into the river.

But Marvel Western Heroes rarely let things like gunshot wounds and near-death falls to stop them. Forced to suddenly work together, the two heroes play possum and get the drop on two members of the gang, though the leader gets away.

By now, Bounty Hawk has enough respect for the Kid to let him go.

This will end our look at the Outlaw Kid for now. Original stories will continue to run through issue #16, with Jack McDaniels and the Red Vest Gang being the main villains. The various story arcs will be wrapped up at that point, with low sales changing the book back to reprints of Doug Wildey's original 1950s tales until the book is cancelled after the 20th issue. Outlaw Kid never had the same impact on the Marvel Old West as did Rawhide Kid, Kid Colt and Two-Gun Kid, while Bounty Hawk will fade into even deeper obscurity. But the Kid had a nice run while he lasted.

Next week, we'll return to the 2nd part of the Supergirl story we began last week.

Cover Cavalcade

A George Wilson cover from 1977.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Whitehall 1212: "The Murder of Little Phillip Avery" 1/27/52

This story about a murdered child is inherently sad, but the police procedural aspect of it is excellent. This episode is a fine example of how to use radio to tell a story well.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Crooks in Space, Part 2

cover art by Edward Valigursky 

Anson Drake's career as a criminal has taken him to many planets, making many enemies along the way. In fact, when he returns to the planet Thizar, he is apparently walking into danger. He once had a run-in with the wealthy and outwardly respectable Viron Belgezed, robbing him of fifty thousand credits in illicit funds. 

That's the situation we find as the story "Heist Job on Thizar," by Randall Garrett, begins. Published in the October 1956 issue of Amazing Stories, it is the second consecutive issue of Amazing that contains a Garrett story featuring a crook as the main protagonist.

But though we hated the guy from "The Man Who Hated Mars" and looked forward to seeing him get what was coming to him, we find ourselves liking Anson Drake. He fits the template for the sort of suave and capable jewel thief that would often by played by Cary Grant or Clark Gable in a movie. He's not on orginal character at all, but some character types are reused over and over again because a good writer can always make them entertaining.

But, despite having a ready-made enemy on the planet, Drake has reason to return. Belgezed has just bought a valuable piece of jewelry known as the Necklace of Algol. Belgezed is planning on wearing it to a big coronation to-do, but Drake has his own plans for it.

Drake dodges an assassination attempt and is soon contacted by Nancy Knight, another jewel thief with designs of her own on the Necklace. But her partner has run out on her, so she needs Drake's help.

Drake agrees to go partner with Norma, but there are layers under layers here in what is actually going on. Drake is going to have to run a multi-level con in order to get off the planet with the necklace. 

As I said, Drake is the standard Suave Jewel Thief/Con Artist character we've seen in a zillion stories, but demonstrates that this is a character type that will always entertain us when dropped into a well-told story. Garrett's straightforward prose, humor and clever plotting makes Drake an effective protagonist without seeming to be a mere cliche.

You can read it online HERE.

Supergirl is Pretty Darn Smart!

cover art by Curt Swan

 As a writer, I think Bob Kanigher's best work was on DC's war-themed books rather than superhero books. But he did manage to tell some fun superhero stories as well.

Adventure Comics #395 (July 1970--with art by Kurt Schaffenberger) is an example of this. It is a silly tale in many ways, but it portrays Supergirl in a way I really enjoy--showing her using her intelligence rather than her superpowers to solve a conundrum.

The conundrum in question is a supposedly haunted house, once owned by an inventor named Amos Ameswell until his mysterious disappearance 10 years earlier. There's a one million dollar prize for anyone who can say the night in the place without being forced to flee in pure terror. Recently, a horror movie actor named Vincent Sale (get it?) tried it, but was rendered grey-haired and insane before the night was over.

Before going on, I'm going to get a nitpick out of the way.  Notice in one of the above panels in which Linda Danvers (aka Supergirl) adamently states that she doesn't believe in ghosts. But she exists in a world in which magicians, supernatural threats and such things are acknowledged to exist. In fact, Supergirl regularly travels into the future to work with the Legion of Super Heroes--WHO HAVE AN ACTUALLY MAGIC-USING WITCH ON THEIR TEAM!  I'm sorry, Linda, but you aren't in a position to summarily dismiss the possibility that something supernatural is going on in that house.

To be fair, I do get that she has to explore the theory that the supernatural events in the house are being faked. But then she encounters the ghost of Superman's dad Jor-El.

Soon after, she encounters an apparently solid Kryptonian Thought-Beast, which (while under a yellow sun) should be more powerful than she is. But, inexplicably, it melts away when she hits it with heat vision.

It all seems to be too much for the Maid of Might. Soon, she is acting nuttier than a Kryptonian Fruit Cake. But that, of course, is a trick.

Supergirl has picked up on several subtle clues and used deductive reasoning to realize that a custom-made TV in the house is linking the place to the Phantom Zone, making some of the Zone criminals visible and allowing them to mess with people via telepathy. She smashes the TV to re-banish them to the Zone, but is then confronted by Amos Ameswell, the supposedly missing inventor. It was Amos who built the TV and who now seems completely unconcerned with her superpowers.

As I said, I like this story specifically because Supergirl's powers are of limited use and it's her intelligence--complete with her own Sherlock Holmes-like deductions--that really make this one stand out.

The story continues into the next issue. Next week, we'll finish up with the Outlaw Kid story arc we've been following, then finish up with Supergirl in two weeks.

Cover Cavalcade

A fun Murphy Anderson cover from 1966.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "Philomel Cottage" 10/7/43

An excellent adaptation of an Agatha Christie story about a woman who improvises an innovative method of foiling a murder plot.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Crooks in Space, Part 1

cover art by Edward Valigursky 

Randall Garrett is best remembered for his fun and funny Lord Darcy stories--a character modeled on Sherlock Holmes who lives in a world in which magic exists. But he was a quite prolific writer who pretty much always entertained his readers no matter when and where his tales were set.

This week and next week, we'll be taking quick looks at a pair of stories from 1956, published in consectutive issues of Amazing Stories magazine, that each feature a less-than-honest protagonist.

The first of these is "The Man Who Hated Mars" (Amazing Stories, September 1956) and, boy, does the main character really, really hate Mars. Fifteen years ago, Ron Clayton was convicted of mugging someone and chose a lifetime exile on Mars rather than 10 years in an Earth prison.

He's long since come to regret that decision. Earth's idea for colonizing Mars is to do as little for the colonists as possible, requiring them to endure the perpetually freezing weather, low gravity and low oxygen pressure under  the theory that they would eventually acclimate to it. For fifteen years, Clayton has felt as if he can never quite catch his breath while shivering through work shifts in the mines.

It's hard to feel sorry for Clayton, though. Garrett does not give us a likeable or sympathetic protagonist for this story. And this isn't just because he is guilty of the crime of which he was committed. We soon discover that Clayton is unable to accept responsibility--that in his mind, everything is always someone else's fault. And his moral sensibilities are pretty much non-existant.

So, when he comes up with a plan for mugging the drunken steward from a cargo ship that returns to Earth in a few hours, then using that guy's ID to get aboard--well, we aren't so much rooting for him as wondering when something will inevitably go wrong with his plan.

That plan includes eventually sabotaging the cargo ship and stealing a life boat, eventually landing on Earth in a remote location. But though his scheme seems to proceed without a hitch, Clayton may not have considered just how much he has acclimatized to Mars after fifteen years.

The story is a short one, but that's what makes it work. Clayton is a pretty loathsome guy, without the charm or cleverness that can make a reader root for a crook within the context of a work of fiction. But this well-constructed tale keeps us interested in seeing just how he gets his comeupance without overstaying its welcome.

You can read this one online HERE. Next week, we'll look at another crooked spaceman, but this time one who is a little smarter and more capable than the Man Who Hated Mars.

The Outlaw Kid becomes an... Outlaw? Part 2

cover art by Gil Kane

Outlaw Kid #11 (August 1972) continues the Kid's journey towards becoming (at least in the eyes of the law) a real outlaw. Jack McDaniels, wielding like a club the fact that he owns half the town, wants the Kid arrested and the sheriff buckles to his demands. The Kid makes a traditional "crashing through a window" escape, but that doesn't help his public image. The store owner is upset over the cost of the damage, but McDaniels wins him over to his side by handing over some cash.

Writer Mike Friedrich and artist Dick Ayers establish a very strong dynamic in this story arc. McDaniels is not a nice guy, but he's not overtly breaking the law and uses his money (at least at first) to gain popularity with the townfolk. The Outlaw Kid has saved the town many times, but now is declared an outlaw, leaving him with no apparent way of fighting back without becoming an outlaw in actuality.

Lance Temple is flummoxed and uncertain of what to do next, but when McDaniels starts sweet-talking his gal... well, that's when things get REAL.

This is another aspect of the story I like. Temple has a very human reaction to the situation and acts impulsively because of it.

But his eventual plan of action isn't completely impulsive. It's not long before McDaniels' inherently greedy nature starts to show when he raises rates on what it costs farmers to haul goods. When the Outlaw Kid intervenes at just the right moment, at least some of the farmers react favorably to him, considering him a Robin Hood.

McDaniels is peeved enough to attack the Kid on his own, with Dick Ayers choreographing an effective and brutal fist fight in which the Kid comes out on the losing end and nearly gets run over by a train.

The Kid has to make a break for it and McDaniels brings in an outside bounty hunter to track him down. This is Bounty-Hawk, a character created earlier that year (initially called Gunhawk) by Gary Friedrich in Western Gunfighters #7.

We are going to pause for a couple of weeks before moving on to the conclusion of this story arc. Next week, we'll visit with Supergirl.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast--video version of Episode #10

Cover Cavalcade

From 1974. An evocative cover by Luis Dominguez.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Broadway is My Beat: "The Earl Lawson Case" 6/9/51

Why did a dying criminal plunge a knife into the back of a rich man?

Click HERE to listen or download. 

No Retirement for the Spider

Poor Richard Wentworth. And poor Nita Van Sloan. Afte 39 issues of battling mass murderers, madmen and would-be world-rulers, the two of them just want to retire from crime-fighting, get married and enjoy a few years of peace and quiet. Even their friend, Police Commissioner Kirkpatrick (who suspects, but doesn't know for sure, that Wentworth is the masked vigilante known as the Spider) has retired.

Nita has even adopted a young girl orphaned in a previous adventure in anticipation of this.

This is the situation in the novel Dictator of the Damned," featurned in the January 1939 issue of The Spider. But I don't think a single reader expected this retirement to stick. In fact, it lasts less than two chapters, because someone has been knocking off new police commissioners as quickly as the mayor can appoint them. So the mayer turns to Kirkpatrick, asking him to return to his old job (and, if he can manage it, avoid being murdered). Wentworth realizes a new master criminal is running amuck, so, much to Nita's disappointment, backs away from his retirement plans as well.

Never date a masked vigilante, ladies. Aside from the rigid requirement to keep your hair perfectly coiffed when imprisoned in a sadistic death trap, you rarely get a Date Night that's not interrupted by gunfire and a room littered with corpses.

Anyway, Kirkpatrick does avoid getting shot in the assassination attempt that immediately follows his reappointment as commissioner. The mayor, though, isn't so lucky. He takes a volley of slugs in his chest.

A new mayor is appointed, but he's a puppet of the Dictator, the masked criminal who is planning on taking over the city. Kirkpatrick is soon railroaded into an insane asylum and a dirty cop is put in charge. Soon, police patrols are ordered out of specific areas, "coincidentally" just before a big robbery is committed in those areas.

I have always thought the Shadow novels were better written and better plotted than the Spider novels. The best of the Spiders, though, move along at such a lightning pace, jumping from one often exciting gun battle or chase scene to another, that they are impossible not to enjoy.

The plot of Dictator of the Damned is absurd, but it fits within the internal logic of the Spider's universe and it is a ton of fun. With the cops demoralized and being prevented from doing their job, the Spider must dive headfirst into a trap set for him by the Dictator, out-thinking and out-fighting an army of thugs until he learns that the Dictator is planning a massive robbery at Grand Central Station at midnight. The Spider will have to spring Kirkpatrick from an asylum run by a sadistic madman quickly enough to allow his friend to rally the honest cops in the department and launch a counterattack on the Dictator's forces.

In the meantime, though, Nita Van Sloan and her newly adopted daughter have been kidnapped. So, aside from helping to stop the Grand Central Station robbery, the Spider has to track down the Dictator's headquarters and rescue his girlfriend for the 40th time in forty issues.

Seriously, ladies, if a masked vigilante asks you out, it doesn't matter how rich and good-looking he might be when he's not wearing his mask. IT WON'T END WELL FOR YOU!

This is one of the few novels in which the main villian escapes at the end. Presumably, he was supposed to make a return appearance during the original run of the magazine. But it wasn't until Will Murray wrote The Doom Legion in 2018 (which features the Spider teaming up with Operator 5 and G-8) that the Dictator finally pops up again. I don't normally discuss recent stuff on my blog, but Murray's pulp-related works (including those featuring Doc Savage, the Shadow, and Tarzan) are filled with great prose and exciting action while remaining very faithful to the characters and style of the original pulp novels. I recommend them highly.

The Outlaw Kid becomes... an outlaw? Part 1

cover art by Gil Kane

Well, the Outlaw Kid's publication history isn't as complicated as the multiple versions of Ghost Rider we looked at last week, but it still manages to weave around a bit.

The character was created for Atlas Comics (the future Marvel Comics) in 1954 by Doug Wildey, running for 19 issues. Marvel began reprinting these issues in 1970, with new (and generally awesome) covers by John Severin and Herb Trimpe.

The reprint series sold well, so starting with Outlaw Kid #10 (June 1972), the series began running original stories. The first one, written by Mike Friedrich and drawn by Dick Ayers, includes a flashback recounting the Outlaw Kid's origin.

Like Marvel's Two-Gun Kid, Outlaw Kid wears a mask and maintains a secret identity. Outlaw is really Lance Temple, who lives with his blind father "Hoot" Temple. Hoot disapproves of violence and has made Lance promise never to resort to violence. But Lance wants to fight the bad guys threatening to overrun the West. So his masked identity is both to protect his dad from vengeful outlaws and protect himself from his dad's disappointment. The guilt he feels in lying to Hoot is what inspires the name Outlaw Kid.

It's a pretty nifty origin story, though it is sandwiched a little awkwardly into the another plot. When wealthy Jack McDaniels arrives in Caliber City (Outlaw Kid's base of operations), he quickly takes over, waving enough cash around to pay for damages during a celebration in the saloon, but still being disruptive and a bit of a jerk.

The sheriff is out of town and McDaniel's bodyguards easily disarm a couple of deputies. So the Outlaw Kid takes a hand. McDaniels puts on a "let's be reasonable" act effectively enough to get the Kid to drop his guard. The Kid is jumped and knocked out.

It's while he is unconscious that we get a flashback to his origin. As I mentioned above, this is a bit awkward, as the origin story has no real thematic connection to the main plot. But, taken on its own, it is a strong origin story.

Lance and Hoot are cominig west to settle when they are jumped by outlaws. The elder Temple tries to fight back, but a bullet hits a barrel of explosives he has rather unwisely strapped to the side of his wagon. The explosion leaves him blind.

Lance takes on his masked idenity to track down the outlaws without endangering Hoot, then keeps it when Hoot decides that there has been enough violence and swears Lance to complete pacifism.

The Kid regains consciousness and tracks McDaniels to the general store. Another fight ensues in which McDaniels' bodyguards are easily disposed of and the Kid manages to take down the larger, stronger, McDaniels.

The sheriff returns, so it seems like this story should be over. But it's not. It's here that the story takes a really strong and effective twist. It turns out that McDaniels owns half the town, inherited from Federal land grants that his father had been given. He has the power to destroy the town and says he'll do so unless the Outlaw Kid is arrested. The sheriff caves under pressure and the issue ends with him demanding the Kid surrender.

Does the Kid meekly give up? Well, of course not. But that's a story for next week when we look at the next issue.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast--latest episode now available

Scott, Jess and I talk about ERB's 1915 sequel to At the Earth's Core.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Cover Cavalcade

Morbius the Living Vampire never really clicked with me as a character I would follow, but this 1974 cover by Ron Wilson is pretty cool.