Captain Scarface

 

Barton MacLane was a great character actor who probably played bad guys more often than good guys. He also probably holds the record for the person most often shot or beaten up by Humphrey Bogart.

In the 1953 film Captain Scarface, he plays the title character and he's definitely the bad guy. A tramp steamer named the S.S. Banos is torpedoed and sunk by a Soviet sub, with survivors machine gunned in the water to keep this act of destruction a secret. Well, everyone but the radioman Clegg (Paul Brinegar), who was paid off to make sure no SOS was sent. 

Captain Tredor (also known as Scarface) then brings a nearly exact duplicate into a South American port, with plans to continue on to the Panama Canal. There, an atomic bomb hidden on the ship will be detonated. It's a suicide mission, but Scarface and his crew are fanatics--willing to die to accomplish their mission.

In port, Scarface takes aboard a  Soviet scientist and his daughter, who think they are being helped to defect. Instead, Scarface is soon forcing the scientist to make sure the bomb will work. 

But there's a fly in Scarfaces's ointment. Sam Wilton (Leif Erickson) is an American who has gotten in trouble and needs to leave South America as quickly as possible. Circumstances land him on the ship, using the identity of another Soviet agent without at first realizing that's who he's impersonating. Fortunately, Scarface is expecting the agent, but has never met him.

Wilton doesn't know what's going on, but (despite his own shady past) soon realizes he'll have to do something to save innocent lives. Outsmarting Scarface won't be easy, though. The ship captain might be a fanatic, but he's smart as a whip.

It's a fun movie, generating suspense as it moves the story along briskly. A sort-of side plot involving two innocent middle-aged passengers plays out in a way that ends up intertwining with the main plot and adding a several moments of sincere heartbreak. 

The ending is a little anti-climactic, but overall this is a movie worth watching.

Run, Gingerbread Man, Run!

 

cover art tentatively credited to Walt Kelly

Fairy Tale Parade #6 (May-July 1943) includes a charming 6-page story drawn and probably written by Walt Kelly. It's a simple, straightforward tale, given life by Kelly's energetic and delightful art.

The premise is simple. An old man, old woman and young boy live in a house, where the woman is cooking a gingerbread man. But the gingerbread man is (understandably) unwilling to just sit back and be eaten. He makes a break for it.

He outruns the man, woman and boy, bragging about how fast and agile a runner he is the whole time. He passes a couple of ditch diggers and taunts them into chasing him, then outruns them as well. 

He does the same with a bear and a wolf. Can no one catch this arrogant braggard of a cookie?

Well, someone can. When the gingerbread man brags to a fox, the fox feigns that he's hard of hearing. The gingerbread man comes closer and closer, annoyed as he repeatedly yells "I can outrun you, too!!!"

Before he knows it, he's close enough for the fox to simply grab and then quickly eat.

Like most fairy tales and fables, it has a simple moral--in this case: don't be overconfident or arrogant. And that's fine. Simple morals are an appropriate part of fairy tales and this one is a good lesson. But, as I mentioned above, what really gives this tale life is Kelly's art. The action is kinetic and fun--the characters are all endowed with personality. It's a fairy tale world all of us enjoy visiting. Well, as long as we don't get too close to the fox.

You can read this one online HERE. 

Next week... well, a jump from fairy tales to knife-wielding assassins seems logical enough to me. We'll be visiting with Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu. 

Cover Cavalcade

 SEPTEMBER IS FLINSTONES & JETSONS MONTH!!

A Harvey Eisenberg cover from 1964.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Suspense: "Dateline: Lisbon" 10/5/44

A photograph that accidentally captures the image of a Nazi war criminal might be enough to get two people killed.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Old Willie

 

"Old Willie," by William P. McGivern was published in the May 1953 issue of Manhunt, a wonderful magazine that regularly published superb hard-boiled fiction. 

"Old Willie" is indeed superb. I love the way it grabs you in the first paragraph:

This is a story I've heard told by the old-times around the Chicago newpaper offices. They don't insist it's true, of course, since it hands chiefly on the word of a reporter who was far more at home in speakeasies than he ever was at a typewriter. Still, parts of the tale can't be explained away as the splintered dream of a drunk. Maybe that's why the old-timers go on telling the story...

I defy anyone to read that paragraph and NOT want to find out what happens next.

The tale told by the old-timers goes back to 1927. There was an "amiable little man" called Willie who worked as a handyman/janitor at a boarding house. A young woman named Inger arrives from Minnesota with hopes of becoming an opera singer. Willie becomes a sort of surrogate father to her.

So he worries when she gets a job at a hotel used as a headquarters by the Capone mob. And when one of Capone's more brutal men--Blackie Cardina--get Inger pregnant and then dumps her.

Well, Willie isn't going to let that stand. He goes to the hotel and confronts Blackie, demanding money for Inger. But what is an amiable and elderly little man going to do against one of Capone's hired guns?

I don't want to give the ending away. Read it yourself HERE. And remember that in 1927 the Wild West wasn't all that long ago.

[The old-timers] don't insist that it's true, of course--but they keep on telling it. As well they should.

How to Outsmart a Pirate

cover art by Fred Ray

It is a truism that you can never have too many stories about either pirates or dinosaurs. Star Spangled War Stories would eventually do their share in providing dinosaur stories with the War That Time Forgot series--the greatest cultural achievement in the history of mankind.

They also helped with pirates. The 10th issue (June 1953) included a story by an unknown writer and artist Fred Ray titled "They Fought Under the Black Flag."

Set in 1803 during our war against the Barbary pirates, the story begins aboard the U.S. Navy ship Concord, where a crew of marines (led by Lt. O'Hara) are disguising themselves as pirates. Their mission is to sneak into a Tripolitan harbor controlled by the brutal pirate Yusseff Karamelli, who is holding American sailors prisoner.

But the plan SEEMS to go awry when Yusseff notices that "pirates" on the ship are wearing the leggings of American marines. He therefore plans to lure them into the harbor and blow them out of the water at close range.

Well, gee whiz. I was impressed with Lt. O'Hara's plan and strong leadership. How could he make such a rookie mistake? 

But fool that I am--I didn't trust the good Lieutenant enough. When the pirates open fire on the ship, the resulting explosion is big enough to wreck the port defences. And then Lt. O'Hara and his men, having sneaked off the boat and left painted dummies behind to fool Yussef, attack what's left of the fort. After a brief, sharp fight, the pirates are defeated and the hostages freed.

It's a fun, well-constructed story with strong artwork. And it sets the plot twist up nicely. That plot twist was meant to fool the children who were the regular readers of comic books in 1953. But I'll confess that for a few panels, it had me fooled as well. But I'm an emotional 8-year-old anyways, so perhaps that's to be expected.

Next week, we'll visit the realm of fairy tales.

Cover Cavalcade

 SEPTEMBER IS FLINSTONES & JETSONS MONTH!!

This 1968 cover is uncredited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Philip Marlowe: "The Open Window" 10/8/49

A woman with no memory shows up at Marlowe's home--with his name and address written on a piece of paper. Marlowe has to start with a few vague clues to find out who she is and why she needed him.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Hey! The Butler Really Did Do It!

 

cover artist uncredited

In "Your Murder, Sir!" by John L. Benton (Thrilling Detective Novel--January 1946), it's no secret who the killer is. The very first sentence tells us:

Williams, the perfect butler, was planning the perfect murder.

Williams is the butler to Eric Hathaway, who inherited a family fortune and spends his life in his home reading detective novels. This is a genre Williams loathed--considering them to be unrealistic tripe.

Anyway, Hathaway trusts Williams completely. If Williams gives him a stack of papers to sign, Hathaway will at the most glance at the top paper before signing all of them. So gradually embezzling Hathaway's fortune wasn't difficult. And, when it comes time to do away with the old boy, it's just as easy to get Hathaway to sign a suicide note without knowing it.

Williams has the whole thing planned out carefully: How to kill his boss; how to set things up to make it look like suicide; how to stash away the money he's stolen in different banks without leaving a trail. It's the perfect murder.

Well, it WOULD be the perfect murder if a police detective didn't pull off a trick that was felt like it was taken right out of a detective novel. 

This is a very short, but very fun novel. You go into it knowing that Williams' plan is going to go awry, so the fun is in finding out exactly how this happens. You can read it yourself HERE, starting on page 89.

Skagg's Raiders

 

cover art by Reed Crandall

Poor Skagg. With a name like that, he was probably destined to be a bad guy.

We meet him in Quality Comics' Blackhawk #26 (August 1949). He and the beautiful Dorna lead a group of ruthless outlaws. They have a hideout in thick jungle near the borders of three different countries. So they one of the borders, rob some place, then fade back across the border into the jungle to hide out. "Skagg's Raiders" has an credited writer and some excellent artwork by Wally Wood.

When Andre of the Blackhawks flies over, they decide it would be nice to have a plane--one of his men is a pilot. They lure the Frenchman down with a distress signal, where he's quickly captured. They initially plan to simply kill him, but the outlaw pilot realizes he'll need instruction on the advanced controls of a Blackhawk plane. Andre is locked up until he agrees to cooperate. The plane is hidden in the jungle. 

When he doesn't report in, the other Blackhawks start looking for him. They land in the same clearing, but at first find nothing. It's Chop Chop who discovers a footprint and starts trailing the outlaws into the jungle. 

Later on in the story, Chop Chop will act quickly to save Blackhawk's life. There's no getting around Chop Chop's stereotyped appearance and speech pattern--that's definitely a product of its time. But there's also no getting around that he's presented here as intelligent and brave. Go figure.

The Blackhawks silently capture a sentry and quietly approach the outlaw camp. Knowing that Andre is likely to be killed if a gunfight starts, Blackhawk casually walks into the camp and eggs Skagg into a fist fight. This distracts the other outlaws, allowing the Blackhawks to launch a surprise attack.

But Skagg and Dorna arn't done yet. They flee through an escape tunnel and seal off both ends when the Blackhawks pursue them. Then they and the outlaws proceed to have a party, knowing the Blackhawks are hopelessly trapped.

Not surprisingly, the Blackhawks are not hopelessly trapped. With some gunpowder salvaged from a few bullets, they blow open the tunnel door. Then they attack the outlaws once again.

This time, everything works out well for the good guys. Skagg is killed when Chop Chop saves Blackhawk with a well-thrown rock. Dorna tries to run for it and ends up as crocodile chow. Justice is rather brutally served on them both.

This is a fun tale--a straightforward adventure story that flows along quickly and logically, with Wally Wood's beautiful art bringing it all together. Read it yourself HERE. 

Next week, we'll observe an innovative method for fighting pirates.

Cover Cavalcade

 SEPTEMBER IS FLINSTONES & JETSONS MONTH!!

This 1963 cover was drawn by Harvey Eisenberg.