Zorro's Secret Passage

 

The second and final story in Four Color #882 (February 1958) is--not surprisingly--an adaptation of the second episode of Disney's Zorro.

I mentioned last week that an Indexer Note on the Grand Comics Database said that, in addition to the art, Alex Toth did some unauthorized editing to the first story. There's no such note for this particular story, but I wonder if Toth had the same concerns about pacing and too much dialogue.

Because the first 4 pages of this 14 page story (29% of the entire tale) is given over to exposition, with Diego showing  Bernardo a hidden tunnel from his dad's house that leads to a huge cavern with a concealed second exit leading to the countryside. It's all necessary to setting up future stories and is enlivened by Toth's superb art. But it does slow the pacing down considerably.

The tale finally does get started. Captain Monastario stops by with a copy of Zorro's costume and a plan to have various vasqueros try it on. He's convinced he can identify Zorro by his bearing and his sword fighting style. Diego tries to convince him this plan is flawed, pointing out that he (Diego) would look like Zorro with the costume on. He then throws a sword fight with Monastario to prove he can't be Zorro. 

Monastario soon arrests some poor slob who fits into the costume and can't provide an alibi for Zorro's last appearance. This is because he won't admit he was with a girl and wants to protect her honor.

This obligates the real Zorro to make a standard nick-of-time appearance, show off enough brilliant swordsmanship to prove he is indeed the real thing, then use the the old "jump a crevasse with the only horse cool enough to do so" to escape pursuers. He ducks back home through the secret entrance and is ready to greet the soldiers as Diego, telling them he hasn't seen hide nor hair of that dastardly Zorro.

It's a good story and, as I already said, Toth's art is superb. There is an issue with pacing over the first few pages, but the story is short enough--and Toth's art fantastic enough--to get us past that and into the meat of the plot without us getting bored. Overall, Four Color #882 is a great adaptation of the TV series and a strong introduction to the character. 

Next week, Batman and Robin investigate a murder and fight robot monsters. 

Zorro--the Beginning

 

Arguably, the most fondly remembered adaptation of Zorro is the 1957 TV series, a product of the Walt Disney Studios and starring Guy Williams as the swashbuckling hero. 

And, in the 1950s, pretty much all TV shows got comic book adaptations. This iteration of Zorro jumped to the pages of a comic book in Dell's Four Color #882 (February 1958). An unidentified writer and artist Alex Toth give us two stories based on the first two episodes of the series. We'll look at "Presenting Senior Zorro" this week and "Zorro's Secret Passage" next week.

Toth's art is breathtakingly good--lively, fun to look at and telling the story well. But Toth apparently did more than illustrate the script. He also decided to do a little editing. An Indexer Note in the Grand Comics Database tells us this:

Toth was very unhappy having to work from adaptations of the TV shows' scripts, which he felt had too much dialogue and not enough action. In order to tighten up the storytelling, he deleted unnecessary dialogue and cut redundant captions wherever possible, which did not go over well with the Editor.

I can understand Toth's unhappiness. The episode is a good one, effectively setting up the premise for the series and giving us a great action scene at the climax. But because so much exposition is required, it is a tale that doesn't necessarily translate well into a graphic storytelling medium. Even with the changes that Toth apparently made, the story is somewhat dialogue heavy.

But Toth is one of those artists who is incapable of drawing an uninteresting panel. His great figure work and a constantly shifting camera angle from panel to panel keeps us interested as Don de la Vega comes home from Spain and adopts his milqtoast persona so that he can operate against the tyrannical government as Zorro.

The end result works well. There is still an argument that the story is too dialogue-heavy, but the pacing is still fast, all the elements of the series' premise are clearly established, and the climatic action scene, in which Zorro springs an unjustly imprisoned land-owner from jail, is wonderful. Reading through this issue reminds me of just how great an artist Toth was.

My favorite Zorro will always be Tyrone Power, but that probably in part because the Guy Williams series wasn't rerun in my locality when I was growing up and I've never seem more than a smattering of episodes. So I have less of an attachment to it than other Zorro fans. All the same, I've seen enough of the series to know how much fun it was and how much skill Guy Williams brought to the role. I think this adaptation brings appropriate honor to that.

As I've said--next week, well look at the second Zorro story from this issue. 

Live Action Disney Movies Don't Get Enough Credit

It's true. Live-action Disney films from the 1950s through the 1970s don't get enough credit. Everyone remembers their animated films--and they should. The Disney animated canon is stuffed with classics. And a few live-action films, most notably Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, are well-remembered. But there's a lot of films that have fallen through the cracks and aren't well-remembered by more than a few brilliant bloggers and other smarter-than-average people.

Candleshoe (1977) is, for instance, an incredibly fun movie. Staring a 15-year-old Jodie Foster, it's about a kid who makes her living as a thief until she's found by British con artist Harry Bundage (Leo McKern). The kid, named Casey, is the right age and happens to have the right scar on her shoulder to pass as the long-lost granddaugther of Lady Gwendolyn St. Edmond (Helen Hayes). Lady Gwendolyn lives at the estate of Candleshoe, where a pirate ancestor has supposedly buried a treasure and left behind the first of a series of cryptic clues that would lead people to that treasure.

So the idea is for Casey to pass herself off as the granddaughter while searching for the treasure. Then she and Harry run for it with the pirate gold.

Casey's subsequent story arc is predictable, but good acting, good script and some beautiful location photography means it all comes together in a funny story that also hits some effective emotional beats

Aside from Lady Gwendolyn, Candleshoe is inhabited by Priory the butler  (David Niven) and four orphans Lady Gwendolyn took in and came to think of as family.

At first, Casey and the other kids dislike each other and Casey isn't planing on being around long anyways. But she soon discovers Lady Gwendolyn is out of money, but that Priory and the kids are keeping this a secret from her while they do what they can to scrape together enough money to pay the taxes and keep the estate from going up for auction. Priory, in fact, is using disguises to keep Lady Gwen from finding out the rest of the staff has long since been let go. (Though we later learn that Lady Gwen might be a little more on the ball than her makeshift family suspects.)

Casey's growth into a true member of the family is indeed predictable, but it extremely well-done, shown through sometimes subtle moments such as when we see her washing dishes after earlier having refused to help with chores. Eventually, after Harry steals the money that had been saved to pay the taxes, she tells the family everything and they get together to solve the remaining clues, find the treasure and save the estate. This will include chasing a train across the countryside to find a particular clue and later engaging in some hilarious slapstick combat against Harry and a gang of hired thugs.

So Candleshoe is enjoyable, funny and emotionally engaging--a live-action gem that should be better remembered than it is.

Being a Genius Despite a Lack of Resources

Gyro Gearloose, created by Carl Barks in 1952, was a wonderful addition to the Duck Universe. A genius inventor, his many gadgets could be used to further the plot, provide a solution to a problem, or go awry and cause a problem that needed to be solved.

Usually, Gyro had access to his workshop and his tools, allowing him to design pretty much anything that Scrooge or Donald might need. But a really fun story from Four Color #1184 (June 1961) deprives Gyro of all his usual resources, which in turn allowed Carl Barks to highlight just how inventive Gyro can be.

"Brain-Strain" starts with a shipwreck, caused because Donald didn't think things through and build his new boat using thumb tacks to hold it together. In the confusion of abandoning ship, Donald floats off in a raft while Gyro is floating helplessly with the paddle.

So Gyro has to deal with a desperate situation without any resources to speak of. Well, actually he has that paddle, doesn't he? He uses this to enhance his swimming ability and he soon reaches a small island.

Donald has made it to the same island. He's still in "just wasn't thinking" mode and soon lets the raft float away while burning the paddle as firewood. So now the two are trapped on the island without any resources at all. 

Except Gyro is able to find resources even on that barren landscape. I suppose it shows how much of a Trekkie I am in that the above scene, in which Gyro gathers up the stuff he needs to make gunpowder, makes me think about the Star Trek episode "The Arena," in which Captain Kirk did the same thing.

You know, a version of Star Trek in which Gryo serves as the Enterprise's science officer rather than Spock would be... illogical, but a lot of fun. 

Gyro's first effort to signal passing airplanes with a gunpowder explosion can't be seen through the flocks of birds that hover over the island. So, with Donald's reluctant (and hypnotised) help, he gathers up enough feathers to fill the cone of the small extinct volcano that tops the island. Setting this off with gunpowder causes a rain of feathers, which does catch the attention of a passing airplane. A rescue boat soon arrives.

The story brilliantly highlights just how brilliant Gyro Gearloose is, as well as showing off Barks' usual skill in smoothly combining slapstick comedy with a real sense of adventure. But Gyro's genius does fail him for the story's final gag. Tired of Donald "just not thinking," he makes the grouchy duck a thinking cap. But his results in Donald soon running a competing invention business!

Next week, we'll visit with Terry and the Pirates during Terry and Pat's first encounter with the Dragon Lady.

Cover Cavalcade

A terrific Carl Barks cover from 1958.

Don't Mess with the Butler!

I don't think a lot of the Disney live-action films from the '50s & '60s are as well-remembered as they should be. The studio was stuffed full of skilled storytellers and few of the films produced there were clunkers.

For instance, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967) is an enormously fun movie. It is essentially the story of the world's most awesome butler, played with skill and humor by Roddy McDowell.

It's based on a children's novel titled By the Great Horn Spoon! I haven't read the book, though it is my understanding that the movie pretty much leaves the book behind and goes off in its own direction.

I have no idea whether making the movie was a fun experience for the cast and crew, but, by golly, I hope they did. Bullwhip Griffin is one of movies in which you have the distinct impression that the actors in it are really enjoying the roles they are playing. Of course, for all I know, making the movie was a miserable experience for all involved and it just seems like fun because they were all ACTING! But if I had to bet money on it, I'd go with them all having fun.

The story starts in Boston. Young Jack Flagg is reading dime novels about the California gold rush--most notably about a character called Bullwhip Brannigan--and gets it into his head that it would be fun to seek his fortune out West.

Since Jack and his sister Arabella (Suzanne Pleshette) live in a large mansion, it seems he already has his fortune. But when they find out their grandfather has died broke, Jack decides it is indeed time to stowaway on a ship heading to San Francisco, find a fortune in gold, then come back to take care of his older sister.

Griffin pursues Jack aboard the ship, but both end up stuck aboard when she sails. They team up with a down-and-out Shakespearean actor (Richard Haydn) who claims to have a map to the "mother lode." A thief and con artists known as Judge Higgins (Karl Malden) also enters the picture. He's after the map at first and later after stealing everyone else's money in any way he can.

Once in California, Jack and Griffin undertake a series of adventures in search of their fortune. The comedic elements of the story are sincerely funny as it gently satirizes Westerns, but what makes the film work on a storytelling level is that it's not the expected "Fish Out of Water" tale you would expect after thrusting a cultured butler into a rough-and-tumble world. Griffin (who is soon nicknamed Bullwhip after Jack's dime novel hero) keeps his head in dangerous situations and thinks quickly on his feet. There is both a sense of real danger and a sense that Griffin can really win out in the end if he just keeps plugging along.

There's also a real chemistry between Griffin and Arabella. It's obvious from the start that the two are in love with each other, but Griffin won't pursue a woman he considers above his own station. But when Arabella also shows up in San Francisco, she proves to be quite intelligent and capable in her own right. And, by golly, she sure looks purty at the same time.

The movie's climatic scene is an often hilarious bare-knuckled boxing match between Griffin and a big guy appropriately named Mountain Ox (played by Mike Mazurki), in which we learn that brains--and a good deal of dumb luck--can always win out over brawn.

Alice and Julius

I've been reading an excellent biography on Walt Disney and it's made me re-visit some of Disney's very early cartoons. The Alice cartoons were the first series he made after opening a fledgling studio in Hollywood in the 1920s. He was barely scrapping by, but with the help of artists like Ub Iwerks, he was rapidly learning the art of animation.

The Alice shorts aren't anywhere near as good as the Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse cartoons Disney and animator Ub Iwerks be doing in just a few years, but they still have a lot of charm and still entertain..

The cat in the Alice shorts, by the way, was named Julius. I didn't know that until I read it in the biography. You can tell that he was based very heavily on Felix the Cat, whose cartoons were very popular at the time.

Here's an Alice and a Felix cartoon for comparison.