Cover Cavalcade

From 1975: Effectively creepy cover by Luis Dominguez.

Coming Soon to the Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast

https://erbpodcast.blogspot.com/

Friday's Favorite OTR

Destination Freedom: "Shakespeare of Harlem" 9/26/48

An excellent dramatization of the life of Langston Hughes which effectively incorporates a number of his poems into the story.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Charlie Chan at the Circus

Recently, I read a newly-published book reprinting the first year of a Charlie Chan comic strip originally published in 1938 & 39. The next day, Angela and I visited the Circus Museum located at the Ringling Museum of Art. So, the next step was obvious--we needed to watch the 1936 film Charlie Chan at the Circus. I believe this might actually have been required by law.

It's a Warner Oland/Keye Luke entry, which always gains a Chan movie a few extra points. The films starring Sidney Toler and Roland Winters are all tons of fun, but the Oland/Luke chemistry was never equaled.

In fact, Luke as "Number One Son" Lee Chan gave us the best of the Chan sons on several levels. His "look before you leap" enthusiasm (and, this time, his awkward romantic pursuit of a female contortionist) could generate sincerely funny moments, but Lee was smart and able to spot clues and make reasonable deductions. His dad might nearly always turn out to be one step ahead of him anyways, but Charlie is one step ahead of everyone.

And, though any of Charlie's kids would put their lives at risk to save their dad, it's Lee who never fails to jump without hesitation to put himself between Charlie and danger. This time around, though clearly terrified, grabs a pistol and pegs a cobra to save his father. Seriously, don't ever threaten Charlie Chan when Lee is around. It won't end well for you.

The movie itself starts strong, with a tracking shot of circus sideshow posters, that does a superb job of establishing both setting and atmosphere. Then we get to see Charlie's entire family--all twelve kids and his wife--for the first time (and one of the few times) in the series, as they visit the circus. Charlie was given free passes by one of the circus co-owners (played by Paul Stanton), who wants Charlie's advice about some threatening letters he's received.

And it's no wonder he's getting poison-pen letters. The guy is a jerk and we soon learn that at least a half-dozen circus workers and performers have reason to hate him. So it's really no surprise when he's found murdered, strangled while inside his locked-from-the-inside business wagon.

The body is found, by the way, when a sideshow midget climbs in through a ventilator. This part is played by George Brasno, who (with his sister Olive) had a popular music act and occasionally took roles in films. Brasno and Keye Luke later have an hilarious scene together when they are tailing a suspect, with Lee dressed as a mother and Brasno's character dressed as a baby (while smoking a cigar) while Lee pushed him around in a baby carriage.

Charlie agrees to help the local police, so he and Lee travel with the circus. Clues are uncovered, there's an attempt on Charlie's life, an attempt to murder someone else, and eventually a clever trap set to catch the killer.

The plot is solid and (within the confines of a B-movie universe) unfolds logically--yet another example that the B-movies of this era consistently provided us with straightforward, entertaining storytelling.

Also, Angela told me she was going to take a nap while I watched the movie, but ended up watching the whole thing with me. She's awesome.

Giant, Undead Brains and Three-Headed Dinosaurs

Auro, Lord of Jupiter, is a rather bizarre character. He first appeared in Planet Comics #41 (March 1946), ruling Jupiter with his consort Dorna. He's murdered by a rival.

About the same time, an American scientist named Chet Edson builds a prototype rocket ship, but a saboteur knocks him out, shoves him into the rocket and launches him into space. He crashes on Jupiter, but he can't survive in the atmosphere there.

So Dorna transfers Chet's mind into Auro's body. After a few adventures, Auro's personality reasserts itself and Chet is able to only subconsciously influence the big dope into taking intelligent action when in danger.

And there's a lot of danger on Jupiter. In Planet Comics #47 (March 1947), scientists are experimenting with the brain of a master criminal named Zago, King of the Underworlders. But Zago's brain is "struggling for freedom"and soon forces one of the scientists to drop him.

Soon, the brain has grown to gigantic proportions and is mind-controlling nearby people and animals. When Auro/Chet and Dorna fly in to investigate, they run into a gauntlet of various dangers.

It looks as if they are going to be overwhelmed, but Chet influences Auro to run from the fight and get to the nearby lab, even though this mean temporarily abandoning Dorna.

Zago rewards his underling for capturing Dorna by killing them, because he's decided that everyone ought to be dead just like he technically is. He doesn't kill Dorna right away, but rather begins tormenting her with the illusion of three-headed dinosaurs. Zago might be evil, but he comes up with some pretty cool illusions.

Fortunately, Chet has influenced Auro into inventing a device that destroys Zago, ending the threat and saving Dorna in the nick of time.

This is the first Auro, Lord of Jupiter story I've read and it is delightfully goofy, jumping wildly from one plot point to another with gleeful abandon. It might arguably have benefited from some more coherent world-building, but--then again--not every work of fiction needs to have strong internal logic. Sometimes, it's nice to just go with the flow and have fun.

You can read this story online HERE.

Next week, I think we'll return to Earth and visit with Swamp Thing.

Cover Cavalcade

Wonderful Black Mask cover from 1935.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "The Long Night" 11/18/56

Frank Lovejoy is an air traffic controller who has to talk down a lost and inexperienced pilot during a bout of bad weather. It's a plot devise that has become cliched over the years, but here is used to generate incredible tension.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Make Sure She Loves You BEFORE Running Off with Her!--The Pusadian Tales, Part 4

Read/Watch 'em In Order #107

The fourth tale in L. Sprague de Camp's Pusadian Cycle appeared in the December 1953 issue of Universe Science Fiction, about a month after "The Stronger Spell" appeared in another magazine.

This one is called "The Hungry Hercynian" and it may be my personal favorite in the series. It brings back the young and ambitious Gezun of Lorsk, who debuted in "The Owl and the Ape," along with Derezong Taash, the wizard who was the protagonist of "The Eye of Tandyla." The two meet up in this story.

It's not a happy meeting, though. Gezun is now a free man, released from slavery and given a number of magic items when his master died. But things have not been going well for him and he is out of work, on the run from the angry father of a pregnant daughter and with only a single magic ring (a protector from charms) remaining in his possession.

He arrives in the Tartesian empire and immediately develops a crush on a pretty slave girl he sees on the auction block. Darazong buys the girl and, since Gezun and Darazong are both originally from the same country, the younger man manages to wheedle an invitation for room and board for the night. But, after drinking a little too much wine, he impulsively grabs the girl (named Yorida) and runs off with her, eventually hiding out in a cave outside the city, scrounging for enough food to keep the two of them fed.

In retrospect, it would have been wiser if he'd asked Yorida if she actually wanted to run off with him before taking any action.

What follows is both a well-constructed fantasy tale and an hilarious screwball-esque comedy. Another man, a local lord named Noish, had also been bidding on Yorida. This is because he's made a deal with a Hercynian wizard. The wizard wants to have a plump young girl for dinner. (And that should be taken literally--the Hercynians are cannibals), while Noish wants the wizard to dispose of a rival to the king's favors.

So Noish's men are still looking for the girl. When they manage to get hold of her, Gezun contacts a local magician for help in getting her back for himself. The magician, though, actually isn't very good at his job, so he sub-contracts Derezong Taash for help, unaware that Derezong also has a claim on the girl.

The various plot threads and character motivations come together beautifully at the end. Lord Noish, the guy who was willing to let a slave girl be eaten to get what he wanted, ends up getting eaten himself. Derezong gets Yorida back. Gezun at first seems to have lost both the girl and his magic ring, but after mugging the local magician, he at least gets his ring back, along with some money. He sets out for richer pastures, where we'll meet him again in the next tale in the Cycle.

I really enjoy the skill with which de Camp constructed this particular story, milking it for a lot of laugh-out-loud humor while still making sure it made internal sense in regards to its mythical Bronze-Age culture. His dry sense of humor is very much on display here. For instance, here's a scene in which Gezun first encounters Derezong's apprentice while still a guest in the wizard's home:

Zhamel set down the jug, looked at Gezun, pulled out a knife big enough to split kindling, and began trimming his fingernails with it.

"A fine bit of bronze," he said. "I keep it sharp in case some young springald should try to worm himself into my place with Derezong."

"I understand," said Gezun, wondering if there were not some way by which he could safely murder Zhamel.

A scene in which Lord Noish disposes of his rival by slipping him a drug that forces the rival to tell the truth when speaking to the king is equally hilarious.

The story is available to read online HERE.

Enter The Dragon Lady

For the first couple of years of its existence, Milt Caniff's Terry and the Pirates ran separate story lines in daily and Sunday strips. The first daily strip ran on October 22, 1934, with Terry and his guardian Pat Ryan arriving in China in search of a gold mine left to Terry by his grandfather.

That initial story arc ran through January 1935. But, in the meantime, Terry and Pat began to have a completely different adventure in the Sunday strip, which began on December 6, 1934.

For those of us who are obsessed with continuity (probably due to a refusal to completely admit that such adventures aren't actually happening in real life), you can line all this up with a coherent internal chronology. If you own the superb reprint volumes that were published a decade ago, then you read the first daily adventure through the January 25, 1935 strip. Then read all the Sunday adventures that were independent of the daily strips. Then jump back to the January 26, 1935 strip and read chronologically from there. With only a few minor continuity issues, it all lines up nicely.

So you see? Terry IS real! It's all real! I KNEW IT!

Anyway, it's that first Sunday story arc that we're looking at today. Terry and Pat book passage on a freighter to Shanghai. But the it's pretty much impossible for those two to go anywhere without running into trouble. That first evening, the ship is stalked by pirates.

There's a brief fight when the pirates attack, but Terry and Pat are soon overwhelmed and captured. We saw the helmsman of the freighter gunned down by a pirate and presumably the rest of the crew are killed as well.

The person responsible for this carnage is the most memorable of the many reoccurring characters that Caniff will eventually introduce into Terry's universe. This is the Dragon Lady, the beautiful but ruthless pirate and bandit chief who will pop up again and again, often as a enemy and sometimes (especially when fighting the Japanese) as an ally.

At this early point in the strip, Caniff's art was still maturing, so the Dragon Lady doesn't quite generate the "Hubba Hubba" vibe she and most of the rest of Caniff's ladies soon will, but she's still pretty darn close. He also has her speaking in a stereotypical "Chinese" accent, though this started to fade away even before this initial adventure was complete.

But even so, the Dragon Lady is a striking, memorable character right from the start, with the potential romantic tension between her and Pat building almost immediately.  In fact, it's not long before she's trying to seduce Pat into joining up with her, though Terry manages to run interference for his buddy.

The situation changes rapidly when a rival pirate captain named Fang attacks the Dragon Lady's ship. This nearly gets Terry and Pat killed, but quick action on Terry's part saves their lives, though they (along with the Dragon Lady) are captured by Fang.

Fang keeps the Dragon Lady alive because he wants to find out where her hidden loot is kept. He keeps Pat and Terry around because he plans to force them to pretend to be in distress and lure a British passenger ship in close enough to capture it. This forces a reluctant team-up. In return for a promise to help her escape, she slips the boys a mirror, which they then use to secretly send a Morse code message to the British ship. This warns off the ship before it can be attacked and sets the American Navy on Fang's trail.

A Navy gunboat soon arrives, resulting in a desperate fight, with Terry getting a chance to take care of Fang personally.

So the pirates are dead or captured. And the Dragon Lady? Well, Terry and Pat did promise to help her escape. So they tell a fib to the Navy, identifying the Dragon Lady as an innocent hostage. She goes free to continue her own career looting and pillaging.

It's actually an interesting moral dilemma. Pat and Terry do what they think is right to keep their promise. I get that. On the other hand, the crew of the freighter they had been on--one of whom was an old friend of Pat's--were all ruthlessly killed on her orders. Now she escapes justice and is free to commit more murders. So we can legitimately argue that the boys dropped the ball here.

But I suspect the primary motivation for their decision was Caniff's desire to keep the Dragon Lady available for future appearances. He was already building a vibrant and exciting universe in which Terry would battle pirates, bandits, spies and (eventually) the Japanese. It's likely he had recognized the Dragon Lady's potential for future adventures and simply needed a way of keeping her out of the hangman's noose.

But what am I saying? Didn't we establish earlier that Terry and the Pirates are real? Isn't Caniff merely an historian recounting their adventures? So I guess my last paragraph is just so much gibberish. Sorry about that.

Next week, we fly off to Jupiter to meet and giant, evil brain and a disembodied Earthman.

Cover Cavalcade

A very effective Irv Novick cover from 1965.