Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #29: Tarzan's Quest

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #29: Tarzan's Quest:   Tim, Jess and Scott discuss the novel  Tarzan's Quest , which recounts an adventure featuring everything from a plane crash to a murde...

Cover Cavalcade

 

October is George Wilson month. This cover is from 1973.

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—THE GUNS OF LEGENDE #6: DIRTY DEEDS

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—THE GUNS OF LEGENDE #6: DIRTY DEEDS: WESTERN NOVELS DIRTY DEEDS  THE GUNS OF LEGENDE #6 BRODY WEATHERFORD  REVIEWED BY TIM DEFOREST The Society of Buckhorn and Bison is tasked w...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Dragnet: "The Big Speech" 4/19/51

Friday and his partner are assigned to catch a young and violent thief who is stealing narcortics from doctor offices.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Mob (1951)

 

The Mob is a 1951 Film Noir starring Broderick Crawford. This is just a couple of years after Crawford won an Oscar for All the King's Men --and this was a time when the Oscars actually celebrated what I consider good movies, rather than celebrating movies I've never often never heard of and (for the most part) you couldn't pay me to see.

But I'm not sure that Crawford's performance in The Mob doesn't equal or even succeed All the King's Men. He plays a cop named Johnny Damico. We meet him as the film opens, as he barters with a jewelry store owner over the price of an engagement ring. The store owner knows him and his girl. It's a great scene. Crawford immediately makes us like Johnny and we also learn that he's quick with a clever one-liner. This, in turn, tells us he's smart.

Being smart, though, doesn't always keep you from making a dumb mistake. There's a shooting outside the store. Johnny gets the drop on the shooter, but this guy identifies himself as a cop and the dead man as a cop killer. The shooter flashes a badge, so Johnny believes him. It's only after the shooter gets away that Johnny learns he was a hitman. The dead man was a witness against the mob. The badge had belonged to a cop who had also been murdered.

That puts Johnny in hot water with his boss. Officially, he's suspended for 60 days. Unofficially, he's going to go undercover on the waterfront to smoke out the head of the mob who is forcing the longshoremen to pay kickbacks in exchange for work.

This is where Crawford's performance really shines. He adopts the identity of a low-level thug named Tim Flynn, who has just arrived from New Orleans. Like Johnny, Tim is quick with clever comebacks. But where Johnny is likeable, Tim is quick-tempered and a bit of a jerk. Johnny is pretty much using his Mirror Universe self to fool the mobsters.

He starts to make contacts, trying to find the big boss. That boss is named Blackie, but no one knows who he really is. Johnny/Tim runs into trouble when a lower level boss tries to frame him for murder.  He's able to think his way out of that situation. 

That's another strong element of the film. Despite his goof-up at the beginning of the movie, Johnny is indeed smart. He can indeed think his way out of potentially dangerous situations.

Eventually, Johnny does get a line on Blackie. He also finds out that Blackie wants to hire him (as Tim) to kill a cop named Johnny Damico. All this leads to a satisfying climax.

The supporting cast includes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Charles Bronson as a dock worker, Ernest Borgnine as a second-tier mob boss and Neville Brand as a college-educated leg-breaker working for Borgnine's character. Gee whiz, I love movies like this. Filmed in glorious black-and-white, seeded with actors whom classic movie fans come to consider to be old friends, and telling a good story in a logical manner. This is what movies should be. 

The movie can be found on Amazon Prime. Here's a link to it on YouTube::

The Ghost Mine

 

cover art by Till Goodman

Four Color #47 (July 1944--writer and artist unknown) keeps Gene Autry busy right from the first page, when he runs across a stagecoach that was robbed of the gold shipment it was carrying.

In fact, the poor driver is robbed every single time the stage is carrying gold, even though those shipments are supposed to be a secret. Someone has inside information.

It's a situation destined to activate Gene's Chronic Hero Syndrome and he's soon hanging out at a local saloon in Goldtown, looking for information. He doesn't discover anything definite about the robberies, but he does meet a big guy named Bull Riggs, who is good with a whip. Gene and Bull spend a few panels showing off their respective skill.

This, of course, foreshadows a later event in the story, but leaves Gene no closer to finding the bad guys. Soon after, though, a young lady named Milly Nolan arrives in town. She has her father's will, which leaves her the local gold mine. But a guy named Bill Drake claims Milly's dad sold HIM the mine before he died.

That mine, by the way, had seemed to be worthless, but Bill claims to have struck a new vein, making it profitable. 

Both Gene and Milly think Bill is lying and forged the new deed. They plan to get a handwriting expert to prove this.

Of course, the deed IS forged. Bill's scheme is to steal gold from the stage, melt it down and claim he's digging it out of the mine. But he also realizes that the jig will be up as soon as an expert examines the forged signatures on the deed. It's time to load up the gold and leave town.

To gain time, he and his minions (which includes whip-expert Bull) kidnap Milly. Bill doesn't want to commit a murder if he doesn't have to, so he locks her in a room inside the mine. When Gene investigates, he's captured as well and locked in another room. 

Gene's tied up, but the bad guys didn't bother tying up Milly. She crawls through a ventilation shaft to free Gene, who then prys open the locked door with a barrell stave. He takes Milly back to town, borrows a pistol and chases the bad guys. During the chase, Bull drops his whip. Gene recovers it and uses it to catch the villains. 

"The Ghost Mine" is a good story. It's well-constructed--for instance, the ventilator shaft Milly uses to free Gene was mentioned previously, preventing it from being a deus ex machina. I suppose the foreshadowing with the whip contest in the bar was a little heavy-handed, but it was a neat scene nonetheless.

And I really like the art. The unknown artist effectively uses establishing shots to set up scenes and shifts his "camera" about in interesting ways. The night time scenes, especially when Molly is being kidnapped, are nicely atmospheric. "The Ghost Mine" is a worthy addition to Gene Autry's canon of adventures.

You can read this issue online HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with Spider Man and decide whether the Spider Mobile was awesome or just plain dumb.

Cover Cavalcade

 

October is George Wilson month. Here's a cover from 1964.

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—SHADOW VALLEY

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—SHADOW VALLEY: WESTERN NOVELS SHADOW VALLEY GORDON D SHIRREFFS REVIEWED BY TIM DEFOREST Holt Cooper inherits a ranch in Shadow Valley after his brother is ...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Sherlock Holmes: "The Adventure of Sally Martin" 11/23/46

A man is murdered aboard a yacht and Holmes is asked to investigate. Not surprisingly, everyone else on board has a motive.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Anniversary Break, Part 2