Anniversary/Wife's Birthday Break

 

cover art by Bill Draut (from 1970)

 

No Wednesday or Thursday post this week, as I take a break for the one-two punch of my wedding anniversary followed by my wife's birthday.

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS HAWKEYE & GREEN ARROW MONTH!!!

An awesome Jim Aparo cover from 1980.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "The Old Lady" 1/24/53

An old woman's existance on a remote ranch has left her bereft of emotion. Her son is a wayward lout who drinks too much. This will not end well.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Mud, Cold and Terror

 

cover by H. C. Murphy

I've now written often enough about J.D. Newsom's Foriegn Legion stories, I wish I'd given these posts a clever series name. 

A few months ago, I declared Newsom's 1935 tale "Grenades for the Colonel" my favorite. But now I may change my mind. "Mud," published in the December 30, 1925 issue of Adventure, is fantastic.

Most of Newsom's Legion stories are set in North Africa, though at least one  ("Soldiers of Misfortune") shifted its setting to Southeast Asia for the second half of that story. "Mud," though, is set in the trenches during the Great War.

Two privates, Withers (British) and Curialo (American) are serving in the trenches, a cold, rat-infested environment in which you are ALWAYS knee deep in mud. Their sergeant--a martinet named Verbuken--orders them to move out into No Man's Land during the night and repair some gaps in the barbed wire. While at this job, they spot a German crawling towards them. They jump the guy, knock him out and bring him back. Unfortunately for the two privates, the "German" they captured turns out to be Sgt. Verbukon.

This opening sequence sets up the tone of the story. There is humor here--the fight with Verbokun includes some near-slapstick elements in which Withers getting his ear snagged on barbed wire and then accidentally slams Curialo several times with a mallet while trying to knock out the "German." 

But there is still the sense of danger--the terror inherent in being out in the pitch-black night and not knowing from when and where the enemy might come--and the constant cold, sticky, thick presence of mud everywhere.

The next morning, the two privates are sent back under guard for court martial. Along the way, a sudden artillery barrage kills their escort and the two are suddenly facing a German breakthrough. From here, the humor drops off (though never completely disappears) as Withers and Curialo find themselves in a bombed-out village, using a machine gun and hand grenades to hold off the Germans. When night falls, after a French counter attack fails, they decide to sneak back to their lines. Along the way, they meet (of course) Sgt. Verbokun. The three have to ditch their clothes to swim a canal. This leaves them near-helpless from freezing while there are still Germans they have to bypass to get to safety.

Newsom's vivid prose puts us right at the side of the Legionaries. Here are some prime examples of that prose:

It was unreal and fantom-like, a ghostly imitation of maneuvers carried out a hundred times on the burning sands of the Sidi Bel Abbes parade ground. It had gone on since the beginning of time and would go on forever — the noise and the rush of the bullets and the staggering impact of shells, and the race across upheaved ground where dead men lay with their heads thrown back in muddy pools, or curled up as if they slept and were cold, or flung out spread-eagled and gutted, grinning at the sky where the black shrapnel burst.

and

From their point of vantage Curialo and Withers saw a fresh counter attack start from the wood on the hill crest and reach the calvary, where it withered and was blown away by machine gun fire. Another fine followed on the heels of the first, and a third came close behind. At one point they reached the houses, broke through, swarmed down the street. For a minute they were everywhere, running swiftly and throwing bombs with the splendid poise of Greek gods, and dying in ungainly, squirming lumps on manure heaps in stinking yards.

and

Bayonet in hand Curialo staggered along the road neither knowing nor caring whether he went up it or down it so long as he got somewhere, either among Germans who would be good enough to kill him, or among his own people who would put him to bed. In either case he would get a long rest. The others followed close at his heels. Whenever they heard the warning scream of a shell they broke into a shambling run.

"Mud"  is an intense, vivid war story--one of the best I've ever read. Withers and Curialo are wonderful protagonists--in fact, Newsome used them in several stories, both before and after "Mud.". You can read "Mud" for yourself HERE. 

Kidnapping Death!

 

cover art by George Wilson

Is it annoying when I feature an awesome cover like the one above and then DON'T review that specific story?

If so--well, it's my blog so live with it!

Anyway, the story from this issue we are going to review is "The Man Who Kidnapped Death," by an unknown writer and art by John Celardo. (Twilight Zone #43--May 1972)

A guy named Herman Floyd was dying, so Death shows up to collect him when he does. Actually, its not Death, but a sort of Death worker drone. Floyd learns that each of us has a specific mini-Death assigned to us. No one else can take us to the Next World.

So Floyd tricks his mini-Death and locks the little guy in a suitcase. Later, he dumps the case into the ocean.

That means Floyd is now immune to death. The story doesn't go into detail on how this works, but it apparently means he's immune to illness and injury as well. Some versions of immortality end with the person crippled or helpless with old age. In this case, Floyd can't be injured and (in fact) his clothes seem immune to damage as well. When he crawls out of the burning race car shown below, shouldn't his clothes have been burned away? To be fair, though, the story has the right to establish its own rules.  If Floyd is now immune to injury, than he just is--and that's fine.

The car crash happens because Floyd starts to live a dangerous life, looking for thrills. He races cars, climbs mountains and so on. But he's soon bored. Without the risk of death, none of the stuff he's doing is fun.

So he starts to dredge for the suitcase containing mini-Death. He still hasn't found it before he meets a lady and falls in love. Now, being immortal doesn't seem so bad.

He takes her fishing. In a neat (if still predictable) twist, she snags the suitcase, brings it aboard their boat and opens it before Floyd can stop her. Mini-Death is free again, and he's soon explaining that a cut Floyd suffers just might be getting infected...

The ending twist is predictable, but the art is good and the story is well-told. It's a story that feels very Twilight Zone-y and could easily have been an episode in the original series. 

Next week, we'll visit the Marvel Universe and see what the Avengers are up to.

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS HAWKEYE & GREEN ARROW MONTH!!

A 1974 cover by John Romita

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Big Town: "Deadly Doll" 11/23/48

An unusually strong woman breaks a man's neck. And she's willing to break more necks to get what she wants.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Rare Books and Murder

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #171

We still  have a Tom Corbett book to eventually look at as part of the In Order series, but I caught a movie on TCM today that I want to write about. That movie had two sequels made the next year AND I just scored a triple feature disc with all three of the films on it on Ebay. So we'll add them to the In Order line-up. If I get confused and start writing about Tom Corbett being a rare book dealer... well, I'll try to keep it all straight. Besides, Tom would only deal in rare SPACE books.

Anyway, Fast Company (1938) was directed by Edward Buzzell and released by MGM. It's based on a novel written by Marco Page--a pen name for screenwriter Harry Kurnitz, who also co-wrote the screenplay. I'd like to read the book as well, but quick search makes me think an affordable copy will be hard to find.

The movie features Melvyn Douglas as a rare book dealer named Joel Sloan, who runs his business with the help of his wife Garda (Florence Rice). Joel's bookshop doesn't make a lot of money, but he supplements his income with detective work--tracking down stolen rare books and getting rewards from the insurance companies. 

But when a rival and probably corrupt dealer is murdered, a friend of Sloan's is the main suspect. So Sloan is obligated to step up his detective game and look for a killer. 

He has a lot of suspects to chose from. There's Eli Bannerman (Louis Calhern), who--like the dead man--deals in stolen books. Sid Wheeler (Dwight Frye) has a talent for making fake first editions. And the victim's lovely secretary (Claire Dodd) was probably involved in the crooked side of the business as well.

While looking into the murder, Joel often pauses to banter with his wife. The movie is obviously going for a Thin Man vibe. And this is fine, because it suceeds here. Douglas and Rice have a nice chemistry together, their one-liners are often very funny, and she comes across as smart and capable herself. In fact, Garda will get a chance to save Joel's life near the end of the film.

Another similiarity to the first Thin Movie at least is having the protagonist suffer a minor gunshot wound in an... embarassing location. I don't know if that was intentional or coincidental, but it's another fun conntection between the two series. 

The murder mystery in Fast Company is satisfying and the supporting cast is quite good. I always like seeing Dwight Frye outside the Universal monster movies. He was an excellent character actor whose early death in 1943 was a loss to the movie industry.

I also enjoyed seeing former wrestler Ned Pendleton as a less-than-brilliant thug. Ned, by the way, was in several of the Thin Man movies as a less-than-brilliant cop. He was good at playing befuddled and slow-witted character parts. 

The two sequels came in 1939. Provided there's no problem with my getting the DVD, I'll review those soon as well. It will be interesting to compare them, since the Sloans are played by different actors in each of the three films. Douglas and Rice got the series off to a strong start. Will the other actors do as well? 

Genie in the Wrong Bottle

 

cover art by Tony Strobl

As I've written before, the Looney Tunes comic book universe was a little less anarchic than the cartoons. Despite the presence of often hilarious slapstick humor, the comic stories usually involves a real sense of danger. 

Bugs Bunny #103 (January 1966), by an unidentified writer and art by Tony Stobl, is a great example of this. Bugs is digging himself a new hole when he finds an old bottle. That bottle contains a genie. Sadly, the genie can't access most of his magic powers. For this, he needs to be moved back to his original lantern, which is back in his homeland. But if Bugs can get his lantern back, the genie will gladly grant wishes.

This seems like a good deal. But getting to the unnamed Middle Eastern country will take money and Bugs doesn't have any.

So its off to Elmer Fudd's home. Elmer is short on cash as well, but once he has proof of the genie's existence, he agrees to sell his house to fund the trip.

The slapstick in the Dell and Gold Key Looney Tunes books really is good. What follows is a sincerely funny series of gags in which Bugs and Elmer get the lantern back, but are pursued by the soldiers of the local sultan and must uses wishes to escape. There's no chance of thinking through the individual wishes, so the first two merely give them a few minutes lead on the soldiers. The last one is a desperate wish to go home.

Throughout all this, the genie is enjoying being back in his lantern and annoyed that Bugs and Elmer keep interrupting him when he's in the shower, at dinner, etc.

They are on their third wish before the genie reminds them they only get THREE wishes. Bugs wishes he and Elmer home in the nick of time.

Which means the fortunes they both hoped for will now never exist. Elmer is without a place to live and has to move in with Bugs. Well, I guess that will make things more convenient for him when Rabbit Season rolls around.

It really is a fun story and Strobl's art is excellent. The Looney Tunes Comic Universe is definitely a different place than the Cartoon Universe, but it earns its right to exist.

Next week, we'll visit the Twilight Zone, where a man tries to cheat death. That's something that never ends well in the Twilight Zone.

Cover Cavalcade

 SEPTEMBER IS FLINTSTONES & JETSONS MONTH!!

This Ray Dirgo cover is from 1972. Pebbles and Bam-Bam are snot-nosed little trouble-makers, aren't they?