Friday's Favorite OTR

 Tales of the Texas Rangers: "The Wheelchair Killer" 10/7/51

A man confined to a wheelchair is found beaten to death. A few grains of sand found at the murder scene is the first clue in tracking down the killer.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Another Great LAST STAND Scene!

 

Francis Xavier Gordon, known as "El Borak," had numerous blood-and-thunder adventures in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries in the early years of the 20th Century. One of the seven El Borak tales is set during World War I--the others sets before the war.)

All the El Borak yarns are great--though, of course, Robert E. Howard rarely turned out anything other than great--and just occasionally merely good-stories.

The one I want to mention today is "Country of the Knife," first published in the August 1936 issue of Complete Stories. It's been reprinted--often under the title "Sons of the Hawk"--multiple times and is currently available in Del Rey's El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. 

The story awesome from start to finish, with El Borak showing off his talents for disguise, playing another part, and manipulating his enemies. There's still lots of action, of course, and--as good as the rest of the story is--I want to emphasize how good REH is at writing short action scenes that are so effectively stuffed with violence that you come away thinking it was several pages more to it than there is.

The climax has El Borak and four companions fleeing a remote city, pursued by a larger force on fresher horses. The fugitives reach a mountain pass soon after one of them tumbles off a cliff and their remaining horses die of exhausion. They take cover at the entrance to the path, determined to sell their lives dearly. They "lay behind boulders in the mouth of the pass. They had three pistols, a saber, a tulwar and a knife between them." 

The bad guys charge them on horseback. Bullets fly and the battle quickly turns into a hand-to-hand melee.

From start to finish, the action runs through only about a dozen short paragraphs. So much happens in those few paragraphs that, as I said, you think the battle might have run several pages before coming to its unexpected and satisfying end. But the prose doesn't feel crowded, over-stuffed or too long. It feels just right.

This was one of REH's talents as a writer. He did the same thing in Black Colossus, a Conan novella in which you THINK the epic battle between two armies must have been several chapters, but is only a few pages. The large-scale battles in his Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon are the same way--satisfying battle scenes that last just a few pages, but (in a good way) feel much longer. 

You can read "Country of the Knife" (aka "Sons of the Hawk") online HERE. 

The Mighty Hercules, The Final Chapter

 

cover art by Rube Grossman

The Mighty Hercules #2 (October 1963) comes to an all-too-soon end with the last story in the last issue. 

This time, writer Paul S. Newman and artist Rube Grossman move the action to sea. Helena is aboard ship, coming home after trading her sheep for food and spice. (She was herding her sheep in the first story--I wonder if that minor bit of continuity was intentional or a coincidence.) 

On a nearby island, Aeolus, the god of winds, is asleep. The sea witch Wilamene sees this and takes the opportunity to hypnotize him and place him under her control. Knowing Helena's ship will contain valuable cargo, she has Aeolus call up a wind to toss the crew overboard and then bring the ship to shore.

Helena calls on Hercules for help, who jumps down from Olympus. Wilamene tries to use a freezing wind to encase Hercules in ice, but he uses his warm super-breath to melt that ice and then still rescues Helena and the rest of the ship's crew.

That tactic surprised me, though that wasn't a rational reaction. Hercules' frequent use of super-breath can't help but call up images of Superman using his super-breath. Since Kal-el's breath freezes things, it momentarily seemed weird that Hercules' breath is warm. But it is two different universes and each one is allowed to have its own "Super-Breath Logic."

Everyone is soon safe on the island, so Wilamene uses Aeolus to use some wind to bring a shipful of slavers to shore. Hercules drives them off by using a tree as a spear.

Hercules knows Aeolus lives on the island and goes to look for him. Wilamene tries to use wind to bury the hero in sand, but he manages to bury her first, then forces her to release Aeolus from mind control.

The good guys begin to sail away, but the sea witch is a sore loser. She uses her own magic to set the ship's sail on fire. But Aeolus uses a wind to call up a water spout and douse the flames, while Hercules mans the tiller to keep the ship on course during the deluge.

The ship escapes and, well, the comic book adventures of the Mighty Hercules comes to an end. It really is sad. Newman's skill at pacing and plot construction, plus Grossman's lively and expressive art made both issues a lot of fun. There was potential for a lot of good stories yet.

Next week, we'll visit with Captain America to witness an unusual villain team-up.

Cover Cavalcade

 APRIL IS "WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SNAKES" MONTH!!!!

Here's a 1934 cover by Hubert Rogers.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Lights Out: "Fast One" 1/5/43

25 burgalries are committed in just a half-an-hour, with no witnesses. A private detective thinks its the work of one man. But how could that be possible?

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Fighting Pilot (1935)

 

Richard Talmadge, born in 1892, worked as an acrobat as part of the Flying Melzettis before diving into the movie business as a stuntman, often doubling for Douglas Fairbanks or Tom Mix. In later years, he was behind the camera as a stunt coordinator or second-unit director. But for a few years in the 1930s, he was the star of a series of B-movies, produced by the Poverty Road studio "Reliable Pictures." 

One of these films is The Fighting Pilot, which was released in 1935. Talmadge plays Hal Foster, a pilot with acrobatic talents that come in handy when someone tries to steal both the plans and the prototype of a new airplane.

The movie clocks in at 56 minutes, so (like most B-movies) it doesn't waste any time. A villain named Cardigan steals the plans and a couple of pilots he's hired fly off with the plane itself. Foster pursues a carload of bad guys on a motorcylce, eventually jumping into the car and fighting three men while the car careens out of control.

Laster, he trails Cardigan to a building in Chinatown. More acrobatic/fight shenanigans follow. Along the way, he learns where the prototype plan is actually stashed. Flying there, he makes a mid-air leap into a plane full of bad guys.

The story is structured purely to show off Talmadge's acrobatic abilities. This is fine, because he's a great acrobat and his stunts (especially that motorcylce-to-car leap) are fun to watch. 

The supporting cast is also good. Well, mostly good. Rorbert Frazer is appropriately oily as Cardigan. Gertude Messinger plays Foster's gal--she's nice to gaze upon and is pretty darn spunky. The downside is Eddie Davis as Berty, Foster's comedic sidekick. It's here that the movie as the same failing as many other B-movies in that it inserts a sidekick who simply isn't that funny. 

But it's not enough to spoil the film. Richard Talmadge was a great acrobat and stuntman, so a short film built around his stunts is an inherently good idea. This makes watching The Fighting Pilot a pleasant way to pass an hour. 

You can watch it yourself here:

The Mighty Hercules, Part 5

 

cover art by Rube Grossman

Sandwiched between the two Hercules stories in Gold Key's The Mighty Hercules #2 (October 1963) is a comic book adaptation of the Perseus vs. Medusa myth. Written with by Paul S. Newman with his usual skill at quick exposition and sound plot construction, it is drawn by Rube Grossman. 

After I read it, I was surprised when I leafed back through the issue and discovered it was only four pages long. Newman and Grossman pack a lot of story into those few pages without the story being crowded or rushed.

King Polydectes has the hots for Perseus' widowed mother. (A little cleaning up of the original myth goes on here to match Gold Key's family-friendly standards. Perseus, in this version, is explicitly not one of Zeus' many illegitimate kids.)

Perseus' mom declines a proposal and the king doesn't want to just take her because she's protected by Perseus. So Polydetes sends Perseus off on a mission--he has to bring back the head of Medusa the Gorgon.

It seems like a suicide mission, but the gods Athena and Hermes give him a shield, sword and Hermes' super-speed sandals to aid him. For brevity, the story leaves out the cap of invisibility and a few other magic items also given to him in the original myth.

Perseus uses the reflection of Medusa on the back of his shield to approach and behead Medusa, with our view of the beheading hidden by some rocks. 

Perseus heads home. Again, for brevity's sake, this version leaves out events of a longer version of the myth where Perseus saves his future wife Andromeda from a sea monster. Too bad--Grossman's lively art would have made that look cool.

Perseus arrives at home to discover the king has made Perseus' mom a slave. But the hero uses Medusa's head to turn the evil king to stone, then takes his mom home.

That Newman and Grossman were able to condense the story into just four pages and still make it a satisfying read is a remarkable accomplishment. One of the sadder things about this second issue being the last is that we don't get to see anymore adaptations of classic myths by these two.

Next week, we'll finish our journey through the pages of The Mighty Hercules.

Cover Cavalcade

  MARCH IS SCIENCE GONE MAD MONTH!!!!

We close out "SCIENCE GONE MAD!" month with the original Mad Scientist. This January 1973 cover is by Mike Ploog. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Sherlock Holmes: "The Iron Box" 12/31/45

Because he was born on February 29, a man has waited over eight decades to reach his 21st birthday and receive the iron box (reputedly containing gold) that is his inheritance. But reaching this milestone might be a motive for someone else to commit murder.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Sailor Steve Costigan

 

cover artist unknown

I'm glad that so much of Robert E. Howard's stuff is getting reprinted nowadays, especially those stories that show what a strong sense of humor he had.

That humor is probably most apparent in his stories about mountain man Breckinridge Elkins, but you can also look to Sailor Steve Costigan for both great fight scenes and laugh-out-loud moments.

Costigan is a somewhat naive sailor who is quick with his fists. In fact, his solution to many of the problems he encounters is punching someone.

The stories often have him on shore leave in a port somewhere (often but not always accompanied by his bite-happy bulldog Mike), getting entangled in an adventure that requires him to get into fist fights and always features one of those fights being a formal match in the boxing ring. 

"Sailor's Grudge" was published in the March 1930 issue of Fight Stories and is typical of how much fun a Sailor Steve yarn can be. Costigan goes ashore in San Francisco for a few days, this time without his dog, and meets a girl. Later, he finds out the girl has been forbidden to see him again by a big guy named Bert. Costigan deduces that Bert is a villain who is probably blackmailing the girl's father to force the girl to see him. It's not much of a spoiler to tell you that Costigan's deductions lack accuracy.

Anyway, Bert is the fight double for a movie star on a boxing film. Steve lands the job of the opponent in the big finale by beating up four other guys who want the part. Steve and Bert are supposed to fight for real for four rounds--giving the director some great fight footage---then Steve is supposed to take a dive. Close-ups of the movie star will be spliced in later.

What follows is a great fight scene--something that is also typical of the Costigan tales. Here's an example: 

We traded rights to the head and lefts to the body and he brought up a sizzling uppercut which might of tore my head off, hadst it landed. I buckled his knees with a right hook under the heart and he opened a cut under my left eye with a venomous straight right.

He then backed away, sparring and working for my wounded eye with a sharp-shooting left. Much annoyed, I followed him about the ring and suddenly dropped him to his knees with a smashing right cross to the side of the head. He bounced up without a count and flashed a straight left to my sore eye, following it instantly with a right uppercut to the body. I missed a looping right, landed with my left, took two straight rights in the face to sink my left hook into his belly, and he went into a clinch. We worked out of it and was fighting along the ropes at the gong.

The end is hilarious, with the movie almost ruined and a disillusioned Steve learning he's not going to get the girl after all.

Howard, famous for his Conan the Barbarian tales, is not always remembered for his sense of humor. But he should be.

Read "Sailor's Grudge" HERE.  And for a deeper dive into Howard's boxing tales, check out an excellent article HERE.