Friday's Favorite OTR

 Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: "Murder Merry-Go-Round" 3/11/49

Someone is sabotaging a small travelling circus. Johnny has to find out both why and who.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Childhood Impressions Revisited: The First Time I Read Where Eagles Dare

 

I first read the book Where Eagles Dare, by Alistair MacLean, when I was maybe 13 years old. I’d seen the movie on TV not long before and loved it. I did get a little lost in the wicked plot twists within the movie--I think both book and movie actually explain the plot twists well when they happen, but as a 13-year-old, I was mostly engrossed by the machine gun fire and explosions.

So when I saw the book on the paperback rack at an Eckerds Drug Store, I pulled out some paper route money and bought it. (As a side note: Remember when mass market paperbacks were cheap enough to be impulse buys? Ah, the good ol’ days!)

Anyway, in the book, there’s a point where the Allied commando team has to stash their equipment before mingling in town disguised as German soldiers. They break into the railway station and someone comes up with the idea of hiding their stuff in the Left Baggage Room. As a 13-year-old, I completely misinterpreted the term. What made the “Left” Baggage Room special as compared to the “Right” Baggage Room? It was a conundrum and there was no internet in those ancient days to look it up.

Over the years, I re-read the book frequently--it remains a favorite of mine. Everytime I got to that passage, I wondered anew about the “Left Baggage Room.” Even when I was more than old enough to figure out the context, I was apparently locked into my 13-year-old interpretation.

When the internet became a thing, I could have easily looked it up, but perhaps I enjoyed my minor bafflement. It had become a nostalgic part of re-reading a favorite novel.

Then, about 15 years ago, I was travelling to South Sudan and had an all-day layover at Heathrow Airport. I decided to visit the National Museum (my favorite place in London), but needed to store my backpack somewhere. That’s no problem, I was told. Leave it in the “Left Baggage Room.” You know, the place where you leave your bags until you need them again.

I was stunned for a moment. It was an epiphany, with my mind instantly shifting to Where Eagles Dare. IT ALL MADE SENSE AT LAST. No wonder it was the perfect place for the commandoes to store their equipment. At last, the mystery was solved.

Of course, the next time I read the book, I was a little disappointed not to suffer the usual bout of minor bafflement when Major Smith suggests hiding their stuff in the Left Baggage Room.

Oh, well. Some of us are impossible to please, I suppose.

Sappy the Sportsman

 

cover art by John Walworth

As far as I can determine, the only appearance of Sappy the Sportsman is in Barnyard Comics #1 (June 1944). And perhaps that's all he should have. In that one story, Al Pross' lively art and the unknown writer's decision to give Sappy and his manager Pug Brooklyn accents lend the story charm and humor. But Sappy is pretty much a one-joke character.

He's a skinny, clumsy dog who craves being a successful athlete. His overly optimistic manager Pug keeps getting him try-outs, but Sappy isn't any good at anything. In baseball, he throws a wild pitch so softly, the catcher doesn't know he's thrown it. Then he gets beaned when the ball is thrown back to him.

He knocks himself out when he tries boxing. 

He gets tangled in the net when playing tennis.

And he gets tangled with the TABLE when trying ping pong.

Well, that's enough for Sappy. He finds one thing he's good at, which is knitting. It's safe. Or at least it should be--in the last panel of the story, he pokes himself in the finger with a needle.

It's a story that brings you a smile, but doesn't necessarily have you laughing out loud. As I said before, it's Pross' art that makes it work. And the decision to have Sappy and Pug speak Brooklynese just seems... right. It gives the story a Damon Runyon-meets-Tex Avery vibe that the art alone couldn't carry. 

And even if the story isn't a classic by any definition, characters like Sappy are a part of comic book heritage and should be remembered.

You can see if it brings you a smile by reading it HERE.

Next week... well, next week will be an important announcement about the fate of this blog that will shake the very foundations of Western Civilization. 

Cover Cavalcade

  AUGUST IS "THE HEROES OF STREET AND SMITH" MONTH!!!

From 1936: The Whisperer as portrayed by John Howitt.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Box 13: "Archimedes and the Romans" 7/31/49

A young boy writes Box 13 about a mysterious happening. Dan decides to check it out, though it's just a letter from a kid. Nothing will come of it.  Right?

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Bombs over Burma

 

Anna May Wong is a great actress and it's too bad that the racism of the day usually prevented her from getting more than supporting roles in A-movies (there are a few exceptions), she did get the lead role in occasional B-movies. PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), one of the Poverty Row studios, put her at the head of the cast of a 1942 war movie titled Bombs Over Burma. The rationale at PRC might have been purely business oriented--she was a name that would help sell the film on the Chinese market. That is speculation rather than objective fact, but in any case, a starring role is nonetheless a starring role.

She plays a Chinese school teacher named Lin Ying who also works as an espionage agent, helping in her own way to fight against the invading Japanese. Her mission in this film--find out what enemy agent is feeding the Japanese information about important supply convoys travelling along the Burma Road.

This mission put her on a bus driven by an American expatriate named Slim. Her fellow passengers are an eclectic group of Americans and Europeans. When a damaged bridge forces them to stop for the night at a Buddhist monastery, the situation grows dangerous.

Lin Ying discovers the monk who runs the monastery has a secret room with a short-wave radio, but there is an initial uncertainty about whose side he's on. Then there's a murder. False accusations abound and it looks like Lin Ying might get framed for being the enemy agent.

It turns out she's one step ahead of the bad guy the whole time, running a con on him to force him to give himself away and leading to his rather brutal demise.

Like all wartime films dealing with the war, it is propaganda. But that's not a bad thing. When Slim admits he stays in China because he was bullied growing up and now hates seeing China bullied--he calls the coolies working through the night to repair the bridge his blood brothers--it generates more honest emotion than we usually see in Poverty Row films. (For a modern viewer who knows that post-war China would be ruled by one of history's greatest mass murderers, there's unintended poignancy that the filmmakers could not have planned for in 1942.)

It's not a perfect film--even with a short 65-minute run time, there are a few times when scenes are dragged out too long. But the mystery behind the identity of the enemy agent is a reasonably good one and Anna May Wong gives an excellent and grounded performance. She was an actress who always deserved a chance to shine.

Here's the move on YouTube:

A Shavetail Lieutenant

 

cover art by Joe Kubert

Don't ever try to figure out how Easy Company is organized. It can't be done. It was never meant to be a realistic portrayal of a real-life unit and the structure can vary from issue to issue. Where real-life companies were commanded by Captains and platoons that make up the company commanded by lieutenants, we usually see Sgt. Rock running the company with nary an officer in sight.

In Our Army At War #250 (October 1972), though, a brand-new inexperienced lieutenant shows up and is said to be the "new platoon leader." His rank makes sense for this role, but does that mean Sgt Rock was usually commanding just one platoon in Easy Company? Once again, don't think about it too hard. It sincerely doesn't affect the quality of the stories. Just as the DC war stories bounced back and forth through the historical timeline, the way Easy Company's structure changes from story to story is meant to suit the needs of each individual tale. It works. 

Anyway, Easy Company (or a platoon from Easy?) is going to be taken by glider to a location where some paratroopers are pinned down by the Germans. Most of Easy is concerned with the lieutenant's inexperience and his initial dismissal of Rock's advice. But Rock consistently insists throughout the story that the lieutenant is indeed in charge. He respects the chain of command.

The plane towing the glider is shot down and the glider crashes, killing a few of the soldiers. The lieutenant insists they move out wading through a canal, which takes them into a booby trap. Does this guy know what he's doing?

Rock says he does--that they might have run into trouble crossing open fields and it was the officer's responsibility to pick a route. This is one of the strengths of the story. The lieutenant makes a decision that is apparently wrong, but Rock points out it might have been the best decision with what they knew at that moment. 

There's another strong moment when Rock shows the officer the dog tags of the men lost so far and the young lieutenant says "So... many?" It helps humanize him.

Easy Company has several more dangerous situations before getting pinned down. At this point, the lieutenant gives his life to save Easy and allow them to rescue the paratroopers.

The story is a stereotypical one--the young shavetail who needs to listen to the experienced, grizzled sergeant. It's been done many times before. But Russ Heath's art brings it all to life and Bob Kanigher's script does include those humanizing moments. Besides, there have been many, many new officers in real life who had to learn from their sergeants on their way to becoming good commanders. The story deals in a stereotype, but it's a stereotype drawn from real life. 

Next week, let's go in a completely different direction and visit with... who the heck is Sappy the Sportman?

Cover Cavalcade

  AUGUST IS "THE HEROES OF STREET AND SMITH" MONTH!!!

This atmospheric Avenger cover by H.W. Scott is from 1939.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Escape: "Train from Oebisfelde" 9/6/53

An American agent escorting a defecting scientist learns there's a bomb on the train and a very short time to find and disarm it.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Death VERSUS a Salesman

 

"One for the Angels" (October 9, 1959) is the second episode of The Twilight Zone's first season and it's one of my favorites. And one reason I like it is that it's possible to interpret it in two different, equally valid ways.

Ed Wynn is a salesman named Lou Bookman who talks Death into letting him live until he makes the best sales pitch anyone has ever made, then retires so that he'll never make the pitch and thus never die. He effectively runs a con on Death (superbly played by Murray Hamilton).

 

But Death has a quota to meet and life for Bookman means an 8-year-old girl will die in his place. When Bookman learns about this, he delays Death past the girl's appointed time to die by making the best sales pitch ever, so that Death keeps buying things from him and loses track of time. This mean Bookman now has to die--he has deliberately sacrificed himself to save the girl.

That by itself would have made it a classic episode. It's a story of loving self-sacrifice, brought to life by two actors giving great performances and Serling's strong script.

But I think there's a deeper interpretation of this episode. Death knew that Bookman was a Friend to All Children. We've already seen that he can teleport wherever he needs to be, so had no need to walk by Bookman to get to the girl's apartment. 

It is possible that Death ran a reverse con on Bookman, deliberately setting up a situation where he could take Bookman and let the girl live? This doesn't change the fact that Bookman gave his life to save a child, but adds a deeper dimension to the character of Death.

It makes Death a nice guy, as he is in the later episode "Nothing in the Dark." (written by George Clayton Johnson.) Death will do his job, but if he has a chance to help save a little girl who doesn't HAVE to die at this time, then he'll do so. 

On the other hand, if Bookman doesn't legitimately outsmart Death, then does this defang the original con-artist dynamic because Bookman's actions do not cost Death anything? One can argue that I'm trading story friction for emotional warmth and--well, whether that's a fair trade is debatable. 

I full realize that my view of the episode is my own self-insert into the story. In either case, I like it and I'm going for it. It's not a hidden canon fact, but I think its a valid interpretation.