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.

Is He a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?

 

cover art by Bob Budiansky

Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #2 (1980) is hardly a perfect comic book. There are pacing issues; a page panel during a fight scene that is ridiculously dialogue-heavy; and the new character introduced in the issue fails to make any sort of significant splash in the Marvel universe.

But, heck, it's still fun to read.  So I'll forgive its weaknesses. Writer Ralph Macchio and artist Jim Mooney rack up more positives than negatives before the story comes to an end.

It starts with Spidey and a new vigilante called the Rapier stopping a heist at the docks. The Rapier thanks Spidey for the help, then walks away into the night without giving any information about himself. That's fair enough--Rapier himself points out that Spider-Man doesn't give out personal information either. 

Well, there's more going on at the docks than one botched robbery. There's a crime wave going on and, the next day, Peter and Ned Leeds are threatened by thugs when they try to investigate. When Peter returns to the Daily Bugle, he finds yet more thugs. The mob boss Silvermane is there as well, threatening J. Jonah Jameson over crime exposé articles that the Bugle is running. 

One of the strong points of the story is that Macchio remembers an important aspect of J.J.J.'s character. He might be a greedy jerk much of the time and he might have a hang-up about Spider-Man, but he is a determined journalist who doesn't back down from threats. He WILL print the truth. Later, Jonah is obviously affected when Robbie Robertson--perhaps his only real friend--is roughed up. But he still goes ahead with the exposés.

Spider-Man visits Silvermane and, after a nifty fight against the mob boss's goons, threatens Silvermane and tells him to lay off the Bugle. In the meantime, we learn more about the Rapier. He's not a crimefighter looking to help the innocent. Rather, he's a former partner of Silvermane who was double-crossed and left for dead. His goal is to kill his former partner.

Rapier arranges to meet Silvermane at the Met Cloisters--a monastery-turned-museum that is indeed a visually cool place to have a superhero fight. 

Silvermane, of course, tries to cheat by bringing some henchmen along.  Rapier takes them out, reveals his identity to Silvermane and zaps him with an electrified sword. He's about to finish off the mobster when Spider-Man (who had earlier planted a Spidey Tracer on one of Silvermane's men) shows up.

Rapier slashes off Spidey's webshooters and tosses him a sword. What follows is yet another nifty fight, though this is were the dialogue-heavy panel comes in. Even taking into account that Marvel Comics has always cheated a little in how many quips it's possible to make during a fight scene, Spidey delivers an absurdly-long philosophical treatise about the differences between himself and Rapier.

Rapier's girlfriend has arrived and, worried about the man she loves, bashes Spidey over the head. But this just annoys Rapier. Everything has to happen on his terms and Clarissa has spoiled it all. Now he has to start over. He can't finish off Spider-Man. He can't finish off Silvermane. It's all been spoiled.

It's spoiled even more when Silvermane shoots him in the back while he's leaving. Though badly wounded, he does still manage to get away.

That's pretty much it. Introducing Rapier in an annual might indicate that there were hopes the character could make more of a splash, but he pretty much disappears from continuity until he's unceremonously killed off a few years later.  

There is too much dialogue overall and the pacing is therefore too slow in places. But Jim Mooney's fight scenes are all fun and the issue does tell a well-constructed story within the parameters of Aristotelian storytelling conventions. It's an advantage that comic books have over many other storytelling mediums: though great artwork might make us pause to dwell on a particular page or panel, comic books are overall a quick read. As long as there is something good, this allows us to overlook faults. 

Next week, we'll visit with Sgt. Rock. 

Cover Cavalcade

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

Here's a 1936 Doc Savage cover by Walter Baumhofer.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Great Gildersleeve: "Gildy Repairs His Car" 4/4/43

Gildersleeve's car isn't running. Since the local mechanic has been drafted, Gildy decides to repair it himself. What could possibly go wrong?

Click HERE to listen or download.