Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "I Never Met the Dead Man" 1/5/50

Danny Kaye plays a guy who happens to witness a murder and, despite not knowing the dead man, ends up being the prime suspect.

Click HERE to listen or download.

TWO Tarzans for the Price of One!

Johnny Weissmuller was perfect for the movie version of Tarzan, but outside of that role, it has to be said that he was a little bit on the flat side as an actor. All the same, he always comes across as an amiable guy that you can't help liking.

That's what makes it enjoyable to watch him in the 1946 film Swamp Fire. I have this mental image of a poor, put-upon director tearing his hair out as he shouts "Put at least a LITTLE emotion into the line, Johnny! Please!" But all the same, he's likeable enough to cause you to suspend disbelief and accept him in his role.

His role in Swamp Fire is Johnny Duvall, a former bar pilot coming home to the bayou after serving in the war. Johnny, we learn, had lost a ship and quite a few of his crew in combat and he is struggling with what we would now call PTSD.

What's a bar pilot? The movie is kind enough to provide some opening narration to explain this to us. If you are sailing into New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico, the bar pilot is the guy who comes aboard to guide your ship in and make sure you don't end up stranded on a sand bar.

Johnny doesn't have the confidence to pull this job off any more, so takes a berth on a Coast Guard ship as a deck hand instead. But the captain fakes getting sick to force Johnny to take over as a pilot on an incoming ship--a move that rebuilds his confidence and gets him back into full time work as a bar pilot.

In the meantime, there's a lot of melodrama going on, involving Johnny's sweetheart and a rival who is jealous both of Johnny both because of that sweetheart and because of Johnny's wartime service. There's also a snooty rich girl who sets her eyes on Johnny as well.

The rival, by the way, is played by Buster Crabbe, another former Tarzan. This is only the second time I've seen Crabbe in a straight bad guy role and he does a fine job of building his character up from someone who starts out as self-centered and stubborn to a guy willing to go on a destructive arson-fueled rampage at the movie's conclusion. 

I like Swamp Fire, though I think the melodrama could have been toned down a little to make room for some more action. But in the end, it was a good story and gives us the pleasure of watching two Tarzans fight each other. That is something not to be missed.

As is true with many movies in the public domain, existing prints are of so-so quality. In this case, I think the version on YouTube looks a little better than what you can find on Amazon Prime:

 

Project Pegasus, Part 3

cover art by John Byrne

Marvel Two-in-One #53 (July 1979) was co-written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio, two excellent writers who have penned many exciting comic book tales. But this issue, which brings Ben Grimm back to Project Pegasus after a 10-issue absense, sadly lacks excitement.

The art looks great. John Byrne did the breakdowns and Joe Sinnott provided the finished art. But the overall pacing is slow, with a lot of unnecessary filler. I can almost see what the problem was. This is the beginning of a five-issue story arc and they wanted it to end with an effective cliffhanger that will bring us fully into that story, while still providing us with all the exposition we need. 

Jamming all that into 17 pages wasn't easy and the end result isn't completely successful. In fact, I think the issue stumbles right out of the gate, as it takes Ben four pages (nearly a quarter of the story's length) just to get to Pegasus and get through security.

Ben is there, by the way, to do a stint on the Project's security staff, something he's agreed to do so that he can check up on Wundarr, the super-powerful but child-like being that Ben had sort of adopted. 

 

By the time Ben meets Quasar and has a fun-to-watch but ultimately unnecessary fight and by the time Quasar explains his origin, we are halfway through the story. Before we reach the end, another couple of pages will takes us back to New York to watch Thundra (the superstrong woman from another dimension with a cruch on Ben) get involved with a wrestling promoter, though to be fair this is setting up the plot of an upcoming issue and is by itself another fun-to-watch interlude. We also get an update on the still-comatose Wundarr, which also sets up future plot points. 

There's very little that actually moves the plot along. We find out that the Project's security still stinks. For the second time in its short history, one of their scientists is a bad guy. In this case, he's a former bad guy pretending to be a reformed but is really still a bad guy. He launches a plan that involves sending the cyborg assassin Deathlok after Ben. 

This is the third Project Pegasus story I've reviewed and--gee whiz--I've complained about two of them being slow-paced. I really do like this story arc. I really, really do. Despite my criticisms, there are fun moments throughout Marvel Two-in-One #53 and, now that we've got introductions and exposition largely out of the way, the remaining four issues of this story move along at a better pace. 

Also, we get a nifty cross-section view of Project Pegasus in place of the letters page. I love stuff like this.

That's it for now. Next week, we'll visit with the brilliant rabbit Uncle Wiggly as he goes on a epic quest to recover stolen piggy banks. 

Mini-Podcast #10: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 2--"The Savage Home"

Tim DeForest discusses the second chapter of the 1912 novel "Tarzan of the Apes," in which Lord and Lady Greystoke find themselves stranded in the African jungle.

You can listen or download HERE. 

And here's the video version:

Cover Cavalcade

A Rudolph Belarski cover from 1950. Wearing Blue with a Tommy Gun is a bold fashion statement, but I think she pulls it off. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

The Saint: "Shipboard Mystery" 3/11/51

While investigating one crime, Simon has a run-in with a thug who thinks he's investigating another crime entirely.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Beaver's Dad Turns EVIL!!!!

When an actor is enshrined in our consciousness for a particular role, it can actually make it more entertaining to see him play an entirely different type of character. This is especially true for actors who play absolutely likeable characters in their signature roles. For instance, it's always entertaining to see the Professor from Gilligan's island play a bad guy. 

We run across this phenomonon again in the 1948 film noir Money Madness, in which Ward Cleaver, the Beaver's wise father (Hugh Beaumont), plays a crook who is guilty of armed robbery and murder and might just be a little bit on the crazy side as well.

The movie starts a little awkwardly, with a courtroom scene that takes us a few minutes to realize is a flash forward showing us the eventual fate of the woman with whom Beaumont's character becomes involved. Then we jump back to his arrival in town by bus.

Beaumont is playing Steve Grant--though we eventually realize that's not his real name. He's got 200 grand in ill-gotten gain stuffed in his suitcase. He's soon transferred this to a safe deposit box. He's unwilling to start spending it too soon and drawing unwanted police attention to him. He takes a job as a cab driver for the time being.

We know that Grant is a crook, but we quickly get evidence that seems to indicate he might have a good side to him. He helps out Julie Saunders (played by Francis Rafferty) when the jerk she's on a date with gets too fresh. He and Julie soon hit it off. Julie, though, is living with her bitter and perpetually angry aunt, which makes her social life awkward.

Grant and Julie soon elope. Gee, maybe he really is a nice guy.

No, he's not. Though in his own twisted way, he has some feeling for Julie (though this is more of a sense of possesiveness than anything resembling real love), everything he's doing is part of a plan. He poisons the aunt, making sure it looks as if Julie was in on it if anyone gets suspicious. Then he plants the 200 grand in a trunk in the attic of the aunt's house. The doctor misses the fact that she was poisoned (she was old and sickly, so no one thinks to look that closely) and it is assumed that she was an eccentric who hid her fortune in the attic rather than trust a bank. Once the probate clears, Grant and Julie will be rich. 

The scene in which Julie finds out what Grant is doing is particularly well-played by Beaumont. It's here that his brutal and manipulative side begins to show as he both terrifies her and convinces her that she's trapped. She's got to go along with him or she'll also go up for murder. 

Of course, since this story is set in the universe of Film Noir, things start to go wrong. Julie is trying to overcome her fear and tell her lawyer what's going on. Grant is suspicious of her and jealous of the lawyer, who doesn't know Julie is married and obviously likes her. And an old partner-in-crime is looking for Grant with the intention of getting a share of the money. All this comes together to eventually bring everything crashing down. 

The plot is a bit thin, but Beaumont's performance as the villain brings it to life and makes it work. This is a Poverty Row film, but like many such films, it gives us a well-told story and generally does a good job of hiding its low budget.

Amazon Prime has the best looking print, though this never restored film does look a bit shabby after more than 70 decades. Here it is on YouTube:

Cave Girl--Story #3

We've reached the third story in Cave Girl's premiere issue (#11--1953) and, by golly, we discover that Cave Girl is too darn pretty for her own good!

In the previous story, Cave Girl discovered she didn't care for civilization, so she's heading home. Along the way, she pauses to save Alan Brandon, a rich big-game hunter, from a leopard.

Brandon is immediately enamored of the young lady. This, by itself, is understandable. What man wouldn't immediately fall for a beautiful woman who defeats a leopard in hand-to-hand combat to save his life. Heck, that's exactly how I met Angela.

But Alan is a bit too forward in expressing his admiration, so Cave Girl dumps him in a puddle, forgets about him and continues home.

Alan, though, refuses to give up. He trails Cave Girl, which isn't that hard since she leaves a trail of dead animals behind her after killing them in self-defense.

By now, its obvious that writer Gardner Fox and artist Bob Powell are having fun with the Jungle Girl genre, deliberately going over-the-top with the action. But at the same time, Powell draws the action in a truly exciting way. Cave Girl, I think, walks a nice line between being a parody and a straight-forward adventure story. It works on both levels.

Anyway, when Cave Girl twists her ankle, Alan is able to catch up with her and save her from a leopard. It's a hard day for leopards in the jungle. 

Sadly, at this point, he loses all his Man Points by going into Completely Despicable Mode. He's decided that he's gonna marry Cave Girl whether she wants to or not and takes her prisoner. But she manages to chew through her bonds during the night and get away.

When a frantic Alan runs into Luke Hardin, Hardin says he ought to horsewhip him, but unfortunaely fails to follow through. After all, Cave Girl's beauty would twitter-pate any man!

Even by 1953 standards, Alan really does deserve a horse-whipping. But I think his instant obsession with Cave Girl is intended to be another over-the-top parody and it can be looked at on that level. In either case, we have one more story in this issue before we say goodbye to Cave Girl, so we'll see if Alan can do anything to redeem himself. 

You can read this issue online HERE. 

Next week, we'll head back to Project Pegasus.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Mini-Podcast #9: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 1

Tim DeForest discusses and analyzes the first chapter of the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes.

Click HERE to listen or download to the auido version.

And here's the video version:

Cover Cavalcade

An atmospheric cover from 1959. I didn't know the Ace Doubles had published any of the Maigret novels until I ran across this image. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs Mini-Podcast #8: Tarzan the Polyglot

Tim DeForest discusses Tarzan's amazing ability to learn new languages quickly.

Click HERE to listen or download 

And here's the video version:

Friday's Favorite OTR

Night Beat: "The Professor's System" 3/13/50

A little old man mugs Randy Stone. Not long after, a little old lady returns his wallet to him.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Rebel

One nice things about streaming services is that it allows me to occasional see episodes of old TV shows that I knew about, but never saw. The 1959-1961 series The Rebel, for instance, is always one I've been curious about. 

I've watched the first four episodes via Amazon Prime and I've enjoyed them all so far. The series starred and was co-created by Nick Adams, who plays Johnny Yuma, a Confederate veteran who wanders around the American Southwest, writing a book and inevitably getting involved in dangerous situations. With his six-gun and a cool-looking sawed-off shotgun, he can handle himself well when things do get dangerous. Adams gives Johnny a strong personality, making us believe the former soldier is smart, tough and compassionate.

The fourth episode, titled "Vicious Circle," is particularly good. It begins with a couple of former Yankee soldiers beating the snot out of him, because they assume (as a former Reb) that he knows where a guy named Pollack is located.

Johnny does find Pollack a short time later. The man is a not-quite-sane former Captain who still wears his uniform and has, in fact, promoted himself to General. He plans to restart the war, as he sees Appomattax to be nothing more than a short pause in the action.

Johnny finds out that, during the war, Pollack used Union prisoners as forced labor to mine gold nearby. It soon becomes apparent that Pollack has a fortune of gold hidden somewhere. Those two Yanks Johnny encountered were the only surviving prisoners and now wanted to both get revenge and get the gold.

Pollack has surrounded himself with other former Confederates, but they are a drunken lot that doesn't really take him seriously. Johnny befriends one of them and they decide to search the old mine for the gold, with Johnny (who is scrupulously honest) planning on turning the gold over the the government. For Johnny, the war is over. He just hopes to one day find a real peace.

The episode ends with a tense encounter in the mine, where Johnny finds evidence of just how murderous Pollack and then has to confront both the madman and the two Yanks.

It might have been interesting if the two Yankees (who had, after all, legitimately suffered at Pollack's hands) had been portrayed with a little more sympathy. That might have made the character interactions throughout the episodes more interesting and complex. But it's not really fair to criticize the episode for what it didn't set out to be. What we are given is a well-written story with a strong plot and a number of interesting characters. 

There's also a theme running through the episode about the country needing to heal from the war. Guys like Pollack and the Yankees were essentially still fighting a war that had ended and people were dying senselessly because of this. 

The episodes I've watched so far have not discussed the relative merits of the Union vs. the Confederacy. Nor does it need to, though I'm wondering if I'll run into an episode dealing with the issue of slavery and how Johnny felt about it or if he personally felt as if he was fighting to preserve it.  I've never cared for the idea that the Confederacy was a "noble lost cause," as it was often portrayed in fiction.Though there were a number of things that caused tension between North and South, it was slavery alone that caused secession and war. But not everyone who fought for the South was a villain and there is nothing wrong with portraying a former rebel as a good man. Johnny represents a man who accepts the war is over; and who wants his country to be at peace and for himself to eventually find an inner peace. 

Here's "The Vicious Circle" on YouTube, but as I mentioned, as of July 2020 when this posts, it is on Amazon Prime.

Superman Defects to the Axis? Say It Ain't So!

A few years ago, I reviewed All-Star Squadron #1-3, which I think did an excellent job of jugggling a lot of characters within a complex and multi-faceted story. Recently, I was feeling kind of Golden

Age-y again and I thought it might be fun to visit the 4th issue of that series (cover-dated December 1981).

Roy Thomas is still in his Golden Age Comfy Zone as writer and Rich Buckler continues to supply excellent art work, but this issue is a little bit of a let-down from the excellent trilogy that started off the series. This time, the story feels too crowded, with too many heroes jammed into something that might have worked better with a smaller group of good guys.

The issue starts out a little slow because we get several pages following along with the heroes as they fly to Pearl Harbor, which is still reeling from the surprise attack one day earlier. This allows Thomas to get in some character interaction and small bits of characterization, but it does set a slow pace.

After avoiding some anti-aircraft fire from nervous troops, the heroes finally meet with an army general and soon decide to fly after the Japanese fleet. If they can take out the enemy carriers, they'll win the war in one fell swoop.

And that is why this story exists. Superman--even the slightly under-powered Earth 2 Superman--could easily take out most of the Axis military. With other heroes such as Wonder Woman and Green Lantern helping out as well, why wasn't World War II over by December 8, 1941?

The DC Universe had an explanation for this that is actually quite reasonable in terms of Comic Book Logic. Hitler had the Spear of Destiny, which kept superheroes from entering territory he controlled. The Japanese, it turned out, had the Holy Grail. A villain named the Dragon King explains this to his minions just before the Grail is activated.

The most powerful heroes--who happen to also be the ones powered by magic or vulnerable to magic--are quickly affected by the Grail's power, causing them to instantly change sides. 

The action stuff that follows is good, though once again it is overcrowded with too many heroes. The first three issues had a lot of stuff going on in different locations, allowing Thomas to use a large cast of characters effectively. This issue has a fairly straightfoward plot and simply doesn't need a huge cast.

Despite my complaints, the story does have fun moments and Buckler's art looks great from start to finish. Green Lantern lands the "weaker" heroes on a Japanese-controlled island, but Liberty Belle knocks him out with a piece of wood (wood being the Golden Age GL's rather unusual "kryptonite") and the B-team gets to prove their worth by taking out the enemy troops. 

Hawkman, in the meantime, manages to lure the "traitors" out of range of the Grail's influence. The good guys "win" in that they don't kill each other. But the ground rules for the war are set--no superpower heroics aimed directly at the Axis powers. The heroes will have to watch over the home front while the Allied military actually wins the war at the front lines.

I really did like the issue and I do get that establishing why Superman and Wonder Woman don't simply win the war on their own was necessary. But there are simply too many ingredients in the pot to make this a gourmet meal. 

It's interesting to compare this series to Thomas' Invaders, in which he got to throw Marvel's Golden Age heroes at the Nazis. Marvel's good guys simply didn't have the same level of raw power, so by adding a few Axis supervillains and some science fiction elements, you can then toss the Invaders anywhere inside enemy-controlled territory without wondering why they didn't simply win the war on their own. The DC Universe, on the other hand, had to set up different conditions for their version of the war. Both versions are fun and worthwhile, though, and (my complaints about this issue notwithstanding) Roy Thomas was the perfect writer for both of these series. 

Next week, we'll visit with Cave Girl once more.

Cover Cavalcade

This was a one-shot from 1963. The unidentified artist gives the bandit a notably creepy mask, doesn't he?

Friday's Favorite OTR

Dragnet: "Jade Thumb Rings" 12/8/1949

The only witness to a brutal mugging is a six-year-old with an over-active imagination.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Green Forest

Read/Watch 'em In Order #113

A.E. Van Vogt's 1959 fix-up novel The War Against the Rull took six stories written mostly in the 1940s and tied them together with a few bridging chapters. Though I'm a fan of Van Vogt, I never happened to have read them. So it was only when I began reviewing these stories as they originally appeared in the pulps that I discovered he had re-written a number of them to place them in the same continuity and make them work as a novel.

The first story introduced us to the character of Professor Jamieson and to the aggressive and dangerous alien race known as the Rull. The second story was orginally not a part of this continuity, but was re-written for the novel to involve both Jamieson and the Rull. 

The third story was set in the Rull-verse, but was also changed in the novel, this time to keep Jamieson around as the protagonist.

That brings us to story #4--"The Green Forest," which was published in the June 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Here we have another case in which the tale was not originally set in the Rull-verse.

There is still an alien race at war with humanity in the story. These are the Yevd, shape-changers who often replace humans to sabotage mankind's efforts to fight them. In fact, the protagonist this time is Marenson, a government official who is organizing a effort to acquire "lymph juice," something that can be used against the Yevd. To get the juice, though, involves setting up a base on another planet and harvesting it from the highly dangerous lymph beast.

When Marenson is kidnapped and taken to this planet himself, he at first thinks it might be part of a dispute he had been having with the man hired to run the base. But he soon finds out that the Yevd are involved. In fact, one of them has replaced him on Earth and even gone on vacation with his wife. The Yevd are confident their operative can fool the wife--after all, humans who have been married for years usually aren't physically demonstrative anymore.

The Yevd have a multi-layered plan to disrupt the harvesting of lymph juice. This plan eventually involves Marenson being stranded in the alien jungle, about to be eaten by the lymph beasts.

But Marenson knows a thing or two about the beasts that the beasts that might allow him to turn the tables on his captors. And as for fooling his wife back on Earth--well, perhaps the Yevd should have found out what the purpose of the vacation was before assuming they could pull off that substitution.

Van Vogt had a knack for clever plots and clever plot twists. We definitely see that knack at work in "The Green Forest," though I think the story does seem unfocused for the first few pages. 

For the book, Professor Jamieson replaced Marenson and the Rull become involved in it all. You can read the original version, though, HERE.

Project Pegasus, Part 2

The second issue involving Project Pegasus actually doesn't take place at Project Pegasus. In fact, the entire story (except for a flashback) literally takes place on a few square yards of ground in the Everglades.

I don't mean that as a criticism, though. Marvel Two-in-One #43 (September 1978) is written by Ralph Macchio, with John Byrne taking over the interior art and also drawing the cover. The previous issue was bogged down by Exposition Overload. This one, despite an exposition-necessary flashback, moves along much faster. It's mostly an extended fight scene, but there are a few nice character moments that give it some depth.

The mad scientist who stole the Cosmic Cube in the previous issue is Victorius, a former AIM member who is amped up by a version of the Super Soldier serum and has fully embraced the Cult of Entropy, which considers the idea of destroying everything a good thing. Victorius has used the Cube to resurrect the cult's dead leader at the Entropic Man, who has the ability to turn people into dust.

This leads to the first high point of the story. It's a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment, but it demonstrates why Ben Grimm can rival Peter Parker as the heart of the Bronze Age Marvel Universe. When he finds out that the villains casually murdered an innocent couple, Ben automatically goes Medieval on them. It doesn't matter that he didn't know the couple. All he knows is that people were hurt for no reason. You don't do that when Ben Grimm is around. 

Unfortunately, these particular bad guys are powerful. Ben is knocked back into the muck of the swamp. Captain America challenges Victorius to a one-on-one fight. At this point, we find out that the mindless Man-Thing is nearby. This isn't surprising. It's not just that Man-Thing is one the cover of the book. At this point in Marvel history, it was impossible for anyone to go anywhere near the Everglades without running into Man-Thing. The guy really gets around.

When Victorius starts to lose his fight, he decides that fair fighting is for losers and asks the Entropic Man for help. E.M hypnotizes Cap, so Ben tosses his ally aside to keep him from getting zapped. This allows Entropic Man to envelope Ben, which has the unexpected result of turning him human. 

At this point, A lot of stuff happens at once. Ben begins to give E.M a good talking-to, while Man-Thing and Victorius begin to struggle over the Cube. Entropic Man begins to have second thoughts about disintegrating all of existance and we end up with a "Whoever Knows Fear, Burns at the Man-Thing's Touch" situation. That happens a lot when Man-Thing is around. 

The end result is an explosion that leaves the Cosmic Cube without power, Ben turned back into the Thing and the two bad guys turned into crystal. Neither Ben nor Cap seem to be aware that the Man-Thing has been around as they leave to take the Cube back to the Project. There's no mention of the rest of the Cultists and I get the impression that Macchio and Byrne might have forgotten about them.

So far, this has been an entertaining story with that quick highlight of Ben's character giving it a nice touch. There is one more effective bittersweet touch at the end, when Man-Thing touches the crystal and his hand becomes human. If he were only capable of rational thought, Ted Sallis might have used the crystal to turn himself human again. But the Man-Thing he has become is indeed mindless, so he simply wanders back into the swamp. 

It would be another ten issues before Ben returns to Project Pegasus, but for us, it will only be three weeks. In the meantime, next week we'll jump to the DC Universe and find out how the superheroes of World War II deal with America being at war.

Cover Cavalcade

A cute Sad Sack cover from 1960, drawn by the character's creator George Baker. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #7: Immortality

Tim DeForest reviews the various ways ERB heroes remain young regardless of the passage of years.

The audio version can be heard or downloaded HERE

And here's the video version:

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "Actor's Blood" 8/24/44

Fredric March plays a Shakespearean actor who re-stages a scene from Macbeth in order to expose the man who murdered his daughter.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Hey, That Dynamite Doesn't Belong There!--Part 2

Hangman's Knot (1952) has a great plot. In 1865, a band of Confederate guerillas operating in Nevada ambush a Union gold wagon, with the intention of getting the gold to the Confederate government. They kill a dozen Union soldiers, though they lose a few men themselves, and get the gold.

The trouble is they don't find out that the war has been over for a month until after they kill the soldiers and steal the gold. Suddenly, they aren't soldiers carrying out a legitimate mission. They are outlaws and murderers.

Soon, they have a posse on their trail. This would be bad enough. But this posse isn't made up of lawmen. It's just a band of drifters that want the gold for themselves and aren't that particular about killing anyone who is in their way.

It really is a neat premise for a movie--dropping the protagonists into a moral quagmire where there doesn't seem to be a right thing to do and where the odds of surviving are low no matter what they do.

Eventually, they end up in a stagecoach way station, holding a quartet of people hostages while the posse, which is largely uninterested in the safety of the hostages, besieges them. One of his men is already a prisoner of the posse and another is wounded. The situation is made more uncomfortable by the fact that one of the hostages is the mother of one of the soldiers killed when the gold wagon was ambushed. 

Randoph Scott plays the leader of the Rebs, who has to deal with both internal and external threats. One of his men, played by Lee Marvin in that subtly threatening manner he could so thoroughly adapt, is a bit too willing to kill and a bit too attracted to one of the hostages---a pretty ex-Army nurse (Donna Reed).

Both Scott and Marvin really stand out in this movie, with Scott bringing an aura of intelligence and authority to his role. But the rest of the cast also adds to the film. Every person we meet--Rebs, hostages and posse members, have individual personalities and help draw us into the story. Both the writer (Roy Huggins, who also directed) and the cast (which includes Jeanette Nolan and Richard Denning) do their jobs well. 

The bulk of the movie is built around the siege in the way station, with Scott and the posse's leader playing cat and mouse with each other.

The movie isn't perfect. Scott and Donna Reed, for instance, end up falling in love for no other reason than story conventions require them to do so. But most of the character interactions are believable, the tension is high and the action set pieces are exciting.

But, well, I just GOTTA complain about the dynamite, which the Rebs use when ambushing the Union soldiers and use again at one point during the siege. As with the film we looked at last week, this is an anachronism. As I explained when I whined about this last week, I don't normally worry about anachronisms when I watch Westerns. I realize that sometimes the weapons used won't match up with the time period being depicted, but that it will still look "right" when viewed as a part of the mythic Wild West. But using dynamite (as well as Winchester Rifles) in stories set before or during the Civil War just feel wrong to me. It's would be like seeing someone using an M-16 rifle in a World War II movie. It's just a little too obviously wrong. 

Well, I still liked both Kansas Pacific and Hangsman's Knot, with the latter film being the superior of the two. So I suppose I just to let it go. Just let it go and hopefully the images of Confederate soldiers using dynamite two years before it was invented will eventually fade from my nightmares.