Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

A George Wilson cover from 1964.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Richard Diamond: "Rifle Case" 6/28/53

Someone is trying to steal a new rifle from the gunmaker who designed it. Diamond is hired to protect the man until the gun can be tested. Not surprisingly, the job turns out to be less than straightforward.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

This episode was remade in 1959 as an episode of the TV show Peter Gunn, which was also created by Blake Edwards. Peter Gunn is currently streaming on a number of services--it's worthwhile to watch that episode and compare it to the original radio version.

Make Your Own Bed

 

Make Your Own Bed, released in 1944, is a ton of fun. I love the premise. Alan Hale, Sr. is an eccentric rich guy named Walter Whirtle. He and his wife have trouble keeping servants. After Whirtle (who is also the world's worst driver) insults a police officer over a traffic ticket, he meets a down-on-his-luck private eye named Jerry Curtis, who is in jail because he mistakenly arrested the distric attorney while on his last job.

The P.I is played by Jack Carson, who gives the character the same fast-talking huckster vibe that he gave nearly every other character he ever played. This is fine, because Carson was born to play such roles.

Whirtle comes up with a brilliant plan. Well, if not brilliant, at least its unique. He convinces Curtis that he's beset by Nazi spies (his factory is producing war supplies). He hires Curtis to pose as his butler to catch the spies. Of course, there are no spies, but Whirtle gets a butler out of it. That the butler is a detective who thinks he's looking for spies doesn't matter. He's still a butler.

Determined to make good and catch the spies, Carson brings his girlfriend Susan (Jane Wyman) along to pose as a cook, though she's notable incompetent in the kitchen. So Whirtle gets two servants for the price of one. And to keep these servants on the job, he hires a quartet of radio actors to his home to u pose as suspects. Whirtle also sends some threatening letters to himself. 

Before long, Jerry has heard the actors rehearsing a scene from a radio play, in which they play Nazi spies planning to blow up a factory. Jerry now "knows" they are planning on blowing up Whirtle's factory. 

Misunderstandings and slapstick rapidly ensue, in which Susan "finds out" that Jerry is playing around with the two female actors and Jerry "finds out" Whirtle's wife is having an affair with a neighbor. In addition to demonstrating his obliviousness as a detective, healso doesn't contribute much to Susan's inept attempts to cook meals. There's a scene in which the two are trying to cook dinner that's about 80% as good at the classic Kathern Hepburn tries-to-cook-breakfast scene from Woman of the Year. And that's pretty darn good. 

Oh, and those radio actors pretending to be Nazi spies?  They might not be what they seem to be.

Make Your Own Bed is funny, with Carson, Wyman and Hale lifting an average script to a higher level. Perhaps not on the same level as a Hepburn-Tracy movie, but it'll still make you laugh.

Willy Schultz, Part 8

cover artist uncredited

Fightin' Army #84 (March 1969) picks up right where the last issue left off, with writer Will Franz and artist Sam Glanzman putting Willy Schultz in front of a German firing squad. 

He's soon joined by the surviving British commandoes, who have been forced to surrender. What follows is a very dialogue-heavy scene. This can be a detriment in a medium that is a platform for visual storytelling. But, as I've mentioned before, Franz' scripts can make this work. The British commander gives us a powerful and thought-provoking speech on the nature of war--how it drives men to commit increasingly brutal acts. It's a speech that sets aside larger issues (such as the clear lack of choice in fightng the Nazis), but that's okay. This is commentary on what war forces men to do--what it forces them to become--which is an important point beyond the larger issues of when it may be right to go to war. 

This issue depends on Franz' skill as a writer to make his points clearly and dramatically. It is, after all, a little unlikely that soldiers about to get shot will take the time to give philosophical dissertations. But Franz succeeds in fitting this in to the natural flow of the story he's telling.

Anyway, Ilse, the German nurse Willy met two issues earlier, sees him. That she recognizes him might be a bit of a stretch, since she was recovering from temporary blindness and only sees a blurry image of his face in their earlier meeting. But that's a minor point. It turns out her dad is a general, so she has some pull. She has Willy pulled out from in front of the firing squad and send to a POW camp in Italy. 

Willy feels bad about leaving the commandos to die, but the commander points out it would do no good for Willy to die with them. The issue ends with Willy on a transport plane to Italy.

It's another great issue. Franz, backed by Glanzman's great art, continues to explore important aspects of the effect of war on people and the inherent tragedy of war. It also tells a slambang story and moves Willy out of North Africa and into an important new phase of his lonely war. We'll return to him soon.

Next week, we'll travel back to the Wild West and see how a blind woman helped catch some evil twins.
 

Willy Schultz, part 7

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman

In regards to Willy Schultz's wartime career, there's a time jump between the last issue of Fightin' Army and this one (#83--January 1969). When we left him at the end of the last issue, he was still wandering in the Sahara and wanted for murder by the U.S. Army. This one picks up in the middle of a commando raid on a German supply base. The commandos are British, but Willy, dressed again in a German uniform, is helping them.

At first, it seems like there's a missing chapter. The change in story direction is pretty abrupt and I  am tempted to argue that there SHOULD have been a chapter detailing how Willy hooked up with the commandos. But writer Will Franz explains in a sentence that Willy met them by chance and joined with them pretty much because he has nowhere else to go. And, to be fair, that is enough to tell us what is going on.

Sam Glanzman's art, as always, looks great. As I said, we join the action in the middle of the raid. Willy is in a German uniform, presumably, because they were making use of his knowledge of German to gain access to the base. But everything is out in the open now. Guns are blazing, stuff is blowing up and the commandos are outnumbered & in trouble.

Willy has accepted his role as a soldier, though he still regrets having to shoot Germans in the back to save a few commandos. The British are trying to regroup and retreat when disaster strikes. One of the commandos, mortally wounded, throughs an explosive charge into a nearby tent before he dies. He doesn't realize its a hospital tent. 

Both the art and the narration don't stint on the ensuing horror, as wounded men and medical personnel die in the spreading flames. One dying man stumbles into Willy's arms. He realizes its one of his friends from his time with the German army. There's nothing he can do but watch him die. Willy is then captured and discovered to be one of the commandos.

This chapter ends with Willy about to be executed by a firing squad.

What makes this story work so well is the simple touch of the hospital tent being destroyed by accident. Willy seems to have accepted that his role as a soldier can't be ignored. But we see that no matter what a soldier's intentions, innocent people are going to die in a war. You might be the good guys (and there's no question about the Allies being the good guys during World War II), but war itself is always going to be dirty and horrific. 

Also, the cliffhanger ending is a good one. Altogether, we have yet another strong chapter in this superb series. 

Next week, I think we'll visit with one of Marvel's classic What If tales.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #34: The Mucker

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #34: The Mucker:   Jess, Scott and Tim discuss "The Mucker," a novel from 1914 that mixes adventure together with themes of redemption. Click HERE ...

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

This 1972 cover is by George Wilson. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Casey, Crime Photographer: "Loaded Dice" 9/4/47

A friend of Casey is accused of murder. The one clue that might point to the real killer is a pair of crooked dice found in a dead man's pocket.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Soldiers of Misfortune

 

 

cover artist for both issues is Rudolph Belarski. 

For the last two weeks, I've been reviewing stories that appeared in a particular issue of Astounding. I've had a PDF of that issue saved on my tablet for sometime with the intention of reviewing a specific story in it. I'd actually forgotten about it for a time, but finally got around to reviewing not one, but two tales waiting between its covers.

This reminded me that I had several other pulp magazines saved on my tablet for the exact same reason--there's a story in each one I want to review. But the trouble with electronic copies of either books or magazines is that its easy to forget you have them. Well, by golly, I won't forget again! Too much is at stake!

Actually, not much of anything is at stake. But I want to get those stories reviewed before I forget about them once again. So, I'll be catching up on story reviews from the Golden days of the pulp magazines over the course of the next month or so, mixing in occasional other subjects as well.

"Soldiers of Misfortune," by J.D. Newsom, first appeared in the June 1, 1935 issue of Argosy. In fact, it was the cover story. It was reprinted in the October 1940 issue of Foreign Legion Adventures with the same interior illustrations. I've reviewed Newsom's excellent Foreign Legion tales several times before. They are uniformily excellent, but this time Newsom really hits it out of the park.

Kirby Norton is an American sailor on a merchant ship who, during a stopover at Marseille, got really drunk and enlisted in the Legion. He ends up in North Africa. Norton doesn't want to be in the Legion. He wants to go home to New York City. But his enlistement is for five years.

The first half of the novella is a sort of dark comedy, as Norton comes up with a plan to get kicked out of the Legion by pretending not to understand French at all. He actually does, but that's beside the point. He acts as if he can't learn a single word of French, no matter how often that word is screamed at him or how obviously the intent of the order is acted out for him. He ends up getting punished, but he figures he can endure this if the end result is being discharged.

But the Legion refuses to give up on him. He befriends a clerk named Cordelier, who promises to hook him up with a man that can provide him with a false passport and arrangements to get back to the U.S.  This, of course, will cost money. Cordelier takes Norton for every cent the American has, then forgets about him.

This leads to a wonderfully described, knock-down, drag-em-out fist fight. That, in turn, leads to Norton spending 18 months in prison before being assigned to a unit helping put down a rebellion in Southeast Asia. 

At this point, the story shifts in tone. The heat, the leaches, the fear, the bloody death of fellow soldiers, the exhausting effort to carve through even a few yards of foliage... all of this is brought to life by Newsom in just a few paragraphs. 

During the confusion of a battle, with a large part of Norton's unit accidentally cut down by one of its own machine guns, Norton once again meets Cordelier. He's tempted to shoot, but can't bring himself to do so. Cordelier doesn't feel the same way. Now a sergeant, he sends Norton out into no-man's-land to deliver a message to another unit. Then Cordelier tries to pot his old enemy with a rifle.

All this leads to Norton finally deserting, befriending the leader of the resistance and joining that cause. Here, Newsom deals with the evils of colonialism in very straightforward terms. But he also gives us a very cynical take on freedom fighters, the politics of resistance and human nature in general. As the story builds to a climax, Newsom learns that he can't trust anyone and that even the people he's been fighting for--the "good guys"--might be willing to sell him out if they can benefit from doing so.

Newsom, of course, wasn't trying to predict the future of Southeast Asia. But it fits in well with the theme of this story that, in real life, resistance against colonialism eventually led to the establishment of a ruthless dictatorship by people who started as freedom fighters. I'm writing this post on the day before July 4 and I have to say that reading "Soldiers of Misfortune" really makes me appreciate our Founding Fathers. Flawed as they were, they really strived to create a free society. That doesn't happen very often. 

You can read "Soldiers of Misfortune" online HERE. 

Eva the Imp

 

cover artist unknown

I love stumbling across obscure and forgotten comic book characters. Little Eva ran for 31 issues during the early and mid-1950s. Two issues of reprints by another publisher appeared in 1957, titled Eva the Imp. I kind of like the latter title better. 

Little Eva #7 (April 1953) includes the story "Watch Dog"--writer and artist both unknown. Eva has done what she sees as a favor for the boys of the neighborhood, but they are busy playing war and won't listen to her.

Well, the boys soon find out what she's done. She's fixed up their playhouse with curtains and flowers! She's even cleaned the floor!  And, well... THIS ABOMINATION WILL NOT STAND! 

Boys will be boys and they've soon declared the curtains to be bandages for their "war wounds" and the flowers become medals. Then a really big stray dog wanders in and they make him a watch dog to keep Eva out while they go back on patrol.

Eva brings some more flowers into the clubhouse while they are gone. When she sees the curtains and flowers she brought earlier are gone, she assumes the big dog ate them and, therefore, must be hungry. So she gets some bones from the local butcher. When the boys come back, she sneaks out a window, but leaves the bones behind.

The boys think the bones belong to Eva. Obviously, the girl has been eaten by the dog!

They begin to cry, but Eva soon appears at the window. Their grief turns to anger and they chase the poor girl. But it turns out that the big dog LIKES girls:

The story is sincerely funny--especially the gag about the dog having supposedly eaten Little Eva. The art is clean, effective in both telling the story well and adding to the humor. Little Eva's superpower may have been nothing more than being adorable,but, by golly, that's not a bad superpower at all.

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we return to the Lonely War of Willy Schultz.

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

The artist for this 1971 cover is uncredited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Let George Do It: "Dead of Night" 10/13/52

George receives a middle-of-the-night phone call from someone who needs immediate help with a life-and-death matter. Naturally, George answers the call and, naturally, he's soon involved in a murder investigation.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Venusian Swamps, Secret Bases and Disintegrator Rays.

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

If you read Armageddon 2419, by Phil Nowlan, you will find yourself liking Anthony Rogers, the time-displaced protagonist. Considering that "Buck" Rogers would move on to comic strips (which is where he gets his nickname), radio shows, movie serials and TV, he is certainly a hero with lasting appeal. 

But the really good part of Nowlan's story--and the reason I've re-read it with joy a number of times since I first encountered it in high school--is Nowlan's fascination with creating futuristic technology and then creating military tactics appropriate for that technology. Armageddon 2419 is stuffed with anti-gravity devises, disintegrator rays and small arms that fire explosive rockets. The good guys and bad guys both use their weapons in increasingly innovative ways, each developing new tactics in response to what their opponents are doing. Characterization is subordinate to cool tech, and the story works just fine that way.

"Space Guards," published posthumously in the May 1940 issue of Astounding, takes pretty much the same route. In fact, the simularity of the technology (including rocket pistols, anti-gravity and disintegrator rays) places it in my mind in the same universe as Buck Rogers.

The two protagonists are officers in the Space Guard, Linda Darlington and Bob Manley. They are likeable and believable heroes, but there's not a lot of dimension to their characters. That they inevitably fall in love is predictable, but Nowlan wisely just hints at their true feelings a few times and does not allow this to interfere with the appealing part of the story--which is, of course, cool technology and well-described action.

The story opens with the two heroes lost in a foggy, nigh-inpenatrable swamp on Venus. They had been sent on a scouting mission to locate the base of a master criminal. But the rocket glider they used to leave their mothership has disappeared, there's too much atmospheric interference to use their radios and... well, the two are in trouble. Their trouble seems to increase when they are captured by a native tribe.

This, though, proves to be beneficial. The master criminal is from Earth and is setting up his own empire on Venus, funding it with a fortune in the form of a rare mineral he stole from Mars. He's hired well-equipped mercenaries--taken from the dregs of Earth, Martian and Venusian societies--and made them a sort of aristocracy. The native tribes don't like them, but don't have modern weapons needed to fight back effectively.

But clever tactics can make up for a lot. Bob and Linda accompany the natives when they ambush a mercenary column. Surprise and an pre-planned avalanche take out a lot of the bad guys and force the rest to run for it.

The two Space Guards trail them. There's a nasty encounter with a dinosaur-like creature, but this in turn leads them to meet a Martian woman who is working undercover. She knows where the secret base is located and has an idea for how to get the others inside, kidnap the master criminal (and the criminal's girlfriend, who is also his co-leader) and make a getaway under the noises of the mercenaries. 

The plan goes less than smoothly, but the heroes think fast on their feet, improvise variations to their plans and eventually make their attempt to capture the crooks. 

The bad guys' secret base is pretty cool, foreshadowing the sort of base that Doctor No or SPECTRE would be building back on Earth for James Bond to find and destroy. Nowlan has his heroes using the technology available to them in effective and clever ways. The pacing of the novella is fast and the action is all fun. "Space Guards" isn't quite the classic that his Buck Rogers tales would become, but Nowlan still knows how to spin a fun science fiction yarn.

You can read this one online HERE.

Sandwiches are indeed the Food of the Gods!

 

cover art by Al Bryant

We've been looking at the stories reprinted in 1974's Detective Comics #439. We finish that up today. There is actually one other original story other than the Batman tale that started this issue off. But it's part of a multi-issue story arc by Archie Goodwin featuring Manhunter. It's definitely worth reviewing, but I'll hold off on that until I can manage to get hold of the entire run.

So we'll finish off for now with a story from Kid Eternity #3 (Autumn 1946), written by Joe Millard. The art is not definitively credited, though both Pete Riss and Sam Citron are listed as possible artists in the Grand Comics Database.

Kid Eternity and Mr. Keeper run across the century-old ruins of a mansion. The story behind it is that it belong to Jason Mulgrew, a criminal who died before the detective chasing him was able to catch him. Both Mulgrew and (for reasons never explained) the detective are both buried near the mansion. 

Ancestors of Mulgrew are arriving at the mansion. Kid Eternity is curious about what's going on, so he summons up the detective from the past, learning that Mulgrew hated his relatives, so waiting a hundred years to reveal the location of his money to a new generation. 

Kid E. returns the detective to the afterlife, then summons up Mulgrew for more information. Mulgrew won't talk, though. Kid hurries after the relative, but (in what will be an important plot point) fails to return Mulgrew to eternity.

Soon, booby-traps--set a hundred years ago--are threatening the relatives. Kid calls upon Thomas Edison and then Achilles to deal with this.

Why Achilles? Because Kid figures the final booby-trap leading to the treasure chamber will have a particularly deadly trap. It does--a cannon rigged to fire at the first person who enters. But Achilles is tough enough to shrug this off.

Achilles, by the way, also chows down on sandwiches. The rules for the summoned dead in a Golden Age Kid Eternity story are never made clear, but apparently they can still eat and enjoy food. Achilles declares sandwiches to be a food of the gods. And he's right, isn't he? Stop at a good deli and order your favorite sandwich. Is there anything better than this? I THINK NOT!

But I digress. The treasure vault is empty. Jason Mulgrew, who was summoned early by the kid, enters the mansion and announces that even though his booby-traps failed to kill anyone, he can still take joy in denying his relatives treasure. Keep in mind that these aren't the same relatives that Mulgrew hated a century ago. This is a whole new set, who he hates because he's just a big poopy-head.

Kid summons up Cagliostro, an 18th-Century Italian occult expert, who claims he can figure out where the treasure is really hidden, but disapproves of wealth and won't tell. So Kid banishes him and once again summons up the detective who had been pursuing Mulgrew during their lifetimes.

Apparently, the rules for summoned dead include that they feel pain. The detective merely twists Mulgrew's arm until he reveals where the treasure is hidden. The relatives are now rich and the adventure comes to an end.

What I love about this story is how everyone, both the living who see what the Kid does and the summoned dead, are so darn casual about it, as if this sort of thing happens to them every day. It gives a wonderful ambiance to the story, which is completely straightforward with the silly premise, telling a fun story that is wrapped in a thin but servicable layer of Comic Book Logic. Most of the Golden Age Kid Eternity stories (published by Quality Comics before Quality's characters were acquired by DC) are in the public domain and available online. I need to visit with Kid Eternity more often. 

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with another Golden Age character--a little girl named Eva the Imp--whose superpower is... well, being cute and friendly.

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

This 1971 cover is tentatively credited to George Wilson.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Weird Circle: "The Great Plague" (1945)

Three men plan to rob a house and murder the occupants. But they make an unwise choice in deciding on which house to rob.

Click HERE to download or listen. 

The Long Winter

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

I pulled up a PDF copy of Astounding Stories (May 1940) on my tablet because I wanted to read and review a novella titled "Space Guards," the last tale written by Phil Nowlan, the creator of Buck Rogers. I clicked on something by accident and the PDF jumps ahead to the short story "The Long Winter," by Raymond Z. Gallun, a prolific writer of science fiction in the 1930s. It looked like a cool story, so I figured "What the hey." I'll review Gallun's story this week and jump back to "Space Guards" next week.

"The Long Winter" is about Earth's first expedition to the planet Uranus. A six-man team has landed, built a shelter against the incredible cold of the planet's 40-year-long winter and began doing their work of collected data.

One of the team is Jan Viborg, but Jan is not a team player. He's the meteorologist--an obviously important job when studying a planet where the methane winds blow constantly and the cold will kill a even a man wearing an armored space suit within a half hour.

But Jan wants glory. He wants to make sure he goes down in the history books as THE man who first walked on Uranus... THE man who did the job and came home. And, of course, he can't be THE man if the rest of the team is still alive.

So he comes up with a plan. He has to go outside to check some of the sensors studying wind velocity, temperature and so on. It's an unpleasant job, but if he goes directly to the instruments, gets the readings and comes directly back (using a beacon light as a guide), then its not really dangerous.

Jan intends to make a brief detour on his next trip, though. He's thought it all out. If he removes a certain bolt the exeterior of the shelter, that will allow inflammable methane snow to flow into gap between the interior and exterior walls of the shelter. IF he opens this hole in the exact right spot, a cable will eventualy spark with electricity and cause an explosion. The shelter will be torn open and the other team members, without spacesuits, will die within seconds. Jan will carry on bravely after this tragic "accident" and, by golly, he'll be famous.

Of course, anyone reading the story knows something will go wrong. But Gallun was a clever science fiction writer. The reason Jan's plan goes wrong makes perfect sense when explained--involving one small science detail that the murderous weatherman didn't think of. And Gallun hits the right notes in generating a creepy atmosphere and giving Jan a loathsome but believable personality. "The Long Winter" is a good story, well worth taking the time to read.

You can read it online HERE. 

Willy Schultz, Part 6

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman with alterations tentatively credited to Charles Nicolas

When we looked at Part 5 of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" a few weeks ago, I complained about what I felt was a contrived plot element. But with Part 6 (published in Fightin' Army #82 (November 1968), writer Will Franz and artist Sam Glanzman are back on track. This chapter is superb.

Schultz has been switching back and forth between American and German uniforms quite often. For the last couple of issues, he's been back in U.S. duds. So when he's picked up by the crew of a German halftrack (after a month of wandering around the Sahara), they take him prisoner. There's another American prisoner--General Stenik, the father of the man Willy was falsely accused of murdering.

At this point, the story becomes very dialogue-heavy. Often, that's a problem in a storytelling medium that is largely visual. But here, Will Franz writes absolutely fantastic dialogue, giving us insight into both Schultz and Stenik. 

Schultz tells a story of having recently killed a German to get some food and was sickened by the experience. Between that and the fact that his experiences have forced him to see both Americans and Germans as human beings--well, he's convinced he's no longer able to kill.

Stenik, we learn, no longer believes Schultz killed his son. But he had a problem of his own. He knows about future American troop movements and doesn't feel strong enough to stand up against torture should it come to that. Torture is very possible, as the troops holding the two of them are S.S.

Schultz is adamant in refusing to help, even when Stenik reminds him that Americans could be killed uselessly if he (Stenik) is forced to talk. But when an opportunity comes to slug a German officer and grab his pistol, Schultz does so without thinking. There's "no middle ground," he has realized. Duty, morality, self-defense--all of this is muddled together in his head and boils down to "kill or be killed."

There's a shootout, with Schulz bagging a couple of the Germans before they start to toss hand grenades. Stenik takes the brunt of a grenade blast to save Schultz's life.

Schultz is able to finish off the Germans and is once again wandering the desert alone. The general might have been able to clear him of the murder charge, but that chance is now lost. He once again has no place to go.

As I said, this issue is very dialogue-heavy, but this is made to work. Schultz's account of his moral journey in the desert is heart-rending--all the more so because his final conclusion is he can't escape the necessity of killing others. General Stenik's short but powerful character arc complements this and is in of itself heart-rending. "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schulz" continues to one of the finest examples of graphic storytelling I've ever read. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

JULY IS GOLD KEY HORROR MONTH!

This 1966 cover is by George Wilson.