My new e-pamphlet

Only about 10,000 words, so I don't want to call it an e-book. But you can now buy my newest offering--99 Films Your Children MUST See Before Growing Up: OR THEY'LL TURN OUT TO BE AXE MURDERERS!!! for the Kindle app or other e-formats by clicking HERE.

Terror in Space

Page 161 of the Encyclopedia of Monsters by Jeff Rovin contains the entry for It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), a low-budget but intelligent and suspenseful science fiction horror movie. 

It deals with the first manned expedition to Mars in the far future year of 1976. (Which, by the way, makes me want to curse Real Life—why the heck aren’t we on Mars?)

That first expedition has a rotten time. Everyone but the commander was killed by a barely-glimpsed monster during a sand storm. When the commander is rescued by a second expedition, he’s accused of murdering his crew to hoard supplies.

He’s abruptly proved innocent during the return trip to Earth, when it turns out the monster has sneaked aboard. A couple of crewmen are whacked and suddenly the survivors are in a fight to the death against an apparently indestructible opponent.

There are several factors that make this a great film (and the eventual inspiration for 1979’s Alien). First, it’s the perfect setting for a horror movie—you can’t just leave a space ship and go run somewhere else.  Right from the beginning, it’s clear that either the monster dies or the entire crew dies. There’s no third option.

The design of the space ship also helps. It’s a traditional cylindrical affair divided into levels. A lot of the action depends on what levels are currently controlled by the monster and what levels the crew can gain access to.

Also, the movie never forgets that the ship is manned by trained astronauts and scientists. It’s crammed with smart people who act in an intelligent fashion. Every plan they try makes sense. When guns don’t work, they rig up some booby-traps with hand grenades. When that doesn’t work, they try gas. When that doesn’t work, they try an electrical booby-trap. And so on. They theorize about the nature of the creature and act accordingly. A couple of them take a space walk to move “below” the monster and set up a trap. The movie doesn’t depend on smart people acting foolishly or stupidly to generate danger—that all grows out of the monster’s ability to withstand enormous damage and keep going.

(Actually, I suppose you can argue that setting off hand grenades inside a space ship surrounded by vacuum isn’t terribly brilliant, but I suppose they were fragmentation grenades that aren’t designed to do structural damage, so we’ll give that to them.)

There is one brief instance where you see 1950s sensibilities slipping into the film. There are two women crewmen—one a doctor and the other a geologist. But they’re the ones serving the food and coffee at dinner time. Oh, well, maybe it was just their turn. Besides, both get to act intelligently during the crisis—especially the doctor.

That's a major key to getting a horror movie right--no matter what its setting. The characters in danger can't be stupid or act stupidly. They have to be threatened in spite of their ability to think or fight. Only then  can you generate a real sense of suspense.

The movie is good enough to make one easily forget the occasional special effects failure. Most notable is probably the monster itself—stunt man and former serial star Ray “Crash” Corrigan in a rubber suit. But you find yourself accepting the monster as is. The story as a whole is too good to do otherwise.

The script for It! was written by Jerome Bixby, a talented science fiction writer with quite a bit of geek credibility attached to his career. Among his other credits are co-writing the story for Fantastic Voyage (which gave us the second coolest fictional submarine ever); the short story that was the basis for “It’s a Good Life,” arguably the best and creepiest Twilight Zone episode; and several Star Trek episodes including “Mirror, Mirror”—which gave us an alternate universe evil Mr. Spock (complete with goatee).

There’s one interesting bit at the very end. Most science fiction B-movies dealing with space travel (at least the ones made in the 1950s) were ultimately optimistic about exploring the final frontier. This one ends with the surviving crew members sending back a radio message warning that we might have to bypass Mars because of the danger there—that “another name for Mars is Death.”

I suspect the filmmakers simply wanted a cool sounding line to end with and didn’t have a deeper point behind it, but gee whiz—that’s a downer!

Last week, I ranted about how cool black-and-white photography makes movies look. This, by the way, is another example. No way this movie would have been half as good in color.

Anyway, that’s it for our four week experiment in randomly picking subjects for me to write about. Next week, I’ll have to actually think of something on my own again. No telling what I’ll come up with.

History of the Marvel Universe: March 1967

FANTASTIC FOUR #60

It’s been a few years since I last looked at this issue and I’d forgotten how magnificent is the extended fight scene between the FF and Doom. First Johnny alone, then all four, team up to fight a desperate holding action while the army finishes building Reed’s new super-weapon. Both Ben (who manages to deck Doom for a moment despite being literally tortured by comic energy) and Sue (who gets Doom to slam into the side of a cliff by making it invisible—I love that) get Crowning Moments of Awesome.

This is one of the fastest paced issues in the Lee/Kirby run, moving at breathless speed from cover to cover. There is a brief pause for a couple of pages as we are updated on the Inhuman royal family that is probably necessary to keep that story arc progressing, but it’s a scene that perhaps would have been better to leave for another issue than to interrupt the faster-than-light action.

Anyways, Reed’s weapon turns out to be a decoy that tricks Doom into trying to follow it into space. This activates Galactus’ defenses (set up to keep the Surfer from leaving the planet) and Doom is zapped away--- somewhere. Reed says its probably better if we never know where.

So the threat of Doom is ended, as is one of the best Dr. Doom story arcs ever. Kirby’s visuals, a strong plot and some great character moments all come together to make for a great issue.

SPIDER MAN #46

Spider Man meets the Shocker, a crook with enough mechanical know-how to build a device that sends out destructive vibrations and a shock-absorbing suit to protect himself from feedback.

He’s definitely a second-stringer, but he’s interesting enough to make an occasional issue interesting. Spider Man gets knocked out the first time the two fight—he’s still has an arm in a sling at the time. In a nifty little bit of business, the Shocker ignores Spidey after knocking him out. He just wants the money he’s stealing and could care less about killing or unmasking the webslinger.

In a rematch at the end of the issue, Spidey beats Shocker by the simple expedient of webbing his thumbs so he can’t press the triggers for his vibration weapon.

In the meantime, Harry Osborne gets an apartment and asks Peter to room with him. Aunt May, at the same time, is asked to move in with Anne Watson. This frees Peter up to accept Harry’s offer and finally move out on his own. Also, Peter is gradually deciding he likes Gwen better than Mary Jane.

There’s also a fun scene in which Bugle reporter Foswell follows Peter, hoping to get a line of Pete’s connection with Spider Man. He nearly tumbles to the whole secret identity, but Peter manages to pull  an off-the-cuff con that convinces Foswell that Peter and Spidey are two different people (who work together to get Peter photo opportunities).

But the issue ends with Peter feeling depressed and homesick, wondering if he can ever be happy. One of the strengths of Spider Man is Stan Lee’s success in giving Peter believable problems that can generate real sympathy, but I have to say Stan drops the ball a little this time around. Peter actually has some good stuff happen to him this time out and he’s got no reason to be whining about it.

Oh, well, it’s still a good issue overall. Even the Spider Man issues from this era that aren’t classics are still good, solid fun.

THOR #138

While the trolls invade Asgard and threaten to overwhelm the kingdom through sheer force of numbers, Thor is on Earth looking for Sif. He and Ulik have a rematch—another outstanding Kirby fight scene that ends in another draw. The trolls manage to trap Thor’s hammer inside a magical device that nullifies the “only Thor can lift it” spell. They head back to Asgard, leaving Thor and Sif trapped on Earth—with Thor due to change back into Donald Blake in just a few seconds.

That’s a pretty short summery, but the flow of the story is once again constructed around opportunities for Kirby to really go to town with his visuals.  Like this month’s Fantastic Four, its non-stop action that moves along from one “Wow—that’s awesome!” panel of art to another.

The Tales of Asgard entry finds Thor and the Warriors Three (well—the Warriors Two while Volstagg is taking a nap) fighting a giant cyclopean creature in order to gain access to Wazir the prophet. Wazir tells them where they can find the Mystic Mountain so that they can fulfill their quest to take out Mogul.  What with this fight scene and the visuals from the main story—this issue is in danger of putting readers into a sort of sensory overload. How much cool artwork can one comic book contain?

That’s it for March 1967. Next week, we’ll pause from Marvel to take a look at two different instances in which Turok, Son of Stone was forced to hunt down a particularly nasty dinosaur.

In two weeks, we’ll cover April 1967, in which the Fantastic Four get ambushed in their own home; Spider Man fights Kraven the Hunter yet again; and Asgard teeters on the brink of troll-induced destruction.

My trip to Sudan

 Sorry to intrude with real life on my blog, but if anyone is interested in hearing about my trip to Sudan, click on the link below to watch the talk I gave about it at my church. Send the women and children from the room first, though--I'm afraid I'm one butt-ugly dude.


Calvary Chapel Sarasota

Cover Cavalcade

Friday's Favorite OTR

Escape: “S.S. San Pedro” 8/22/48


A ship leaves Hoboken, bound for the tropics with cargo and 172 passengers. But the captain is sick and getting sicker; the ship begins to list slightly to port for no apparent reason; and a corpse-like man named Dr. Percival, who supposedly disembarked before the ship sailed, is seen aboard. But no one can find Percival after he’s seen and, to top it all off, the weather is getting worse.


Technically, the plot is a little slow-moving. But the story doesn’t seem slow at all, gradually building up a strong sense of tension and mystery as the captain grows sicker and the ship lists farther and farther to port. Backed by John Dehner’s strong performance as the First Mate and the narrator, “S.S. San Pedro” makes for a genuinely creepy horror story with a very effective ending. The sound effects—always a strong point on Escape—are even more notable in quality this time. Everything from the sound of footsteps going up a ladder to the sound of wind and breaking waves are pitch perfect. It’s another great episode from this excellent series.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Everything looks better in black-and-white

Page 173 of 101 Greatest Films of Mystery and Suspense is the entry on one of the best Film Noirs of the 1950s.

The Big Heat (1953) begins with a dirty cop committing suicide and leaving behind a confession that would send the local mob boss (and the dishonest police commissioner) to the slammer.

But the dead cop’s wife knows a good thing when she sees it. She hides the confession and begins to blackmail the mob boss.

Events cascade out from there and soon lead to the murder of a clip joint girl that the dead cop had been seeing. The cop investigating all this is Dave Bannion—effectively played by Glen Ford as a tough guy who will not compromise his principles, even when ordered to do so by his superiors.

Bannion’s principles, though, soon lead to his wife’s death in a botched attempt to kill him. Suspended from the force, Bannion continues to investigate on his own.

Like many Film Noirs, this one is filled with interesting supporting characters. One of the most notable ones here are Vince Stone, the mob boss’s chief enforcer. He’s played by Lee Marvin—who was better at being loathsome than just about any other character actor in film history. In fact, as cool as Marvin could be playing the lead in films like The Dirty Dozen, I’d have to say he was at his best playing bad guys.

He’s terrific in this film. Stone has a violent temper but is ultimately gutless—something brought out in a very tense scene where he and Bannion confront each other for the first time. Marvin gives this despicable man a veneer of believability that makes him all the more loathsome. If you watch the film, pay attention to his performance—there’s a lot of subtlety in how he reads the lines or the gestures he makes. Marvin could play over-the-top villains with style (as he did in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence), but he could also tone it down when the movie required it.

Gloria Grahame gives a remarkably empathetic performance as Stone’s girl, Debbie Marsh. She takes a liking to Bannion, which results in Stone throwing… Well, that part is better left as a surprise.

It’s Debbie who elects to take a particular course of action near the end of the film that brings everything to a head.

And, boy, does this film look great. Directed by Fritz Lang, it uses black-and-white photography to set the mood, tell the story effectively and simply look really cool.

This movie is one of many that could be used to prove that it’s a tragedy that 70% to 80% of films aren’t still made in black-and-white. Heck, 70% to 80% of real life would look better in black-and-white.  I’m pretty sure that Film Noir would not have been half as successful or memorable if it had come along after color photography became the usual thing in Hollywood.

Next week, we’ll end our experiment with picking random entries from various reference works when we take a look inside The Encyclopedia of Monsters.

History of the Marvel Universe: February 1967

FANTASTIC FOUR #59

A lot of this issue deals with the Inhumans. Black Bolt finally realizes that he needs to speak—which for him means setting off a really powerful sonic blast—in order to break down the force field that surrounds their city. He does this and, even though much of the city is reduced to rubble, he does break them out. The royal family decides to contact the outside world while the rest of the Inhumans rebuild, so it appears Johnny will finally get to hook up with his girlfriend again.

The main Dr. Doom storyline only advances a little in terms of plot, but Lee and Kirby manage to build up quite a bit of tension to lead into next issue’s finale. Reed is pretty desperate to figure out how to defeat an all-powerful Doom and at one point even seems to despair. There’s a great scene in which Ben eggs him on to keep trying. At the end of the issue, Reed has completed building some sort of new device.

Johnny, in the meantime, has convinced himself that he can use speed and surprise to take out Doom himself.

It’s all good stuff. Lee has these characters down pat, with their dialogue consistently ringing true to their personalities.

SPIDER MAN # 45

Despite having one arm in a sling, Spider Man continues to search for the Lizard, eventually confronting him aboard a train that’s carrying a reptile show from NYC to Philadelphia. The Lizard, of course, is planning on using the reptiles as the first “recruits” for the army he needs to wipe out mankind.

The train is a cool setting for the ensuing fight. Spidey is physically outmatched, but manages to lure the Lizard into a refrigerator car, where the cold weakens the villain. Spidey then takes him back to Curt Connors’ lab and whips up a cure.

In the meantime, Peter is beginning to realize that Mary Jane might be a bit too shallow for his tastes. It’s interesting to remember that at the time Lee and Romita were planning on Gwen being the main gal in Peter’s life. Romita was later quoted as saying they really worked to keep her at the forefront, but Mary Jane simply kept overshadowing her. The long term effect of this, of course, would be to pretty much sign Gwen’s death warrant.

But that’s still a few years in the future. This issue ends with an interesting counterpoint. Peter is at home thinking about how being Spider Man regularly messes the rest of his life up, while the Connor family is talking about how a guy as cool as Spider Man must have everything he wants in life.

THOR #137

Lee and Kirby jump right into yet another magnificent story, with a well-constructed plot supported by astounding visuals.

Thor and Sif are ambushed by trolls, who manage to kidnap Sif. Thor follows and encounters Ulik, a huge troll who seems to match the Thunder God in raw power.

In fact, it looks as if Ulik has the upper hand, but then he abruptly vanishes in a flash of light.

It’s all part of a clever plot by the king of the trolls. He’s managed to tunnel out a path directly into Asgard, but knows he can’t conquer the place as long as Thor is around. So he’s sent both an unconscious Sif and Ulik to Earth, forcing Thor to follow them there. That leaves him free to attack Asgard.

It really is a cool plan. On Fantastic Four, Lee and Kirby manage to continually mix strong characterizations into the action. On Thor, there’s just one main character rather than four (though there are plenty of fun supporting players), so the characterizations are more straightforward. But we can see how the plots are structured in such a way as to highlight Kirby’s layouts—perhaps even more so than on FF. As I’ve mentioned so many times in the past that you’re all probably sick of reading it, Kirby was at his best when he could draw bizarre and cosmic-level images. Thor has been giving him an excuse for doing this every single issue.

In the “Tales of Asgard” feature, we find out why Hogun is called the Grim. Our heroes encounter Mogul of the Mystic Mountains, who is responsible for enslaving Hogun’s people and killing his family. Ouch. When Hogun vows to finally take vengeance, Thor, Fandral and Volstagg elect to tag along.

More great visuals here, of course, especially a panel showing Mogul being carried off by his giant Jinni slave.

That’s it for February. In March, the FF continues their fight against Dr. Doom; Spider Man adds a second-string villain to his Rogue’s Gallery; and Thor returns to Earth while Asgard is invaded.

Cover Cavalcade

Friday's Favorite OTR

Cloak and Dagger: "Delay on Route" 10/06/50


This episode had a nice twist to it. Most of the time, the show follows an OSS agent in his/her efforts to fight directly against the Germans or the Japanese. This time, though, an agent has to save an Italian fascist from vengeful partisans.


The plot is very well-constructed. It begins in a recently liberated Italian town. We are quickly and effectively introduced to the main characters. The leader of the partisans is hanging Fascist collaborators in the town square. The OSS agent who had been working with the group for the past year disapproves--he would have preferred the men be held for a proper trial--but he respects the partisans as soldiers and understands how they feel.


That pretty effectively sets up the proper emotions for the story that follows. An industrialist and factory owner who was also a loyal fascist contacts the agent. He has valuable information that he'll trade for a trip to America and guarenteed safety. That puts the agent in the uncomfortable position of having to sneak the fascist out of town without the partisans finding out.


The story is tense and sharply written from start to finish, with both the dialogue and the acting combining to provide us with excellent characterizations. The story covers themes of such as the difference between justice and revenge, the need to sometimes act for the greater good, and the loyalty that two soldiers with a common enemy feel towards one another--even if they don't particularly like each other.

Click HERE to listen or download.