I can't make up my mind if I like this movie!

 

Tank Commandos (1959) is an aggravating movie in a weird way. It's a very, very low budget WWII film with a fairly simple premise. The Americans are trying to capture a German-held town during the Italian campaign. But the Germans are somehow able to keep bringin reinforcements over a river despite the fact that all the bridges have been blown. An American demolitions squad has to find out how this is being accomplished and put a stop to it--hopefully by blowing something up, since that's what they are good at.

We actually get to see what the Germans are up to in the opening scene. They are using a bridge built just barely underneath the surface of the river--keeping it hidden from view but still allowing German tanks to drive across.  A young Italian boy also sees this, then dodges German soldiers by ducking down a sewer. When he comes up, he's in the middle of a firefight and gets brought away by the American squad.

It's all good stuff as far as the plot is concerned. And I'm okay with the filmmakers using then-modern M60 tanks to stand in for German tanks. (I'm assuming they were borrowed from the National Guard.) This is unavoidable in most war movies from this time. The small arms, at least, looked reasonably accurate.

Where the movie fails is in character and dialogue. Gee whiz, the melodrama flies thicker than bullets. Potentially strong scenes that could have generated honest emotion simply fall flat because of awkward dialogue and wooden acting. For instance, the commander of the demo squad spends a scene telling a nurse how much it hurts to see any of his men die. That's a perfectly good idea--it's cliched, but only because it's a reflection of real emotion felt by good men in a war. It's a concept that has been used effectively in many war films. Here, though, neither the actors or the script are up to the job. The scene simply comes across as empty (and slightly painful) melodrama and you want nothing more than for it to end so we can get back to shooting at Germans. 

Later, a soldier meets an Italian woman while on patrol and has a moment in which the two seem to connect, only to have another American soldier accidentally shoot her. Once again, a good idea ruined by sub-par acting and dialogue.

But, darn it, it's a black-and-white movie set during World War II with a good plot buried in their somewhere. Eventually, the Americans learn that the Italian boy knows where the underwater bridge is located. He leads them through the sewers, with the Americans wearing the Scuba equipment they'll need to plant explosives on the bridge after they reach the river. But they encounter Germans in the sewers, giving us some action scenes in an unusual setting. There's an important character death that I did not see coming.

By the way, I know the scuba gear the Americans are using is anachronistic, but I'm okay with that simply because it looks cool.

So, in the end, I can't make up my mind about this movie. Do I like it for a good plot, black-and-white photography and some nifty action scenes? Do I dislike it because of an overdose of melodrama and bad dialogue? I can't make up my mind. 

I don't know if I'll go so far as to watch it again to find out. Here it is--watch it yourselves and tell me what you think:

A Quick Trip to Mars

 

cover art by Curt Swan

The next story from Superman Family #182 (March-April 1977) features Supergirl, whom we first see clearing the way for the Viking probe to land on Mars. (Which happened in real life in July 1976).

I wonder, in the DC Universe, how it might affect the morale of NASA when they spend years (including a year in flight from Earth) to get a probe on Mars, while superheroes and mad scientists can get there in seconds.

In this story, written by Jack C. Harris and drawn by Mike Vosburg, we see Supergirl helping out NASA and they are perfectly happy to have the help. Larger issues about this (raised by Eliot S. Maggin in "Must There be a Superman" a few years earlier) aren't discussed this time. Nor do they need to be--it's not the point of this particular story. I bring it up simply because it occured to me while I was reading the tale and... well, it's my blog. 

Supergirl returns to Earth and a line of dialogue tells us that someone has been stealing rocket components. Soon after, a Viking photograph shows a piece of kryptonite is on Mars.

At this time in DC's continuity, all the kryptonite on Earth had been transformed into iron. This was done because it was felt that kryptonite was used too often as a plot devise. But the stuff still existed out in space, so it had not completely disappeared.

One of the staff at NASA is really a spy for Lex Luthor--and is also the guy who has been stealing rocket components. With these, he's built a rocket ship discussed as a redwood. When he tells Lex about the kryptonite, the arch-criminal summons the rocket via remote control and uses this to escape prison. The rocket, equipped with a space warp devise, then reaches Mars within minutes.

So once again, we see the importance of keeping Lex Luthor away from the darn machine shop while he's in prison.

Soon, the Viking camera is picking up Lex walking on the surface of Mars. (Let's be generous and assume that Mars was at it's closest point to Earth, so it only took five minutes for this image to reach NASA. That's not too much of a time gap for the story to still work--though I suspect that Harris simply didn't think of this or choose to ignore it for the sake of moving the story along.)

Luthor's spy wrecks the monitor, but Supergirl quickly catches him, then flies to Mars. Luthor has found the kryptonite and put this into a sort of kryptonite bazooka. When Supergirl arrives, he shoots and "kills" her.

But it's a trap. In fact, it's all a trap. The kryptonite was fake, planted there by Supergirl to smoke out the spy in NASA and recover the stolen rocket parts. 

It's a nice touch, by the way, that Supergirl wears a head set to explain how she can talk with Luthor so easily.

It's a fun, well-constructed story, showing off Supergirl's intelligence as well as her powers. That's a key part of what makes the best Superman family stories work. Whether it's Superman, his younger cousin, or one of the Super Pets, when a writer creates a situation in which the hero must use his or her brains as well has their godlike powers, then we have a truly well-told tale. 

In two weeks, we'll return to Superman Family to see how Krypto is doing. Next week, we'll watch a turtle joust with an alligator.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #46: A Princess of Mars Chapter 13

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #46: A Princess of Mars Chapter 13:   A discussion of Chapter 13 of the 1912 novel A Princess of Mars, in which John Carter demonstrates the practical value of showing kindness...

Cover Cavalcade

 

A fun cover from 1936. The artist is Malvin Singer. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Pat Novak for Hire: "Dixie Gilian" 11/24/46

Pat is hired to deliver a message. To the surprise of no one, this quickly leads to him being involved in a murder. 

Click HERE to listen or download. 

An Old West Murder Mystery

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #125

When we began our trip through the pages of the May 1927 issue of Frontier Stories, we discovered the magazine's definition of "Frontier" wasn't confined to the Wild West or the days of colonial expansion in America, but would feature stories set anywhere along the edges of Western civilization. The first story, for instance, was set in modern-day North Africa.

"Wanted--?," by Eugene Cunningham, is the second appearance of a 19-year-old Texas Ranger known as Ware's Kid. The Kid's first appearance had been in the March 1927 issue. He'd go on to star in eight more tales in this magazine throughout 1927 and 1928, the last of which was novel-length. Ware later popped up twice in Detective Fiction Weekly and, in the late 1940s, returned twice in Zane Grey's Western Magazine. 

"Wanted--?" is the only one of these I've read and I enjoyed it enormously. Ware's Kid is an interesting protagonist. His youth and small size make him seem non-threatening, but early on in the story he stares one man down with his "icy greenish eyes" and gives a bully twice his size an expert beating. All this quickly tells us that he's a man you don't want to mess with.

But there are other things about him that make him interesting and three-dimensional. He's smart--capable of Sherlockian deductions. And his courage isn't a reckless one. At one point in the story, he's fired at from ambush and elects to run for it rather than take on what he deems as poor odds if he stays and fights.

In this story, he's pursing a man wanted for murder and robbery. While on this trail, he teams up with a deputy sheriff of a small town to stop a train robbery. The ensuing fight scene is short, but fun and usual. The battle takes place at night, with everyone shooting at rifle flares rather than definite targets. And the Kid makes an embarassing mistake that almost gets him killed when he hastily reloads his rifle in the dark with the wrong caliber bullets. 

The deputy sheriff saves his life, which is further embarassing when the Kid realizes that the deputy is the man wanted for murder. But, as I mentioned, the Kid can use deductive reasoning and he figures out his new friend is innocent. That means starting from scratch to track down the real killer. This, in turn, leads to an ambush and an encounter with Apaches.

I think a lot of attentive readers will tumble to who the real killer is before the revelation at the story's conclusion, but it's a satisfying ending all the same. "Wanted---?" is a great yarn with a strong protagonist and several excellent action scenes. 

This issue of Frontier Stories can be read online HERE. 

Those Darn Mole People Again!

 

cover art by John Buscema

 The previous issue ended with Cap and the gorilla that is really a transformed mad scientist falling in a hole dug deep into the earth for the purpose of disposing of radioactive waste. In other words, it's Tuesday.

We start Captain America #136 (April 1971--written by Stan Lee, drawn by Gene Colan) back on the surface, with Nick Fury, Falcon, and Sharon Carter mourning Cap's apparent death. Fury, though, realizes that Falcon isn't going to give up and gives him the space he needs to make a rescue attempt by getting Sharon out of the way.

Falcon goes to Tony Stark, who quickly whips up a jet pack that will get Falcon down the shaft--though it won't have enough fuel to bring him back up again.

There are several points that show the challenges of writing stories set in an ever-expanding fictional universe. First, as we'll soon see, the tunnel has been drilled directly into the domains of the Mole Man. Since subterranean civilizations are known to exist, it seems unlikely that no one would have given this consideration when the tunnel was first planned.

Also, one wonders why Tony Stark didn't suit up as Iron Man and come along with Falcon. Cap is one of his best friends, after all.

But, as much as I like consistant continuity in my comic book universes, there are times when it is more important to tell an individual story in an exciting manner without worrying about the overall universe it is set in. This is Cap's and Falcon's book and there's no room for an extra guest star in this story, so Iron Man is simply left out of it. And the story requires the interaction with Mole Man, while pages of political negotiating with him about the tunnel would have slowed the action-oriented tale down just a tad too much. Besides, politicians both in fiction and in real life are often short-sighted, so maybe digging the tunnel without thinking about the consequences isn't that much of a jump in logic.

Anyway, we find out that Mole Man used an anti-gravity beam to lower Cap and the Monster Ape to the bottom safely. This is because he wants to find out what's up with that darn tunnel. Mole Man's characterization in this issue is a lot different than we've seen in the past. He isn't looking for conquest or revenge on the surface world right now, but simply wants to make sure that his own domain is safe.

The Monster Ape immediately starts planning to make trouble. He begins a rampage and has to be subdued and caged--though we soon find out this is part of a quickly improvised plan to get Cap killed. What his long-term plans are isn't clear, but that's not really a flaw in the story. Perhaps he's just playing it by ear to see what he can eventually get out of it for himself.

Cap is quite straightforward about the fact that the tunnel was going to be used to store radioactive waste, but he assures Mole Man that he can get this plan cancelled once it is known that they'd be dumping the stuff in the lap of another civilization. Mole Man believes him and is about to send him back to the surface when the Monster Ape does indeed start to cause trouble.

By turning back into Dr. Gorbo, he is able to slip out of his cave. He then convinces Mole Man that Cap is a spy scoping out the underworld defenses. This quickly leads to Gorbo (once again in ape form) getting into a fight with Cap. Falcon shows up at this point, though, and in a very well-choreographed fight scene, the two heroes work together to take down the big ape.

But Mole Man is now planning on destroying SHIELD headquarters before then attacking various surface cities. When Gorbo hears this, he realizes that this would mean Julia--the lab assistant he loves--would be killed. So he sacrifices his life to stop the attack, confessing to having lied about Cap just before he dies.

A lot of pages are used up recapping the previous issue and reviewing Mole Man's origin, so the main plot comes across as a little rushed. But Gene Colan's art has it all looking magnificent. As I mentioned when I reviewed the part one, this story is an example of taking old and perhaps cliched ideas, but still telling a fresh and interesting tale based on those ideas. 

Next week, it's back to Superman Family #182 as Supergirl visits Mars. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

Yet another great cover by an unknown artist. From 1957.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #45: A Princess of Mars Chapters 11 & 12

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Calling All Cars: "Oakland Payroll Robbery" 7/2/35

Local cops and G-men team up when a train is robbed of a large payroll shipment.

Click HERE to listen or download.