Cover Cavalcade

 

January is Wooden Ships and Iron Men Month!

This 1962 cover is uncredited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Rocky Fortune: "The Rodeo Murder Mystery" 1/12/54

Rocky takes a job as assistant to the owner of a rodeo. When the owner is murdered, events play out in a way that drops Rocky into the arena, being chased by an angry bull.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

A Bad-Tempered Lion and a Bad-Tempered Circus Promoter

 

Francis Wallace was a sportswriter and novelist who, in 1936, published a novel titled Kid Galahad. In 1937, it was made into a Edward G. Robinson movie with the same title. Humphrey Bogart has a supporting role as a bad guy.

In 1941, the story's setting was changed from the boxing world to the circus world and became the movie The Wagons Roll at Night. Bogart is now playing the Edward G. Robinson part, though he's a circus promoter rather than a boxing promoter. Sylvia Sidney is Bogart's Gal Friday

I watched the movie recently after recording it off of TCM. I knew nothing about it going in other than it was one of the few Bogie movies I had never seen. I also apparently didn't pay enough attention to the opening credits. So, when a lion escapes from the circus early on in the movie AND a general store clerk bravely corners it to protect a young girl, I didn't at first recognize the actor playing the clerk. Then it dawned on me. It was Eddie Albert, the future owner of Green Acres in the classic '60s sitcom. (He is also a few years away from being a real-life war hero.) 

Albert looked impossibly young in the film. Does that mean I'm getting old? Gee whiz. 

The movie itself drips with melodrama. Matt (Albert's character) joins the circus and learns lion taming, with Nick (Bogie's character) taking him under his wing. Matt eventually meets Nick's sister and they fall in love. Nick violently disapproves and the movie's finale involves Nick convincing Matt to try to do a show with a particulary nasty lion who had already killed one man. By golly, mess with Bogie's sister and he'll literally feed you to an animal.

The ladies of the film try to talk sense into Nick in time to save Matt's life. Will they succeed?

The movie's plot is predictable and even Bogart can't keep the final scene from descending into painful corniness. But I still like the movie. The cast is good, with Bogart expertly treading a moral line in the sand with his character and Albert bringing charm and believability to his aww-shucks character. 

Also, it's set in a circus back in the travel-by-train and perform-under-the-big-top days. Such movies are always inherently interesting. 

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—GUNS OF LEGEND #7 IN SATAN'S CIRCUS

Sixgun Justice: WESTERN NOVELS—GUNS OF LEGEND #7 IN SATAN'S CIRCUS: WESTERN NOVELS GUNS OF LEGEND #7 IN SATAN'S CIRCUS BRODY WEATHERFORD REVIEWED BY TIM DEFOREST   Tomcat Meyer, the lawman who was introdu...

Betray the Earth and Marry an Alien

 

cover art by Steve Ditko

The cover story in Amazing Adult Fantasy #8 (January 1962) is pretty basic, with a twist at the end that even the younger readers this was targeted towards probably saw coming from miles away. But it's still fun to read. To start out, Steve Ditko's art fits the tale perfectly. Second, Stan Lee writes one of the best narration insets ever on the first page:

"They offered him the world on a silver platter! So why did he end up... screaming?" That is a wonderfully creepy way to start off the story.

Aliens--advance scouts for an invasion fleet--use the cover of a storm to land on Earth, then seize control of a remote radar post. If they can prevent the radar from being used, they can launch a suprise attack on the planet.

They could simply kill the two radarmen. I suppose wrecking the facility would be an option as well and would seem to be the best one, but no one ever mentions that possibility. One of the humans figures out that the aliens simply don't know how to turn off the radar themselves, but that shouldn't stop them from just breaking things. Oh, well. The unknown depths of alien psychology are beyond the understanding of us mere humans.

The aliens pick a third option--offer the humans wealth, power and the most beautiful women in the universe to turn off the radar. 

One guy stoically refuses and gets hit by an immobilizing ray when he lunges for an alarm button. The other guy, though, is a snivelling coward. He gladly agrees to double-cross Earth in exchange for wealth, power, and--HUBBA-HUBBA--a hot girl.

The predictable Twilight Zone-esque twist quickly follows. What's considered beautiful on one planet isn't necessarily all that good-lookin' on Earth. The traitor is unhappy with his reward. That's why he's screaming. 

A final panel wraps things up by telling us the other guy does manage to reach the alarm button and the alien invasion is foiled. As for the traitor: "Well, who really cares what happens to a traitor?"

There's no denying that the surprise ending isn't terribly surprising. But Ditko's art--especially the creepy design of the aliens--and that wonderful opening sentence sell the story regardless.

Next week, Green Lantern turns himself into a robot. It makes sense in context.

Cover Cavalcade

 

January is Wooden Ships and Iron Men Month!

The artist of this 1975 cover is uncredited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 "The Log" 9/20/53

Years after the war ends, a submarine is ordered to be scrapped. But the sub's captain might have other ideas.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

 

                                             

Read/Watch 'em In Order #155

What I love about The Mummy's Ghost (1944) is the casualness with which everyone in a small New England town accepts the idea of undead mummies and Egyptian curses. It's understandable, of course, since they had just had a mummy rampaging through their town not long ago. Now, we get a recap of the first two films via a lecturing college professor. And when Kharis reappears and people start getting strangled to death again, the cops accept that the mummy is back. 

One of those cops is played by Barton Maclane, playing a tough cop in the same hard-boiled manner that he always played tough cops, logically planning a way of trapping a "criminal" who is immune to bullets. I love it. 

As in the previous film, the movie also benefits from the actor playing Kharis' Egyptian "keeper." This time, it's John Carradine, an unfailing professional as an actor who always gave his all in any movie, regardless of that movie's overall quality.

The quality of movie, this time, actually isn't bad. There's a bit of a continuity glitch as the Egyptian cult now seems dedicated to bringing Kharis and Princess Anaka together. This is quite a change in attitude. Remember, after all, that Kharis was cursed to guard Anaka's tomb because his love for her was forbidden. But it does allow this film to go in an unusual direction. Oh, well. The villains in the previous films kept getting distracted from their mission by falling for a pretty girl. Perhaps the cult simply decided that there's no beating True Love. 

After Kharis kills an Egyptologist to get some Tana leaves (the stuff he needs to stay alive), his next mission is to recover Anaka's mummy from a local musuem. But when Carradine's character uses the juice of the Tana leaves to resurrect her, her mummy crumbles into dust. This means, he realizes, that she's been reincarnated into someone else.

That someone else is Amina (Ramsey Ames), who is of Egyptian descent. She's also the girlfriend of the film's bland protagonist, played by Robert Lowery. Eventually, Kharis kidnaps Amina. But when Carradine is about to inject her with Tana juice, he starts to fall for her as well. Seriously, the cult's Human Resources department really needs to put out some guidelines about this sort of thing. Anyway, this situation isn't going to make Kharis happy.

There's a lot of nice touches. The shots of Kharis (played again by Lon Chaney, Jr.) walking up and down elevated railroad tracks to a hideout in an abandoned warehouse look just plain cool. The variation of the usual plot is interesting and the way Amina's hair gradually turns from brunette to grey over the course of the movie is pretty nifty. She is indeed Anaka and she is now rapidly aging. She is, after all, 3000 years old. 

The movie has a bit of a tragic end, with Kharis and Amina/Anaka sinking into a swamp. But this sets up the creepiest scene in the series, which we'll examine when we look at The Mummy's Curse in a few weeks. 

Adam, Eve and a Vampire Planet

 

cover art tentatively credited to Cresto

  

Last week, we looked at the first two stories included in Strange Adventures #6 (March 1951). This week, we'll look at the final two stories. (I'm leaving out some short non-story features and a humor page.) 

We start with "The Last Man and Woman," written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Jack Lehti. It's a story that one could be tempted to mock. First, the main characters are Adam Numan and his wife Evelyn. Adam and Eve--in a story titled "The Last Man and Woman." Right away, we know (in general terms) how this is going to end. 

Also, when Adam invents a suspended animation technique that will essentially allow him to visit the future and talk to the important people of that era, Eve decides to go along to make sure he doesn't run off with a futuristic glamor girl and worries that her clothes might be out of fashion.

But I'm not going to mock the story. Well, I'm not going to mock beyond pointing out the initial temptation to mock it. Because the story's execution, especially in terms of Lahti's imaginative art, is superb.

Adam arranges for an underground chamber in an area safe from earthquakes.Other factors mentioned tell us he's intelligently planning his venture, adding verisimilitude to the tale. 

But a lightning stike damages the clock that was supposed to wake them up every 100 years. They sleep for three million years, missing out on a nuclear war and mankind's descent into barbarism. When a now mutated humanity begins to again progress, they realize the planet is dying. They leave for the stars, hoping to colonize another planet. They've found Adam and Eve, but there's no room on their ship. So the two sleepy heads are given their own small ship and the ability to go back into suspended animation during the thousands of years it takes to travel between stars.

Eve more than makes up for her earlier silliness by encouraging her despairing husband. They begin to search for the rest of humanity, visiting planet after planet over the course of thousands of years. At one point, Eve uses a ray gun to save Adam from an alien monster. 

Finally, they give up trying to find the rest of humankind. Instead, they find a pleasant planet and settle down. And so we get to the ending that was so obviously telegraphed throughout the tale--Adam and Eve settle on what we realize is Earth.

But this effectively told story, so attentive to details and given backbone by the great artwork, makes us forgive this predictability. The story has earned its ending.

"The Vampire World," written by Mann Rubin and drawn by Cresto, starts off with the discovery of a planetoid that has apparently been trying to sneak up on Earth. What's even more worrisome is the giant tentacles that are springing from the alien world. Mankind mobilizes its armies, but what can they do when the planet finally attacks us?

The first tentacle makes contact in Africa and sprouts more tentacles. It starts sucking up diamonds. It also proves impervious to attack. Later, other tentacles land in Iran and Pennsylvania and start syphoning off oil and coal.

Mankind seems doomed. But a scientist has a plan. A huge supply of uranium is gathered together in one spot, then sprayed with a deadly poison. The tentacle falls for the trap, sucking up the poisoned uranium and dying. Other tentacles also die and the Vampire World retreates into space.

It's another pretty good story. I have been able to find out absolutely nothing about the artist Cresto, other than he drew this story, tentatively drew a couple of covers, then disappeared from comic book history. But his art here is pretty good. The lack of a final shot of the Vampire World running away (or lurking nearby to one day renew its attack) would have been a benefit. In graphic storytelling, its always better to show rather than merely tell. But that's a nitpick. The art we are given is effective and often powerful.

That's it for Strange Adventures. Next week, we'll jump ahead a decade or so to look at a Marvel Comics science fiction tale. Then, in two weeks, we'll visit with Green Lantern.

Cover Cavalcade

 

January is Wooden Ships and Iron Men Month!

This 1911 cover is by P.E. Cowen