Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini Podcast #23--Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 15--"...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini Podcast #23--Tarzan of the Apes Chapter 15--"...:   A look at Chapter 15 of Tarzan of the Apes, in which Tarzan continues to save the repeatedly save the lives of Jane Porter and her compani...

Friday's Favorite OTR

Fibber McGee and Molly: "Fibber Makes His Own Chilli Sauce" 11/09/43

Tired of wartime rationing, Fibber decides to make his own chilli sauce. He can't remember his recipe, but why should that stop him?

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Charles McGraw Loses Another Partner

 

A few years ago, I wrote about an excellent 1952 Film Noir titled Narrow Margin, which was directed by Richard Fleischer and starred Charles McGraw as a tough cop.

Well, a couple of years before that, Fleischer directed McGraw in another Film Noir, in which McGraw once again played a tough cop.

By the way, if you're a cop, don't partner up with Charles McGraw. Judging from these two movies, his partners don't last long. 

In this film, William Talman plays a professional crook with a talent for planning elaborate heists. He assembles three other guys to rob an armored car outside of Wrigley Field one afternoon. The ball park is the car's last stop for the day, so it'll have a fortune in cash receipts aboard.

Talman, by the way, played the bad guy in several Film Noirs before eventually becoming D.A. Burger in the Perry Mason series. He was always quite menacing as a villain.

The robbery goes off, but not quite as planned. What I like about this part is that the plan really is a good one. Purvis (Talman's character) is a smart guy and when things go wrong, it's because of a little bad luck or someone else on his team making a small mistake that the cops can later capitalize on. 

The bad guys inititally get away, but they leave a dead cop behind and one of the crooks is badly wounded. The wounded guy doesn't last long, but that's just as well. It's one less person with whom to split the take and Purvis has been playing footsie with the now-dead guy's wife anyways.

What follows is an atmospheric story in which McGraw and his fellow cops use intelligent police work while Purvis works to stay one step ahead of them. But Purvis's relationship with his dead partner's wife might just be his downfall, giving the cops an avenue of investigation that leads them towards him.

McGraw and Talman are both great, the script is strong and the director effectively uses Film Noir techniques to give us a great looking movie. 

That I watched this movie pretty much at random recently is quite a coincidence, because for the last few months, I've often been alone at work and I've been listening to lots of audio books as well as old-time radio. This includes listening through the Parker books by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake) about a professional crook who plans elaborate heists. 

Between that and this movie, I told my wife that perhaps we were being called on by Fate to become professional thieves ourselves and plan our own elaborate heists. I even told Angela this might give her an opportunity to one day play the role of Double-Crossin' Dame.

Sadly, she shot down the idea without even really considering it.

Project Pegasus, Part 7

 

cover art by George Perez

Marvel Two-in-One #57 (November 1979) is a fun issue, with a well-constructed story (script by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio) supported by great art (George Perez breakdowns with finished art by Gene Day). 

I was critical of a few of the early issues for getting bogged down by lots of exposition. But here, though there is again lots of exposition, the story flows along nicely, gives us a great action sequence and moves the overall story arc along. 

We begin with a security meeting that catches us up with the current situation. Deathlok, Nuklo and Thundra's team of female wrestlers have all caused trouble, the good guys aren't clear on why. The conclusion is that there's an traitor in the complex helping the various villains gain access to the place.

Ben questions Thundra again, hoping to play on their past friendship to get her to talk, but she won't talk.

From here, the story begins to jump back and forth between several different plot threads, but handles these transitions smoothly as the various elements needed for next issue's conclusion are lined up. Wundarr, despite being shown on the cover as Ben's main guest star for this issue, doesn't encounter him. Instead, he wakes up out of his coma and walks off to find the cosmic cube. No one can stop him because he is absorbing all energy--including kinetic energy--that comes near him. Along the way, he inadvertently turns off the power to the cell holding the villain Solarr. 

The security staff, in the meantime, have used tapes from the secuity cameras to show that Dr. Lightner (formally a supervillain known as Blacksun) was nearby every time there was trouble. It's really about time the security staff at the Project accomplished something, though this should be too much of a surprise. "Hey, the former supervillain we hired is still a bad guy! Who would have thunk it?"

Lightner, in the meantime, finally has all the parts he needs to build a Nth Projector, using the parts smuggled in by Deathlok and Thundra. His mysterious backers want him to use it to send the Project into another dimension, but he begins to use it to reactivate his old superpowers (he had essentially been a living black hole). 

While all that is going on, Solarr looks for a partner with whom to escape. There are a number of energy-based villains being held at the Project, but (in an entertaining sequence) he has trouble finding someone to help him out. Electro is in traction when his last battle with Spider Man ended badly. Nuklo is too dumb. He finds Klaw's sonic emitter and, in frustration, tosses this against a wall. Klaw, who had been trapped in the emitter after a battle with Black Panther, is re-integrated by this. He and Solarr have teamed up before, so they opt to do so again.

Ahh, Comic Book Science at its best.

The sequence in which they try to escape via a rail car to the surface, while being chased by Ben, Quasar and Giant-Man, is a fun action sequence with some great use of perspective in several of the panels. The sequence also shows us just how clever a tactician Ben Grimm can be, as he uses clever and unusual tactics to stop the fleeing villains and then penetrate a sound barrier raised by Klaw.

But even smart good guys can get careless. They had thought they were chasing Lightner, only later realizing that Solarr and Klaw had unintentionally distracted them from a bigger threat. And, while discussing this, they don't realize that the sound of their voices is restoring Klaw's sound-based powers. Klaw gets the drop on them and the issue ends with Ben about to get his brains scrambled.

As I said, it's a fun and well-constructed story, nicely interweaving the various plot lines without ever bogging down. It's interesting to note how each issue of this story arc has moved the overarching plot forward in baby steps. It takes several issues for the various parts of the Nth Projector to get smuggled in and only now is Dr. Lightner beginning to use it. But after the too-slow first issue, there's been lots of action, the pacing has been fast and the story arc has been satisfying. Those baby steps have finally brought us to the conclusion that we'll see in the next issue, with all the various plot elements in place.

We'll take a look at that conclusion in a few weeks. Next week, we'll watch not one--not two--but THREE Flashes deal with an alien threat.

Cover Cavalcade

 

A Ross Andru cover from 1961 finishes up our Comic Cavalcade Man. vs. Snake month. Though in this case, it's Mer-Boy vs. Snake.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini Podcast #22: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 14--...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini Podcast #22: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 14--...:   A look at Chapter 14 of the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, in which Tarzan begins to learn that saving Jane Porter and her friends from de...

Friday's Favorite OTR

Six Shooter: "Gabriel Starbuck" 11/22/53

An old friend of Britt is getting a bit too old to work as town sheriff, but refuses to admit it.


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Wedding Anniversary, Part 2

 

It is the week of my wedding anniversary, so I'm taking a break from posting new reviews. We'll be back in the saddle next week. In the meantime, enjoy this accurate representation of how Angela and I met. 

Wedding Anniversary Break

 

My wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary both hit this week. Apparently there's some obscure rule about paying attention to Angela during this time, so there will be no reviews today or tomorrow.   

Cover Cavalcade

 

A classic Frank Frazetta image gives us our third week of Man vs.Snake covers.