Friday's Favorite OTR

 I Was a Communist for the FBI: "Card Game in the Clouds" 6/4/52

Matt thinks the communists might suspect him of being a double agent and that they have sent him on a mission designed to force him to reveal himself. 

Click HERE to listen or download.

Road House (1948)

 

SPOILER ALERT! if you haven't seen it.

Toss Richard Widmark into a Film Noir and it will be good. Especially if he's the villain.

In Road House (1948), Widmark plays "Jefty" Robbins, the owner of a place called... well, "Road House." It's a bar/bowling alley establishment, which Jefty's friend Pete Morgan (Cornell Wilde) runs efficiently as manager.

Things get complicated when Jefty brings a singer back with him from a trip to Chicago. This is Lily Stevens, played by Ida Lupina. Pete doesn't like this--Jefty often gets crushes on girls like Lily, then gets tired of them. Pete is then stuck with the unpleasant job of paying off the girl.

He tries to get Lily to leave, but she's strong-willed. She's also a good singer and brings in customers. So Lily stays. Jefty's crush on her intensifies, even though she makes it clear she's not romantically interested in him. In the meantime, Pete and Lily gradually fall for each other.

This first act of the movie is just a tad slow-paced, but this allows the movie to take the time to solidly establish character personalities and relationships, making the Pete/Lily stuff believable rather than a contrived plot point. Also, the dialogue is snappy and the cast is strong. This cast includes Celeste Holme as a cashier who also likes Pete, but proves to be a friend to both him and Lily when needed.

The Film Noir stuff kicks in when Jefty learns that Pete and Lily are going to get married. Jefty doesn't take this well. Widmark's performance here is superb, gradually taking Jefty down a slope that starts with "deceitful, selfish jerk" to "full-on pyscho." 

He frames Pete for embezzlement. After Pete is convicted, Jefty puts on a "I wanna help my friend" act for the judge, getting Pete probation on the condition that he comes back to Road House and gradually pays back the stolen funds. But once Pete is back, Jefty makes it clear that Pete is essentially no more than a slave--either do what Jefty says (including "don't marry Lily") or go to jail.

This all leads to an intense climax at an isolated cabin in the woods, with a drunken, gloating Jefty driving both Pete and Lily to consider drastic measures.

It's a strong, well-made Noir with a great cast. You can watch it in its entirety on YouTube:

Visiting Hours at the Hospital are Hectic!

 

cover art by Ron Wilson

Marvel Two-in-One #21 ended with the villain Black Sun either dead or near-dead. The next issue (December 1976) begins by telling us that maybe there's a chance to save him, with Johnny technobabbling a way to use his heat to freeze Black Sun's body until they can rush him to the best doctor they know. That doctor happens to be Donald Blake.

Writer Bill Mantlo is stuck with a lot of exposition in this issue, but he still moves the story along relatively quickly, while Ron Wilson's art looks (as always) great. While Ben and Johnny are bringing Black Sun to the hospital, Donald Blake receives another visitor. This visitor really, really, really wants to see Blake (who is currently performing surgery) and if he has to kill a bunch of people to get to the doctor, well, by golly. that's just fine with him.

The guy reaching the operating room, but fortunately Blake has finished the surgery. He sends the rest of the OR team out of the room along with the patient, then transforms into Thor. A fight begins, with dialogue that tells us the bad guy is the Egyptian god of death Seth and that he's looking for vengeance because Thor had previously beaten him. (Since the title of this issue is "Touch Not the Hand of Seth," his identity isn't that much of a surprise.)

When Ben and Johnny arrives, Ben joins Thor in his fight. Seth responds by calling up an army of the dead.

That's the cliffhanger ending this issue. It's a pretty straightforward issue, so there's not a lot to add to what I mentioned above: The pacing is fast despite a fair amount of exposition and the art is great. It's a fun issue, entertaining in its own right while setting up the story for the next issue.

We'll look at that issue in two weeks. Next week, we'll return to the Green Lantern and see where he's at in his search for Sinestro.

Cover Cavalcade

 APRIL IS MARVEL MONSTER MONTH!!

A 1975 cover by Gil Kane (with some alterations by John Romita).

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Richard Diamond: "The Barton Case" (aka "Diamond in the Rough")--5/1/49

The series got off to a strong start with this premiere episode--it establishes Diamond's smart aleck character while thrusting him into the middle of a dangerous case.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Glasshouse Gang #1

 

I stumbled upon a four book series written in the late 1960s pretty much by accident about a year ago. And, by golly, it was a really fun series.

The Glasshouse Gang (1967), by Gordon Landsborough, kicked off a four-book series with an interesting premise. The main characters begin as inmates in the Glasshouse, a British military prison located in Egypt during World War 2. The prison is a brutal place, with the inmates treated in a violently sadistic manner. When former officer John Offer gets out after a term for theft, he wants revenge.

 

With other former inmates, he forms what comes to be called the Glasshouse Gang Commando Unit. They track down and beat up several of their former guards and eventually even stage a raid on the prison itself, exacting vengeance on the prison's commanding officer and recruiting more members.

 

In the meantime, Offer has shown his intelligence and audacity by hiding the G.G.C.U. in plain site, setting up tents and supplying themselves via night-time raids on depots and pay centers. They thus blend in with the myriad other British units in the area.

 

Eventually, the military police get suspicious and the gang shifts location out into the desert, where several of the gang are captured by Germans. A rescue mission is necessary, leading to a very exciting climax involving a machine-gun equipped truck being chased by a number of machine-gun equipped German vehicles.

 

John Offer is an interesting protagonist. There are sociopathic aspects to his personality, but he's also a good leader, able to plan missions and improvise under pressure. The book draws on the same anti-authoritarian vibes that classic WWII movies such as "The Dirty Dozen" and "Kelly's Heroes" used so effectively. There's a counterpoint to this, though, as Offer also has to depend on giving structure and order to his gang of thugs so he can ensure their freedom and survival. There's a real tension there--Offer earns the respect of most of the men, but a number of hardcases don't take orders willingly. This becomes an increasingly important plot point as the story progresses and brings an interesting sense of irony to the book's anti-authoritarian attitude.

But, though the novel does have some depth in both theme and character, it exists mostly for the action. And, as the series progresses through three more novels, that action gradually becomes more intense and more exciting. Over the next few months, we'll take periodic looks at the rest of the series. 

Sinestro is NOT a Good Son!

 

cover art by Dick Giordano

Gee whiz, Sinestro is a big meanie! Over the past two issues, he's been responsible for knocking Guy Gardner into an apparently permanent coma. Now he's using his own dad to set another death trap for Hal Jordan!

Green Lantern #124 (January 1980) has writer Denny O'Neil and artist Joe Staton & Frank McLauglin continues Hal's feud with Sinestro. Hal had already stated his intention to track down his arch enemy, but Sinestro attacks first, destroying a museum of space exploration that was just opening. Hal manages to save all the civilians, but the building is a total loss.

So Hal takes the battle to Sinestro, flying to Sinestro's home planet of Korugar. Once there, he summons Katma Tui, the planet's GL.

But Korugar has a dumb rule that prevents Katma from herself attacking Sinestro (I think because he's a fellow Korugarian) as long as the villain isn't directly threatening the planet. She does show Hal a place to start looking for Sinestro, though. Sinestro's dad runs a sleezy business involving Null Chambers. Residents of Korugar use the chamber (which uses yellow null rays) to have their life force slowly drained from them, keeping them just barely alive. For Korugarians, this is an addictive experience.

It turns out, though, that Sinestro's dad ISN'T Sinestro's dad! He's Sinestro wearing a Dad Mask. The bad guy has tossed his own father into the null rays to set up a trap for Hal.

Trapped by the yellow rays and hallucinating that the women he has loved are beckoning him to his death, he manages to send off a signal with his ring. This brings Katma back, who can now act because Sinestro is threatening an innocent visitor on the planet. She smashes the null ray generator and Hal starts beating up Sinestro. But a null ray addict gets in Hal's way, allowing Sinestro to depart for the dimension of Qward. 

This is a pretty straightforward chapter in the ensuing epic tale, which will eventually lead up to a massive battle involving the entire Green Lantern Corps. The story moves along quickly and the art (along with Anthony Tollin's colors) effectively brings an alien world/culture to life. The null ray chamber is downright creepy and makes for a unique death trap.

Next week, we'll visit Thor and the Thing in the Marvel Universe. So we'll jump back to the DC Universe in two weeks to see how Hal is doing in his search for Sinestro.

Cover Cavalcade

 APRIL IS MARVEL MONSTER MONTH!

This Tom Sutton cover is from 1973.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Bold Venture: "Murder in the Yucatan Peninsula" 9/24/51

Shannon and Sailor agree to help a man find his missing wife. But there are those willing to kill to make sure the woman is never found.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

How to Save a Civilization

 

cover art by Albert Drake

"The Planet That Time Forgot," by Donald A. Wollheim appeared in the Fall 1940 issue of Planet Stories.

It's set entirely on Planet P, a large newly discovered planet outside the orbit of Pluto. But there's a human civilization on Planet P, despite what SHOULD be freezing cold temperature. The first half of the story is set amidst that civilization. 

We discover that the despotic ruler of Nimbor has invented a heat ray of some sort and is planning on conquering the freedom-loving nation of Toom. Toom's beautiful queen Oomith refuses to give in and announces that the people of Toom will fight rather than submit to tyranny. But Oomith is kidnapped and, well, Nimbor has a heat ray. The poor Toomians seemed doomed.

But then weird stuff starts happening Oomith has a brief vision of a man she doesn't know. Then she suddenly finds herself back home in Toom. The heat ray mysteriously appears in Toom as well, giving the good guys a sudden advantage in the Planet P arms race. To top it all off, the rulers of Nimbor appear in the dungeons of Oomith's castle. The good guys win, but have no idea how.

The second half of the story takes us aboard an Earth spaceship on its way to explore Planet P. We're told this is a flashback. Well, I think to myself while reading the story, that's it. The Earthmen will reach the planet, figure out what's going on and use some sort of teleportation technology to save the day.

But I was wrong. The twist--involving what exactly the expedition discovers on Planet P and the method through which they help the nation of Toom--is cleverer than that. I don't want to hint at it, because I don't want to spoil anyone's fun in reading it. You can read the story for yourself HERE.

If anyone reads this and DOES figure out the twist, let me know. I freely admit I didn't see it coming and had a lot of fun being fooled. But another, perhaps more attentive reader, might catch on quicker.